It's a sad fact of life that, for the many of us who do not live in the likes of California, winter descends upon us with unfailing regularity - once a year, in fact! As it is that time now for an awful lot of us, perhaps it is time to share our home-brewed remedy for the onslaught of the doom and gloom period. There was a time when we used to take holidays in the summer, like the majority of people but, with the arrival of a large-ish garden we decided to change our habits. Now the late spring, summer and autumn are entirely dedicated to enjoyment of the garden and the best of our fickle weather. Don't get me wrong, we still take holidays, when we can afford them, but the difference is that they coincide with the onset of winter, in about November and the end of winter, in about February/March. So what better, at this dark time, than to share one of our most recent budget escapes into the sun.

The southern Spanish weather in November can be capricious and, in northern Spain and Catalonia, that is even more true. However, we were in luck - just one day of rain and seven of glorious warm sunshine. Apart from all the obvious temptations of Barcelona, the Gaudí

architecture and the food, to name but two, as gardeners in a strange city we always head off to see what the locals do. Barcelona, and Catalonia in general, have rich natural resources, from the mountains and fertile agricultural and viticultural areas North and inland, to the marshlands and the beaches along the coast. It also boasts some spectacular gardens. The coming of the Olympic Games

in the early 90s was an enormous boost to the local economy and many areas which had been falling into disrepair began to be regenerated, including the public gardens. In Barcelona you are spoilt for choice but here I will just look at two.

The high hilltop which dominates the Barcelona seascape and houses the old fortress, conceals on its south-eastern side the Jardí Mossèn Costa i Llobera (quite a mouthful, eh?) jammed in on a slope between a vertical cliff and a newly-carved motorway which runs along the edge of the commercial dockyards.

The tourist guides barely mention them and we came upon them purely by chance on our first visit in the year of the Games. As they are relatively unknown, there are no hordes of people here and, in November, we only saw four other visitors. The gardens, located on the bottom of that steep South-facing slope, are almost entirely dedicated to sun-seekers, drought-lovers and succulents. As such, they are all plants which, for us, are totally exotic.

Apart from the more commonly found Mediterranean plants like