Life in Culebrón

Summer is an interesting time in Spain. When the sun shines the country slows. In August the country treads water. It's not as true as it once was and it's never been 100% true but it's true enough for a blog. The first to prepare for the Spanish summer, which lasts from 1 July to 31 August, are the TV advertisers. From the beginning of June happy groups of friends and families will begin to appear on TV screens, sitting around big tables in the garden eating paella or pizza and drinking beer. Most of the rest of Spain begins to prepare for Summer around San Juan, June 23. Those who have a beachside or country property start to ackle it up for the summer. It's amazing how many people have access to a country home or a seaside flat. In both cases the trick is inheritance. The money from the sale of Grandma's house made the flat affordable. The other option is that Grandma's house is where the family now spends Summer. The house gives the family roots, they may li...

Last Saturday evening, we went over to Yecla to see a pre-selection concert for the Cante de las Minas flamenco competition which takes place in La Unión, near Cartagena. La Unión, the town, has a strong tradition of Flamenco, the music more usually associated with gypsies and Andalucia. The link came about because La Unión, which mined lead and silver in Roman times, had a resurgence of mining activity in the mid-nineteenth century. With the liberalisation of certain laws and particularly with new technologies, the mines became potentially profitable for the first time in centuries. The mining industry needed workers. Starving peasants from Andalucia, particularly from Almeria province, saw the opportunity to escape the misery they were living in. They should have known better. Poor people always get it in the neck. They simply replaced the misery inflicted on them by the rich and uncaring farmers of Andalucia for more misery and hardship inflicted on them by rich and uncaring mine ow...

We went to see Monte de la Sal, one of the local choir, music, and dance groups, doing its annual Cançons a la fresca, canciones a la fresca - something like songs in the cool of the evening. They usually do two concerts with that title in July of each year. In the first, the full choir sings popular tunes. The choir dresses in black and white. In the second concert the focus is on traditional dance with the musicians, singers and dancers all wearing traditional clothing. We've seen them in action several times over the years. My favourite performance, in all these years, was one the group did outside the Cultural centre a few years ago. The dancers took to the stage in their (period) underwear and explained their clothing as they added layers: petticoats, corsets, stockings, and eventually the skirts and blouses. The solitary man who dances with the group wasn't there that year! It's a lovely event. Sometimes the singers don't quite hit the note or th person presenting...

From trunk roads, main roads, and motorways, through to the tarmac ribbons in the countryside, the different sorts and standards of roads in Spain are owned and looked after by different levels of government. Most of the roads operated by the national government are the ones that cross provincial and regional boundaries. This includes both motorways and conventional roads. The motorways are divided into two types: autovías and autopistas. There are technical differences between the two types of road (such as the style of junctions, width of carriageways, design speed, and the like), for most Spaniards, autovía is the all-purpose word for motorways, and they reserve autopista for toll motorways. For Brits the distinction might be that autopistas are motorways and autovias are major dual carriageways. Both types have a median separating the carriageways and at least two carriageways in either direction and the generic speed limit of 120 km/h. The signs, direction signs, kilometre posts, ...

In the Plaza del Sol, in Madrid, capital of Spain more frequently than not since 1561, there is a plaque set in the pavement marked as Kilometre Zero. If Google Maps tells you that it's 395 km to Madrid, that's the point it's measuring to. As a local aside there's a similar point in Murcia in the street called Platería. There are a series of arterial roads that radiate from Madrid. The arterial roads have numbers prefaced by the letter N for Nacional/National. The six radial roads were given Roman numeral names, NI, NII, etc. As examples, the NIII goes to Valencia from Madrid. The NIV goes from Madrid to Seville and on to Cádiz. The effect is that Spain is divided up, cake-like, into slices or segments. Any main road, any national road, in the slice between the NIII and NIV, in a clockwise direction, will have a number that starts with N3. The NV goes to Badajoz from Madrid. Any road clockwise of the NIV but before the NV will have a name in the style of N420. Lots of u...

A couple of weeks ago we went over to Extremadura. It's a while since we've been there and it's a nice part of the world. Easy to get to too. No planes, no passports, no luggage restrictions. Just tank up the motor and point it in the right direction. We took the scenic route. We stopped over for the night in Andalucia, in Córdoba, before heading on to Zafra, Mérida, Cáceres, Trujillo and Plasencia. It's a while since we've been so far from home in Spain and it reminded me of something I already knew, but often forget, those small but significant regional differences. Toast for breakfast. Usual, traditional, commonplace all over Spain. Near to home toast is, usually, half of a smallish breadstick or baguette. Just the half, media or, if you want the whole thing entera. The most basic version comes dry and you self add the oil and salt. The next step up, pricewise, is to add a layer of grated tomato (in Catalonia they usually rub the tomato directly into the bread). ...

I was catching up on the news, reading elDiario.es, and I came across this headline:  War in the Social Networks between the Gay idols of Vox and the activist known for his "Txapote would vote for you."  The first paragraph went on to say: The conflict, which is causing furore among streamers from the Extreme Right  - the people who produce digital content in social networks -  has reached the courts. The lawsuit presented by the YouTubers Carlitos de España (Charlie boy of Spain) and Madame in Spain, two of the gay idols of Vox, against Chema de la Cierva, the activist who menaced a team from TVE by shouting directly on air, Txapote would vote for you Sanchez," has had a trial date set.  The reason for this blog has nothing to do with the actual news story. It's about how difficult it is, sometimes, to have the faintest idea about what's going on around us; just how much information you need to decipher even a simple story. Some of the basics I knew.  Vox ...