Written by Veronika

With the internet lots of encounters are being made every time a person uses social networking or reads other peoples’  blogs. Whether it is the “friend” on Facebook one talks to once in a while or the virtual village in your Instagram timeline – with some of the people one doesn’t even know their real name, with others one develops a personal friendship over the time.

With Lea and me the second thing happened, without much effort from both sides. We were both reading and commenting about the others lives and thoughts on their blogs, where we have been writing about family stuff and raising little children and about motherhood in general. Lea was (blog-wise) on our side , while we planned going to Spain in the beginning of the year and commented through doubts and questions and put in some ideas and encouragement when necessary.

Therefore, when I read about their travel during the parental leave to Portugal, I invited her and her family for a stop in Cervera on the way. The plans developed and we invited them to put their tent up in the garden for a couple days…

But, as plans never work out as you expect them, we were supposed to have the worst rain in the whole year (and probably also the worst in the last five years). Just s h o w i n g  the garden was a quite wet experience, not to mention how the heck they were supposed to set up a tent there and stay in the rain with two children under 3…. not very comfortable camping experience…
So we spontaneously invited them into our flat and even though we just knew each other a couple hours in reality, it felt like a long friendship. Our husbands were a bit sceptically in the beginning to (on the one side) visit people which one hasn’t seen before and (on the other had) inviting someone for a couple days without knowing if the chemistry would be right – but luckily it was right!

After one rainy night in our small guestroom with literally no space to move, (with all the mattresses occupying the floor), they were able to set up their tent in the garden. With the art camp in the summer all needed bathroom facilities had been set up, so it was almost like “glamping” (=glamour camping). For the children it was adventurous enough and they had a great time in the garden.

We did some trips together and showed them the region – and even had one last swim in the sea, before autumn arrived.

Then the big flood was being announced, and the family had to bundle up their tent in the middle of the night. And one night earlier than planned they continued their way to Portugal. In retrospect, a good decision – without a ship, they wouldn’t have been able to stay dry in the garden during the big rainfalls… or could you imagine a tent here…?

But because we all fit together quite well, because Lea and her husband liked the village a lot and the children got along as well, they visited us again last week on their way back from Portugal to Germany. Five weeks have passed during the two visits, and primarily you could see the time passing on their 7 months old baby, who had learned and changed so much during this short time. Secondly, with the winter getting surprisingly cold in Spain, the weather wasn’t good to camp in the garden anymore. So we organized a house for them to stay.
This time we didn’t go the beach. Instead we went to the forest and searched for the typical mushroom in the region, called “Rovellons” or “Niscalos”. The german word is “Edel-Reizker”. It’s kind of a sporting event here to go Niscalo-hunting on the weekends, so it was good for us that we already went Friday morning. We were able to find a good portion for all of us.

Of course, our final dinner included mushrooms and a lot of other tasty food. But it was not a farewell for forever.

The colour garden, the rain and the long stopovers on the way to and from Portugal connected us even more than the internet would have been able too and we will for sure meet somewhere sometime again.