We have lift-off!

S's official book launch today! He had a full on Catalan immersion. First he spent the day at a Pyrenean literature book fair in Organyà, where his publisher had a stand. This is about a two-hour drive away, and then he had to drive almost all the way back, to the Naturallibre bookshop in Alins where he was due to do a presentation ... in Catalan.

This bookshop is amazing. It's in a small village up an obscure side valley in the Pyrenees run by a very enterprising young woman; you can see maybe half the stock on display in extra 1. I should think she must have virtually every book ever published about the Pyrenees, in Catalan and Spanish at least. She regularly hosts events and book signings, and for this she had lined up Santi Palazon, who is a big cheese in rewilding in Catalonia. S hadn't met him before, but they did speak on the phone last week. "He knows  a lot more about the biology than I do -- I'll stick to cultural aspects and let him do most of the talking," he decided.

G, A and I thought we'd set off to Alins in plenty of time, but we were wrong. Having found a parking space in the crowded car park, we followed a host of people to the bookshop, arriving only minutes before 7 pm. We could hear the buzz from down the street ... it was packed, with standing room only (extra 3) -- there must have been 50 or 60 people. The people who arrived after us had to stand in the street. Luckily it had stopped raining by then. I was glad someone eventually offered us oldies their seats, because the event went on for nearly two hours. I was totally overwhelmed by S handling the whole thing in Catalan. He's been laser-focused on learning it over the last year, and spoke with aplomb.

Initially he and Santi had a conversation, but inevitably there was audience participation later, sometimes heated, but not aggressive. At least as far as I could tell. I could understand everything S said, and a fair amount of what Santi said, but once the locals waded in, it got much too hard, although I could at least tell that the couple of most vociferous contributors were shepherds who didn't like bears. So I judged how it was going by S and Santi's facial expressions.

Afterwards there was general milling around, congratulations, and book signing. Then an exhausted S had to drive back to Organyà because he has another talk on Sunday morning. The rest of us drove back to Bordes de Graus and stopped for a celebratory drink in the bar. S will be back later, so I can find out what all the discussion was about from him. What a day!