Chapter One is up and running and awaiting your reactions. It's a bit eccentric I admit - it's about coming here and stumbling across lots of weird Catalan things.

Read it at

 http://www.nativespain.com/chapter-one-canaletes

Next chapter 'Before Barcelona' will be with you in week or so.

Barcelona’s main streets were lined with trestle tables piled high with books, and gypsy girls peddled red roses from every street corner.

Here's where I'll upload the book as I write it. Please feel free to add comments, ask questions and put me right when I'm wrong.

A COMMENT FROM DRINGMAN

Ok, so here's the plan. My role here in NativeSpain is Regional Editor Catalunya, but I don't have very much to edit! This makes me think that I'd better write the content myself, and let you lot edit me. (Much less hassle for all concerned.)

I'm going to write a book online, it's going to be about the Catalans and I'm going to call it 'Barcelona and the Lost Nation'. Write comments, tell me its dreadful/grear/fair to middling, tell me what's missing, what's wrong and what seems downright stupid.

Surrounded by bee eaters I am rarely in the right position vis a vis bird and light to get a good photo but I am working on it.....

This is the time of year when we pick capers and moras (mulberries to the uninitiated!).  I end up putting on heavy protective gear to pick the first and take everything off to pick the second....