The Barrio Gotico is a mixture of cool, shaded stone streets, a sense of historical grandeur muddled up with little signifiers of urban squalor, piss in the streets and vomit splashes. When you look up there are balconies with window boxes, plants spilling out, and miniature rainbow-coloured windmills whizzing their tits off. Shop shutters are graffitied canvases with stylised, bright characters, such as the electric blue skinned boy who reminds you to 'Remember who you are'. Cavernous shops sell eye-wateringly expensive designer clothes and artist's t-shirts and trinkets.

Tiny canines are the pets of choice in Barcelona: chihuahuas and bull dogs are the most popular. Dogs that mince or stomp. During January and February, most of the tinier dogs sported coats: water-proof or padded, style is important. I saw one dog expressing his support for Barcelona FC, the maroon and blue strip fitted around his tiny torso, legs poking through sleeves. The strangest choice of pet décolletage is worn by a cat who is a regular fixture near Catedral de Santa Marta. This feline sports a wreath of pink roses around its' head, and is attached to its' owner by way of a piece of string. The owner, a lady in her 80's, sits next to it and knits concentratedly whilst tourists and locals stream past.

Fincas and fluency

Dearest Reader, (there is currently only one I believe, bless you Lou!)

I have been woefully lax with this blog, and I hereby vow to increase the quantity if not the quality from now on, so...
Had a nice, lazy day. It rained for the second day in a row. John and I went running by the beach and the sea was choppy and reassuringly grey, there was a cloudy sky and you could taste the sea salt. I spent the morning entertaining dreams about setting up an outdoor learning centre or a 'forest school' for children, and was really excited to see such a thing existed in a place called Coin, in Andalucia. I then ended up looking up fincas (Spanish farmhouse) online, one of which had a huge plot of land, orange and lemon trees, olive groves and a reliable supply of acorns for the Iberian pigs that we could be looking after. John was less enamoured with pig farming as our fall back option if all else failed. 'This could be an outdoor learning centre for city kids' I was thinking, the Jacks and Jordans from Year 6 at Kender Primary, New Cross, that, when given a forest to mess about in, were inspired to build shelters and partake in other boy scouty activities, of their own volition.

It is a lovely dream that will lurk in the back of my head for years to come, and I'll probably periodically mention it to John: the sweet, sun bleached finca fantasy (I also love the word finca) - the lemons and oranges, the olives, the acorn bloated pigs, and finally, John and I tilling the land; contented, deeply tanned and somehow imbued with a new-found wisdom. If terms of our abilities as farmers and land-tillers, our pot plants would complain of neglect if they could, so we might need to employ the children as farm-hands!

This evening we had an assignation with a private Spanish tutor, also an actor, called Victor, at his flat near Urguell. This is after a hiatus in our Spanish learning, having been back to England and having had John's mum stay for a week. I was intrigued to know what Victor was going to be like, his website had an amusing photo of him posing side-on, wearing a black polo neck (hmm, I have serious issues with this sartorial number on men) and pulling a facial expression reminiscent of Roger Moore in one of his hammier Bond moments. Victor was actually really nice, he was definitely on the intense side, but in a good way. He's Catalan, from near Girona and also works as a life coach. He didn't spout any jargon, just talked a bit about overcoming the fear when learning a language and just having a go, which sounds blindingly obvious, but it does need reiterating when you often feel like a scatting goldfish when the anxiety kicks in that you're getting the words wrong. Our conversational attempts must have been painful but he managed to maintain an expression of engagedness – he is an actor after all...