Homage to Catalonia

My wife and I were recently honoured with an invite to a night out with a party of locals.

Now, depending on where you are in the world this may not seem like anything remarkable.

When we lived in the States – whose citizens I have found to be probably the most hospitable of any place I have been – we were invited into people’s homes on a regular basis, sometimes after we’d only just met them.

However the Catalans, as they themselves observe, tend to be more reserved. It takes a while to make it past the polite smiles on the street and into their houses (a comment many people make about we English).

This though is one of the advantages of sending your children to the local schools in your adopted country – you start to integrate more into the community. And so it has been with us.

On this occasion we were asked out to dinner by the two ladies who split the role of classroom monitor for our daughter, who has severe food allergies. Because of their close association with our little girl we’ve got to know them fairly well. And so, with their husbands in tow, they took us to their favourite restaurant.

First thing to note – the Spanish eat late. This is particularly the case in Madrid, where it’s almost time for breakfast once dinner is done. But even here in provincial Catalunya our hosts didn’t pick us up until 9:30 pm, and it was a half hour drive to our destination.

It was the kind of place you’d never find on your own, a hidden gem frequented by those in the know. It was in a village I’d not seen before, although I must have driven by it several times, a traditional Catalan masia with bare stone walls and exposed wooden beams, serving traditional Catalan food.

The car park was packed, the tables in the plaza outside were packed, the series of small dining rooms inside were packed. But fortunately one of the husbands was friends with the owner.

Second thing to note – by and large, vegetarians are not well catered for in Spain.

The menu was what you’d describe as hale and hearty. Rustic fare. Meaty, in all senses.

On the table as we arrived were baskets of toasted bread, which you rub with fresh tomatoes and garlic cloves, drizzle with olive oil and eat with slices of the local dried sausage.

The house wine came out of an unlabelled green bottle with a cork half-stuffed in the top, probably produced a couple of kilometres up the road. Hardly Château Lafite, but eminently drinkable. And a fraction of what you’d pay for similar quality in the US or Britain.

Starters were local specialities too: plates of sliced anchovies, strips of Iberian ham, snails.

The main course selection included rabbit kebabs, guinea fowl, shoulder of kid goat, spareribs, veal steaks. When the plates arrived they were loaded with slabs of tender meat. Vegetables though – if you exclude the fries – were nowhere to be seen.

One of the women, Neus, had pigs’ trotters, a local delicacy to be found in every self-respecting butcher’s. My wife and I have always fought shy of it, but when she offered us a taste decided to give it a try. After all, when in Rome ... The gelatine-based consistency and flavour actually wasn’t bad, but a couple of mouthfuls would be enough.

Aside from the food we were also privileged with an insider’s view of the Catalans themselves.

Catalunya is not so much a region within Spain as a nation within a nation. It has its own language, own flag, own customs, own festivals. And they have a renowned antipathy towards ‘Spain’ as a whole and Madrid in particular, not least because of General Franco’s aggression during the Civil War and repression of Catalan culture during his four-decade dictatorship, something they have energetically sought to redress since his death.

More revealing though were the insights of Neus’ husband, who described the tensions that exist within Catalunya, between Barcelona – where he was born and raised – and the regions.

As George Orwell describes in “Homage to Catalonia,” Barcelona was a stronghold of the Republican forces during the Civil War, and one of the last places to fall to Franco’s Nationalists. Subsequently Barcelona – not least through its eponymous football team – became a centre of opposition to the General’s regime.

And with Franco’s death and the return of democracy Barcelona emerged as the hub of Catalanism, the seat of the region’s autonomous government, the Generalitat de Catalunya.

Given such precedence, and the local population’s near universal and fervent support for FC Barcelona, I’d have thought the city and all it represents would be viewed with pride by the Catalans. Not so.

Barcelona has long been the commercial powerhouse of Spain. As a result, our companion explained, Barcelonans have had far greater exposure to the wider world, and are more cosmopolitan for it.

By contrast the area where we live, with its traditional agricultural and fishing communities, was practically cut off from the outside world until as little as 50 or 60 years ago. An adventure was travelling to the local market town.

And that contrast between commercial cosmopolitanism and rural isolation remains in the mindsets today. For while Barcelonans look down on the provincials as hicks, those in the provinces regard Barcelonans as rich city types that know nothing of their lives and are not to be trusted.

Which is why, after 23 years of living in our little patch of Catalunya, he is still referred to as “Neus’ husband,” rather than by his own name.

Book Publishing: The Long and Winding Road

Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Bill Bryson ... the list of successful authors who started their writing careers in journalism is a long and illustrious one.

Like so many other journalists, I too have been dreaming of that publishing deal that would set me on the road to literary fortune. In fact, my journalistic career was more happenstance than design, a by-product of my early book writing efforts, rather than the other way around.

The impulse to write has been with me since my exercise book-filled scribbles at infants’ school. But it wasn’t until a backpacking trip around Spain with my wife in 1997 that I took the all-important step, and committed to become a writer. And that means consistently putting pen to paper.

I remember it now. Sitting in front of our tiny tent under the pine trees and stars, enveloped in the warmth of a Valencian spring evening, I opened my newly-bought notepad and with a cheap ballpoint began to recount our adventures.

In the 12 years since I have written something practically every day.

In amongst the hundreds of magazine and newsletter articles for my day job there has been that original backpacker’s tale, several novels, a host of short stories, TV programme pitches, and at the moment a work-in-progress screenplay.

The investment of a lot of time, a lot of work and a lot of hope. It’s been a long, and at times frustrating, journey. Indeed, given my lack of publishing fame and fortune you’d probably be justified in thinking it’s about time I gave up.

But although the dream of being a full-time author has seemed a million miles away at times, I have never lost sight of it. So I persevere.

Still, rightly or wrongly – and I’m sure there were glaring deficiencies in my work that merited the stack of rejections – I haven’t had much joy thus far with the traditional publishing world.

Which is why for “Should I Stay Or Should I Go,” my guide to the pros and cons of expat living, I decided to go down the internet route by writing an e-book, and setting up a website to support and sell it.

The internet is a fantastic evolution in the spread of the written word. For it has provided the opportunity for anyone with a message to reach out to a global audience, even if at times it can be difficult to get that message heard.

But the thing is, you never know when someone is listening. And that’s when one of those serendipitous events occurred to me.

Somehow Bea Stanford, founder of global network community Inside Twente (http://www.twenteinside.com/), stumbled on my website and signed up for my Moving Abroad-opedia newsletter. Apparently she liked what I wrote and asked if I’d share my blog posts on her site.

Through Bea and Inside Twente my book then reached the attention of Jo Parfitt, the author of numerous bibles on expatriate living, including “Expat Entrepreneur” and “A Career In Your Suitcase” (http://www.joparfitt.com/).

And I have Jo to thank for referring me to her publisher Lean Marketing Press, who in turn got in touch expressing interest in my book. As a result, we’re now working together to produce a print version of Should I Stay Or Should I Go, which we hope to bring out in the autumn.

It’s been a strange, circuitous route to publication – certainly not how I imagined it would occur. Nevertheless, it is an immensely exciting prospect, not least because I believe – and many other writers have similarly argued – that the model adopted by companies such as Lean Marketing is the future of publishing. But I’ll go into that another time.

Spain School Holidays

“School’s out for summer ...”

Yep, the school summer holidays have started here in Spain. Three months of freedom and sunshine stretch into the distance.

As my brother in England commented, it seems like a crazy length of time off. After all, the English schools won’t finish for another month yet, and then ‘only’ for six weeks.

Indeed, the schools in Spain seem to be about the first in Europe to break up. If the car registration plates are anything to go by it will be the beginning of July before the French cross the border to start their holidays, and a few days after that before the Belgians, Dutch and Germans arrive.

Still, the Spanish timetable is understandable. Through June my daughter’s school shifted its hours so they were in from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m., instead of the usual 9-12 and 3-5 p.m. The afternoons get too hot at this time of year to do anything else.

And now, with the full force of summer upon us, it’s too much for the kids to continue.

It’s been a long term too. Unlike in other countries, where there is a half-term break for the kids to recharge, here there are merely three long terms. The last holiday our daughter had therefore was Easter. And that was only for a week, rather than the two her cousins in England get.

So now 12 weeks at the beach beckon. What a prospect.

It’s not so great for the parents though. With so many working full time – and for people that live by the Mediterranean this is peak earning season – what are they supposed to do about childcare?

Hello grandparents ...

Hmm, not necessarily an option if you’re an expat and the rest of your family live thousands of miles away.

Or, as is commonly the case, you could enrol the kids in a summer school. So, back to class then. Maybe it’s not such a long, lazy vacation after all.

Elbow’s Lessons in Life

My brother recently gave me a copy of Elbow’s album ‘The Seldom Seen Kid.’ It contains some great songs, but there’s one in particular I can’t get out of my head: ‘One Day Like This’ ... what my niece calls “the holy cow song.”

I confess I hadn’t heard of the band before. I’ve become desperately out of touch musically since moving to Spain six years ago, and now rely on my much-more-with-it 40-year old brother to tip me off to the new releases.

Elbow are hardly a new sensation though – The Seldom Seen Kid is their fourth studio album. Yet it is only as a result of winning last year’s Mercury Music Prize that it has brought the band a level of commercial success to go with their long-standing critical acclaim.

As such they are an object lesson in the value of persistence.

After forming the group as schoolboys in 1990, they recorded their debut album with Island Records in 1997. However, it was never released. Instead they put out EPs in 1998, 2000 and 2001 before their first album, ‘Asleep in the Back,’ eventually came out that same year, earning them both Mercury Music Prize and Brit Award nominations.

Despite apparently being well-received critically though their third album didn’t sell well. So the band was dropped from V2, its record label, in 2006.

But instead of giving up Elbow signed with a new label, and recorded, mixed and self-produced The Seldom Seen Kid, which has proven to be their breakthrough.

In addition to the album’s Mercury Prize success, the song ‘Grounds for Divorce’ was used in the trailer for the Coen Brothers’ film ‘Burn After Reading’ as well as in several TV adverts, while One Day Like This was used by the BBC in its coverage of the Beijing Olympics, and has featured in adverts for the film ‘The Soloist.’ And Elbow went on to win the 2009 Brit Award for Best British Group. Not a bad list of credits.

I don’t know, but I’m guessing the V2 label bosses are feeling a bit stupid right now.

More importantly though Elbow’s long-awaited time in the sun is a testament to the group’s love of music, belief in themselves and sheer determination – and that is something from which we can all take heart. For they are a real-world demonstration that if you dare to cherish a dream, believe in it and (crucially) keep working towards its achievement, the rewards eventually will be yours.

So if your dream is to move abroad then why not go for it? Work out what you need to do to make it a reality and take the necessary steps, one at a time. It’ll be easier than you think.

And the same goes for all life’s ambitions.

It’s easy to lose sight of your ultimate goals in the current economic mess, when many people – myself included – have been scrambling just to survive. But, if you’ll excuse the cliché, you’ve got to ‘keep your eye on the prize.’

That’s what’s happening to me with the upcoming publication of my book, ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go? The Truth About Moving Abroad And Whether It’s Right For You’ – and that is the essential message within it ... work out what you really want from life and start living it.

I’ll finish with a quote I was sent yesterday as a subscriber to Simpleology (a series of courses I highly recommend by the way). It’s from that great British writer Rudyard Kipling:

“If you don’t get what you want, it’s a sign either that you did not seriously want it, or that you tried to bargain over the price.”

Words we’d all do well to remember.