Life in Culebrón

I've mentioned Azorín, the writer born in Monóvar a few kilometres from Pinoso, before. There's a lot going on about him because it's the 50th anniversary of his death. A while ago I went on a walk around Yecla based on one of his books and today I went to a public reading of another of his works. It wasn't something I'd planned to do but when I booked up for another Azorín event the woman on the desk persuaded me to sign on for this one too. If I've mentioned Azorín a couple of times I have mentioned my terror at speaking Spanish hundreds of times. Terror is definitely the right word. In fact my Spanish nowadays isn't too bad and, under certain circumstances, I talk without too much effort or I laugh off my mistakes. One of the worst situations though is when I participate in something that isn't really designed for someone with defficient Spanish. Go and stand in the crowd to watch a procession and nobody is surprised that there is a foreigner ther...

Just down the road from us, about 5kms away, is a small village called Hondon. In May 1938 a group of Republican soldiers turned up in the village, requisitioned the house next door to the pine tree that gave the best shade and set about building a munitions dump, a couple of machine gun nests, a lookout tower and an aerodrome. Nearly a year later the reasons became clear. First a bit more background. On July 18th 1936 the Army rebelled against the elected Republican Government of Spain and so the Spanish Civil War began. At first it was a pretty equal contest but slowly but surely the rebels gained territory. On 30th March 1939 Alicante City fell to the rebels and a day later rebel troops entered Murcia, Cartagena and Almeria. The war was officially won, or lost, on 1st April 1939. So the area where we live was the last bit of Spain to fall to, what were by then, Franco's troops. Franco ruled, as a dictator, in Spain until November 1975. Alicante province was loyal, right ...