No signs of emotion on a calm day

If this is a revolution, then it is a quiet one. Barcelona went to the polls yesterday with all the excitement of a trip to the shops.

No drums were beaten, no horns blown – Catalonia decided its future calmly.

The last poll on October 1 had seen Spanish police manhandle and hit voters – a physical display of all that is wrong with Madrid rule, say nationalists.

Outraged at Madrid’s crackdown after the last vote, nationalist Catalans took to protesting in Place de Sant Jaume.

There was no sign of high emotion there yesterday, as children played in the winter sun beneath a large Christmas tree glistening with baubles.

This time there has been no reported violence or drama, just the steady flow of people into well-managed polling stations.

“It is so different from last time” Anna Mundet Molas, a pro-independence supporter, tells me as she watches people vote under the Christmas decorations at the Cervantes School in central Barcelona.

Barcelona is not a city be-decked with posters or flags. It is as if the population have toned their emotions down from the violence of two months ago.

The atmosphere in the Cervantes School was relaxed.

“It’s is going well” Miguel Beso Ntrera told The Courier. “There have been no problems.”