Who goes there?

The town Hall in Pinoso produces a glossy magazine each month, called el Cabeço, as a way of keeping its citizens up to date. It's always good fun with plenty of argy bargy between the political parties in amongst the real news and those human interest stories with a local flavour - Pinoso man moistened; Titanic sinks!

Big stories this month included the idea that Spain's strategic oil reserve may be pumped from the refineries at Cartagena into the caverns formed where salt has been "mined" from our local mountain. There are our new water prices too, a new tiered pricing system which will see those houses that use most charged a massive 1.10€ for every 250 gallons of water - luckily for us we don't like washing much and I expect we'll be in the 28 cents per 250 gallons bracket.

It was the population figures that I lingered over most though.

At the start of 2010 there were 8,031 people living in Pinoso (that includes the villages such as Culebrón), 6,627 or 82.5% of those people were Spaniards and the next largest group? Go on, you've guessed, I can see that little knowing smile - yes, us, the Brits with just short of 8% of the population or 624 people whupping those Ecuadorians (162), Ucranians (95) and Moroccans (81) by miles. There are 42 different nationalities in Pinoso.