Phew! What a Scorcher.... or not

Because I used to own an anorak I keep records of maximum and minimum temperatures.

I thought it would be reasonably interesting to log the summer temperatures bearing in mind that it was much cooler in Ciudad Rodrigo (where we were living in June) than it has been in Alicante for July and August.

Despite what our friends and neighbours say the temperature only reached 40ºC on one day, the 24 July, and our lowest overnight temperature here in Culebrón was 16ºC on 18 July.

Looking at the spread of temperatures I would say that a sunny and warm day with a minimum of 19ºC and a high of 32ºC would be the most typical whilst we've been here in Culebrón.

Turned out nice again then.

Rice with rabbit and snails

We went out for lunch with our old pals John and Trish today and we went to a reasonably decent restaurant in town. We had, probably, the most traditional meal in Pinoso and I was a bit surprised when it seemed to be something a bit out of the ordinary for them.

Then I checked the blog and found that I've only once made reference to it here on this blog. A wrong to be righted.

Rice, cooked in a paella pan is a standard meal all over Spain, all over the World come to that, but the famous paella, the one from Valencia usually has prawns, other seafood and chicken. The one in these here parts comes with rabbit and snails. The meal in and around Pinoso goes something like this.

First you choose an assortment of bits and bats to start that are put on the table for everyone to share. Toasted and oiled bread served with some alli olli and grated tomato, salad, olives and nuts come more or less as standard. The rest will be to your choice, whatever they have on today plus some staples, usually things like small fried squid, clams, dry cured ham and cheese or, one of Maggie's favourites, deep fried cheese with tomato jam.

The freshly cooked rice itself will be served with a flourish. The big paella pan will be placed in the centre of the table on a scorched mat or holder of some kind or if there are a lot of you it will be popped onto a small stand placed beside the main table. It is essential that you make appropriate cooing noises at this point. If the pan is on the table you will be asked if you want plates as it often makes sense to eat directly from the pan (more room for the wine glasses!) Throughout the meal each passing waiter will check that the food is good. The appropriate and only answer is smashing - "Muy rico!"

The main course despatched there is the regular range of puddings. Once upon a time the choice was flan (creme caramel), ice cream or seasonal fruit but nowadays it's just like going to a Harvester in that the pudding list is extensive and sickly sweet.

At coffee time though there are a couple of last minute flourishes. Normally they will plonk a bottle of smeet wine, Moscatel or Mistela on the table though today we got Fondillon - thick, syrupy sweet wines. Sometimes, often, you are offered an alternative like Orujo de Hierbas - a spirit distilled from the left over pulp of wine making grapes flavoured with herbs - even better when you get offered both. Along with the digestif come perusas. Maggie calls them dust cakes. A sort of individual sized sweet bready cake full of bubbles and dusted with caster sugar.

And that's it. A light snack that, along with the habitual after meal conversation will take you from the normal sit down time of 2pm to around 4 or 4.30pm. Only a couple of hours to go before you can get yourself a few tapas to hold off the inevitable hunger pangs before you chow down to your evening meal at around 10pm.

Round town

It would be hard to describe Pinoso as good looking. In fact if I were searching for everyday adjectives to describe our home town I'd go for words like scruffy, messy, boring and dusty. The one horse has most definitely left.

In truth Alicante province is a bit short of handsome towns - a few like Orihuela and Elche have a collection of monumental buildings but generally the townscape consists of anonymous and boring concrete boxes. What's more there is a mania for pulling down anything old but ordinary to use the space for something much more utilitarian.

Nonetheless there is a traditional style of Alicantino house. Originally the facades were of plain stone - something like dry stone walling but with mortar holding the irregular sized stones in place - though with time the facades were rendered and then painted in bright colours. It's usually two or three storeys high and the windows are tall and rectangular with grills or rejas and surrounding casements. The door is tall and wooden and there are metal fenced balconies on the first floor.

I went in search of a couple of these houses in Pinoso and I was surprised just how many there were sandwiched between the more modern buildings. Lots are in a bad way just waiting for the property speculators though the meltdown in the construction industry may have given them a stay of execution.

More pictures on the Some of my snaps link

Mileuristas

Mil means 1,000 in Spanish, euristas is derived from Euro, the currency, and, to finish the word off it is personalised with that ending istas. So Mileuristas are those people who earn around 1,000€ (£870) per month.

I aspire to be a mileurista, I've never been paid as much as 1,000€ per month either before or after tax whilst I've been in Spain. Fortunately Maggie breaks the barrier easily enough.

There was a report yesterday that said that 63% of the Spanish workforce earned less than 1,100€ per month - that's less than 13,200€ gross per year. The average wage here is 18,087€ gross (before tax etc.) If we were doing this in sterling we'd be talking £15,727 per year. In the UK it's around £24,000.

Now we all know that averages are rubbish, I'm almost certain for instance that you have more than the average number of feet! Nonetheless it feels true that Spanish people earn derisory amounts of cash by European standards. I heard one of those "dolebuster" features on the radio where a boss was obviously proud that he was offering a salary of 18,000€ for a trained and experienced chemical engineer. The woman in the dole office agreed with me that it wasn't too ridiculously greedy to ask for a salary of 1,500€ per month if I would have to move house to take up a new job.

Earnings of course mean nothing without being able to judge outgoings too. The 2 bed flat we've just rented in Cartagena seemed averagely priced at 550€ per month. A litre of milk costs around 70 cents and it's about 6€ to go to the pictures. We thought we were onto a good deal for a phone/broadband and basic TV package at around 65€ per month. A litre of ordinary diesel is 85 cents and 95 octane petrol 94 cents. A bread stick might be discounted but expect to pay around 50 cents and an English style loaf can cost as much as 2.50€. It's a long time since I've been in the UK but I suspect that some of those prices sound good and others sound high. Not drastically different though. And not enough to make that 63% of the population comfortable.

Razor sharp

When I was in Ciudad Rodrigo I read a book that described life in the villages of Salamanca province in the first thirty or forty of the last century. One of the stories was about the knife grinder cum bucket mender who turned up from season to season. Days long gone.

We were in Pinoso today. This chap was plying his trade

He loved Big Brother

I signed up for the Spanish eBay today and I had a bit of a struggle entering my NIE - the 9 character code that identifies we resident foreigners - it annoyed me a lot.

Everyone in Spain has to carry ID. The most usual way for Spanish nationals to do this is to carry their DNI, an identity card.

Youngsters don't have to hold a card until they are over 14 but it is usual to apply for a DNI for a child as soon as their birth is registered. If a family decides not to apply for a DNI for their child "at birth" then the details of the minor have to be entered in the "family book." Foreigners have to carry ID too, usually a passport.

Foreigners who are resident in Spain have to apply for an ID number as does anyone who wishes to carry out any financial transactions here whether they are resident or not.

The identity "number" for Spanish Nationals, the DNI, has 8 figures and just one control letter whilst the one for foreigners, the NIE, has a letter at both the beginning and the end with seven numbers in the middle. Spaniards are always surprised, nay shocked, to find that UK passport numbers change from issue to issue. Their Spanish ID numbers follow them through life appearing on passports, driving licences etc.

The Spanish ID card carries simple details like a photo, name, date of birth, place of birth, address, names of parents etc. Until recently it also carried a finger print but the newest cards carry the characteristics of that print in electronic form on a chip and also provide a digital signature for electronic transactions. So every Spaniard is fingerprinted - something currently reserved for criminals or suspected criminals (oh and motorists) in the UK.

Everyone, but everyone, thinks they have the right to see your ID. I needed it for eBay, I needed it to register my mobile phone, to sign on the dole, to rent a flat, to register in a hotel, to hire a car, to get a credit card, to pay by credit card, to open a bank account, to register for health care, to get gas bottles and even to join a classic car club.

You don't need to know you account number at the bank or your social security number at the tax office so long as you have your DNI/NIE. Everything, but everything, is connected to your ID number. Lots of official Spanish databases are linked and I suspect that it would be very easy for someone to access lots and lots of information about anyone living in Spain.

The Spanish ID card was introduced by Franco, a dictator. He got card number 1 and he left the numbers up to 100 for his family and for the Royals. Our King has number 10.

Horny!

The bloke in this video is a mobile mechanic, a Brit, who works around here. Someone told us that he'd had a bad time with the cows during the Pinoso Fiesta but I only got around to looking today. Nice eh?

He got away with bruises and what not. Nothing broken, no long term physical damage.

Was Barti wrong?

When we first moved to the countryside Maggie was still working at Newton College and she asked the gardener there, a bloke called Bartolomé, how to care for palm trees (we have one in the garden.) "Do nothing, just enjoy it," he said, "Palms, olives, pines and figs don't need any help, they belong here, they can cope."

We've been back in Culebrón from the beginning of July and, so far as I know, we've had two rain showers, one lasted a couple of hours and the other just a few minutes. It's been warm too, mid 30s for weeks and weeks. Splendid weather.

We just noticed that the small fig tree, the one that gives the green figs, was looking a bit sad. Maybe it's hosepipe time.

Miracles go hand in hand

So we were reconnected. We were back in touch but the speed was running at less than 1mb. Slow. Youtube videos stalling, 10 minutes to download the Archers podcast (I know, I know but some people can't let go of pork pies) and longer to upload snaps to Picassa.

The thing is we were on the Internet here before and we had 3mb. When the engineers put in the line they were optimistic about the speed we may be able to achieve. So I phoned Telefonica. The line to customer services was as crackly as that cowboy who wore a brown paper waistcoat, brown paper shirt and brown paper trousers - the one who was arrested for rustling. Nonetheless the South American customer services person didn't give up on me. "Can we have something faster?" I asked. "You can have 3mb" she finally answered after a very creditable 14 minutes on the phone. "It will take about 8 days" she said and we left each other as firm friends.

We have 3mb today. Incredible really. We asked for 6mb, we were offered 1mb which we took (no option) but all the time there was an option of 3mb. Splendid service.

A miracle

"Hello, this is Telefonica, we're down by the bar in Culebrón, can you come and fetch us?"

So finally, after nearly seven weeks of waiting we have the phone and Internet back.

We had all the cables and what not still in place so we'd expected nothing more than someone tapping something into a computer at the exchange but the engineers spent ages up and down ladders on some nearby properties and then had to restring a cable from the telegraph pole. But who cares? We're back in touch.

Border hopping

I find borders and border towns strange places. Between Portugal and Spain any physical barriers have gone but it's a diffrent time and a different language. Between Spain and Morocco there seemed to be a World of difference just like passing from the US to Mexico.

Not content with one border in one day we travelled back from Ceuta to the mainland and then drove to La Linea where we parked the car and walked across the frontier to the UK.

I suppose Gibraltar is keen to prove its Britishness. There seemed to be more pillar boxes on Main Street than in the whole of Huntingdon. Red phone boxes were still in use, fish and chips are on sale every ten yards (none of that funny metres stuff by Gad) whilst the Bobbies wear pointed hats and not a trace of that Bat Utility Belt/Flack Jacket type stuff. Aah, the good old days!

It was a pleasant interlude though. I thought Maggie might weep for joy as she raced around M&S grasping clothes that she knew would fit. We were able to marvel at the funny bank notes we got from a hole in the wall machine using a UK card, we bought burritos in a boozer where they sold bitter, I got a pack of Hamlet cigars and we bought some of those Celebration chocolates as a gift for someone back in Alicante. Oh, and we had absolutely no language difficulties anywhere we went - everyone we met spoke English.

But Gib's not much like the UK really. It's hot for one thing, the cars are left hand drive and petrol and fags were definitely cheap. I suspect there are quite a lot of much more profound differences for those who stay for longer than a couple of hours. I did ask what time it was, by the way, just in case it was different to Spain - it wasn't.

A glimpse of another place

The taxi driver wasn't keen to slow down, let alone stop. The district was called El Principe, The Prince, "Muy peligroso, very dangerous," he said. It looked dodgy. Long lines of Moroccans crossing over the border into Ceuta and Spain and milling around the buildings that made up the sorry looking industrial estate on the Spanish side. There were lots of blokes camping out on the flat rooves of the factories. It looked as though they lived there at least for the moment. Who knows why. Apparently they cross the border to sell things "clothes and shampoo," said the driver.

We had asked to be taken to the fence that separates Spain from Morocco. The rich from the poor. It's a high, double line of barbed wire topped fencing with open moats around it. From time to time groups of would be immigrants storm the fence with scaling ladders built of twigs.The Guardia Civil and Moroccan Army beat them back - "defending" the southern border of Europe. Sometimes people die in the attempt.

There was a Guardia Civil post and a no entry sign as we got to the fence. The taxi driver asked if he could turn around in the restricted zone explaining he had English tourists on board. I jumped out and took a couple of photos. The Guardia told me no photos and I said okey dokey and we were away again.

I don't really understand why people have to storm the fence if they can get through the frontier legally - couldn't they get by the fence without too much hassle and then set about the difficult task of getting onto the mainland? I suppose, though, that lots of people who get to that fence won't be Moroccans but will be Africans who have walked across lots of borders ill,egally, heading hopefully for the euro zone. It didn't look like a hopeful place.

Golden Days

There wasn't much choice of accommodation in Ceuta. One of the options was the Parador but they are usually quite expensive. Then we noticed their Días Dorados offer - a 30% discount for older people.

And I qualified. My first ever old age related benefit.

Murphy, stronger than gravity

I'm sitting in the Parador in Ceuta. I have views over the Strait of Gibraltar. We are about 650kms from home. We have been waiting for Telefonica to install a phone line since late June and the engineer rang about ten minutes ago to say he was on his way. I didn't tell him we weren't there. I rang our neighbour to see if he could let the engineer in. He wasn't keen, I could tell, but sterling chap that he is he said he would. Who knows we may have a phone line by the time we get back to Europe.

South of Granada

This young chap had hair like Weird Al Yankovic, baggy shorts and big trainers. His mate was playing music from a computer and we were buying mango tequilas and mojitos. It's like that in Tarifa, the last landfall in Europe. Views over to Africa.

We were on our way to Africa, to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the northermost coast. When Spanish people mention Gibraltar just whisper Ceuta (or Melilla) and they'll change the topic of conversation. The Moroccans aren't too keen on the Spanish presence on their soil - it's just like the Spaniards with the Brits on Gibraltar.

Tarifa was heaving with people but the noticeable ones were the young ones, the beach bums, all tans and conversations about hot sticks. Every corner had someone playing a wok (honest) or trying to sell harem pants. And the place smells of cannabis and incense. It was remarkably expensive too. Those two drinks cost 14€ but the young man did give us a cocktail glass of sweeties. Very nice.

Downbeat

The pregon has done his stuff, he opened the 10 days of fiestas in Pinoso on Saturday evening by cutting the ribbon and turning on the lights just after he'd finished his turgid little speech.

Talking of crisis, financial crisis, is old hat in Spain. Every radio show I've heard this weekend has said something like "We don't want to talk about the crisis on this show but...." Not having money, huge unemployment, people losing their homes, deflation, apalling economic figures, banks pulling up the drawbridges - that's crisis - and it is everywhere here.

For Pinoso, with income from the marble quarries slashed, the local Town hall has no idea how to balance its books. Increasing income through increased local taxes is on the cards but cutting services, making people redundant and axing posts is something the local councillors have never had to do before and they don't want to do it now. Presumably the people they would have to sack would all be family members anyway! - so I suppose most of them are a bit worried about getting it in the neck from Aunt Inmaculada or Cousin Paco if they end up sacking young Manuel.

So, no bull fight this year. Too expensive. The lights in the street are less gaudy and there are fewer of them. The programme features no big name acts and even the programme itself, the paper version, is slimmer and less lavish. There are fewer stalls too. Presumably some of them have gone to the wall since last year.

My guess is that traditional fiestas in Spain were having a hard time before the crisis. Where we live would have been very isolated not very long ago. When the time came for Fiestas it would be the opportunity to buy new pots and pans for the house, to try some tasty tid bits of food, to drink too much, to have a laugh on the stalls, to eat out, to buy and show off new clothes, to dance, to sing, to run with bulls - to take a bit of time for yourself and for your family to do all those fun things that were denied to you most of the year - things miles away from your everyday existence. But it's not like that now is it? Carrefour and Mercadona have pots and pans and more exotic food than ever came to town with the fair. It's easy to drive to any number of shopping centres or hypermarkets in your car and it's easy to do all of the other things too. How can a ghost train set out in a dusty car park compete with the multi million Euro equivalent just 60 minutes away in Terra Mitica Theme park?

Car Booting again

We seem to be soaking up the Britishness of inland Alicante at the moment. Maggie is keen; We've eaten curries and had several drinks in English run places and I'm sure that Maggie would have had me at the auction or the quiz if I hadn't screwed my face and made those funny little gasping noises.

Anyway I've mentioned the car boot sales before. I was snooty about them in the beginning but as I saw the way that all sorts of nationalities took to the idea I realised that they were a real cultural export and not just a way to shift dodgy goods.

The local car boot sale used to be about five minutes away from our house. The sale was run as a partnership between my old boss and a chap who runs a successful local English language magazine. That partnership hit some difficulties so the magazine publisher found himself another site and made sure that it was squeaky clean in relation to local byelaws and suchlike before he opened it up again.

The sale is running on a trial basis at the moment, just once a month, so this was our first chance to go and have a nose around. There were probably as many stalls as at the old place but, because the site has a different, layout it didn't feel so busy. The goods were different too, real car boot stuff, the things from lofts, garages and jumble drawers rather than stuff bought in for the occasion.