Life in Culebrón

People tell me they are never swayed by advertising. Not me; I see an ad for something that looks useful and I'm there. That spray to stop the water stains on the glass shower screen, for instance, is great. I saw an advert for some stuff to stop fungus growing on your toe nails. I hadn't realised that I had fungussy feet till I saw the advert. Gross. I just thought it was, well something else. So adverts are informative too. My feet and hands tingle a lot, it's not exactly painful but it's not nice either. The last time I asked a doctor about it he or she (I forget which) told me it wasn't anything that showed up on tests, none of those normal but nasty things like diabetes. Their expert advice was that I put it down to getting older, grin and bear it. Last night on the telly I saw an advert where some people were grimacing as they twiddled their feet or shook their hands. The advert described circulation problems being eased by their medication. It looked like...

I've written a diary every day for the last forty six years. For several years now I've put a little footnote to describe the weather - hot and sunny, wet and grey - and, alongside, the maximum and minimum temperatures. I bought a thermometer for the process but, when I lived in La Unión, there was nowhere I could site the thermometer in the shade so I started to use the data from the Spanish equivalent of the Met Office. The weather, here as everywhere, is a talking point. It's been hot for the past two or three weeks generally in the mid to high thirties. Some parts of Spain have been over forty on occasional days. People often exagerate the weather. They tell me that it was 53ºC in their patio or somesuch so I try to slip into the conversation, gently of course - well, the highest temperature ever recorded in Spain before today has been 47.2ºC in Murcia and, according to the local weather station it only got to 38ºC (or whatever). But local variations are very noti...

I mentioned on Facebook the other day that whilst we were surreptitiously guzzling more than our fair share of the "wine of honour" after the religious procession in the village I was propositioned by the president of the "Third Age Association". He thought I should become a member. Now I'm not big on joining in but I thought, at 8€ a year, it can't do any harm. An opportunity to get to know a few people, to practice a bit of Spanish, to become a bit more involved in the community. So I went along today ready to hand over my money and join up. The sales pitch involved dominoes, bingo, short hikes, special masses, crowning of the Third Age Carnival Queen, a bit of ballroom dancing, regular exercise classes, presentation of the trophies for the winners of the table games events, a gachamiga making competition and so on just for the near future. I didn't think he made enough of the upcoming performance of Maria Jesús and her accordion. She's the...

I read something, in an electronic newspaper, yesterday that said that our President, Mariano Rajoy, isn't a big reader. It went on to say that the only complete newspaper he has left on his desk, alongside the daily news roundup written by his staff, is a sports newspaper called Marca. I'm not sure whether it's true or not but he doesn't strike me as any sort of intellectual or even a deep thinker so it may well be true. It would certainly be in line with the last survey of the Sociological Investigation Centre - Centro de investigaciones sociológicas - which reports that 34% of Spaniards have not read a book in the last twelve months, that 10% read only one book in the last year and that just 7% read more than a book a month. Maybe this explains why many children are unsure of the name of the capital city of Spain. Talking of books my pal Carlos, writing under the pen name of Carlos Dosel , has just self published a book on Amazon - police story with a Nazi wa...

I could have driven home. I'm sure. After all I'm typing so I must be have some control of my faculties. But I didn't. It never crossed my mind. Till now. I left the car and walked past the ermita, up past Eduardo's, past the goat farm and the barking dogs and came home. I didn't see a single car. It isn't far, maybe 500 metres. Tonight was the vecino's meal, the neighbourhood association. The chicken from Maribel's wasn't bad but, for the first time ever, I didn't have to to fall down drunk instead of talking. Not that I didn't drink but I didn't end up dead drunk, just drunk. What's more important, to me at least, is that I kept talking. I made hundreds of errors, I couldn't remember half the expressions I was looking for but I went around and I kept talking. Language we talked about, of course, but music, films, food, travel - normal sort ot things - Belgian beer and Tossa de Mar, stag nights and Gibraltar. I was still th...

If you do not like foul or uncouth language do not read this post. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When the radio did it's exploding into life thing this morning the first song on was called A la mierda something like "fuck it!"  or a bit more literally "shit it!" A couple of my pupils, lads about eleven years old express surprise by saying "What the fuck!?" in English. I heard the same phrase used by The Gran Wyoming, a well known TV presenter, who hosts an irreverent daily round up current affairs and news on a TV programme called el Intermedio. Motherfucker, is also a relatively frequent word on Spanish lips. It always catches me unawares. It's a word I would not use lightly. I put it down to a lack of understanding of the violence of these sort of phrases in English. Now I am not the best person to comment on the intricacies of Spanish but this overuse of expletives, foul language and ...

The average maximum daytime temperature in Pinoso during June was 29.2ºC and the average low was 13.7ºC. There was a tie for hottest day with both the 28th and 30th coming in at 37ºC and we had eleven days when the temperature was over 30ºC. The coldest day was on the 7th when we got down as low as 9.5ºC. We had nineteen days with sunny clear blue skies, eight with with sunny spells and three cloudy. It rained four days and we had thunder and lightning twice. Overall we got 53 litres per square metre of rainfall but 30 of those litres fell on one day, on the 13th.

Internet shopping is great. I want a new book, Kindle. Fifty seconds later I can start reading. Present for someone in the UK? Piece of cake. The problem comes when I want something that exists, something that has form and bulk, for myself. Sometimes Amazon, or any of the other people I shop with, choose to send the thing to our PO box. Easier than easy. Often the Post Office even sends me a text message to say the package has arrived. Sometimes, too often, the Internet seller uses a carrier - DHL, MRW, FedEx, UPS, SEUR, Tourline Express or any number of firms which claim to be the modern embodiment ot Herodutus "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds". They are all the same. Most of them can't find the house, I suspect that most of them don't even try. Sometimes the carrier can't find the village. They take it back to San Juan or Alicante or wherever they have thei...

I was reading the news from the local town hall. There was information about the new hunting season. I read, for instance, that from 19 July until 25 December rabbits can be hunted with dogs. No more than eight hunting dogs though and, even if you bring a gang of pals with you to hunt, you can't have more than fifteen dogs all together. Certain breeds of dogs are prohibited and greyhounds can only be used between July and October. Oh, and hunting is only possible from Thursday to Sunday and on Public Holidays. This is pretty detailed stuff. Falconry, firearms and bows come in from the 12th October. There were lots more details about exactly what can be hunted, when and how. The piece ended though with a web address for the Diari Oficial of the Comunitat Valenciana - the official bulletin of the Valencian Community. All of the regional governments have something similar; a publication where local ordinances, byelaws and official reports are recorded. It's the place where con...