Ghost stories

As I drove home this evening I scanned the countryside for bonfires. I listened for the whistles and bangs of fireworks. There weren't any of course. It may have been Bonfire Night in the UK but there is no celebration here to mark the failiure of the Gunpowder Plot.

From what I understand Guy Fawkes Night has basically died out in the UK anyway. For me, as a boy in West Yorkshire, it was a big event. We spent weeks beforehand collecting wood and sitting around telling ghost stories, eating potatoes charred on the outside and raw inside after their ordeal by makeshift camp fire. There was toffee, bonfire toffee, sticky enough to challenge even the strong young teeth I had then. The Parkin didn't come till later, in the kitchen at home.

The big night on the 5th involved setting off any fieworks we had managed to scrounge together. When they were exhausted the bonfire became the focus of our attention for a while. It's amazing how one side of your body, the part facing the fire, can crackle with heat whilst the other side is lashed by the cold November air. I remember too that when I finally got home the quality of the tungsten light in the kitchen always seemed very stark after being outside in the dark so long. Even odder though was that there was obviously some sort of temporal hiccough. The kitchen clock said it was still only half past seven when we got home yet the evening had lasted ages and ages. How could that be? The long, cold and dark, dark autumnal evenings of my youth were scented with smoke.

A pal in Peterborough sent me an email this evening to say it was 2ºC. Traditional sort of Bonfire Night temperature I thought. Here in Spain I'd commented to Maggie as I came in that it was a bit parky at just 13ºC.

Last week of course it was Halloween. I saw lots of signs of that. Children dressed up parading around the streets, bars covered with cobwebs. It's an event that has passed me by over the years. It hardly existed in my childhood and as I have neither children nor grandchildren I haven't learned how it's done. My knowledge of Halloween comes largely from dodgy horror movies.

I did ask my students what they did on Halloween but as most of them are very young and their English is pretty basic the level of information I got back was scanty. Several were dressed up as mummies, zombies, vampires and witches. The interesting thing was that when I asked what they had done, expecting some sort of description of tricking and treating, the almost universal answer was that they had eaten. Pizza was popular, seafood moreso. Lots told me of prawns and clams.

This is excellent news. No Spanish festivity of any kind is complete without food. Lots of the British people I know complain that Halloween is a US import though I understand that the original celebration began in Ireland and went to the US via those long queues at Ellis Island. It may be a US export but in Spain it seems to have been subverted into yet another opportunity to feast.

Chara to Gandía

I never really took to La Unión the small town I lived in last year. One small plus though was that a local firm, operating under the Zafiro Tours franchise, organised day trips by coach.

The model was simple. An early morning start, a guide or guides to show us around before lunch then maybe a bit more visiting in the afternoon before the inevitable dribbling and snoring on the trip back to La Unión. The all in price was usually in the 30 to 40€ bracket.

The first time I did it I thought it would be a bit of a hoot going on a coach trip with a load of older Spaniards. I imagined myself chatting away whilst we gawped at this or that before troughing down on the local delicacy. It never quite matched my expectations. I was always a bit of an outsider but it wasn't because people were unwelcoming. More my fault than theirs.

The trips though were good. Interesting destinations and good guides. So I kept going. Obviously as I no longer live in La Unión the trips aren't much use to me now. However, it just so happened that today's trip to Gandía came pretty close to our house - well it passed through Alicante at least. With a bit of negotiation I persuaded Maggie to give it a go and I talked the coach people into picking us up en route.

The day was fine. The morning guide was pretty good but when a woman in our group broke her thigh bone in a fall one of our two guides had to go with her to the hospital. That left the remaining guide to cope with a group of around fifty people. That caused problems. People who were too far back to hear started to get bored and then to chat which made it difficult for other people.

Lunch wasn't great. We went to a big hotel in the part of Gandía on the coast. To call the food average would be generous. Maggie's broccoli was liquid enough to flow. The buffet style service also meant that we were able to choose a table on our own as were all the other affiliations of familiy and friends. So no new Spanish pals for the day.

The afternoon guide took us to see the Borja or Borgia Palace. If you're old, like me, you'll remember the series on the telly. All sex and poisoning.  The Borja's made their home in Gandía and they gave the world two popes and one saint in that time. Nonetheless our guide decided not to focus on the family and their doings. Her delivery was of the style "And on the left is a wall hanging made from silk and wool by the renowed Valencian artisan José de la Spiga Granja. It was produced in 1589 and depicts the exaltation of Saint Thomas." Reducing the extraordinary to the ordinary.

So it wasn't a huge success. I somehow suspect that even if I wanted to I wouldn't be able to persuade Maggie to go on another one.

Lord Grantham and me

I've been living in Spain for ten years and five days now. We've owned the house in Culebrón for all but three months of that time. Despite that we've lived in Santa Pola, Ciudad Rodrigo, Cartagena and La Unión. We've rented six different flats all because of where we have found work. So it's nice to be finally living at home and paying just one electric bill, one phone bill and not having to move here and there for weekends or bank holidays.

Culebrón, or more accurately Pinoso is, nonetheless, the most British of all the places I've lived in Spain. Now don't get me wrong Spain is just outside the door. The mountain view is Spanish, the crops in the field are Spanish, the traffic is Spanish, the opening times are Spanish but Britishness crowds in here in a way that it hasn't in any of those other places. I say Pinoso by the way because that's where we go to buy bread and beer. In Culebrón we live right on the edge of the village and we only really venture into the village centre for events and to dump stuff in the recycling bins.

The English language is everywhere now. Lots of people can manage to communicate in a form of English. I was, for instance, rather amused when we had lunch with one of Maggie's pals in Cartagena. Her Spanish is good, basically because her family is Spanish, but despite her speaking Spanish to the waiter he always replied in English. Everyone wants to practise their English and most Brits speak Spanish so badly that we're glad of the help. But I'm not talking about language here I'm talking about Britishness.

Walk up the street by the Post Office in Pinoso and the chances are you will hear more English being spoken than Spanish or Valencià. The paper shop has a good range of British magazines, sells The Daily Mail and has some sort of selection of birthday cards to satisfy a particularly British craving. The only bar in the street is British run and I think the second hand furniture shop too. One of the two Estate Agents is British though I think they work with a Spanish colleague. The queue in the Post Office is often predominantly British and the chap behind the counter now speaks the English he needs for his job pretty well. The local supermarkets make concessions to Brits - Tetley tea recently appeared in Consum, though they seemed to have stopped stocking Stilton, whilst Más y Más has sold British tea for years and they occasionally even have Branston. The Algerian fruit shop sells Yorkshire Tea.

The other evening Maggie had been with me to Fortuna so we decided to have an evening meal in Pinoso on the way home. We asked in the restaurant if it were too early to eat as it was only 9pm. Good grief said the waitess. We sell dinner to you Brits from 7.30. There were, of course, no Spaniards eating so early. Last weekend we did our bit in supporting a friend who does the props for a local am dram group. Two short English language plays to a British audience. In the bar adjoining the theatre there is British TV and you order and pay at the bar just as you would in the Dog and Duck. On Saturday morning I usually join some friends to have a coffee. The waiter is most amusing and speaks a doggerel English that perfectly matches the doggerel Spanish of our group. Britishness everywhere.

In Ciudad Rodrigo there were no other Brits and whilst there were stacks of us in Santa Pola, Cartagena and La Union we were outnumbered by Spaniards and Spanishness. We just didn't have the critical mass that we Brits have in Pinoso. The home population of Pinoso has no problem with us as a group but our numbers and our economic power have influenced the way the town works. There is a notice in a bread shop apologising that the owner doesn't speak English. The barber, whose first language is the local Valencià to the point that he sometimes forgets Castillian words knows the meaning of the phrase "Just a trim, please." The bilingual children of longer term Brits have a valuable skill to sell.

Now this is fine. I'm British, I'm happy to be British. We're not a bad lot and we can be as proud of some of the things we've done as we can be ashamed of others. I'm in a good place. I can take my choice. Sometimes I fancy a curry or roast beef and they are easy to get where there are lots of us, other times I can do something quite Spanish. It's the same in the house. Whether I choose to get my news from the BBC or the RTVE website is up to me. Whether I listen to Spanish music or international music likewise.

Now Maggie is one of those people who were brought up on telly. She can easily answer questions about who was the host of 3-2-1 or what Jim Bowen's catch phrase was. Me, I like the telly OK too but I basically I use it for entertainment - films, drama and maybe some comedy. I soon get bored of the drama and it's seldom that I can be bothered to watch the second series. TV documentaries usually take far too long to get to the point and I much prefer radio. I probably prefer radio news too. Quiz shows and talent contests bore me or annoy me in equal measure. Maggie on the other hand likes lots of those programmes and she seems to particularly like those based on individuals - the cooking competitions, the talent shows, ballroom dancing, tracing ancestors. She can watch TV for hours and hours.

We have access to both Spanish and British telly. Maggie watches "her programmes, " the British ones as they are broadcast. If there's nothing definite that she wants to watch she usually skips through the Spanish programmes first and then, when or if she can't find anything she likes the look of, she switches to the British offer. Spanish TV is of very variable quality. The drama programmes generally have low production values and the variety and most of the comedy shows are risible. The home made product also has the decided disadvantage that it's in Spanish. We have to work to watch it, we miss key phrases, we don't get the references to celebrities or topical concerns. Imported product, usually American series, have the original English language soundtrack avaialble. I like to watch the occasional programme in Spanish in a vain attempt to hear a bit of Spanish and to keep up with the place I've chosen to live. I always put the subtitles on stuff on Spanish telly - with the English language stuff I get the best of both worlds - I understand the dialogue easily but I still get to read the Spanish version and with the Spanish stuff it means I may actually understand. We do usually see at least some of the Spanish news programmes and Maggie often watches a lunctime show in Spanish too.

But here's the rub, Nowadays not only am I living in a British community outside the house but inside it too. In all those rented flats our only offer was Spanish TV. I saw the same programmes as my Spanish students, I saw the same adverts and there was a point of contact but now that's gone and, even worse, there is almost nowhere in our house where I can escape from the sound of the howling mob on the X Factor, Lord Grantham complaining about Sufragettes or the pundits talking about the Best 100 Food Adverts Of All Time.

No blame here. We should just have bought a bigger house.

Menorca

We've just been to Menorca an island about the same size as the Isle of Man and the most easterly point of Spain. Ryanair had an offer on cheapish flights and, as we've only ever done Mallorca in the Balearics, it seemed like a good opportunity. We went for a long weekend.

I have this marking system for films that I go to see. The scale is from one to five. I work on the assumption that if someone manages to finance and release a film in ordinary cinemas it will be perfectly OK. So the natural score for any film is three out of five. If it's better than expected it gets four or very rarely a five and if it's not so good a two or even a one. The problem with this system is that some perfectly well made Hollywood romcom will get the same score as a well made art house film. To solve the problem I added a couple of grades, three plus and three minus, to allow for a bit of personal comment on a film. Basically three plus is for a well produced film that I enjoyed and three minus for a well made film that wasn't my cup of tea.

Menorca gets a three. Everyone told me that it was beautiful. There were certainly plenty of us tourists there from all over Europe and farther afield. A lovely coastline they said and it's true but I wasn't that impressed to find it littered with retirement developments and overly twee housing. We were told that the two main towns, Mahón and Ciutadella, had a real historic feel to them with lots of architecture left behind after the 18th Century occupation by the British. True again; quite a lot of nice buildings and I noticed some sash windows as billed but I've seen places on the mainland that are much more impressive.

Menorca is dotted with things described as talayots - pre Christian stone mounds often with the remains of stone circles, altar pieces and houses close by. I'm a big fan of sites like Avebury, Carnac or Castlerigg but somehow the Menorcan sites we saw failed to light my imagination in the same way.

Acting on the advice of at least three "Top ten things to do in Menorca" that I found on the internet I dragged Maggie along to eat caldereta de langosta which turned out, as the name suggests, to be a lobster soup. It was fine but not so different from the seafood soups you get as part of cheap set meals. Maybe we only got sub standard examples of Menorcan cheese too but despite it being touted as a rare pleasure it all tasted a bit bland to me. Prices were generally relatively high for drinks and snacks wherever we went and despite being used to Spanish prices we constantly found that the banknote we had ready wasn't big enough, Service was remarkably friendly (for the most part) but it was also often notably slow.

I don't want to go on and sound negative. Maggie has already decided that I had a horrible time and I didn't. I thought it was jolly nice, I'm glad we've been there, I had a perfectly pleasant time but I'd hoped and expected to be impressed and I found it all a bit ordinary.

Maybe we just didn't have enough time there to get the real feel of it but much more likely is that I'm just a grumpy old man nowadays.

Trains, culture and city life

I had a lot of trouble getting a job when I was a young man. One day in the 70s after another disastrous interview I was on the milk train back from London to Halifax. It was early morning when the train made an unscheduled stop in my home town of Elland presumably waiting for the signals or somesuch. Beeching had done for Elland as an official stop. I jumped out of the train (no conductor controlled doors in those days) and despite the protestations of the British Rail staff legged it over the semi derelict platforms and pushed through a hole in the wire that I knew from my boyhood adventures. It saved me the four mile hike back from the official stop in Halifax.

Yesterday we decided to travel to Valencia for one last outing before I go back to work on Monday. We agreed to use  the train. Quite by chance we'd been in the station at Villena a couple of days before. That's where I got the idea. It was interesting looking at the routes of the slower trains that run on the wider traditional gauge of Spanish railways. The train we got from Elda for instance had come from Cartagena and had passed through Murcia, Elche and Alicante. From Elda/Petrer it went on to Villena, Xátiva, Valencia and then up through Teruel and on to Zaragoza. Plenty of interesting stops there, Plenty of places that I had never thought of as train destinations. As well as our route there was another that went up to Barcelona and a third went through Castilla La Mancha taking in Campo de Criptana (one of the places with lots of white windmills) on its way to Ciudad Real - a town I haven't visited for years.

One of the reasons that the very fast Spanish AVE trains cover the ground so quickly is not just because they can travel at over 300 kph but because they don't stop. Between Alicante and Madrid for instance, a distance of just over 420kms, they stop just twice to keep the time to around two hours and ten minutes. It adds fifteen minutes to put in another couple of stops. I think I've got used to thinking of trains as long distance services rather than considering their routes through lots of interesting towns.

Spanish trains are usually clean and prompt and generally it's allocated seats too. So even if there are suitcases all over the place on the crowded routes you still get a seat. Prices seem reasonable to me. The 290km round trip cost 31€ for full price tickets or a tad under 25 quid. Covering the 450 kms from Madrid to Cartagena in January of this year on a special ticket (no passes or cards - just an offer) cost me 15€.

So we got off the train into the modernist Estación del Norte built in 1917 and we were plunged into Valencia city. There were back packer type tourists everywhere, a variation on the tourist families of the Costa Blanca, and lots of lots of ordinary people just going about their lives. Valencia is the third largest city in Spain and even on a Saturday it was obvious that we were a long way from Culebrón.

I always like to take in an exhibition when I'm in a town. To be honest I'm not a good gallery goer. I soon get bored of looking at pictures or sculptures or installations or whatever but I just love going to galleries. Places full of ideas, the effervescence of human endeavour. Maggie suggested the Cathedral. That sounded good to me too as it's years since I've been inside. The entrance price (wasn't there a story about Jesus and people doing business in a temple?) included a surprisingly interesting audio guide despite lots of references to polychrome figures and retables. And, unlike the Monty Python crowd we didn't have any trouble finding the Holy Grail. It's stop 20 on the audio guide.

We got to a gallery too, though they are always termed museums in Spanish, with the IVAM, the Valencia Institute of Modern Art. To get there we wandered through the bohemian Barrio Carmen which is full of bars, eateries, antique clothes shops and bike hire places. We even found time to down a jug of Agua de Valencia, a sparkling wine, orange juice, gin and vodka combo before heading back to a Talgo train to whip us back to Petrer and the waiting Mini.

Tortilla de patatas

What's tortilla to you? Is it that Mexican pancake or is it a thick and unfolded potato (and onion) omelette?

Tortilla Española or tortilla de patatas is a Spanish classic. Basically you fry some spuds cut into slices and maybe some onions too. With or without onion is a debate - cubed or sliced potatoes too. Whilst the potatoes are softening you beat some eggs into a bowl - usually adding a pinch of salt. Then, when the frying is done, you drain off the oil and add the potatoes (and onions) to the beaten eggs. You return the mix to the frying pan, cook on one side till the "pancake" starts to firm up and then you either flip it over, a la Shrove Tuesday, or you use a plate or lid over the frying pan to help  you get the sticky side back into the pan to fry. When it has set to your preference you slide it out of the pan and set about eating it.

Of course you could set it aside to cool, Tortilla is nice cold too. It goes well in bread rolls. I'm not absolutely sure whether it gets wrapped in silver paper when it's going to be eaten later as part of a mid morning snack, on the beach or even as you sit at your lunchtime desk but if not silver paper then it is cut into wedges and popped into plastic containers, always called tupper here, for the snack to come.

It was one of my little language exercises to get students to tell me the ingredients and method for making a tortilla. Everyone had some subtle variation. The students were convinced that we Brits, out of Spain at least, call the dish Spanish Omelette. I'm not sure, it's a long time since I lived in the UK, but I'm pretty sure that a Spanish Omelette was something from the 1960s or 70s that was a normal omelette loaded with veg - things like peas and peppers.

We're trying to lose weight at the moment and I picked up one of the ready made tortillas in Mercadona to check the calories. I put it back quickly. The surprise though was not the calories. The shock was that there were two new recipes to add to the standard with and without onion varieties. One with peppers and one with chorizo. Had Jamie Oliver had a word with Mercadona about how to "improve" a classic? 

Good Lord I thought. What is the world coming to! Is nothing sacred?

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INGREDIENTS:

4 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

6 eggs

1 onion, chopped

¼ litre olive oil

salt

RECIPE:

First, heat the oil in a large frying pan and then gently fry the sliced potatoes until almost soft, stirring from time to time so that they don't burn on the bottom of the pan. Add the onion and continue frying until all the pieces are soft. Drain the vegetables in a colander to get rid of the excess oil.

Beat the eggs in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Add the potatoes, etc. and mix well and check seasoning.

Heat a little oil in a frying pan on a moderate heat. Pour in the potatoes and eggs and shake the frying pan from time to time so that the omelette doesn't stick to the bottom. Once the bottom of the omelette has set, turn the heat down low and cover the pan. After about ten minutes, turn the omelette by placing either a flat plate or saucepan lid on the frying pan and quickly turning over. Gently slide the omelette back into the frying pan and continue frying, once again shaking the pan from time to time so that it doesn't stick to the bottom, until it has set all the way through.

Not looping the loop

Maggie was most definite in the manner in which she declined to go on the roller coaster that flipped people over and did barrel rolls. She kept reminding me about the Icelander who had died on a similar ride in the same park just a couple of months ago. Later though, by herself - I was too macho to join her - she went on the teen size roller coaster. Emboldened by her experience she agreed to go on the old style big dipper. All Billy Butlin at Skegness. Apparently built of criss crossing wood like the rail bridges in classic cowboy films and with sit up and beg cars. It rattled and shook, it rocked and rolled. Maggie didn't seem to enjoy it much.

She did enjoy the boat ride type roller coasters though and she let me go on one of those bungee jump type rides and the one that spins around a central pivot.

In fact we had a thoroughly enjoyable time at Terra Mitica theme park. The place is based on the motifs of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. The park has an unhappy financial past. It was haemorrhaging money when I last heard. It certainly wasn't exactly bursting at the seams today and, in the afternoon, we hardly had to queue for rides. It's just outside Benidorm so it has a pretty international clientele but all day long we were generally treated in Spanish and served by Spaniards. The themes are pretty loose to be honest - the Lair of the Minotaur was a sort of ghost train and the Nile Falls or some such was the name of one of those boat rides. Maybe the big, old roller coaster was a Titan something or other. Food was expensive but acceptably so and the atmosphere was everything to everyone whoever you were. I'm sure that to the teenagers it seemed designed for them, the same for the families and at least one old codger felt perfectly at home.

It's the first time that I've actually been there when it has been open. I went to a Van Morrison concert (deadly dull) maybe eight or nine years ago but somehow I'd never eaten one of their burgers or drunk their coke since. 

Nice day out.

Tabarca

I couldn't help it. My gaze kept wandering to the man sitting to my right. He was shirtless and his belly was so huge that it was squidged onto the table even though his chair was pushed well back. I also noticed the young women in bikinis in the restaurant but Maggie must never know.

We were in Tabarca. It's an island just off the coast from Santa Pola though we'd travelled over on the boat from Alicante. Considering that the Med. is nothing more than a big lake and given that we were hugging the coast it was remarkably choppy.  The crew were handing out sick bags willy nilly. I expected to succumb but despite the sweat dribbling from my forehead I reached terra firma with breakfast still somewhere in my digestive tract.

The island, it's actually an archipelago, is a place that locals and tourists go to get a bronzy and to eat. In the summer heat the main things you smell in the air are hot cooking oil and sun protection cream. Lots of the home team take everything bar the kitchen sink and set up bedou style, on the beach. They carry army feeding amounts of food. Most people who go there though eat in one of the several restaurants. Menus are principally fish and seafood based. Rice dishes, paellas, are de rigeur.

The island  was used as a base by pirates to raid the coast so, in 1760, Carlos III used a group of shipwrecked Genoese as a garrison on the island. They came from the islet of Tabarka and so the Spanish island, our island, got a new name. The remains of the fortifications, like the church are somewhere to stroll in your flip flops and swimwear before or after eating.

I think I was the only visitor on the island with full length trousers.

Badly informed - as usual

People tell me I complain. I usually think I am commenting or, more often, guffawing, at the preposterousness of whatever it may be. For instance in Of no fixed address

Anyway, as usual, I was wrong. Just ask Maggie. Always wrong. My address wasn't the real problem. True I had to go to Elda about 25 kilometres away where I was sent from one office to a second but once I was in the right place it took only a few seconds to change my address with the Social Security, with the Health people.

Back at the computer I applied for my European Health Card only to have the application turned down again. So I rang the helpline. I enjoyed the music and the mix of information and encouragement to not go away as the minutes ticked away.

The woman told me that I'm not employed, I'm not a pensioner and I'm not unemployed so I can't have a card. I explained that I have a job. She couldn't find me on the system and it took a while before she did. Ah, your contract ended at the end of June she said. Well, yes and no I replied. I have one of these fixed discontinuous contracts so I presume that although I'm not being paid I am considered to be employed. Not quite apparently. I have the right to claim unemployment pay and I would not be added to the unemployment statistics but unless I actually claim the dole I have no right to a health card. I checked that there was no problem with ordinary health care here in Spain and that was fine. I can get sick at home but not whilst I gad about Europe.

These contratos fijos discontinuos are designed for people who work in seasonal businesses. The job is yours when there's work but apparently the idea is that you go and draw the dole when the firm doesn't need you. Despite being entitled to unemployment pay people on these contracts are not registered as unemployed. A very odd situation and very easy for the firms to abuse I would have thought. Employ someone for eleven months until the summer holiday period, kick them loose with no need to pay them whilst they draw the dole and then take them on again when they have a nice tan. The other side is that people who have these contracts are unlikely to do much job hunting whilst they are temporarily out of work so they are a dead weight on the public purse. Apparently most of us on these contracts are women and lots of us work in food production, education and tourism.

Obviously my personal situation is a little strange. I'm sure that my boss would keep me working over the summer if I wanted to work. The truth is that it suits me and him for me to take a couple of months off. I avoid work and he doesn't have to employ somebody at a slacker time of the year. It has never crossed my mind to claim the dole.

I'd just better not get sick when we cross the border into Portugal over the summer.

Keeping schtum

Everyone knows that Brits in Spain wear socks with sandals, go bright red in the sun and swill beer. One of those conversational topics, designed generally to use comparatives in English, with students is about countries. We always agree that one difference is on the Tube. In London everyone keeps to themselves, reading or simply looking grim faced. In Madrid on the other hand the babble between passengers is drowned out only by the occasional impromptu musical jam session.

I was in Madrid the last couple of days and I'm sad to report that everyone on the metro is now glued to their mobile phones. For business suits and skaters alike their thumbs are dancing across screens catching or killing things. Earphones are everywhere to block out the surrounding world. Mobile phones, the great leveller.

Madrid looked very green too. Trees all over the place and that's without going anywhere near the Retiro. Busy of course but then, if you lived in Culebrón, most places would seem busy to you too. And expensive; it's not that paying 2.20€ or 2.50€ for a bottle of beer or 4€ for a tapa is too bad really but we generally pay about half of that so the final bill can be a bit of a surprise. And exciting - flash motors on the street, odd and stylish characters in equal measure, galleries, museums and events everywhere. And, best of all in the recently renamed Aeropuerto Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Maggie popped out of one of the doors with a cartload of luggage which means she gets to eat pork and drink wine and I get my playmate back.

Another evening at the theatre

One of my favourite ways to start any blog entry is a reference to the past - when I was a boy..... when I lived in Elland and what not. I don't quite think of my time in Spain in the same way. Although we have been here for close on ten years now all the Spanish stories seem fresh. So I wasn't going to blog my visit to the theatre yesterday evening until I realised that it was four years ago that I last smelled greasepaint in Torre del Rico.

I met Barry and Carole (remember us as barrel) when I delivered a lot of furniture. I seem to recall that they had a lot of space to fill in their house cum converted bodega and I spent hours if not days fastening together Mexican style flat pack furniture. Nowadays we just say hello and catch up when we pass in the street in Pinoso but Facebook keeps me up to date with their comings and goings. It was because of Facebook that I realised that Carole would be on stage on Saturday evening. She's a member of a group called Asociación de Mujeres Rurales Torre del Rico or the Rural Women's Association of Torre del Rico. Maggie and I last crossed the border into Murcia to see her in a play in the village in August 2010.

We've meant to go every year but somehow things have got in the way so, even though there was no Maggie, I wasn't going to miss it again. The setting was the same. There were no tractors passing this time but otherwise it all looked very familiar and appealingly amateur in the sense that it felt community owned.

It was good fun. I was alone of course and, as always, startled to be surrounded by so many Spanish people. I kept my head low in the hope that nobody would speak to me and I bolted as soon as the cast had taken their final curtain call. It was like being in Culebrón as the audience assembled. Lots of greetings, hand shaking, kissing and smiling. It was the same as the show started. I heard whisperings behind me along the lines of "Is that Mari Carmen on stage?" Friends amongst friends I thought as the actors on stage struggled to stop themselves from laughing as they delivered double entendres, forgot their lines or consistently and purposely repeated one of the character's names incorrectly. It was full of Spanish that I didn't understand, word play type Spanish using lots of the local diminutive and even more local terminology but I see that in 2010 I reckoned  I understood about 25% of the dialogue. It was definitely a lot higher percentage than that last night - unless of course Carole tells me there was no word play or double entendre in any of it!

I was really impressed with Carole's Spanish. Back in 2010 it was definitely a double memory test. Not only did she have to remember her lines she also had to remember the strange word forms of a foreign language. Last night the pacing and delivery made me pretty sure that she understood her Spanish lines completely and only had to remember them. Good stuff all round.

Comfy

I don't start work for a couple of hours so I thought I'd go to a local bar for a bit of a read and a coffee. I'm in La Unión, quite definitely a part of Spain, but the story is based in Pinoso.

Last weekend I was in Pinoso. I laughed to myself when I noticed a sign in a bread shop "I don't speak English but at least I try." It seemed strange that the shop owner felt the need to apologise for speaking Spanish in Spain.

I was in town to get the tyre fixed on my car so with that job done a reward seemed in order. I thought bacon sandwich. A bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. If tea were involved I needed somewhere British so I went to the charity shop and café bar run by the animal charity PAPAs.

Despite spending very little time in Culebrón I knew the two people who were serving the food and drinks in the bar. Whilst I was sitting there a couple of people passed through who said hello to me. The bacon sandwich involved close questioning about the crispiness of the meat and the colour of the bread. I gave confident answers. It was all together a pleasant and comfortable experience. And it was a good bacon sandwich - just as it should be.

Now I'm off for this coffee. I have three bars to choose from and all of them are good. I always get a courteous welcome and sometimes a friendly one. I won't have any linguistic or cultural problems and if I did I would be able to cope with them. The exchange will be a short one though - businesslike. Nobody will ask me when Maggie is due home, comment on my Facebook photos or ask if I still have the same car.

One of my students, a bloke who speaks cracking English full of idiom and colloquialisms, told me yesterday that when he lived in the UK people would ape his pronunciation and snigger.

Language, language always language to make it just a touch more or a touch  less comfortable.

Catetos and country bumpkins

There's nothing going on. A pretty typical Saturday but, lost for anything to write, I hatched a cunning plan. I'd talk about nothing.

This plan came to me just after I'd collected the mail and as I washed the car, Maggie's car to be precise. We have a post box on the house but deliveries in the countryside are a bit haphazard. Safer a PO box in the town Post Office. We also have water and space to wash a car at our house in Culebrón. Today I was just being lazy. For many Spaniards though the Sunday morning car wash ritual, beloved of so much of suburban Britain, is unrealisable. Most people here, after all, live in flats, not everybody, but the majority. So getting a bucket of water to your car isn't easy. Anyway several towns have local bye-laws prohibiting street car washing. Pinnoso being a typical example. This means that there are lots of car washing bays in petrol stations all over Spain. In contrast to the UK where I remember that the tunnel wash with rotating brushes was the most common here those lance type power washers that lift off paint are the usual offer.

The car freshly washed I went  to buy some gas - in a bottle. We country folk don't have piped gas. Butane in 12.5kg cylinders is the norm. I bought the gas from the shop at the local co-operative bodega which has a decidedly agricultural theme. Safety footwear and parts for irrigation systems rub shoulders with tinned sardines and chocolate bars. I asked if they had any liquid for killing the picudo rojo, the beetle that wants to eat our palm tree. They did and I bought some. I got some cashew nuts too and a bottle of brandy.

I shouldn't have needed the insecticide. I know a man who has some, a man that I've hired twice already to douse the tree in some nasty chemicals that apparently mash up the neural pathway of the beetle beasties. Approximately six weeks ago he and I made a vague arrangement that I would contact him before the weekend for the "every 45 days" treatment. Do it via a message he said. It's easier for me. I loved him. Messages in Spanish are so much easier than phone calls. I sent him a message. I sent him a second. He didn't reply. I phoned. No answer. I phoned again and this time he answered. He was specific but vague - Saturday morning, I'll confirm the time on Saturday. He didn't phone to confirm. He didn't turn up. 

I know that plumbers, carpenters, gas fitters and insect slaughterers all over the world fail to turn up to the majority of their appointments. There is, though, something fatalistically Spanish about the process. The non answered messages and the vague phone call are a routine stratagem. 

On a separate tack I have been trying to find out how long in advance I need to book a trip for the oversubscribed visits to the Cota Doñana National Park. The company that runs one of the trips has a website with a "contact us" online form. I've used the form, I've had the confirmation of receipt of the message but I've had no reply. I resent the message, just in case. The third time I asked them why they bothered with a contact form if they never responded. I asked if they were public employees and consequently out for breakfast (this is a Spanish joke.) The truth is I wasn't in the least surprised. It was just a first sally. I knew that I would have to phone just as I know that there will be a vagueness about the eventual booking. We will have to trust to luck as we set out for a destination 700kms from home. 

So, back to today, I climbed up the ladder, which wasn't quite long enough, weighed down by a back pack type spray gun that weighed in at around 20kg and requires both hands to operate. I wobbled and sprayed the tree. I had to do that with 45 litres of the stuff. It took over two hours and it nearly killed me. The chemicals were running down my arms, soaking my back, dribbling into my hair. I was wearing a mask, gloves and overalls but I felt the need for a change of clothes and a shower afterwards. Ah!, country pleasures.

Anyway, as it is a typical Saturday now for the telly. I usually end up watching a programme on La Sexta in which pundits and journalists shout at each other and especially at an economist with a strange accent. It's compulsive viewing particularly with a packet of cashew nuts and half a bottle of brandy to hand. We country folk are easily amused.

Crowding round the telly

I still watch TV more or less as I did in the 1960s. Not that I stare avidly at Zip Nolan or Mike Nelson in Sea Hunt but I do generally, watch broadcast television at the time that it is broadcast. Every now and then I will use the streaming feeds from a TV company for the missed episode and I have even been known to steal television programmes from one of the torrent sites. I don't really understand torrents though and I am usually mightily disappointed when after downloading something for hours or days the picture keeps macroblocking.

I begged a cup off coffee of some pals yesterday. They told me that Sky, or whoever it is that uses whichever satellites to send out whatever British satellite TV signals, has just shifted everything around again. They do this from time to time presumably for technical reasons, possibly to add quality or functionality, and maybe to deny the signal to we expats. It certainly sends ripples through the Brit population who have parabolic dishes the size of the the Parkes Radio Telescope in their back gardens. We've got one.

My usual fare is broadcast digital terrestrial Spanish TV. We have slightly more channels in Culebrón than down in Murcia but in both places I think it's around 40 TV channels plus a bunch of radio stations. I have, occasionally considered one of the TV packages offered by the various Internet providers but, in the end, the price always puts me off.

Although I'm still vaguely trying to improve my Spanish I long ago abandoned watching English language programmes in Spanish as the dubbing is risible. The actors, who are often quite famous here, use less emotion than the speaking clock and children are interpreted by adults making a squeaking sound reminiscent of piglets. The digital TV signal usually allows me to change the language to the original language, when that isn't Spanish, so I don't have to put up with the hideous dubbing.

Anyway, after my conversation about the changes to the availability of British TV I switched on the Sky box to see what channels were still working. All the ones I was looking for were still there. It was the first time I'd watched British TV for ages. Our Sky box is an ancient thing, just a decoder. Neither it nor the telly have a hard disc so there is none of the potential to record programmes or to stop a TV programme whilst you make a cup of tea. Even in the brief period I watched there were adverts for TV series on demand and lots of interactive services. I don't know much about the varieties of technological wizardry available to modern TV viewers but it did make me wonder about the sophistication of Spanish viewing habits as against British ones.

I occasionally discuss TV with my students. Most of them don't really watch TV, they watch TV programmes on their computers. Very few seem to hook up the computer to the bigger TV screen and nobody has ever described watching TV via boxes which integrate broadcast TV, Internet catch up services or direct Internet TV though I believe those sort of things are common in the UK. They must be available here but, maybe, Spaniards have a better plan for their spare time spurred on by all those open air cafés and the milder climate.

Suffering suffrage Batman

I don't think that I have ever missed an opportunity to vote in local, regional or national elections since I turned 18. They've already taken away my right to vote in regional elections either in the UK or Spain (though we're still having correspondence about that) and I'll lose the right to vote in the UK National elections in another few years (though not if Harry Shindler gets his way) but, at the moment, I get to vote locally in Spain, nationally in the UK and supranationally in Spain. It seems only reasonable that if people were willing to endure long and bitter campaigns to win my right to representation then I should make the effort to toddle along to a polling station. The Spanish system of voting for a party, rather than a person, is pretty duff anyway but it seems to be about the one opportunity there is to influence politicians short of gathering a few thousand like minded souls together in the streets and taking on the riot police.

On the radio I heard an advert telling us European types that we should make sure we were registered. Vote alongside us it said.

The basic method is to ensure that you are on the town padrón, a list of local inhabitants. I make a habit of renewing my padrón each summer even though there is no real necessity to do so. Always better safe than sorry.

So, being in Culebrón today I popped into the local town hall and asked if I were on the list. The man said that he hadn't got the electoral lists yet. Bit stupid mounting a big radio and TV campaign to get us to check if we can't actually do it I said. Well, you're on the padrón so you've got a vote he countered. And that's where we left it.

Not quite time to dig out my riot balaclava yet then.

Mr Angry

Recently I have had a bit of a spate of sending Mr Angry letters - well emails - to various organisations in Spain. Generally they have been specific complaints. Problems with the operation of a bank website or some problem with bill payments for instance

I think Barclays, for their Spanish Barclaycard, have an almost foolproof system. I sent an email to ask a general question about the functioning of their redesigned website. They sent me a guffy response telling me that they were unable to respond to an open email for reasons of security and that I should phone customer services. By return I composed a long and snotty email telling them what I thought about their customer service via email. I got exactly the same response as to my initial message. Hmm, I thought. I sent another email wishing them a pleasant day. They told me that they were unable to respond to an open email for reasons of security and that I should phone customer services.

That's a great trick. Give the impression that they can be contacted by email when they can't. That's why there's the rhyming slang for bankers I suppose.

The European Union continues to update me periodically on my bid to be able to vote at regional elections either in my country of residence or in the country where I was born. I think that's jolly nice of them. They do seem to have had a lot of meetings all over Europe to talk about it though.

I collected my mail today and in my PO box there was a letter from the Subsecretary General of the Subsecretariat of the Interior Ministry Department of Human Resources and Inspection Isabel Borrel Roncales. I think it has a real signature. It is a response to an email that I sent to complain about a proposal for a draconian piece of anti democratic legislation. Isabel tells me that it's nothing to do with me and that the equivalent of the Commons in the UK, las Cortes Generales "in which National Sovereignty resides" will make the decision with or without my help thank you very much.

Now this is not a good response. Much better that she had said "Crikey Chris, I showed your email to the President; he clasped his head as he realised what a big mistake he was making and he decided then and there to scrap the legislation. He wants to thank you personally for pointing out the error of his ways."

But it is a response. Well done the Interior Ministry I say. More responsive than Barclays that's for sure.

Braseros

It's not a complex idea. When I was a lad braziers were the natural complement to those little striped tents that workmen used to set up over what were then called manhole covers. In Spain they put them under round tables.

Braziers or braseros are, at their most basic, simple bowls which fit into a circular support underneath a round table. There are electric ones nowadays of course but the one we were presented with today, when we went for a birthday meal, was more like a wrought iron version of a parrot's cage. Glowing embers are put inside the bowl, the bowl is popped under the table and a heavy tablecloth draped over the table and your knees. The heat captured under the table warms the lower half of your body. A very personal sort of heater. The modern thermostaically controlled electric heaters do the same job and have the advantage over the old fashioned, real fire type. They don't either set fire to their users or poison them with carbon monoxide.

'Til the only dry land were at Blackpool

I've been to some cold places in my life. England in January isn't that warm; the Isle of Lewis and Stockholm are often colder but they are not uncomfortable places. Culebrón on the other hand is uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. Outside it's about 7ºC and it's midday. The house isn't set up for it. Wind whistles under the doors, through the windows. Marble and tiled surfaces don't help. Built for summer, not for winter. The only warm place in the house is under the shower. Outside, the sky is blue, the sun is shining. Wrapped up, with gloves it's warm enough. But inside the chill soaks through your bones. Down in La Unión I haven't yet started to close the windows at night or use a heater but here. Brrr!

Our local petrol station has no petrol, no diesel and no gas bottles. Everyone says that the owner can't pay his bills so the oil company won't deliver except for cash payments. The next nearest petrol stations are at least 10kms away. The car wash is still in business though. I used it today rather than plunge my hands into a bucket of cold water.

The local bodega on the other hand was doing a roaring trade on Sunday. I think, though I'm not sure, that the farmers who produce the grapes which make the wine, have a running account with the bodega shop. They buy things on tick against the money they are paid for the grapes they harvest. The shop sells groceries, things for around the farm, workwear etc. It's an interesting place.

In the Santa Catalina district of the town, one of the older and possibly poorer parts of Pinoso they are having a fiesta because it's her day on the 25th. I plain forgot to go to see the street bonfires on Friday evening. Yesterday I was going to go and watch the flower offering and have a look at the mediaeval market as I drove back from the cinema but I changed my mind when I noticed that the temperature was hovering around 2ºC and there was a chill wind blowing. What fun in drinking a micro brewery beer or eating a chorizo roll with hands frozen by the cold? I did pop in today though.

There's a circus in town. I half wondered about going. The camel and the strange long horned cow type beast parked outside the big top looked very mangy and very out of place. I arrived to take a few snaps just as the Sunday matinee crowd came out. There wasn't much of an audience.

I'm just back from lunch down in the village hall. It was the Neighbourhood Association AGM. We always have one of the local paellas with rabbit and snails and gazpacho, a sort of rabbit stew with a flat form of dumpling. It's always the same. The meal started late, there was applause when the metre and a half paella pan was brought into the hall from the outside kitchen where it has been cooked over wood. There was plenty of drink and the actual meeting was sparsely attended and very disorganised. For the first time ever, and despite being the only foreigner in the place, I didn't feel too lost. I laughed when I didn't understand and I voted knowing what I was voting for despite the chaos. It looks like we're off to Benidorm again in March. Everybody else was drinking the very fashionable gintonics (gin and tonic) but someone found a bottle of whisky for me. I drained it. My typing may have suffereed.

The title, by the way, is from three ha'pence a foot by Marriott Edgar. Snaps on the Picasa link at the top of the page.

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It rained and it rained for a fortni't, 

And flooded the 'ole countryside. 

It rained and it kept' on raining, 

'Til the Irwell were fifty mile wide.

The 'ouses were soon under water, 

And folks to the roof 'ad to climb. 

They said 'twas the rottenest summer 

That Bury 'ad 'ad for some time. 

The rain showed no sign of abating, 

And water rose hour by hour, 

'Til the only dry land were at Blackpool, 

And that were on top of the Tower.

Picudo rojo - the pruning

I thought he wasn't going to come. He didn't send me the message he'd promised yesterday and he didn't answer my text messages. When I finally plucked up the courage to phone he said he'd be here by 12.30. I raced from La Unión to be here on time. An hour after the appointed time he still hadn't arrived and I sent another message. After lunch was the reply, around four. He arrived about half past but I must say when he did start the work was impressive.

He had something like a billhook cum machete as his only real tool. He sharpened it to start and kept stopping to sharpen it. I think he said it was called a márcola but I may be wrong. He set about the plam tree with a verve slicing off the outer layer with a mixture of brute strength and the sharpened blade.

Our ladder would only reach to a certain height so for the top of the tree he strapped himself into a harness, braced himself against the tree and continued to slice off the dead covering and lots of branches. He looked just like one of the pictures in the palm tree museum down in Elche. Very rural.

By now the light was beginning to fail and I stood amidst the shower of debris coming from the tree holding up an inspection lamp so he could see as he chopped, hacked and cut. He'd found the dreaded picudo rojo beetle hiding in the fibre and debris that accumulates amongst the stumps which are left when the branches are pruned so he did his best to clear away all the nooks and crannies where the beast shelters. He found several holes where the little blighters have burrowed into the palm but he seemed pretty sure we weren't going to lose the tree.

I handed over the 80€ happily. Now I just have to get a different bloke to come and douse it in chemicals.

Picudo Rojo

Probably the main reason that we have a house in Culebrón is because when we first came here Maggie had a job in Elche. One of Elche's claims to fame is that it has the largest palm forest in Europe. Looking for a house we could afford we moved up the Vinalopo valley and away from Elche.

The first time I saw our house in Culebrón it was the little drive, framed by trees, that impressed. Then there was the palm tree. There are other trees in the garden, there are some nice trees, but it was the palm tree that drew my attention. The outside space in Culebrón has always been its biggest plus.

All those years ago the palm trees in Elche were menaced by a little red beetle. The other day our village mayoress WhatsApped me a pamphlet to say that the Town Hall here was concerned about the spread of that same beetle and that there was a census under way of palm trees. Infected trees would have to be culled for the greater good. The thought crossed my mind that we were going to lose the tree, as well as the cat, on my watch.

The tree chap came today. He was an interesting sort of bloke. He stopped me at one point in mid sentence and after a moment of apparent silence said something like "Aahh, lesser spotted red leg."

Good news. He said that the tree is sound but that it will need a chemical treatment to protect it against the beetle. First he recommended that it was "brushed" to remove the layer of outer, now dead, organic material that gives palm trunks their typical appearance. Apparently the dead debris offers a perfect breeding ground for the beetle. The tree man will be back next week to tidy up the palm. That done we can get the trunk injected.

There was some bad news though when he pointed out something that I have been worried about for some time now. The electric supply for the three houses in our little block cross our garden from a pole on the track that runs past the house. The wires pass directly over the palm tree and as it has grown it now menaces the wires. The last time we asked about beefing up those wires, to increase the power supply, the electricity company said that the work would cost 18,000€. I have no idea what they will say if we ask them to simply reposition the wires but I know it wont be cheap and I know whose tree it is.