Bon nadal

Catalan Christmas has a distinct theme running through it - and, well, there's no easy way to say this to a British audience, it's shit.

The Catalans are very proud of their scatalogical Christmas culture and our Catalan friends have spent quite a bit of time talking to us about it.

Catholics like their nativity scenes, but if you look carefully at a Catalan version (pessebre) you might well spot the figure of a little man squatting in the corner with his trousers down. He is a caganer. Often it's a peasant-like figure, but sometimes it's a famous person such as a politician. There's one in the window of one of the butchers in our village.

The village butcher's caganer making his deposit, left

There are lots of theories about why the caganer has appeared (just Google it), but most people just seem to think it's quite funny.

This evening Catalan children will be singing to the caga tió (shit log) which - after it's been hit with a stick a few times - will then poo out some presents for them.

Caga tió: might not be so cheerful after being hit
with sticks by small children all evening

You can watch Stephen Fry chuckling about Catalan Christmas on QI...

Mucho viento

When the British think of Spain it's often a Mediterranean sun, sea and sand-scape. We remember sunburnt August package holidays but have little understanding of what the weather is like during the rest of the year.

Here in Catalunya, we get the intense heat of the summer, but there is so much more weather too.

When the wind blows here it really means it. It roars through the trees, howls down our chimney and throws the bin around (if we leave it in a foolish place). A strong north-westerly has been blowing since Saturday without much let-up ("Siempre viento in este país," said the man in the garden centre this morning), and last night was the fiercest so far.

When I'm awake and listening to the wind at 4 o'clock in the morning it seems as though every gust will be followed by a bang or a crash as a tree snaps, something falls from the house or the car takes off. But when the sun comes up and I look out of the window everything is as it was. The pine trees simply seem to bend to the force (think of wibbly Van Gogh cypresses) and each patch of olive trees on the hillside turns into a pool of shimmering green waves as the leaves are flipped over and back, catching the sunlight on the way.

Our little house nestles into the southerly side of the hill so we're often protected from the worst blasts. Sometimes the wind can be tearing away behind us while we enjoy the sun on the porch, not feeling a whisper.

On the plus side, a nice steady north wind gets our wind turbine spinning happily. Right now we're getting about 6 amps from the turbine and when the sun's out too there's actually too much energy generated for the power system to use - even if the fridge is on, the laptop is charging and the TV is being watched.

But the wind is wearing - it makes the puppy hyper, dries out my skin and stops us all from sleeping. I hope it calms down soon.

More veggie thoughts

We were kept awake for much of last night by high winds roaring through the forest, howling down our chimney and throwing around our dustbin.

At one point - possibly between pondering whether the puppy could actually be swept off the porch and listening to The Now Show podcast - I thought of a few more veggie in Spain things. (See previous post here for more.)

• At a Spanish wedding David was served nothing but a plate of lettuce; and the waiters came out to look at him.

• We once ordered huevas at a restaurant instead of huevos. These were small grey sausages of squashed together fish eggs. They weren't nice.

• Champis are delicious little snacks served at some bars in the north of Spain. (We've had them in Zaragoza and Bilbao.) They are mushrooms fried in oil, chilli and cider speared onto a piece of bread with a toothpick.

• Even gazpacho can be fraught with risk for a vegetarian. Eateries with ambition serve it with some tiny pieces of chopped up pig (plus perhaps boiled egg, onion and pepper) - for extra flavour, of course. (David makes a very good gazpacho with chilli croutons.)