La Sardana

Yesterday was Boxing Day - or Diada de Sant Esteve, as it's known in this part of the world. To celebrate the village went dancing in the Passeig del Mar.  They laid on a live band, everyone brought their dog, and the young and the old and everyone in between came out to dance the Sardana in the bright Christmas sunshine.

Merry Christmas ...

I'm all cosy and snug with my nearest and dearest here on the Costa Brava. Our tree is up, our presents are wrapped, the turkey is stuffed and set for roasting, and there's nothing left to do but enjoy the moment.

Well, seeing as I've got everything under control, how'd you you like to step out with me for a moonlit stroll around my pueblo? They've really pulled out the stops and put on the Ritz with lots and lots of Christmas lights. Come on! You'll hardly need a coat. After the recent winter storms the weather's turned benign.

Sun set over the bay in Sant Feliu de Guíxols

Harbour fix-ups ...

It's a quiet time of the year down at the harbour, with not so many boats going out every night. But that gives the fixer-uppers an opportunity to get ahead. There's been a lot of activity mending nets, painting hulls and doing refits.

Early morning at Sant Feliu de Guíxols harbour

All set for Christmas ... Costa Brava style

You know you're a grown-up when you're the person who has to deliver Christmas. And this year I'm the designated adult. All of Mr B's siblings and their families are coming to us for Christmas Day. And out here on the not-so-sunny Costa Brava finding an ostrich-sized turkey to feed them all with is proving to be a bit of a challenge ... .

October in Sant Feliu ...

This was the view from the quay-side, here in Sant Feliu, yesterday afternoon. We had a day of perfect sunshine and clear blue skies with hardly a breath of wind. I like it better now than in high summer; the October temperatures suit me: never too cold and never too hot.

I'd like to say a big thank you to my lovely guests who came on our October knitting retreat. You were all fantastic.  I'll post a teddy bear pattern soon for those 4 ply left-overs from our project during the week.

And finally I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Halloween! We're all set to carve some pumpkins later on tonight.

All the best for now,

Bonny x 

Farewell to summer ...

Farewell to a wonderful Costa Brava summer. It was warm, golden and gone too soon.
Thank you to all our lovely guests.
And here's to the autumn ...

All the best for now,

Bonny x

Chasing the fish ...

Yesterday morning I happened upon the last fishing boat as it re-entered the harbour. It was pretty spectacular. In its wake were more seagulls than you could have shaken a stick at. The fishermen clean out their catch on the way back to harbour and I'm guessing that they toss the bits they don't keep back into the sea. As a result this big boat is a serious gravy train for all those hungry sea birds.

Sant Feliu sunset ...

Here's to the golden aura of a Sant Feliu sunset. It's a precious moment when the sun disappears leaving the warm glow of its rays to linger for a while like happy memories of the day just gone.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

Loving the sunset ...

We face the wrong way to get stunning sunsets over the waves, but I'm often out at the tennis club in the (relative) cool of the evening around dusk. It's the best time of the day to knock a few balls around, after the heat of the afternoon has passed.

Now in truth I'm not a brilliant tennis player, and it takes very little to distract me from those clay courts. The club is set in rolling farmland. And at this time of the year, with the cereal crops harvested and the great round bales of straw waiting to be collected, it turns into the most glorious golden landscape. Just at the point at which the sun is dipping below the brows of the surrounding hills and the shadows are lengthening it's at its very best. So there you are, that's my excuse for ducking out of play.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

Shopping Girona ...

Normally when we go to Girona we wander around and soak up the history and the ambience. Each time we find new things that we've not noticed before, and marvel at how many layers this place has. It feels like you could spend a whole lifetime here and still not know what was round every corner.

Whilst I'm not much of a recreational shopper, Girona has some lovely, quirky shops that can tempt even the most jaded consumer.

Costa Brava Colours ...

Out here on the Costa my days are full of colour. The amazing blue skies and clear, bright light make this a perfect destination for photographers. Quite honestly, all you have to do is point the camera and click. Whatever you've focussed on will look marvellous in that wonderful sunshiny light.

Even the weeds out here are photogenic. I mean who would complain about having weeds in their garden that looked like this?

Costa Brava sunflowers ...

We've made it! We're finally here on the Costa Brava! And it's hot. Very hot!

Emi goes to sailing school down on the beach every morning. He's made stacks of new friends and totally L-O-V-E-S being on the water. He's only had a week of instruction so far, but has taken to having a critical opinion of the wind every time we venture out. His great grandfather was in the Spanish Merchant Navy, so Mr B has been encouraging him to believe that he comes from a long and illustrious line of seafaring folk. The big joke is that their home village down in Murcia, a place called Águilas, has a big sign just outside of town announcing that it was once home to a notorious band of Barbary pirates ... enough said, Mr B!

The Basilica of Sant Feliu, Girona and a case of mistaken identity ...

The Basilica of Sant Feliu is an ancient place, a very ancient place indeed. It’s an older church than the Cathedral of Santa Maria on top of the hill, and arguably just as important in terms of its role in the history of the city. During the Moorish occupation it served as a cathedral for the city's Christian population, who were displaced when the Moors commandeered Santa Maria as their mosque. 

Basilica of Sant Feliu, Girona on the banks of the River Onyar

Costa Brava Video

Hot off the press!

Check out Costa Brava Knitting's latest holiday video:

All the best and hope to see you there,

Bonny x

Ode to the Costa Brava poppy ...

If there's one flower that really makes my heart sing it's the wild field poppy. Here on the Costa Brava there are millions of them, all over the shop, dancing in the breeze, and looking splendid in the warm spring sunshine. To me they represent pure joy.

The Platja de la Fonollera i Mas Pinell ... a heavenly beach

The other day Emi and I were in Pals. We hadn't gone there for anything in particular. It had just occurred to us that it would be a good place to take the WonderDog for his afternoon stroll. As it happens Pals is the most amazing town you could ever hope to visit, but the thing is once you're there, inside the town, you tend not to look beyond its walls. Everything inside is stunning, so why would you? Well I was standing on the terrace by the 11th century Torre de les Horres waiting for Emi to finish buying a (toy!) sword in one of the tourist shops when my eye was drawn to these amazing islands, sitting on the horizon, just off the coast.

They were stunning in the afternoon sunshine. I was amazed as to how I'd manage to miss them before. I've been to Pals more times than I can count. I've wandered around with my camera clenched to my face taking photos of everything, but I've never actually looked outside of the wonderful little town I was visiting. And just look what I missed over there on the seaward horizon!

Emi and the WonderDog were amenable to going on a wild goose chase in search of the islands, so we all piled into the car and headed off in the direction of Platja de Pals, the official town beach, which is some little distance removed from the town itself.

Torroella de Montgrí ... now that's what I call a castle ...

Do you like to climb mountains?

I love, love, love the mountains. In an earlier pre-being-a-mum incarnation I used to do proper climbing with ropes and harnesses and all that jazz. Mr B, however, is not a mountain man. He's a city boy, hates heights and doesn't understand why anyone in their right mind would want to scale a mountain just to have to come down again. He doesn't get it. 

Ten year-old Emi, on the other hand, does get it. He loves the challenge of a good climb. At a recent family lunch, in the shadow of Montgrí, I casually suggested to Mr B and the in-laws that we should climb the mountain to work off some of the calories we'd just consumed. They all fell about laughing. What a crazy idea, but Emi was totally up for it. Like mother, like son.

And, here's the thing, just look what's up at the top of Montgrí. Now that's what I call a castle ...

Torroella de Montgrí Castle

The Octopus's Garden ...

Do you know the Beatles' song the Octopus's Garden ?

It's a real classic. Well here's the thing: I think I've found it. No, seriously, I know just the spot. It's hidden in the shallows in a rather splendid little cove, called Cala Pedrosa, where we like to go rock-pooling.

Cala Pedrosa, Costa Brava

 Do you see how clear the water is? And it's full of life. There are countless types of seaweed, creating dark underwater forests where the Costa Brava sun can scarcely penetrate. It's the perfect place for any right-thinking Octopus to have his garden in the shade.

Love locks ...

I'm not sure where, or when, this craze started. The first I became aware of it was when the newspapers reported that the Pont des Arts in Paris was in danger of collapsing under the weight of love locks that had been attached to it by starstruck lovers. They'd come to the bridge - literally hundreds of thousands of them - bearing padlocks on which they'd had their first names engraved. They then attached these padlocks to the metal structure of the bridge and threw the key into the Seine in a grandiloquent gesture intended to symbolise their unbreakable bond/ never-ending love for one another. Parts of the bridge collapsed in 2014 under the weight of all this sentimental nonsense, and during 2015 it was estimated that over a million further padlocks were attached to the bridge adding an extra 45 tonnes to its load, and threatening to make it collapse into the Seine.

In a roundabout sort of way ...

Our local airport, here on the sunny Costa Brava, is Girona-Costa Brava Airport. It opened in 1965, but only had modest numbers of passengers until a certain Tony Ryan decided to use it as one of his airline's major European hubs. Well, after that, it was boom time for the Aeropuerto de Girona-Costa Brava, and they've never looked back since.

It's still got a fairly rural feel to it as international airports go. The rush hour is often held back by the odd tractor or combine harvester, depending on the time of the year. Recently there's been a rush of civic pride in the local villages as they seek to announce their specialities to the visiting tourists. And they've taken a rather quaint and very unique way of doing this.

On the big roundabout, on the approach to the airport, at Cassà de la Selva they've got some rather large Cava corks, which seem to suggest that they've got a rather splendid drink to quench your thirst after all that travelling. Well in fact it's not so much the drink as the corks that they're wanting to tell us about. The village is surrounded by cork trees, and back in the day it was one of the major centres where they made corks for wine bottles. Nifty, eh?

Cassà de la Selva, Girona