foothills of the Pyrenees

It was the most straightforward, easy ocean crossing. Whereas last time, in March, on this very same Detroit - Paris flight I first went up, then spun around halfway into the trip and came back down in Canada, then went up again, and came down again with a tired crew in Brittany, then up one more time, landing finally twelve hours late in Paris, this time we went up ahead of schedule and came down only once, in Paris, also ahead of schedule. (The winds pushed us forward at terrific speed.) Nightmare crossing, heavenly crossing. Funny how you can quite never predict which fate will be yours.

From Paris (with a pause only for a nice strong coffee) onto Barcelona. And this is the only photo of Barcelona you'll get this month -- taken virtually leaning on the lap of a young man who had the window seat.





In Barcelona, where we reserved a car for the incredibly wonderful price of $211 (for two and a half weeks, all included), I struggled to be an accepting and gracious traveler as yet again the rental company foisted on us their "smallest" car, which perhaps by American standards is small, but it has four doors (two too many for us) and it isn't the size of a postage stamp (which would have been our preference). Their little Fiats 500 were going for twice our price and so we stayed with our Spanish Ibiza four-door. Black no less. Sigh.

So where are we now? At the small, family run Can Garay in the Catalan village of Les Planes d'Hostoles. Two hours north of Barcelona, two hours south of Sorede. Right up toward the mountains that separate Spain from France. Biding time until our rental in Sorede kicks in on Saturday.

I love these pre-Sorede, "biding time" pauses in Spain! Step outside after the long flights and you see that the light is immensely different here: gentle, nearly always sun dappled and warm. We'll drive toward the mountains, other years toward the sea, catching our breath and it doesn't really matter where we are -- it's all beautiful and the food is always very very good.

It's 6:30 in the evening when we pull into the yard of this lovely old family home.

Dinner is at 8:30. You'll want to rest until then?
I look out at the view from our tiny balcony.






No rest! I want to walk! The evening air is so perfect and mild -- let's  explore!
Ed looks at me with just a touch of resignation. A nap sounded good to him. But, he rarely turns down a walk and so we head out.

We stroll along an old rail bed -- it's now a path that'll take you from the sea (some fifty miles east of us) right to the heart of the Pyrenees -- and it could not be a more beautiful moment to be out and about.





We encounter a family doing the same. Kids, grownups, a dog, a couple of bikes and fistfuls of wild flowers that grow to the side of the path.






We walk further into the hills. So pastoral and quiet here! Birdsong, yes there's that. Sheep doing their evening meeeeh calls. Cow bells.






I live in the country now and yet I am always enchanted by the scenery of another countryside. As if I cannot get enough of it. As if I need to expunge all those city years and return to what I truly love -- the distant meeeh cry of a farm animal, the chirp of a swooping bird -- swallow maybe, the faint rustle of leaves in the summer breeze.





But, we're tired, thirsty, hungry too. Let's not get too ambitious. Time to go back to the village. Returning for the evening meal. Like this old man?  Maybe he's hoping for something simple? Something fresh and honest, a favorite Spanish pancake with potatoes maybe? Sausage? Iberian ham?






Most everyone in the village will be thinking of supper now...






At the Can Garay we pause for a few minutes in the garden. Our hosts bring us some fizzy water along with fizzy Catalan Cava. Ed finds an Isis lookalike.






And now it is supper time and sure enough, the food (preset, there's no menu) is just as you would expect here in this remote Catalan village. Maybe a few houses down, our fellow walker is eating the same stuff.



tortilla de patata, sausage, ham



the ubiquitous bread with olive oil and tomato


Chicken follows and then a choice of desserts: flan, yogurts... I don't even hesitate on that one: a local frozen yogurt, flavored with "fruits of the forest."





And only then, the much needed nap. I'd say a fitful night of sleep, but it's never that. Not on the first night. But there's no hurry. Those will come too. There is no rush anymore. Not here, not now. Time to exhale. In the foothills of the Pyrenees.

...and away

Two thoughts, over and over again: finish grading, clean the house, finish grading finish grading, clean clean clean.

I was so committed to both that, in the end, I did finish grading and the farmhouse is now immaculate and why this (the cleaning) should be a priority is beyond me except that I really like to come home to a clean house.

Everything else was done quickly and therefore with errors. Packing: not a big deal -- just a carry on and a small backpack, but geez louise, did I have to forget the New Yorkers? We have accumulated a huge stack and we love reading them in cafes, on beaches, pretty much anywhere that is not home. And I forgot to sweep them into my pack.

Breakfast was rushed, but not unpleasant.





(You can just catch sight of the stack of exams I was working on throughout.)

And then, in the early afternoon, with exams graded, sorted and stacked (though not yet recorded -- I have to give great thought to that. I can easily take the time for this in Sorede), with the house shining with earnestness, I was (more or less) ready on time.


 


Goodbye farmhouse, you lovely old girl! Be nice to the cat sitter and the visitors that will be passing through in our absence. And save some of your prettiness (especially in the yard) for our return. (And don't let the chipmunks and groundhogs eat ALL the strawberry plants! Please!)

Tuesday, but it could be any day before departure

I'm still grading. Really. A handful to go and yet I put them off. As if I don't want to be done with school work!

And I could have finished. If I hadn't, for example, decided that we should do some major tree pruning out back, by the barn.

Or if I hadn't shifted my attention to printing out google maps of various destinations.

Never mind, it's to be expected. The last 24 hours before travel are always scattered and terribly confusing.

But, there was breakfast. Calm, beautiful breakfast. On the porch (despite the nip in the air).






And there was the walk through the farmette, this time to look at all the things that I will never see bloom. It really is remarkable that I love to plant predominantly for June/July even as I am never here in June. I may catch the little dianthus...





But I miss most of the peonies.





I do get even the latest lilac...





And the geranium (cranesbill) looks good right about now...





But really, 90% of my flowers are still maturing. And of those, as many as 25% will bloom and be done by the time I come back.





And so perhaps it will not surprise you when I say that this is probably the last time we'll be leaving for a long trip in June. Which is good, from the point of view of farnette enjoyment, but it means, too, that I feel compelled, more than ever, to take it all in: the quiet of the preseason in southern France. The long days and the cool evenings.  My most favorite village, Sorede, at a time when nothing is dry or spent, when  each day is warmer and longer and the festivals begin. When evening walks make you believe that every minute of life is a treasure.

So, by Saturday we will again, for the fourth year in a row take that first highway exit once you cross the border from Spain into France and look for the road that takes us into the heart of the hills by the Mediterranean. There will be a couple of days in Spain before and some more esoteric travels after, but really, my eye is on Sorede. So that I can shed the stress of worrying about, well, everything. So that I can breathe that sweet air of the Mediterranean forest and climb the mountains that taper off as they fold toward the sea.

Okay, that's later this week. Today, Ed and I hack away at tree limbs and ear a late supper of all the foods I need to cook before our departure.






Tomorrow we leave and of course you understand that posting will be on a different schedule. Everything will be on a different schedule. And that's a good thing.

Monday

It's that time. You know how it is -- 48 hours until you're to be out of here and you are still with a 'to do' list that fills every one of the 28 lines on the pad by your side.

Some of the items are silly. For example -- "give Ed a haircut." I don't need a reminder. He is a walking reminder of the shagginess that always sets in not too long after I trim his beard or hair. Perhaps you'll have seen it in a breakfast photo -- like this morning:






And I do in fact cross off this one item from my list, because in the sunshine of a glorious afternoon, I sit him on a chair in the yard and whack away. The result:






The garden is nearly ready too. Meaning, everything is planted (including some three dozen corn seeds), weeded, ready for separation anxiety (on my part) to set in (how will they fare without me??!).

I even did one last bumpy spin on the mower, creating open space where waist high grasses have been. Just to dot the i, so to speak.

And I went to campus. Letters of recommendation to write, more papers to bring home. (It is so different here during the summer! When I take a photo of Bascom Mall now, I'm reminded of... maybe some Dejeuner sur l'Herbe moment -- as if life's one big picnic, whether or not food is served).






...and the ride to town is so pretty! Another Impressionism-like moment to savor. Canvas, reality; canvas, reality -- as if there's no great difference between the two.







Such is my day, here at the farmette...








 
 

Just 48, no wait -- now 42 hours before taking off and leaving it all behind.

Sunday

The best part of the day? Without doubt, when my older girl and her husband came over for supper.





The worst part? Well, nothing really counts as terrible.

The morning was lovely.

Breakfast, with granola straight out of the oven - superb.  Though inside. It was one of those unexpectedly cool days.






Farmette work was huge, really huge, but I was prepared for it. In addition to the usual (see previous post) We did something new -- create a large bed for planting... corn.






Edible stuff. You could argue that growing it is quite unnecessary, given the market corn that is available in abundance here in the late summer season. But that kind of argument just causes you to shut down and hide. Because if the standard is that you grow only that, which does not make a market appearance, well now that would mean that only the highly esoteric fruits or veggies ought to be considered for the kitchen garden.

Though of course, you can never have too many flowers.

growing things

But we only have four days!

There is the proverbial "so much to do" at the farmette and so I leave you with not much more today than a set of photos.  Not even a great set of photos, nor a hugely important one, just these so that you know that I took note that it was June 1st and I did not sit idle.

And I should just say that during my three day California absence, it rained to high heaven and as a result, everything is now ultra lush!



the walkway


It comes at a price, of course. Bugs: the earliest ever emergence of The Mosquito. Weeds: it's as if I practiced sheer neglect out there. So many in so little time! And, too, a delay in getting other things accomplished over and beyond taking care of the garden. Yes, there is life beyond the farmette land and much of it was put on hold when I stepped outside today and understood what needed to be done here.



good morning, farmhouse!


Ed was amused at first, then he retreated to his Favorite Project du jour (it changes from day to day) over at the sheep shed. When I asked why he didn't attack with enthusiasm all those tasks which we typically would relegate to him rather than me (mowing, building a trellis, rototilling the courtyard, chipping the walkways, etc), he reminds me -- I like to work in the yard, but I can't say that I love it with the intensity that you do.



the shade flower bed: hostas to the right, three kinds of lamium to the left


...which I think mischaracterizes things a tad. I don't love/adore/covet yardwork. I'm merely drawn to it. Okay, intensely drawn to it. There is a difference.

So, I did not finish grading, I didn't scrub things at the farmhouse in anticipation of our departure. I made a "to do" list, but I checked off nothing from it.

But, I have a mostly together farmette yard and I have only this one great worry -- if in three days nature wrought havoc out there in my flower beds, what will it be like when we come back after a trip almost ten times that length? I mean, we have hired a cat sitter. And we have asked her (actually them) to do some watering should there be a drought. But weeding -- who'll do that for me? Uff, let's hope that the rains come to us in moderation.

In the meantime, Ed and I transpalnt overgrown ferns, we hack away at the bushy weeds at the base of the willow, and we prune all twenty (or so) trees in the new orchard. And in between, I pull weeds, divide daylilies and chop off spent spring flowers.
Ow!
What happened?
I appear to have chopped off my finger! 
To the bone?
Don't know... Lot's of blood!
Let's bandage it up!

Ten minutes later I'm back in the yard, digging, pruning, weeding.

And admiring. There is always plenty of time to look up and admire all that is before me.



the flower bed linking the farmhouse with the sheep shed




the first peach rose




the first peony

sunshine

All this sunshine! Do people tire of it? My mom, raised in the northeast and Poland, could never tire of it. The draw here is the weather, that's for sure.

But let me give a plug to the Midwest: the lushness, the dense green foliage, the richness of the daffodils, the lilacs in spring -- these cannot be had in a climate with so little rain!

And yet -- ah, that sunshine!

I'm leaving it today to return to storm center, USA, thanking my stars that life did not place me in, say, Kansas or Oklahoma.

I have an early afternoon flight and I toy with the idea of going back to Berkeley for a last breakfast with my mom, but she preempts me right there: I'll come downtown to meet you in SF for breakfast!
No, no, no! That's too much for you! You cannot do this. She hasn't made the trip to downtown SF for a long long time.

Of course, I'll allow you to guess who won that one.

We set 9:30 as the meet up time. I think -- maybe it's okay. Maybe it's not a terribly hard trip for her: Bart train to downtown, comfortable ride, one block walk to my hotel.

She arrives at 9:35 -- unusual for her. She is never late. You wont believe it! Worst Bart ride EVER!  Forty-five minute delay, then standing room only! A thirty minute trip turned into ninety. We find out an accident of one sort or another caused the delays.
They didn't give you a seat? She's nearly ninety. I'm thinking California people are heartless.
You couldn't move, let alone get to a seat! Stop and go, stop and go. But I learned something about myself -- I'm stronger than I thought I was.

I remember when my traveling pal, Diane, got lost on the mountain in Italy and a one hour hike turned into five hours. She, too, learned that lesson then. So -- what challenges do I avoid, thinking that they're beyond my capabilities?

We walk to brunch in all that superb sunshine, warm but not hot, delightful, all so delightful. We get a table outside at the Cafe de la Presse -- just here, by the Chinatown gate.






(As a result, we watch bus after sightseeeing bus come to a stop right by us, so that tourists can take their photos of the gate. One thousand photos a day of the gate. I'll add mine to it!)






We could linger over my cappuccino, we could window shop, we could do all that, my mom and I, downtown in SF, as if we were here, meeting casually on lunch break...






...as if we did this on a regular basis -- we could, but my flight takes off soon, too soon and so I have to turn away from her and from all that sunshine and head home, where the storms rage and the clouds keep tumbling over each other as if some machine that generated the storms and clouds could not be powered off. Stuck. Day after day of storms.

But the flight from west to midwest is beautiful.




SF, Golden Gate to the north, the Bay to the south


It is on this stretch that you come to appreciate how vast, often empty and remarkably varied the landscape of America is.



somewhere in Nevada... or was it Utah?


And we come in just as one storm ends and the next has not yet begun and in Detroit there are rainbows, as if begging for forgiveness -- we're good here, we're good! Look at us, sunshine and rainbows!





Ed is waiting for me in Madison. By 10:30 p.m. I am at the farmhouse.

hats on, hats off

First, hats off to my most superb hotel staff (of the Palomar, in SF). I asked -- where can I get a memorable cup of coffee and they directed me to the Blue Bottle, just a few blocks from here. Hidden, lovely, sort of pricey, or maybe that's just the SF factor, but it was interesting to see for just this brief minute what the cool people drink in the mornings.






I couldn't resist ordering my usual, only with California strawberries from some small farm or other and a heavenly yogurt over that crunchy granola. I took it to a table outside.






I may be pleased with my hotel staff, but I'm less pleased with myself because here I am, on a beautiful morning in the city (me, who goes for days without even seeing a sidewalk) and I spend a good three hours of it attending to stuff on the computer in my hotel room. Mind you, some of it necessary, but most of it could have waited.

When a commenter wrote -- next time, can you take us on a little spin through the city? (or words to that effect), it struck me that I take the city for granted in the same way I take for granted all the wonderful places I pass through more than once. Next time I'll pretend I'm a tourist! For now, I side stepped to Union Square and back. So you get almost no photos from that walk, because that walk was mightily inconsequential.





(Did you ever notice how creamy clean the buildings are here? is it because they're cleaned, or is it that there is less pollution, or is it that the sun is so strong that everything looks, well, brighter?)


Back to hats. And now they're on again! I'm in Berkeley...


 


... helping my mom with more paper work. As we're about to set out, she places a head cover on me. California sun! -- she warns. But, but, I put on lotion with an SPF 30 in a shop (free sample) on my way over! I say the words, but I know my hat will stay on. Cool on her, a little funky crazy on me.



two seniors, exactly thirty years apart


Lunch at.... oh, I don't remember the name: that place behind the public library.





Deliciously sublime and... outside!

A stop here, a document to notarize there and we're home. Only to realize that said notarized document is not with us. Left behind somewhere in our journey through Berkeley. My mom is dismayed. Good job, Nina (I'm thinking), in helping your mom through the tough times!

I call around, locate the missing paper (it never left the notary's: I was too busy getting the notary to take a photo of us to pay attention to what happened to the paper) and we proceed from there...to a lovely neighborhood eatery called Luca's. Informal, fresh and honest, alive with people dropping in, out, solo, with families. A memorable Berkeley supper.





...and then home again -- for her, to her sunny room in the heart of Berkeley, for me - to my downtown room overlooking Apple, Macy's etc etc. Home for me for one more night. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I'll be back (at some ungodly late hour) in Madison.