Life in Culebrón

I was born in West Yorkshire. I remember, as a callow youth, struggling through the gorse and heather on Keighley Moor, after my first ever visit to the Bronte's home village as a qualified driver, looking for cup and ring marks. I found some. I thought they were deadly boring to look at. I was profoundly impressed that they were there though. A continuity with the past. Imagine, someone, in their idle moments, a few thousand years ago, had chosen to leave their mark in the stone. If there had been mobile phones there might have been neither cups nor rings. We've got something similar, more impressive actually, on La Centenera Hill - the stone carvings the petroglyphs - here in Pinoso. Out at Monte Arabí near Yecla there are more. We humans, be we Tykes, Pinoseros and Yeclanos seem to want to mark our passing. My own initials are carved in the, "it's a school tradition don't you know", stone bench alongside the playing fields of my old grammar school - CJT 196...

We did a bit of a circular tour last week. Up to Albacete, across to Cuenca and back through Teruel before coming home.  Along the way we  visited the winery in Fuentealbilla, run by the Iniesta family, (Andrés Iniesta scored the winning goal for Spain in the 2010 World Cup), we looked at the huge 3rd Century AD Roman Mosaic in the tiny village of Noheda and we stayed in Albarracín which has city status even though it's smaller than either Algueña or Salinas. We even visited some old pals in Fuentes de Rubielos in Teruel. I often think Spanish written information is patchy or poor. I wonder why there is no list of the tapas on offer or why the office doesn't show opening times. I have theories; those theories go from the link between information and power to high levels of illiteracy in the Franco years to the much less fanciful idea that Spaniards simply prefer to talk to a person. There's no doubt that written information here is much better, and more common, than in once...

I'm trying to get in as many events and fiestas and ferias as I can before the stroke or the fit leaves me stranded in Culebrón, before cataracts blur my vision or before my knee finally gives way. My partner, Maggie, isn't convinced that it's a sound strategy. Maybe she's Virgo; I hear they're sceptical. July and August in Spain are just loaded with things to do. There aren't that many weekends in two months and everywhere wants to shoehorn their event in. I've seen so many mascletás, so many Virgins carried on the backs of so many humble believers, so many men with big pot bellies, fake beards and 15cm cigars striding out that even romerias, firework displays and Moros y Cristianos are losing out to staying home with a can of Estrella and a good book. Last week though we did stray from home. We went to Aledo down in Murcia, close to Totana. I'd never been to Aledo before but somehow I'd learned that they had a bit of an event where they light the o...

I'm not particularly good with people. I'm not particularly outgoing. I'm terrible at remembering faces (well whole bodies come to that) and I can forget names within a couple of sentences of being introduced. The opening phrases of a greeting are usually banal, sometimes surreal and occasionally bizarre. Greetings take me by surprise. It would probably be better if I stayed at home with a good book. The other day some people that I do recognise on the streets, members of a Spanish family, had one of the older members die. I didn't know what the form was so I didn't do anything. I wondered about going to the tanatorio, I wondered about the mass but a mix of embarrassment, fear of speaking Spanish and my general diffidence meant that I did nothing. As ill luck would have it I bumped into one of the family a few days later. She greeted me, we did the two cheeks kissing, I failed to understand what she'd said to me, I failed to pass on my condolences and as she wal...

Now you may have noticed the Clubs dotted all over Spain. We passed one near Cabo Roig the other day. It was that which made me think of this post. The clubs tend to be on the outskirts of towns but not all are.  I often think we immigrant Britons are divided into two camps - those who think Spain is brilliant and those who think it's a nightmare full of outdated systems and indolent people. With my rose tinted glasses firmly in place I thought for years that these out of town clubs were the result of careful urban planning. Noisy clubs, I was thinking dance type clubs, well away from people who wanted to get an early night. In the time before Google maps, before Booking.com when things were still priced in pesetas and you were pleasantly surprised to find that your hostal bedroom had a washbasin, we were wandering around Southern Spain in a hired car. Our holiday plan was pretty simple really. We drove around gawking at stuff and when it began to get to evening we stopped outside ...