This morning I got up early so that my daughter could collect me and take me to a tram station with Granddaughter Number Two. For the last few years we have made it a tradition to go into Manchester together and do some Christmas shopping. The first time we did it we trawled round the Christmas markets, which still had some variety of content back then. We found some nice things. This year we didn’t look at the Christmas market stalls at all. At a first glance they seem to be more about selling sweets and food and drink than anything else. But maybe I am doing them a disservice.
Anyway, Granddaughter Number Two and I are dropped off a tram station near my daughter’s school at an ungodly hour of the morning, when it’s still almost dark, only barely officially sunrise, and too early for me to have free travel on the buses and trams with my old lady bus pass. We go into Manchester and have breakfast in a cafe while we wait for the stores to open. Then we hit the shops!
This year we have been efficient and went armed with lists of stuff we wanted to look for. It worked, more or less. I seem to have managed to get most things off my list. Now I need to finish wrapping. And at some point I need to plan menus so I can do the food shopping!!
Nostalgia is a strange thing. Granddaughter Number Two and I reminisced about various episodes from her childhood. At 22 she already quite a difference between her own early childhood and that of her younger siblings.
Then there is Granddaughter Number One, who lived for some time in our house with her mother in her early childhood. At that time I would play Spanish songs in the kitchen and the small girl would sing along, usually not understanding a word but sounding good. At some point yesterday evening she sent me a message asking about “that song about the bird who tried to fly in the sea”. She thought it might have been sung by Ana Belén. I found it: La Paloma by the poet Rafael Alberti and sung by various artists: Joan Manuel Serrat, Rosa León, Ana Belén, among others, but these are singers I used to play to her. It’s amazing what the memory throws up.
Here’s the poem Rafael Alberti:
Se equivocó la paloma.
Se equivocaba.
Por ir al Norte fue al Sur.
Creyó que el trigo era agua.
Se equivocaba.
Creyó que el mar era el cielo;
que la noche, la mañana.
Se equivocaba.
Se equivocaba.
Que las estrellas, rocío;
que la calor, la nevada.
Se equivocaba.
Se equivocaba.
Que tu falda era tu blusa;
que tu corazón, su casa.
Se equivocaba.
Se equivocaba.
Ella se durmió en la orilla.
Tú, en la cumbre de una rama.
Se equivocó la paloma.
Se equivocaba.
And here is an English version, not my own translation:
The Dove (English)
The dove was wrong.
She was mistaken.
To travel north she flew south,
Believing the wheat was water.
She was mistaken.
Believing the sea was sky,
That the night was dawn.
She was mistaken.
That the stars were dew,
That the heat was snowfall.
She was mistaken.
Your skirt your blouse,
Your heart your home.
She was mistaken.
(She fell asleep on the shore,
You at the tip of a branch.)
And here, I hope, is a link to a YouTube clip of Ana Belén singing it.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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