Can Torras, a rural retreat in Northern Spain
As the dust settles in the UK after another general election, and the politicians squabble and scheme to decide who the next leaders will be, it seems an excellent time to take you away from all this to a calmer, more peaceful place! Let’s leave politics behind for just a few minutes and let me take you to a little farmhouse in the hill tops of Catalonia in Northern Spain, where a farmer’s daughter from North Yorkshire has made a permanent home with her family.
My name is Karen Peirson, and for the last ten years my husband, two children and I, have lived in this very beautiful part of the world, close to the ancient city of Girona. Our farmhouse has wonderful views of the Pyrenean foothills, and as I look over the garden which is buzzing with honey bees today, I can hear the wind blowing through the cork oaks and Spanish pines which surround us. I would like to tell you that as I write this I am sat under our pergola, enjoying the valley views, planning to put a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other! Unfortunately, nothing is further from the truth!
What are we doing on this, a typical Sunday? Well, despite living in a holiday paradise, the mundane matters of life press upon us.
My husband is out mowing our large lawn with a lawnmower which has a wonky clutch, so has to be pushed the entire distance. Not the most relaxing experience, but a similar fate suffered by many good men in the UK on their day off from paid work! In the month of May we have a lovely green expanse of grass (and a good amount of green weeds) surrounding the house, which sets off our flowering beds of sage, thyme, mint and broom to perfection. We’re very proud of our organic garden, clawed back from an abandoned field, car park and terraces, but soon the rains will become less and less frequent. From June we water only the parts we can eat or see close to the house, and the rest turns yellow under the summer sun. It’s a shame, but we can put the lawn mower away until Autumn! Meanwhile every box full of mowings is used in our veggie garden as a water-saving, weed-swamping mulch. It takes twice as long to mow our lawn, but saves us time later on.
My responsibilities in the garden have evolved into the “pretty bits” and the harvesting and processing of fruit and veg. A very traditional role division between my husband and I, but one that just seems to have evolved naturally! I loved designing the cactus, grass and herbaceous beds and like a painter fill the sketch with colours throughout the year with foreground and background plants. Garden plants in Catalonia are at least twice the price of those in the UK, so extremes of weather can cost a fortune in the garden. Luckily, like my grandmother before me, I have very nimble fingers, and when visiting other people’s gardens, cuttings and seeds tend to fall into my pocket. I’m not so good at identifying them though, and must wait for what survives in the nursery pots with labels such as “sticky red seed bush”. Slowly, slowly I am learning what will survive the extremes of our hill top garden but they need help. As all the grass mulch is needed in the veggie garden, I have developed an alternative cover in the flower beds, using the left over plastic from our building projects and the masses of slate rock that our house is built on - no weeds, keeps in the water and shows off the plants – a result!
Today I have not been in the garden but cleaning in the house after a string of visitors. It’s a pleasure to have people to stay and see Can Torras and Catalonia through the eyes of a holiday-maker, but cleaning up can be a pain. Luckily, today the washing machines are working properly again after the long process which is electrodomestic repair here in Spain. Every machine has a different repair company and I have struggled to find the right ones in town. Then crunch time came on Friday - do I repair or replace. One hundred and seventy euros for an old machine or a new one at three hundred and twenty? Ouch! Our decision based on our “Reduce, repair or reuse” lifestyle was to repair. Today I washed and washed.
So you see, a typical Sunday is not so different to your own, but beneath the layers of familiarity lies a totally different culture which we continue to discover.
In the future, and with the pleasure of your company, I intend to dwell on the sometimes weird and the often wonderful experiences of Catalonia, and I’ll promise to leave my chores behind.
Join me again in two weeks for matters ecological, cultural and catalan at Can Torras.
Karen Peirson
http://www.cantorras.com/
facebook Can Torras
My name is Karen Peirson, and for the last ten years my husband, two children and I, have lived in this very beautiful part of the world, close to the ancient city of Girona. Our farmhouse has wonderful views of the Pyrenean foothills, and as I look over the garden which is buzzing with honey bees today, I can hear the wind blowing through the cork oaks and Spanish pines which surround us. I would like to tell you that as I write this I am sat under our pergola, enjoying the valley views, planning to put a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other! Unfortunately, nothing is further from the truth!
What are we doing on this, a typical Sunday? Well, despite living in a holiday paradise, the mundane matters of life press upon us.
My husband is out mowing our large lawn with a lawnmower which has a wonky clutch, so has to be pushed the entire distance. Not the most relaxing experience, but a similar fate suffered by many good men in the UK on their day off from paid work! In the month of May we have a lovely green expanse of grass (and a good amount of green weeds) surrounding the house, which sets off our flowering beds of sage, thyme, mint and broom to perfection. We’re very proud of our organic garden, clawed back from an abandoned field, car park and terraces, but soon the rains will become less and less frequent. From June we water only the parts we can eat or see close to the house, and the rest turns yellow under the summer sun. It’s a shame, but we can put the lawn mower away until Autumn! Meanwhile every box full of mowings is used in our veggie garden as a water-saving, weed-swamping mulch. It takes twice as long to mow our lawn, but saves us time later on.
My responsibilities in the garden have evolved into the “pretty bits” and the harvesting and processing of fruit and veg. A very traditional role division between my husband and I, but one that just seems to have evolved naturally! I loved designing the cactus, grass and herbaceous beds and like a painter fill the sketch with colours throughout the year with foreground and background plants. Garden plants in Catalonia are at least twice the price of those in the UK, so extremes of weather can cost a fortune in the garden. Luckily, like my grandmother before me, I have very nimble fingers, and when visiting other people’s gardens, cuttings and seeds tend to fall into my pocket. I’m not so good at identifying them though, and must wait for what survives in the nursery pots with labels such as “sticky red seed bush”. Slowly, slowly I am learning what will survive the extremes of our hill top garden but they need help. As all the grass mulch is needed in the veggie garden, I have developed an alternative cover in the flower beds, using the left over plastic from our building projects and the masses of slate rock that our house is built on - no weeds, keeps in the water and shows off the plants – a result!
Today I have not been in the garden but cleaning in the house after a string of visitors. It’s a pleasure to have people to stay and see Can Torras and Catalonia through the eyes of a holiday-maker, but cleaning up can be a pain. Luckily, today the washing machines are working properly again after the long process which is electrodomestic repair here in Spain. Every machine has a different repair company and I have struggled to find the right ones in town. Then crunch time came on Friday - do I repair or replace. One hundred and seventy euros for an old machine or a new one at three hundred and twenty? Ouch! Our decision based on our “Reduce, repair or reuse” lifestyle was to repair. Today I washed and washed.
So you see, a typical Sunday is not so different to your own, but beneath the layers of familiarity lies a totally different culture which we continue to discover.
In the future, and with the pleasure of your company, I intend to dwell on the sometimes weird and the often wonderful experiences of Catalonia, and I’ll promise to leave my chores behind.
Join me again in two weeks for matters ecological, cultural and catalan at Can Torras.
Karen Peirson
http://www.cantorras.com/
facebook Can Torras
posted by David Behrens at 13:03
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