Life in Culebrón

There's quite a lot of stuff that I'm aware of because I'm English. Stuff like knowing that Belgravia and Chelsea are rich parts of London, that Trafalgar Square is the (English) place to be for New Year, that Land of Hope and Glory will get a lung bashing the Last Night of the Proms and that haddock is not the usual fish in fish and chips but it was where I grew up. One of the pleasures and pitfalls of living in a place you were not born is that the common knowledge in the new place will be different. I've mentioned this in blogs lots of times before. I find it interesting, otherwise why would I be in the least interested in the story of Suavina lip balm  and why would I keep going on about how strange Spaniards find it that we drink hot drinks with food or think that cheese and onion sandwiches are normal? Last month we stayed over in Alcoy during the weekend of their Modernista Fair. Modernista, modernism is something else that I'd never really heard of till I go...

I did a summer stint on parks, gardens and cemeteries when I was a boy. I still tell stories of those few months. The first time was, I think, in Hollywell Green. A Victorian mausoleum appropriate for the status of one of the mill owning families of the time. Before anyone thought to brick in the heavy, lead lined mahogany coffins, putrefaction and excellent craftsmanship produced a splendid time bomb designed to spew bone fragments left right and centre. One of my gofer jobs was to check for bones and sweep them up before the family and undertakers turned up with the latest of the family line. Spanish graveyards are different to British ones. Well different and the same. Spaniards have mausoleums too for those old powerful families. I suppose it was wine or saffron or something instead of wool. Who knows. The idea is the same though, rich folk lording it over the people who made them rich even when they are all dead. So there are mausoleums and there are graves, the sort ...