Winter Along the Muga River

Yesterday, the 26^th, was Boxing Day in England and Sant Esteve here. This rates almost as a second Christmas. Everything is closed. You have Christmas dinner with one family and Sant Esteve with the other and on Sant Esteve you eat canalons. It was also one of those special winter days. The air smelled clean and the sun was out and if it was shining on you, it almost felt like spring. 

Cupcake and I went to walk on the path along the Muga river. Last Tuesday a paddle-surfer spotted a dead body in the Muga a little further downriver, but we were further up where there is a small woods. I’ve been reading a couple of books that talk about Russia and I’ve been listening to Borodin and walking under the trees made me think of the vast birch forests that I’ve never seen except in my mind’s eye when I’ve read Checkov, Tolstoy, and Turgenev. Coming out from the small woods there was a huge carob tree. There the air smelled sweet from the crushed carobs underfoot. I’ll bet they don’t have those in Russia.

Pont Vell (Old Bridge)
A medieval bridge from the 13th century
repaired many times

Cupcake doing one of his two favorite things

Snow-covered Pyrenees in the distance