Playing with puddles

Rainy day

It rained all day, so we were mainly indoors again, but this time at my in-laws. In the afternoon we made "brunyols", which is our typical pastry for Easter. We did it in the old house, because my MIL can't stand all the mess we seem to make :-)

Paint chaos

We stayed mostly home today... painting, modeling with playdoh and clay, playing with memory cards (I lost to A even though I tried so very hard, I must really be getting old), and watching a movie: The Nightmare before Christmas. I love the lyrics in this movie...
Does it sound like fun? Everything except picking up after them even though they did help... and cleaning paint all over the kitchen floor

This is the entrance of an old town, not far from where we live...

Have you ever tried....

sea urchin roe?
We had some at my parents'
It's considered a delicacy...

The way I see it...

Elections held in Spain last Sunday, with socialist victory, have proved once more that there are two Spains: a traditional, conservative one (in the moral sense, I'm not talking about economics) which will side with the church and still, in many cases, doesn't see Franco as a such bad part of our past (that would be PP), and a more progressive one that would definately condemn Franco's regime... The gay-lesbian marriage thing is just one of the laws Zapatero has brought (Socialists have also passed a law to harden the punishments for domestic violence and protect abused women more effectively, and have improved conditions for the working young people to access housing, given the huge rise in prices.
However, I don't think many people vote for that as much as they vote out of fear, fear of the others... to understand that, we'd have to take a look at our recent past ... Many of our problems still stem from the civil war (1936-1939) which brought a long dictatorship with Franco supported always by the catholic church. Among other things, Franco was determined to erradicate any trace of identity except Spanish, thus Catalan was forbidden (my mom would be spanked if she was caught speaking her own language at school!). In general terms, Catalans and most peripheral Spain fought to maintain a republic and avoid Franco rising to power, while another part of Spain was siding with the dictator, and they won.
We still have these two sides in Spain. Many people vote out of fear. Socialists have played that card: "Vote for us, or they will come!", and PP has played that card too: "Vote for us, or Catalans will rule and Spain will break!" PP has once again used the language/cultural issue, and Catalans have played a big role in Zapatero winning, not so much because they love him, but because we see the alternative as far worse.
The debates on TV didn't help PP either, their leader (Rajoy) actually brought up Irak on the debate, when that was a major factor for their losing elections in the past! That was clearly unwise (in my opinion). So Catalans fear PP and have been decisive in the socialist victory, and the same has happened in the basque country. They have voted more for socialists, and the killing of a former councilman triggered the anger in many people who rebelled against ETA's "recommendation" that they should abstain from voting, and have hugely supported socialists....

So to answer your question, James, the socialists victory is ok with me... but only ok...

Trying to explain this in English is a bit of a challenge...!

ETA had to appear in this campaign and murder again. This time it was a politician not even active, he had been a town councilman some years go but that's the point, those who are have escort, so this man didn't. He was an easy target. I don't understand these idiots... what do they want??

To continue with my pics, A started swimming today without a back float, so this is an important photograph!...

American dream?

H and I were watching the news yesterday and a piece about elections in the US caught our attention. It was about Obama, and a team of reporters had actually interviewed Obama's mother in Kenya. The woman was dressed in traditional African clothing and spoke about proudly about his son. H said "This truly is the American dream...!" We have elections in Spain soon aswell (next sunday) and I think we still need to learn a lot about the US, even though it's not a perfect country either. It would be unthinkable in Spain to have someone running for president with relatives say in Morocco or any other African country. Our society is still quite prejudiced, and not just about people from other countries, in fact nobody could picture a Catalan running for president of Spain, and that would have nothing to do with race or ethnicity. Likewise, there was some controversy when Catalans elected president for our comunity because the winner is not a perfect Catalan. Mr Montilla was not born here, he has Andalusian descent and a Spanish last name. He won though. I wonder if I'll ever see a Catalan as president of the country. We really do have a long way to go...

To continue with my photographic journal (I blame Jessica for that) here's a pic inside my workplace...

Escudella i carn d'olla

Our lunch today was the most typical dish in Catalan cuisine: escudella. It's a winter stew with lots of vegetables, meat and soup that is usually served in two parts, first the soup with pasta (tiny type of pasta) or rice, and then the meat with vegetables seasoned with just olive oil and a bit of salt. I use my mom's recipe, and I prepared two big meatballs with minced meat, egg, garlic, parsley and minced bread, made a soup with carrots, leek, celery, turnip, cabbage and pieces of lamb, veal, chicken and pork. When the meat was soft enough I took it out of the pot and prepared the two separate dishes. It's laborious... and I actually began making it the day before... here are some pics...

This is the minced meat, bread and egg I used...


I used frozen garlic and parsley cubes (that's not in my mom's recipe, she'd say this is not healthy, but this way your hands don't stink of garlic)


This is what we call "pilota" which is made of minced meat. It's actually like big meatballs...


We always cook and season with olive oil


On another note... it's been more than three months since H had his last seizure... I almost don't dare say it...

Just some pics of the day

With C in the elevator...

A snack...

Watching tv...

The view from our terrace

Birthday

We celebrated my dad's 80th birthday...

Saturday

We spend every saturday at my inlaws... Did I tell you they have chickens?