No typical

When I went to the pictures yesterday, and today come to that, the shopping centre in Petrer, where the multiplex is, was heaving. This is unusual. There aren't many shops in the shopping centre and I've always presumed that it's one of those that got it wrong. But not today, or yesterday.

I like this particular cinema because the staff are friendly and because it's not busy. Unlike all the other cinemas, which only show Hollywood, Spanish or worldwide hits, this cinema shows anything they can get hold of. One of the reasons being that in a few of the screens they still had film projectors so they were still showing film or, as a half way measure, they showed Blu Ray stuff. It's not exactly arts cinema, and all of it is dubbed, but I've seen some really offbeat stuff. They have just digitalized the last few screens so I suppose that will change.

The reason for this heavingosity in the car park, the hordes of shoppers in the centre and the queues in the cinema was Black Friday. Until last year I had never even heard of Black Friday.

On Halloween we were in Jumilla to go to the theatre. As we hit the pre theatre tapas there were hundreds of children dressed as witches, spidermen and vampires being shepherded from doorbell to doorbell shouting truco o trato a semi translation of trick or treat. Halloween is definitely gaining ground.

Over a week ago we were doing a big supermarket shop. The in store tannoy system was urging us to put in our order for our festive meat. The Christmas lottery advert is on the telly, there are adverts with snow, the Chinese shops have Christmas trees, the turrón table is out at the local fruit and nut co-op. The Christmas campaigns have started. Until very recently nothing Christmassy happened till December 1st at the earliest.

I haven't seen anything three wheeled or pulled by a donkey or mule for a while. They use contactless technology for the credit card at the petrol station and lots of things that I have complained about having to do in person during the life of this blog can now be done on the Internet. Spain has become much more like everywhere else really quickly recently.

Very, very grave

Today is All Saints' day in Spain. Well I suppose it's All Saint's all over the Catholic World, maybe farther afield, anywhere in the Christian World. How would I know without asking Google? Anyway, where was I? Oh Yes, so it's the day or at least the period when Spanish families go and clean up the family niches, mausoleums and pantheons.

Yesterday, on Saturday afternoon, the local Town Hall here in Pinoso offered a guided tour of the local cemetery to tie in with the general theme. I thought it was a great idea and I signed up straight away but nearly everyone else I spoke to about it seemed to think it was a bit strange. Indeed Maggie, who I'd signed up for the visit, decided to give it a miss so I went by myself. Amazingly, I was the only Brit in the group. There aren't many things where we aren't represented.

The Mayor and a couple of councillors were there but it was someone called Clara who did the tour. I don't know who she is but I have to say that she did a superb job. Strangely, she started her introductory remarks by saying that some people thought that the idea of a graveyard tour was a bit rocambolesco (bizarre) but she hoped that after we'd done it we wouldn't agree. Maybe she'd talked to some of the same people as me.

Clara started from the entrance way explaining why cypress trees outside (it's yews, tejos, in the UK isn't it?) went on to the reason that the graveyard had been moved from alongside the church and near the town centre as a result of a decree by the provisional government sheltering in Cadiz at the start of the 19th Century and then went on to explain the history of the cemetery in general and some of the specific tombs in particular.

We saw the disused room where autopsies were once performed, we went underground to see the grave of the first person buried there in 1912 - someone who gets free rental of their plot. We saw political rivals buried side by side, we saw Modernist and Gothic style pantheons and someone with the group had a book, a family heirloom passed from eldest son to eldest son, that explained the history and management of her own eighty space family mausoleum. The Mayor did the bit about the ossuary (the place where remains removed from old and abandoned graves and plots are buried together) in Valencià but I got the drift and I knew why Eli, another councillor, laid a floral tribute by the little sculpture there.

The whole thing lasted about an hour. One of the best small scale visits I've done for ages. Whoever thought of that idea deserves a slap on the back.

Ghost stories

As I drove home this evening I scanned the countryside for bonfires. I listened for the whistles and bangs of fireworks. There weren't any of course. It may have been Bonfire Night in the UK but there is no celebration here to mark the failiure of the Gunpowder Plot.

From what I understand Guy Fawkes Night has basically died out in the UK anyway. For me, as a boy in West Yorkshire, it was a big event. We spent weeks beforehand collecting wood and sitting around telling ghost stories, eating potatoes charred on the outside and raw inside after their ordeal by makeshift camp fire. There was toffee, bonfire toffee, sticky enough to challenge even the strong young teeth I had then. The Parkin didn't come till later, in the kitchen at home.

The big night on the 5th involved setting off any fieworks we had managed to scrounge together. When they were exhausted the bonfire became the focus of our attention for a while. It's amazing how one side of your body, the part facing the fire, can crackle with heat whilst the other side is lashed by the cold November air. I remember too that when I finally got home the quality of the tungsten light in the kitchen always seemed very stark after being outside in the dark so long. Even odder though was that there was obviously some sort of temporal hiccough. The kitchen clock said it was still only half past seven when we got home yet the evening had lasted ages and ages. How could that be? The long, cold and dark, dark autumnal evenings of my youth were scented with smoke.

A pal in Peterborough sent me an email this evening to say it was 2ºC. Traditional sort of Bonfire Night temperature I thought. Here in Spain I'd commented to Maggie as I came in that it was a bit parky at just 13ºC.

Last week of course it was Halloween. I saw lots of signs of that. Children dressed up parading around the streets, bars covered with cobwebs. It's an event that has passed me by over the years. It hardly existed in my childhood and as I have neither children nor grandchildren I haven't learned how it's done. My knowledge of Halloween comes largely from dodgy horror movies.

I did ask my students what they did on Halloween but as most of them are very young and their English is pretty basic the level of information I got back was scanty. Several were dressed up as mummies, zombies, vampires and witches. The interesting thing was that when I asked what they had done, expecting some sort of description of tricking and treating, the almost universal answer was that they had eaten. Pizza was popular, seafood moreso. Lots told me of prawns and clams.

This is excellent news. No Spanish festivity of any kind is complete without food. Lots of the British people I know complain that Halloween is a US import though I understand that the original celebration began in Ireland and went to the US via those long queues at Ellis Island. It may be a US export but in Spain it seems to have been subverted into yet another opportunity to feast.