Judith Johnson
  • Blog
  • About me
  • Poetry
  • Miscellanea
  • Travels
  • Projects
  • SWM Extra
  • Pen Portraits
  • Contact/To Buy

World Book Night 2013

26/4/2013

0 Comments

 
This year I was really pleased to have the opportunity, for the third year running, to be a World Book Night giver. I had asked to give away A Little History of the World, by EH Gombrich. I first heard of this book when my son bought a copy a few years ago. He felt he had large gaps in his knowledge of history, and that the book might help remedy that. He was very impressed and recommended it to me, and my husband bought me a copy last Christmas. I'm just reading it now myself, and although I have always read a lot of history and other related subjects, I'm learning a lot from it, especially a deeper knowledge of European history.  I tried to find people from as many walks of life as possible in my small commuting circuit, in a fairly rural setting - I hope they enjoy it as much as I have!
0 Comments

Barcelona trolley-dash

14/4/2013

2 Comments

 
PictureSagrada Familia
I've recently come back from a three day visit to Barcelona with two young colleagues to see some hotels and a selection of places my employers send school groups to. We flew into El Prat de Llobregat and picked up a hire car to drive to Tossa de Mar, with an en route stop at Calella. This was the first time I have ever driven abroad (ie on the right!), and I was feeling apprehensive, but luckily we weren't arriving in the Barcelona rush-hour, so we had a pretty easy run along the port front of the city and down the coast. My left hand kept groping for the gear-stick and hand-brake, but apart from that, I managed! I did think of my mother, who used to single-handedly drive me and my assorted siblings in a Dormobile all the way from Kent to Ampolla, a village south of Tarragona, for our summer holidays. As I recall, my younger brother and I were usually already arguing by the time we got to the Hawkhurst crossroads (about a hundred yards from our house). I remember my feelings of pride on one occasion when Mum backed the Dormobile into a tight space on the cross-Channel ferry and smilingly said
to the deck-controller "Not bad for a woman, eh?"
 
I've never been north of Barcelona since those childhood drive-throughs, and a very brief summer au-pairing in Alella in my teens, so I was interested to see the beautiful country en route to Tossa de Mar, and sight of the old medieval city of Girona in the distance. We stayed overnight at Tossa, and walked round the old walled town on the hill above the beach, where a tiny hospital for the poor existed until the late 18th century. 
 
Over the next two days in Barcelona we took the Big Red Bus to give my colleagues a physical sense of where everything lay in the city, and also caught the funicular railway and cable car to the top of Montjuic, the green hill looking down on Barcelona.  The Sagrada
Familia rising above the city still looks stunning from there, even with all of the surrounding skyscrapers to compete with. We dashed round the old Gothic Quarter and Montjuic itself, including the charming Poble Espanyol, making mental notes for future more leisurely visits.
 
My sister lived in Barcelona for many years with her family after marrying her Catalan husband. I would like to spend time getting to know Barcelona on other levels, not just the face it presents to tourists, to visit the places where Pablo Casals studied and played, and to learn more about Catalunya's culture and history.  I enjoyed watching old men chatting on the Rambla as the coach parties swirled by, the school children walking home with their satchels, the office workers drinking a quick coffee in the bars, the students parking their scooters outside the  universities.
 
The Boqueria, the famous indoor market off the Rambla, is a huge draw for tourists, and I marvelled at the patience of the stall-holders, who not only must have spent hours building their beautifully-constructed displays of goods, but also have to put up with large numbers of visitors who are there more to take photographs than to buy anything! We did buy some chocolate hedgehogs and fruit salad, but fortunately there were locals embarked on the more serious business of evaluating and purchasing cheese, meat and fish.
 
Most of the stalls are breath-taking, but I did feel sad and sorry to see crabs and lobsters, still alive, with moving claws and feelers, and we were all slightly horrified at the tongues, skinned sheep's heads (eyes intact), tripe, testicles etc. These days most of us supermarket shoppers are never faced with the realities of where our tidily-displayed pieces of meat have come from. 

2 Comments
    Picture

    Author

    Lifelong bookworm, love writing too. Have been a theatrical agent and reflexologist among other things, attitude to life summed up by Walt Whitman's MIRACLES.

    If you would like to subscribe to my blog, please click on RSS Feed link below:

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Arts
    Books
    Family Matters
    History
    Miscellaneous
    My Fantastic Five
    Natural World
    People
    Running & Walking
    Travel

    Archives

    November 2021
    February 2021
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    November 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    October 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    September 2009
    July 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.