Carrer de la Paloma, Barcelona

Stop, Look, Listen – A New Series Documenting Special City Streets

Words – Nick Scammell

:You can stand on the cobbles of Carrer de la Paloma on an early Friday afternoon in late June and see a sliver of blue sky sharpen to a point between the two sides of the street. Countless aerials poke out from the rooftops, on the balconies bright little wheels turn in the breeze and from the lines on the balconies 1000s of sheets and shirts, blouses and silks flutter and sway, flags of all sizes, colours and patterns, catching the drying sun. And it's you at one end of the street and an open palm at the other.

Suddenly struck, you sit down with a pad and a pen and a coke and try to capture it all, as you breathe in the sharp piny fragrance of the small palm in the large pot on which you sit. But you're only beginning when you hear a beep and stand to allow a small battered red car the chance to pass through the narrow mouth of the street.

You sit down again and a light breeze picks up as, in white, two men and a young boy stroll by, returning home from Friday prayers, and an older man arrives to rummage half-heartedly in the bins in front of you, before you become aware of a baby squalling from a window on the street behind you and motos gargling into life as another young man in white walks by.

You wish you had brought your camera so that you could record all of this life, then realise you wouldn't know what to photograph, and all you've got are words as a small girl in blue with green and red kites and a badminton racquet races out of the street from the supermercat, glancing at you for just a second.

You're still trying as shutters fall on shops closing up for lunch, distant radios and TVs chatter to each other, and a pigeon pecks at a puddle, before flitting away as a moto tools near, causing you to notice a pair of black bicycles chained together, leant against the wall in the sunlight - you hadn't seen them before, even though you've been looking up this street for at least five minutes.

Then your view is obscured as an abuela in a pink flowery dress opens up a bin in front of you and drops in a pair of drawers, turning to leave as another young man in white rolls by in a wheelchair, iPod plugged. A man with a black striped white cap takes a quick peek in the furthest bin and you get another waft of that piny tree smell as you wonder when that car idling to your right will leave.

For no particular reason you look up, see a pigeon sailing down the knife of blue sky above you, then down to see a few ferns have just been delivered to a shop on the right side of the street. A man leans close to you and asks if you know of any nearby motels for him and his puta and you think you're finished, but just then a small girl stops beside you to adjust her hold on the very heavy white plastic bag of groceries that she is carrying with just one hand - beside her a younger brother carrying a red hello kitty fan nearly as big as he. Espera, she says, adjusts, then: vamos.

And all this happens in what feels like about five minutes, but might have been more and that baby is still crying and are those bananas over there or potatoes? You step away, unable to write a thing.

Carrer = Street
Moto = moped
Supermercat = Supermarket
Abuela = Grandma
Puta = Prostitute