Life in Culebrón

John, from Encebras, stopped me in the street the other day and, very kindly, said he enjoyed my blog. He also said I should write about why Spaniards walk in the street and not on the pavement. The only problem with this idea is that I don't know why. Mind you I've never let not having the facts at my fingertips stop me writing a blog, so here goes. I don't really think Spaniards do walk in the roadway in preference to on the footpath. At least not the majority. That's because most Spaniards, over 80%, live in Madrid or in towns and cities especially along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts. If they tried walking in the road their life expectancy would plummet. I've never particularly noticed that Spaniards in Murcia or Alicante dice with traffic any more than Londoners or the good people of Workington. They certainly don't dice with traffic in the same way that Egyptians in Cairo and Giza do. My guess, though, is that John was thinking about Pinoso sized pl...

This is the second part of a blog about Moors and Christians or Moros y Cristianos. The first part is called Moors and Christians: the real thing and it gives the history behind this event. This blog is about putting on funny costumes and parading through the streets. The Moors and Christians festivals in all the towns have their own peculiarities. The costumes can be of varying styles, the individual events that make up the whole can be different, there can be different names for something more or less the same, the scale can vary enormously, the duration can also vary, the historical setting for the events may be different and even the type of music the accompanying bands play can have a local dimension. Nonetheless, most have essentially the same principal events. That said please bear in mind that this account has to be generalised and so is not always strictly accurate. The event is, in essence the re-enactment of a fight between two ideologies, Muslim and Christian, so the st...

A friend asked me a very simple question about Moors and Christians, the Moros y Cristianos festivals. What I thought would be a quick and easy blog now stretches over two parts. My usual disclaimer. This is not an academic piece so it is not 100% accurate. Moor is a slightly derogatory term for someone from North Africa. The term Moor doesn't really include Arabs, who come from the Arabian Peninsula, but most Spaniards don't let a little technicality like that get in the way and Moor gets used indiscriminately to include Arabs and, sometimes, with the wider significance of Muslim. Christians means Roman Catholics. It's relatively common for Spaniards to think that Methodists Episcopalians, Calvinists etc. aren't Christian.  Moors and Christians are parades and events that take part in several Spanish regions, Murcia, Castilla la Mancha, Andalucia and Extremadura, but they are particularly associated with the Valencian Community and the area in which we live. They are a...

We share our house with four cats. Three of them started as squatters. Our current four are the latest in a long line. Mary emigrated from the UK with us. Eduardo was our first Spanish cat. His mum wandered into a friend's house to give birth. Beatriz and Teodoro we got from a woman who rescues mistreated and abandoned animals. We got another kitten from her later, Samuel, but I killed him when reversing the car in our yard. The rest have been squatters, okupas. Some have style and manners and settle inside the house - they are given proper names and taken to the vet for jabs and potions and inspections. The ones that never get further than stealing food from us are identified by other sorts of names - Bad Cat, Mr Big Balls, Hissy Missy, Mr Stripy Pants etc. Britons often say that Spaniards are cruel to animals. I suspect that's as true as saying that cars are red. Some are. I've seen figures from the RSPCA that suggest Britons are no strangers to animal cruelty either. It ...

I'm not sure why but I have trouble remembering the word IMSERSO - it doesn't flow off the tongue somehow. The word is a name, it's the initials, plus some vowels, of the Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales or The Institute for the Elderly and Social Services. It's a Spanish Government Agency that manages the extras behind the headline services of the Seguridad Social or Social Security System, namely free healthcare, disability care, unemployment payments and retirement pensions. Mention IMSERSO to a Spaniard and they will instantly think cheap holidays for old people. The idea is simple enough. IMSERSO negotiates rates with the tourist industry and then offers low-price package holidays to pensioners living in Spain. It has the twin advantages of keeping us oldies more active and less isolated while providing low-season business for the tourist industry. Our eight days in Cambrils in Cataluña, with coach travel from Alicante to Cambrils and back and with full bo...