The Grandma is working hard this weekend, wrapping up the final training modules, grading the last exams, and entering the final marks.
Tomorrow, she will begin a well-deserved vacation that -all going well- will last until the start of next year, after the Christmas and Three Kings holidays.
It has been a year of intense work, as always, but everything comes to an end; now she will wrap up another year of training and devote herself to what she loves most: reading, building with LEGOs, birdwatching, diving, playing the guitar, and watching football matches back-to-back -especially those featuring her own team and the Northern Star, whom she will now be able to visit more often.
And if she finds a spare moment, she'll continue creating content for her blog.
So, now is the time to be free for a few months and share more moments with Joseph de Ca'th Lon, Claire Fontaine, and the rest of her family and friends, in fact, it is the most important thing to do: spend time with your beloved people.
Libre he de vivir Libre como el día en que nací Así he de vivir Hasta que me muera
Y mientras ese día llega Dame luz, dame candela Y hazme reír Que prenda la hoguera en que se quema Lo que no vale la pena Déjalo ir
Libre he de vivir Libre como el día en que nací Así he de vivir Hasta que me muera
Que sepas que ese lado más oscuro Del que tantas veces huyo Es parte de mí Y deja que se pierda en el murmullo Como el agua entre los juncos Déjalo ir
Libre he de vivir Libre como el día en que nací Así he de vivir Hasta que me muera
Learning does not only happen in a classroom. Throughout our working lives, we acquire knowledge, develop skills and learn how to perform professional tasks. We may learn them at work, through volunteering, with a scholarship or internship, or by attending courses that do not lead to an official qualification.
But what happens when you know how to do a job but you do not have an official certificate to prove it?
This is where Acredita't, the Professional Competence Accreditation Service in Catalunya, can help.
Acredita't is a public service that allows people to obtain official recognition of professional competences acquired through: work experience, volunteering or scholarships, or non-formal training.
The important idea is simple: You may already have professional competences even if you have never received an official qualification for them.
The accreditation process gives you the opportunity to demonstrate those competences and have them officially recognised.
The service is designed for people who have professional experience or non-formal training related to the competences they want to accredit.
There are different requirements depending on the professional competence level.
For Level 1 competences, applicants must generally be at least 18 years old.
-If accreditation is based on professional experience, volunteering or a scholarship, they must demonstrate at least 2 years of experience and 1,000 hours during the previous 15 years.
-If it is based on non-formal training, they normally need at least 200 hours of related training during the previous 10 years.
For Level 2 and Level 3 competences, applicants must generally be at least 20 years old.
-If accreditation is based on professional experience, volunteering or a scholarship, they must demonstrate at least 3 years of experience and 2,000 hours during the previous 15 years.
-If it is based on non-formal training, they normally need at least 300 hours of related training during the previous 10 years.
There are specific rules when the training associated with a particular competence is shorter than these general requirements.
The process is much easier to understand if we divide it into four stages.
1. Admission
First, the applicant provides information about their professional and training history and submits documents that can demonstrate their experience or training. The documentation is checked to determine whether the person meets the requirements to participate in the accreditation process.
2. Guidance and advice
Once admitted, the applicant receives professional guidance. An adviser helps identify which professional competences the person may have acquired and which evidence can be used to demonstrate them. This is an important part of the process because people are not always aware of everything they have learnt during their professional lives.
3. Assessment
The next step is to assess whether the applicant can actually demonstrate the professional competences. The evaluator analyses the documentation and evidence provided. If there is already sufficient evidence, the competence can be demonstrated through the documentation. If more evidence is necessary, the evaluator may use an interview, workplace observation or a practical simulation. And there is something important to remember: This is not a traditional exam. The objective is not to test what you have memorised. It is to demonstrate what you already know how to do as a result of your professional experience or previous learning.
4. Accreditation
If the competences are successfully demonstrated, the applicant receives an official certification recognising them.
Obtaining accreditation can be useful for several reasons. It can officially recognise skills that you may have been using professionally for years. It can strengthen your CV and make your professional experience more visible. But it can also become part of a larger educational pathway.
The accredited competences may allow you to validate part of a Professional Certificate or a Vocational Education and Training qualification (FP). After the accreditation process, you can also receive guidance about the training you may need to complete a qualification.
In other words, accreditation does not necessarily represent the end of your learning journey. Sometimes, it is the beginning of a new one.
We often associate education with schools, classrooms, textbooks and examinations. However, people learn in many different ways. We learn by working. We learn by solving problems. We learn by helping other people. We learn by repeating a task until we master it. We learn from colleagues, customers, mistakes and experience.
A person may have spent ten or twenty years developing professional skills without ever receiving a formal qualification recognising them.
Acredita't tries to build a bridge between these two worlds: what people have learnt throughout their lives and what the education and professional qualification system can officially recognise.
Because experience matters. Skills matter. And sometimes the only thing missing is a document that officially says: Yes, you know how to do this.
Today, The Grandma has received fantastic news from Joseph de Ca'th Lon, one of her closest friends. Last Wednesday, Joseph was able to watch a fascinating UWCL match live in his own city between Servette Football Club Genève and OL. It was a very emotional evening for Joseph, who got to see the Northern Star and enjoy her play in his Swiss hometown.
This time, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma could not join Joseph, but both were delighted for him -and for the Northern Star, whose team secured the victory in a highly entertaining match.
The evening was so full of excitement that, upon returning home, Joseph found it hard to fall asleep and decided to read another Astérix adventure, this time Astérix and the Laurel Wreath.
The UWCL is the most exciting competition in women's football, and just like Astérix in this new adventure where he seeks Caesar's laurels, the Northern Star has also begun the tournament with the aim of reaching the final and -this time-being crowned the winner. She deserves it, and Joseph, Claire, and The Grandma will all be following her very closely throughout the competition.
Astérix and the Laurel Wreath, inFrench Les Lauriers de César, is the eighteenth volume of the Astérix comic book series, by René Goscinny (stories) and Albert Uderzo (illustrations). It was originally serialized in the magazine Pilote, issues 621-642, in 1971 and translated into English in 1974.
The album is rich in cultural references, including allusions to famous sculptures like The Thinker and the Discobolus, and parodies of French television personalities.
Historical References
Caesar's campaign against the pirates, a key plot point, is based on a real-life incident from Caesar's youth.
-The phrase Delenda Carthago (Carthage must be destroyed) was famously used by the Roman senator Cato the Elder in every one of his speeches to the Senate, emphasizing the need for the complete destruction of the Carthaginian city-state.
-The original French version features a more cursive and difficult-to-read lettering style, adding a unique visual element to the album.
-Astérix and the Laurel Wreath is a testament to the enduring brilliance of Goscinny and Uderzo. It is a hilarious and thought-provoking adventure that continues to entertain readers with its witty dialogue, captivating artwork, and insightful commentary on Roman society.
-This is by far the most adult-oriented of all the Astérix stories.
-At Typhus's store, a male slave makes poses based on famous statues: Auguste Rodin's The Thinker, Apollon of Olympia, the Laocoon, and the Discobolus.
-The recipe for the hangover cure is: Cook an unplucked hen, carbolic soap, jam, black peppercorns, salt, kidney, figs, honey, black pudding, pomegranate seeds, egg and Spanish pepper.
-The Circus Maximus wrangler makes a cameo appearance in The Twelve Tasks of Astérix. He is the only one-shot background character to do so.
-The trainer standing next to the fatted lion in the arena is a caricature of Jean Richard, a French actor who ran a zoo and a circus outside Paris.
-Caesar's campaign against the pirates (here the ones Astérix and Obélix frequently encounter) was inspired by a real incident wherein a younger Caesar was captured by pirates who demanded a ransom for his return -and which he himself subsequently increased on the grounds that he was worth more. The ransom was paid and Caesar released; but he later captured and executed the pirates, as he himself had promised them during his captivity.
-In the original French version and some other translations, the speech given by the Circus Maximus tour guide is given in various dialects and in Fraktur script. This pun effect is somewhat lost in the original English version.
-This volume made an appearance in the Mr. Bean episode, Goodnight Mr. Bean.
Key Lessons From Astérix and the Laurel Wreath
-Pride causes trouble. Chief Vitalstatistix makes a foolish promise out of anger toward his smug, wealthy brother-in-law, showing how ego drives us into tough spots.
-Teamwork wins. Astérix and Obélix rely on each other's unique skills and the help of others to navigate the massive maze of Rome and solve their problems.
-Perseverance pays off. Facing an impossible task like getting Caesar's crown requires staying focused and not giving up when plans go wrong.
-Cleverness over force. Instead of just fighting their way through Caesar's palace, they use a smart swap with parsley to achieve their goal peacefully.
-Appreciate the simple things. The story mocks the empty value of snobbery and high-status symbols, reminding us that simple, honest life is best.
Leaving elDelta de l'Ebre is never easy, but knowing that on the way to Barcelona you'll make a morning stop in Tarragona to celebrate Santa Tecla with a spectacular castell event is always a great plan.
If you then continue toward the capital and stop in Sitges in the afternoon -where they are also celebrating Santa Tecla- to enjoy the local culture and a delicious botifarrada by the sea, the journey home becomes much more pleasant, especially since your own city will be decked out the very next day to celebrate its own Festa Major.
Every September, Barcelona celebrates La Mercè.
For a few days, the city changes its rhythm. Squares become stages, streets become meeting places, balconies become viewpoints and thousands of people leave their homes to take possession of the city once again.
There are concerts, exhibitions, performances and events of every imaginable kind. Barcelona is a cosmopolitan city, home to people who have arrived from almost every corner of the world, and its Festa Major naturally reflects this diversity. And yet, year after year, some of the greatest crowds still gather around something much older.
A giant walking down a street. A human tower rising above a square. The sound of a gralla. The beating of drums. A dragon breathing fire into the darkness.
Perhaps Joan Amades would not have been surprised. The great Catalan ethnologist devoted much of his life to collecting the customs, celebrations, songs, beliefs and traditions of ordinary people. His monumental Costumari Català understood popular culture not as something preserved behind glass, but as something alive: a collective language transmitted from one generation to another. La Mercè speaks that language extraordinarily well.
One of its most symbolic moments is the Toc d'Inici. The Festa Major begins not merely with words but with music, movement and ritual. The city's festive figures enter the scene and Barcelona seems to summon its own imaginary world into existence.
Giants and giantesses, dwarfs, beasts and traditional dancers are no longer decorative figures. For a few hours, they become inhabitants of the city. Then come the cercaviles. The giants advance slowly through streets that normally belong to buses, bicycles, taxis and hurried pedestrians. Children look upwards. Adults do too. There is something wonderfully subversive about a giant walking through a modern city. For a moment, everyday Barcelona disappears and another Barcelona emerges from underneath it.
And then there are the castellers. Few images can explain Catalan popular culture so powerfully. A castell exists only because many people agree to build it together. At its base, the pinya becomes an extraordinary human architecture of arms, shoulders and trust. Above it, floor after floor rises until the smallest casteller reaches the top and raises a hand. For a few seconds, the whole square seems to breathe as one. Strength alone cannot build a castell. It requires balance, courage, technique and, above all, confidence in others. Perhaps this is why the Diada Castellera attracts such enormous crowds during La Mercè. People are not simply watching a spectacle. They are watching a community construct something impossible and then carefully dismantle it again.
But Barcelona has another face during its Festa Major. When darkness falls, fire arrives. The Correfoc transforms the streets into a territory of sparks, drums, devils and fantastic beasts. Dragons and other creatures spit fire while the diables dance beneath showers of sparks. People do not merely watch. They run with them. Fire has accompanied Mediterranean celebrations for centuries. In the Correfoc, something ancient survives inside the contemporary city: our fascination with darkness, noise, danger, light and collective excitement. For a while, Barcelona ceases to look like the carefully ordered city of maps and avenues. It becomes elemental. Fire, smoke, drums and people.
Perhaps this is the most fascinating thing about La Mercè. Barcelona changes constantly. Languages change. Neighbourhoods change. People arrive and people leave. Buildings disappear and new ones rise. The city absorbs influences from everywhere because it has always been a Mediterranean port open to the world.
But when the Festa Major arrives, thousands of people still crowd into the streets to watch traditions whose roots reach far beyond their own lives. They wait for the giants. They follow the gralles. They look upwards when the castell begins to rise. They run beneath the sparks of the Correfoc. Modernity has not made these traditions irrelevant. Perhaps it has made them even more necessary. Because popular culture gives a city something that cannot be built with concrete or designed by an urban planner: a shared memory. And memory does not mean remaining trapped in the past. It means knowing where we come from while continuing to change.
Barcelona has traditionally been called the Cap i Casal de Catalunya. The expression is difficult to translate perfectly. It means much more than capital. Cap is the head; casal evokes the house, the home, the place where a community recognises itself. During La Mercè, the expression acquires a particularly beautiful meaning.
Barcelona is cosmopolitan, Mediterranean, contradictory, noisy, changing and extraordinarily diverse. But it is also the capital of Catalunya. And when the giants dance, when the gralles sound, when the castellers raise their towers and when the dragons fill the streets with fire, the city remembers it.
Perhaps Joan Amades would have walked among those crowds with his notebook in his pocket, observing everything. Perhaps he would have recognised many of the gestures. And perhaps he would have understood something that La Mercè continues to demonstrate every September: tradition survives not because we preserve it, but because we practise it. A tradition nobody performs eventually becomes history. A tradition that still fills the streets belongs to the present. And every September, during La Mercè, Barcelona does something wonderfully simple.
Perhaps this is why Joan Amades still feels so extraordinarily present during La Mercè. His work was never merely a catalogue of curious things that people used to do. By collecting giants and dances, songs and sayings, legends, beasts, customs and celebrations, he helped preserve the collective memory of a country.
In 2009, when Barcelona dedicated part of La Mercè to Amades on the fiftieth anniversary of his death, he was beautifully introduced almost as the character of a folk tale:
Once upon a time, there was a man who travelled throughout Catalonia asking people to tell him about their customs and traditions, so that he could write them down in a book and make sure that nobody would forget them.
And perhaps that is the best way to understand both Amades and La Mercè. Because traditions do not survive simply because somebody once wrote them down. They survive because somebody still carries the giant. Because somebody still plays the gralla. Because somebody still climbs onto another person's shoulders. Because somebody still dresses as a diable and lights the fire. And because thousands of people still come out into the streets to see them.
Barcelona changes. It has always changed. But beneath that constantly changing city there is another Barcelona made of gestures, sounds, memories and rituals passed from one generation to another.
Barcelona is the Cap i Casal. And every September, when the drums begin to beat, the giants start to dance and the first sparks illuminate the streets, that old Barcelona does not return from the past. It reminds us that it never left.
For during La Mercè, the enchanting magic of popular culture takes over the city, and each of us transforms for a day into whatever we wish to be -a devil, a casteller, a capgròs, or a queen -because this is Barcelona, the heart and soul of Catalunya.
Parlo d'un riu mític i remorós Tot sovint penso que la meva infància té una dolça i secreta remor d'aigua.
Parlo de la verdor d'un delta immens; parlo dels vols dels ibis (milers d'ibis com volves vives de la neu més blanca) i del flamenc rosat (de l'íntim rosa d'un pit de noia gairebé entrevist).
I parlo del coll-verd brunzint per l'aire com la pedra llançada per la fona, de l'anguila subtil com la serpent, la tenca platejada de les basses.
Parlo del llarg silenci on es fonien l'aigua dolça del riu, la mar amarga.
Parlo d'un riu entre canyars, domèstic; parlo –Virgili amic– de l'horta ufana, dels tarongers florits i l'api tendre, de l'aixada i la falç, del gos a l'era.
(Lluny, pel cel clar, va un vol daurat de garses.)
Parlo d'un riu antic, solcat encara pels vells llaguts: els últims, llegendaris llaguts, tan afuats com una espasa, i carregats de vi, de llana, d’ordi, i amb mariners cantant sobre la popa.
Parlo d'un lent crepuscle que posava or tremolós a l'aigua amorosida, punts de llum a les ales dels insectes, solars reflectiments als ponts llunyans.
Dolça remor de l'aigua en el record.
I'm talking about a mythical rumbling river
I quite often remember my childhood's
sweet secret rumble of water.
I'm talking about a green immense Delta;
I'm talking about thousands of ibis in flight
(like living specks of whitest snow)
And the pink flamingo (the intimate rose
of an almost discerned girl's breast).
I'm talking about mallards buzzing on the air,
like stones thrown from a sling,
subtle eels like snakes,
silvery tenches in ponds.
I'm talking about a long silence melting the fresh
water of the river and the bitter sea.
I'm talking about a domestic river among reed-beds;
I'm talking -my friend Virgil- about rich orchards,
A river never understands borders. It simply flows. The Ebre enters Catalunya from Aragon, crosses the land towards the Mediterranean and finally reaches the sea through the extraordinary landscape of its Delta. But rivers do something else. They connect people.
During the last few days, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have discovered two different faces of the Delta de l'Ebre. They have walked through a landscape transformed by generations of rice farmers and fishermen. They have remained silent beside lagoons, waiting patiently for flamingos, herons and migrating birds. But there is something else they want to understand before leaving. The people.
Because the Delta belongs to a much larger cultural landscape: the Terres de l'Ebre. And this is a land with a voice of its own.
Maps encourage us to think in lines. Here ends one territory. There begins another. Culture is rarely so obedient. The southern lands of Catalunya have always maintained intense relationships with neighbouring territories. To the south lie the northern regions of the País Valencià, particularly the Maestrat; towards the west are the lands of Aragon. People have travelled across these territories for centuries to work, trade, marry, celebrate and exchange words, recipes, songs and traditions. Consequently, the Terres de l'Ebre should not be understood simply as the southern end of Catalunya. They are also a meeting place. A cultural crossroads. And perhaps this explains why their identity feels so distinctive.
You can hear the territory before you see it. Language immediately tells Claire and The Grandma that they are somewhere special. The Catalan spoken throughout the Ebre region belongs predominantly to the north-western dialectal area, but proximity and centuries of contact with Valencian varieties have produced a linguistic landscape rich in local forms. Words such as lo and los, characteristic verb forms, vocabulary and pronunciation give the speech of the Ebre its unmistakable personality. These are not imperfect versions of a language. They are the language carrying its own history. Every local word contains journeys, neighbours, occupations and generations. Language, after all, is another kind of landscape.
But if there is something that refuses to recognise administrative borders even more stubbornly than a river, it is music. The jota travelled and developed across Aragon, Catalunya and the País Valencià, acquiring different forms wherever people made it their own.
In the Terres de l'Ebre, the jota ebrenca became deeply rooted in popular culture. People sang it at celebrations and gatherings. Verses could be improvised. Singers could answer one another. Everyday events, love, humour, criticism and collective memory could all become songs. The jota therefore did something extraordinarily important. It allowed ordinary people to narrate their own lives. And that tradition has not disappeared.
Groups such as Quico el Célio, el Noi i el Mut de Ferreries have brought traditional Ebre music to contemporary audiences, demonstrating that preserving tradition does not mean embalming it. Tradition survives precisely because every generation makes it speak again.
And inevitably we return to the Ebre. For someone looking at a map, it is a geographical feature. For the communities living beside it, it can mean much more. The river has provided water, transport, food and work. It has shaped towns and landscapes. It appears in literature, songs and collective memory. And when people have believed that the river or the Delta was threatened, it has also become a powerful symbol around which communities have mobilised.
This relationship helps explain a phrase that has become inseparable from the territory: Lo riu és vida. The river is life. Three words. But behind them lies an entire landscape.
Perhaps Claire and The Grandma understand something else as their journey comes to an end. Identity does not necessarily become weaker where territories meet. Sometimes it becomes richer. The Terres de l'Ebre have absorbed influences without losing their personality. Catalan, Valencian and Aragonese cultural worlds have encountered one another here for generations. That does not make the territory less itself. Quite the opposite. Its position at the crossroads is part of what has made it what it is. You can hear it in an accent. Taste it in a dish. Recognise it in a jota. Read it in the words of Sebastià Juan Arbó, Artur Bladéi Desumvila or Gerard Vergés. And see it whenever the Ebre finally opens into the Mediterranean.
It is time for Claire Fontaine and The Grandma to leave. They have seen rice growing from mud and water. They have watched fishermen working between river and sea. They have waited quietly while flamingos crossed the shallow waters and migratory birds rested before continuing south. And finally, they have listened. To words. To songs. To stories. To a river.
Perhaps this is the best way to understand the Delta de l'Ebre and the lands surrounding it. Not merely as somewhere to visit, photograph and leave behind. But as a place created through an extraordinary conversation between nature and people, river and sea, memory and change.
Claire and The Grandma look towards the Ebre one last time. The river continues towards the Mediterranean. It does not know whether the land beside it is Catalan, Valencian or Aragonese. It knows only one thing. It must reach the sea.
Hem sigut una terra que ha fet feliç a qui se l'ha estimada. Hem tingut una gent que sempre l'ha viscut apassionadament i una mala notícia va recórrer el Delta com una ventada: podríem perdre l'aigua i mos tocaria viure un mal moment.
Mos van amoïnar posant a prova tota la nostra paciència, mos van amoïnar sense importar-los si teníem la raó i la nostra raó se va donar la mà en la raó de la ciència: Va nàixer una cultura per acostumar-mos a viure millor.
Tota la gent de l'Ebre està ben unida per una veu que crida "lo riu és vida". I als pobles de la terra ja no s'oblida que hi ha una veu que crida "lo riu és vida".
Sortíem al carrer i érem poqueta gent, les primeres vegades, i la millor sorpresa va ser descobrir que no estàvem sols. Ja no érem una gota, n'érem moltes més, ja no semblàvem riuades; riuades d'aire fresc que tocaven la pell i arribaven als cors.
Tenim la nostra música, lo nostre vent, tenim la nostra serra. També tenim una vella i bonica forma de parlar. I un riu que s'obri pas de la muntanya al mar entremig de la terra, un riu que dóna vida i al que tots junts hem après a estimar.
Tota la gent de l'Ebre està ben unida per una veu que crida "lo riu és vida". I als pobles de la terra ja no s'oblida que hi ha una veu que crida "lo riu és vida".
Ours has been a land that brought happiness to those who loved it.
Ours have been people who always lived it with passion,
and then bad news swept through the Delta like a gust of wind:
we might lose our water and face a truly trying time.
They troubled us, putting all our patience to the test;
they troubled us, caring little whether we were right,
yet our cause joined hands with the voice of science:
a culture was born, teaching us to live a better life.
All the people of the Ebre stand united
by a voice that cries out: "The river is life."
And in the towns across the land, no one forgets
that a voice is crying out: "The river is life."
We took to the streets, just a handful of us at first
and the greatest surprise was discovering we were not alone.
We were no longer a single drop, but many; we became a rushing tide
a breath of fresh air that touched our skin and reached our hearts.
We have our music, our winds, and our mountain range.
We also have an old and beautiful way of speaking.
And a river that carves its path from the mountains to the sea,
a river that gives life -one we have all learned to love together.
Tota la gent de l'Ebre està ben unida per una veu que crida "lo riu és vida". I als pobles de la terra ja no s'oblida que hi ha una veu que crida "lo riu és vida".
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