Jajajajajaja! That’s how they laugh in Argentina. That’s the first line of any email from Elena on receipt of another three laboured lines from me in Spanish. My young tutor Pia from Chile has been excellent. She hasn’t laughed at the knots I’ve tied in her language. She makes me feel I’m communicating. I can…

Tantalised by Claire’s delicious story about a Moroccan chef called Mohammed making a tagine, I realised I had my very own … May 2005, I was at Can Serrat Artists’ and Writers’ Residency at the base of Montserrat near Barcelona. From my memoir Digging for Spain: When the original twelve Norwegian art students bought the…