Calcotada

Hello! I think I've explained what calcots are before - probably two years ago. My first visit to the farm was for a calcotada. Anyway, here they are again for those of you who have forgotten - there kind of likes leeks but you bbq them and dip them in an almond sauce. They gorgeous! The weather this weekend was also gorgeous - note the short sleeves! I think I even caught the sun on my face. The climate here still amazes me - catching the sun in January is just fabulous when you think that its only a two hour flight away from home.

We had the calcotada with David (Jose's younger brother - the world cup pitch and putt champion) and his girlfriend Marta. The day after Javier and Jessi came (my other brother and sister in law) with lots of Jessi's family and they set up a calcotada all over again. We opted for a Paella that day as we didn't really want calcots again - considering we had a calcotada last sunday in a restaurant and that we are going to a friends bbq calcotada in her farm next sunday. Tis the season see!

My steals this week from the farm were oranges, lemons, broad beans, artichokes and the worlds most enormous coliflours (a green one and a white one). I've just made a wonderful soup with the green one and some blue cheese (as recommended by Jo).

We actually did a bit of "giving" to the farm as well just "taking", as we usually do! Jose has been banging on about bouganvillias for about 2 months. He really wanted to buy three massive pots and grow bouganvillias up the three pillars of the terrace ......so we did. He has since spent each day wondering if they will be ok and if the old guy Ramon will be watering them correctly in his absence. I'm sure they will be fine. We'll have to see how the "growing them up the pillars" idea goes though. I'm not sure how succesful we will be at trainng them to go where we want seeing as we are not there the whole time. I'll report on that one in due course.

I'm still in the Barcelona flat and I am surround by the 50 boxes that I have packed over the last two days, somewhat covered in dust and unable to have a bath or a shower. The dust is related to the unavailability of the shower. As we are renting out this flat we want to leave everything tickety boo so that we don't get any moans from tennants and so that tenants don't make any minor problems worse. Well there was a minor problem in that the grout between the mosaic tiles around the bath was not strong enough - the wall at the other side seemed to be damp. So, my father in law has sent some of his workmen to rip off all the mosaics and put up slabs of marble - so that there is far less surface area of grout and so that the grout is all newly done. Thats been happening today, and will be finished on thursday........as they have physically taken the taps off there is no way of showering or bathing. So I'm dirty and can't do anything about it! Jose couldn't shower this morning before work but manged to go to his parents house at lunch time for a shower as he was visiting a client over there in Tarragona. Don't know what he'll engineer tomorrow. I'll just carry on being dirty - all I'm doing is staying in the house packing more boxes and cleaning the flat so it doesn't make much difference to me. My gym membership has run out so I can't go there for a shower - before any clever clogs emails me with that solution.

Right I think its time for some coliflour soup . That spelling doesn't look right but its coliflor in spanish and I can't quite think of how it is in english. oh well, me da igual!

S xx