Life in Culebrón

I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure there’s been a bit of an upsurge in Valenciano speaking in Pinoso lately. It feels as if more young people are using it as their first language than they did just a few years ago. Of course, it could simply be that I’ve become better at recognising it—or that I’m eavesdropping more now that my leisure-time activities are shrinking along with my physical capacity.   There’s definitely an institutional push, too. The local council has been using Valenciano more and more. Only the other day, Pinoso Town Hall launched a new Facebook page—its title is in Valenciano: Ajuntament del Pinós. I wouldn’t be surprised if before long Pinoso, or El Pinós if you prefer, follows Monòver’s example and goes fully Valenciano. Monòver even changed all its road signs to Valencian versions of village names. To be fair, those were probably the original ones, though that assumes Valenciano speakers named the towns in the first place. In reality, waves of migration ...

A little while ago, I blethered on about how impressed I’d been by one of those online language-learning platforms driven by AI. This post is a bit more on AI tools and learning a language—Spanish in my case. For a while now, I’ve tried to motivate myself to squeeze in just ten minutes of Spanish vocabulary every day. It’s ages since I've sat down in front of a grammar book and ploughed through the unremitting grind of learning verb tables or trying to understand demonstrative pronouns, but I decided that trying to increase my vocabulary was reasonable enough. And I still look up the odd grammar point from time to time. The adverts on Facebook and Insta insist that such things are unnecessary, and, much as I'd like to agree, I can't. Learning a language is, I think, one vast memory exercise. Obviously there are principles to understand, but language learning isn't driven by principles in the way that maths or chemistry is. Language is logical only to a point. There’s no...

Every now and again, someone asks me for suggestions for things to do. I suspect it’s because I put photos of almost everywhere we go online, so it looks like we’re constantly out and about. We really aren’t. Still, it made me wonder whether there was a blog in it, a sort of local, "things to see and do".  I imagined it would be simple: mention a few places I liked, add in a few side references, and in no time I’d have an easy and interesting blog. So that's what I started to do. My first thought was the Casa Modernista in Novelda. Not far away, a nice, easy visit—interesting, without much walking and well laid out. People we’ve taken there have always liked it. Recently, opening times have become a bit haphazard, so it’s best to book. The Fundación Mediterráneo, which oversees the Novelda house, also runs the Azorín museum in Monóvar. It’s a nice enough old house, with links to the writer. It has wooden furniture and pretty floor tiles but its main attraction is that it’...

I have a hunch that a Spanish general election is in the offing. It’s not because of the number of corruption cases hovering around the governing Socialist Party. It’s not because Junts per Catalunya has recently announced that the government hasn’t kept its promises and they can no longer be expected to support its initiatives. It’s not even because anyone has muttered about a motion of no confidence — nothing like that. No, my suspicion comes from something much slighter: Pedro Sánchez popped into the Radio 3 programme Generación Ya last week. Radio 3, for the uninitiated, is the culture station of Spain’s state broadcaster, RTVE, Radio Televisión España, one of the radio stations that together form RNE, Radio Nacional de España. It’s nothing like the BBC’s Radio 3; the Spanish equivalent for classical music would be Radio Clásica. Radio 3’s natural habitat is contemporary music — rock, pop, indie, electronic, dance, and plenty that slips between the descriptive cracks. An eclectic...

This post has nothing much to do with language, but the starting point is, nonetheless, a series of videos and podcasts that I’ve recommended before. Ben and Marina, the Anglo-Spanish couple, produce this material under the Notes in Spanish banner. They currently have two strands: one devoted to pure language content, something – Six essential phrases with llevar – and the other is about how to learn – Mistakes are good, Fluency before accuracy – and so on. I like their work, and if you’re trying to learn Spanish and haven’t come across them, it’s well worth a look. Much of it is free, though they’re also happy to sell you additional materials. In their How to get better at Spanish strand, they encourage people to read in Spanish, watch Spanish videos and television, and take every chance to speak. They often repeat the idea that “You learned your native language by listening” – the notion being that if it works for babies, why not for adults? It may be a little simplistic, but it’s fa...

No blog last week because we popped over to Mallorca. Mind you, the airlines and the booking agency did their best to complicate it all, going so far as to cancel our hotel booking without mentioning it to us. It all sorted itself out though, as these things so often do. I sort of enjoyed Mallorca and I sort of didn’t. It had some big hills, the sea was sparkly and clear, there was a pleasant greenness to the island and lots of the villages are architecturally worthy even when they’re swamped with visitors like us. I’ve been on the island a few times but, when I checked when we were last there, and it turned out to be over 15 years ago. Naturally, we tourists were everywhere. After our experience in Seville back in June, that came as no surprise. We’d expected the island to be busy — it’s one of Europe’s most established holiday destinations — but some things were worse than I’d anticipated. It seemed that Mallorca had given up on being Mallorcan, or even Spanish, and just become touri...

It was in Vilanova d'Alcolea in Castellón that I really thought I was going to be burned alive. I ran faster that evening than I have since I was fourteen when I was being chased around a cross-country course by some deranged PE teacher who beat me with a stick if I tried to slow down. Then again, only last weekend, in Novelda, a group of men and women, dressed as devils, were making as though to set me on fire. Here in the Comunitat Valenciana, from tiny villages in Castellón to the bustling streets of Valencia or on the beaches of Alicante, people like to set things on fire and to set off pyrotechnics—fireworks of all sorts, shapes, and sizes. It's not just the Fallas in Valencia or the Hogueras de San Juan in Alicante; it's absolutely everywhere - even in the streets and villages of Pinoso. Valencianos always seem ready to put another log on the fire or light the blue touch paper and stand well back at the drop of a hat.  I hoped to find an organised and methodical way t...

My theory is simple enough. Spaniards like to talk. A corollary to that may be that Britons prefer to read. I suppose that Spaniards like to interact with other people, whenever possible. I mean, for goodness’ sake, why else would anyone going into a post office, or a hospital waiting room, feel the need to say hello to the room in general? Or why on that quiet woodland stroll does every sport clothes clad passer-by offer a greeting? I know walkers do it everywhere, but this is for the walk from the car park to the neolithic cave, not a trudge along the Pennine Way. It is, I have to say, possibly true that this universal truth is not so universal where the pace is hustle and bustle. It is right for our little corner of the world, but it may be that nobody in Zaragoza says hello as they enter the bank, although I suspect they do. I mean, otherwise how would they queue? We Britons stand in a line. There is a physical marker. No need to communicate. All we have to do is look up from our p...

I was watching the TV news and guffawing slightly as egg-throwing ratepayers tried to pelt the mayor of Morrazo in Galicia. She was escorted to her car by police officers crouching behind transparent shields. The unpleasantness was caused by an increase in the rubbish collection rates. How much the price was upped depends on which source you believe but it was probably about 70%. All over Spain, rubbish collection charges have been going up. If you live in Pinoso, you will remember that the town doubled its rubbish charge to 120€ from 60€ in 2024. I vaguely recall that Orihuela residents took to the streets a little while ago when their water and rubbish charges went up a lot and I think there are other local examples too. Pinoso residents did not go a burnin' and lootin' in 2024. These increases are driven by European and Spanish legislation that requires town halls to ensure that individuals and businesses cover the real cost of processing the rubbish they produce. Subsidies ...