Easter Monday ...

Easter has been crazy busy here in sunny Sant Feliu de Guíxols. The town has filled up with a host of people. Car parks have filled. Restaurants have been fully booked and everywhere we've gone there have been loads and loads and loads of people. The weather has behaved. It's been coolish at night, but glorious during the day: full-on, big sun, blue sky weather.

One of the things that has really struck me is the Yellow Ribbon movement. Wearing a yellow ribbon is a sign of a person's support for Catalan Independence. And there are a lot of yellow ribbons in evidence. People wear them pinned to their lapels. They've tied them to all the wire fencing on the way into town. At first I thought that this was some sort of precaution to stop animals like deer getting caught by the top wire of the fences.

Strange, I thought. Deer can manage fences like those everywhere else in Europe ... what's happening here?

Added to which I have never - ever - seen any wild deer anywhere near town.

I didn't think much more about it. And then, when we were walking around in the centre of town, I kept seeing these yellow ribbons absolutely everywhere. And there was no way that these had anything to do with a marauding deer population.

And then it finally dawned on me: these were yellow ribbons hung to express a wish for an independent Catalonia.

I don't want to get drawn into the politics of the Independence Movement, but I was humbled to see just how much time and effort people had spent on expressing their wishes. There are tens of thousands of these yellow ribbons tied to just about everything.

On a side note - and not wishing to diss anyone's views - I'm hoping that they're all made of biodegradable plastic. Otherwise they're going to cause a lot of contamination once they start to get blown around by the wind. 

Things never stay the same. We've got a few new restaurants to try, and a few rather fabulous new food shops. The every day gastronomy of Sant Feliu is really impressive. Every day except Monday there's a fresh produce market in the town square, and radiating out from that centre are a dizzying array of bodegas, carnicerías (butchers), bakeries and pescaderías (fish shops). You could live from these independent offerings without ever setting foot in a conventional supermarket, which is exactly how I'd like to get by if time were never an issue for me. 

The WonderDog and I are back to our familiar nocturnal wanderings. It's invigorating to go for a walk in the moonlight with the wind blowing in from the sea and hardly another soul to get in your way. 

Anyway, Happy Easter Monday!

Bonny x