JUNE

I’m writing this on our last day in Farrera, a small village 1400metres up in the Spanish Pyrenees. It’s really hard to leave here, as we feel well settled after two and a bit weeks.
After Barcelona, we decided to head up north to the coast before going into the mountains. So we drove up the Costa Brava coast to a little place called Empuries (near L’Escala, north of Girona and south of Figueres). We had a lovely week there in an idyllic spot just behind the sand dunes and next to a partly excavated Roman City (!). There were several beautiful sandy beaches, great rocks and snorkelling places, as well as lovely walks and cycle paths along the coast. It was hard to leave there too, especially as we had the perfect free camping spot with a fountain of spring water handily near by. We had to sit out two days of rain and wind but were rewarded by five or six perfect days.
After that we had a cross country drive up into the pyrenees- a bit scary at times, but the van performed brilliantly if a little slowly! With one overnight stop, we finally reached this village of Farrera, (nearest town Sort), where Dom has been working at the Centre for Art I Natura. We’ve been parked up in a lovely spot by a rushing mountain stream, with fantastic views of snow capped peaks in the distance and meadows bursting with amazing wild flowers. It felt strange at first being so high up, at the end of the road, just a tarmac track from here) in such dramatic surroundings. It took me a while to get used to it, but now it all feels very familiar and is simply stunningly beautiful. We have got to know the people who live here and the boys have made friends (we meet the school taxi at 2.30pm or sometimes get a lift up in it when we have hitched down the mountain for supplies). As in most remote places, the people who live here are incredibly hospitable and welcoming. We’ve had some lovely evenings eating and drinking with them (in Spain, you take the kids with you, no babysitters!).
The weather has been a little hot at times, but we can always get shade on the wooded slopes, and there are streams and pools for cooling down in where the boys play endlessly. Fairly frequent dramatic storms which blow over quickly, but are great when we’ve had enough sun! Our only problem is mosquitos and horseflies, we’ve been lucky so far as this is the first place we’ve had insect trouble.

Dom’s been able to plug the lap top in at the centre, so has finally got his website up and running. We put a family page on it, so you can now see photos of our trip. In future, I will put up these ‘round robin’ ramblings on the website. Finn also has his own wildlife pages. To look at the website, go to www.mundusloci.org and click on domus for family stuff and tabula to see our route map.
We’ve been able to check our emails daily for the last two weeks, but all this will change when we leave here. We’re not sure what the situation is at Dom’s brothers house, which is being renovated as we speak - no phone line yet we think. So if I don’t reply to you quickly it simply means we havn’t been able to get to an internet cafe. We’re heading over the pyrenees tomorrow. We’ll be at Adam’s until the 7th July, then accross and up to Jura for Dave’s 40th birthday party, across Italy (late July) to Slovenia/Croatia for August (or at least, that’s still the plan).
There are lots of other things I could say, but no time now. I am hoping to do bits on the website on the following subjects I’ve been asked about: Home Schooling (going ok if a bit sporadic, we seem to work best with me in role as Mrs Cooney with pupils Eddie and Brian (?? - Dom)). Van life (slipped into it suprisingly easily, the boys regard the van as home now. I’m enjoying the simplicity of it, but of course the confined space drives you mad at times. I am already anticipating how mansion-like our small house will seem on our return. Its great how the kids take part more ie cooking and washing up, the fewer chores are more enjoyable). Health, Hygiene and Beauty secrets (don’t use mirrors, essential equipment a trug full of mountain stream water, an entrenching tool and aloe vera straight from the leaves for mozzie bites etc). Mental health/keeping sane with kids 24 hrs a day (could be a long one, that).
The ‘holiday’ feeling is still there in that we do lots of fun things, but, at almost two months, this iis starting to feel our life now. It is quite a liberating feeling when things are going well. It certainly is giving us a lot of head space and time for reflection, which can be difficult at home. I’m really enjoying this chance we have of stepping outside our usual day to day pressures and finding new ways of being.

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