Modesty

To Besalu for supper, a warm slightly humid evening with swallows swooping, swifts insect harvesting and children playing ball in the middle of the road oblivious to traffic.

In the charming but slightly irritating way of Catalunya, the restaurant where we planned to have supper was closed, despite having taken a booking from us earlier. So we wandered across the bridge to the main square where there is a knot of bars serving tapas.

I noticed the tree outside the Curia Real was swathed in a crocheted sleeve, as were the smaller plane saplings in the main square.

My guests, being simple Edinburgh folk were bemused. I had to explain to them that the custom of wrapping the trunks in brightly coloured stockings was a tradition that goes back many years to the first lady mayoress of Besalu.

A formidable maiden lady of great political skill but somewhat old fashioned views, she regarded the naked trunks of trees as provocative and lustful, rather in the manner of victorian ladies in Britain who sheathed the legs of their pianos in muslin lest female guests should be offended.

The local women came together and devised a scheme whereby the trees would be shielded from view by draping them in fabric, so avoiding the sight of young vertical but naked trunks upsetting the sensibilities or inflaming the fantasies of the unmarried feminine population.

The tradition has developed, and now the young men of the town gather in the foyer of the Museum of Embotits ( Sausages) in the Pla?a d'Adjuntiment every Tuesday during June and crochet the coverings for the trees in the square. The trees remain covered for the month of July.

Each family has its own unique pattern that they crochet to, and a prize is offered by the town at the end of July to the most prettily decorated tree.

The Copa de "gos amb cocked cama" is most keenly fought over and is then displayed in the museum for the following year with a sample of the winning crochet.