Staying home and keeping warm

It's been a bit miserable for days, nay weeks, now. Tumble dryer rather than washing line, slightly moist bath towels. Dirty boot prints across the kitchen floor. I've been looking for something to do. What about popping up north for the weekend? I don't know why but I thought about Huesca or maybe Sigúenza. Some travel website says I'm talking about five or six hours. Well, if we set off after I finish work on Friday evening we could still be there for a nightcap around midnight. Paradors, Paradores, choose your plural, the upmarket hotel chain, constantly promote their offers. I had a bit of a look. None of it quite fits. Maybe it would work. Why not? Well, the truth is, it looks a bit dear actually. Madrid maybe, Madrid is always good. It always makes me feel less like a yokel when I'm in an art gallery and I'm not the only person there. That's not exactly free either and the deals on the super fast trains don't seem to be quite as stupendous and ubiquitous as the news stories would suggest. I suppose that I need to remember too that the house and car insurance are both due in the next few weeks.

Well then, if not now, I could, at least, think about something for the near or middle future. What about the festival in Benicassim? All the hotels within a ten mile radius seem to be booked already. A local festival then? SOS in Murcia maybe? Same thing. And I think about it, all that effort, all that upheaval. Anyway my back is hurting a lot at the moment and my feet feel funny.

It's not that I haven't had a very pleasant weekend. On Friday evening we went to Monóvar, just 12 km away, for a film in a series to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of a relatively famous local writer whose pen name was Azorín. It was an old black and white Billy Wilder film, dubbed into Spanish, with Jack Lemmon. The audience was pretty select and could have come back to ours for a cup of tea. Yesterday we had coffee with friends. In the evening, we did a Burns Night complete with haggis, piper and men with no underpants. Today we went for a meal as a sort of late birthday celebration with a couple of friends. Not a word of Spanish to worry about as we ate roast beef or sticky toffee pudding. In amongst all this I went to take some snaps of the delayed Saint Anthony, San Antón, festival in Pinoso where the priest blesses people's pets. Not an action packed weekend but a long way from gardening leave or pure catatonia.

It just feels to be passing by though. The last time we were in Sigüenza I'd wished we were staying in that converted castle. Just trogging up a motorway or riding the train makes me feel like we actually live in Spain. It's the same when I hand over the money to see whatever they have on at the Thyssen or think about the free tapas in Guadix. Somehow doing things locally isn't just the same. Maybe when the weather improves in Spring life will pep up a bit? Winter here is just as depressing as it is in Billingham, Brighouse or Bearsden.