Welcome to Spain...

...the weather is lovely as you can see from the photo taken from our balcony yesterday morning.  I won't be making anyone jealous with this.

 
To be fair, the average weather for the time of year is about right with temperatures of between 15 and 21 degrees Celsius, (so naturally all the natives are wearing winter coats and scarves as it's soooo cold) and October is the wettest month with an expected nine days of rain.  So it's no surprise I was soaked on my trip into the city yesterday morning.  With the streets looking more like rivers I began to understand why so many people were wearing wellies....if only I'd had a camera.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/city_guides/results.shtml?tt=TT004270

Barcelona Women's Network

http://www.bcnwomensnetwork.com/

Yesterday's venture into the city was to go and meet some people while I'm still mobile enough to get around.  I was the first to arrive at 10.30 and quickly realised that it's time to adopt the timing mentality of the locals...nothing starts on time.  I did however meet a lovely group of ladies and for the first time in a fortnight could speak in my own language without really having to think or worry about being understood.  Suddenly the gap between English and Americans seems very small.  I came away laden with gifts of baby clothes and some recent issues of "Heat" magazine.  Heat is normally only a treat at the dentist (I wouldn't dream of buying it) but it felt strangely comforting to read up on Jordan's misfortunes, Cheryl's solo career and Posh's skinniness last night.

Castellano or Catalan?

Another major accomplishment yesterday.  We managed to bypass some of the administration requirements and had an appointment with the midwife.  She looked at me and said "this is your first appointment with us and yet I can see that you are quite pregnant."  Indeed, thank you for noticing.  Comforting observations from a midwife.  In fact she was lovely and by stroke of luck had spent some time working in London at St Mary's hospital so knew about the different expectations and methods in England and Spain.  We've been referred to the hospital in Mataro, one of the seven hospitals in Catalonia listed as promoting natural birth and to execute with informed consent.  We'll see. 

New word for yesterday - "llevadora", only to discover that this is the word for midwife in Catalan, and if I want to be understood by most of the Spanish world then I should be using "comadrona".  By the time I leave Spain I expect to have a vocabulary of mixed dialect only to be understood by a small group of people. At least I'll know what I mean.