Diary of a Pretend Farmer: Fun & Frolics in Phenomenal Barcelona

In preparation for our next adventure, Tony set up an automated watering system to ensure the veggie patch was looked after in our absence. It’s very clever actually he had set up a well pump (operated by a float switch so it would only operate while there was enough water in the well) and timed it to water the vegetables each evening. And so with the vegetables taken care of, last Wednesday, we packed up the car and left the farm for a visit with some good friends who live on the river Tarn in the Aveyron region. We arrived at their place late afternoon on the Wednesday and had fun catching up over the obligatory aperitif before dinner!

On the Thursday, we walked to the river and went for a swim (yes – I actually got in the river – photo evidence below – and yes – it was jolly cold!) and generally had a lovely relaxing time so that before we knew it we were waking up on Friday morning – the day the Barcelona adventure was to begin.

And an adventure it was – not least in getting there….due to the rail strike in France (the longest since 2010), our train wasn’t running and there were no other options until Saturday morning so I was a little sad having treated ourselves to first class tickets there and back but as we were meeting Emma and Greg later that day – Emma having flown in from Cayman and Greg from France – it wasn’t an option to delay by a day because of the trains so we made an executive decision and decided to drive to Barcelona instead.

It was a fairly straightforward drive and Barcelona is only about 1 ½ hours from the border and so we arrived slightly earlier than if we’d have taken the train we’d initially booked and were therefore the first to arrive so we checked in, and decided to go for a wander – what a phenomenal city – I’m always astounded at the difference in cultures of all these connected countries – especially coming from sleepy rural France, we were suddenly surrounded by people and it was quite astounding – the vibrant, loud and colourful atmosphere we were thrown into – in rural France you’ll barely see anyone outside after 6pm at night and in Spain you’ll be lucky to book dinner before 9pm at night!

Emma and Greg made it safely to Barcelona later the same evening and so we went out for dinner to celebrate the birthday eve – Mark and Oona were to join us on Saturday afternoon so we didn’t want to overdo it on the Friday – we had a lovely meal of tapas and some local wine and made a decision that we must eat as much ham on this trip as possible – it’s delicious! Photos of our first night out below…

Saturday dawned and Emma had booked us all on a sequeway tour of the city at 10 so we started with breakfast and presents at 8am – I was thoroughly enjoying being 40.

We had a phenomenal day – after the segueway tour we found a lovely restaurant for lunch – cava sangria and paella was the order of the day for that meal (we decided we’d have to have double ham at dinner as we didn’t have any at lunch) all finished off with a siesta back at the hotel while we waited for Mark and Oona to arrive from the UK.

Sure enough, Mark and Oona made it safely and once checked in we decided to take some champagne (another gift) to the executive lounge to open more gifts that Mark and Oona had brought with them. We then went out for a wander and for dinner found 2 really good tapas restaurants, one was particularly authentic, a real hole in the wall place with plates of tomatoes and garlic on the table – this had a few of us confused but thankfully, Mark & Oona having spent time in Barcelona and quite a bit of time in Spain in general explained that when the bread arrives you peel the garlic, rub it on the bread and then slice the tomatoes and essentially rub the tomato juice onto the bread to make the traditional ‘tomato bread’ that accompanies all Catalan meals – it was delicious all accompanied by lashings of cured ham, sardines, chorizo and a host of other interesting tapas that seemed to simply keep coming – lovely!

A few days earlier, Tony had remembered that a friend from his Greek days (many moons ago) owned a club in Barcelona and had been in touch – his friend Michel had said we should definitely pop by and so after we’d eaten as much ham as we possibly could we decided to go and find his club. Amazingly, Michel was arriving as we were and Tony spotted him immediately – bearing in mind Tony and I hadn’t seen him since 1996 – as with everything so far on this fabulous weekend our timing was spectacular!

Michel welcomed us into the club – gave us a phenomenal spot to commandeer and essentially gave us incredible VIP treatment for the duration of the night with champers coming out at midnight while the DJ played happy birthday – 40 was still looking pretty good and we staggered home (by taxi!) and got to bed around 3.

Sadly my excitement was tempered somewhat when I woke up on Sunday morning incredibly sick – we all put it down to an excess of everything and as I went back to bed the others headed off for the tour that had been booked of ‘Sagrada Familia’, the Gaudi Cathedral which had I been more compos mentis I would have been incredibly sad to have missed but as it was I was just grateful that I could go back to bed – my biggest regret is not what I missed in Barcelona but the time I missed with my sisters and their men – precious time indeed given it was the first time in 3 years that we’d been together and the first time to date that the 6 of us had been together.

I made it out for the ‘last supper’ on Sunday night – Mark and Oona were returning to the UK first thing Monday morning – and it was another lovely evening finished off with a visit to the Magic Fountains at Plaza Montjuic – if you’ve been to Vegas – it’s reminiscent of the Bellagio fountains but in a much more spectacular setting.

I was out of action for most of Monday as well and sadly Greg, Emma, Tony and I said our goodbyes on Tuesday morning and Tony and I drove home which took us 6 hours – we arrived late afternoon on Tuesday and as I sit here typing on Thursday I’m pleased to report I’m feeling human again but whatever it was that hit me, it seriously hit hard and I’m only sad that I did miss out on spending as much time as possible with my sisters but can honestly say that we maxed every moment we did have together and I don’t think we could have talked more, eaten more ham or laughed any harder!

So now, back to pretending to farm which is feeling more and more like real farming as we got back to nearly 100 heads of bok choy (Tony got a bit carried away!), enormous amounts of kale (but thankfully not ready yet – we’ve got to get through some bok choy first), courgettes, cucumbers & tomatoes on the vines and everything looking spectacularly healthy including the most enormous amounts of weeds and so it looks like I shall be waiting for the next sunny day to don the bikini and get back in the veggie patch to tackle the weeds – I think it is the bikini that identifies me as still a pretend farmer (or the wife of one!) in addition to our neighbours comments every time they wander into our veggie patch to let us know that ‘we’re doing it wrong’! We love the learning curve though and love that our neighbours despite not quite understanding who we are and what we’re doing, are so generous with their knowledge and the offerings from their garden – we are blessed indeed. And so as I leave you, I am heading out to the garden to pick some arugula (rocket to those in the UK) which we've grown from seed and shall be having for dinner with fresh sardines on the BBQ. A few photos of what's been growing in our absence.....