Chatting with an algorithm

My sister-in-law is, apparently, learning French. She and my sister, who is learning Russian, were talking about Duolingo, the telephone and computer language learning app. I really don't care for Duolingo in Spanish—it's too strict, too dogmatic and often arguably wrong. I was once asked, in a schoolboy quiz, how many sides a threepenny bit had. I was on top of that obvious trick; everyone knew there were 12 sides, but there were two more—the heads and tails—making 14. I showed I'd caught onto their little trick by putting my answer as 12+2=14. "No," said the quiz setter—"12." An injustice that still rankles 62 years later. If that quiz setter were not dead, he'd work for Duolingo.

Lynn—for that's my sister-in-law's name—said that it wasn't the general stuff but the artificial intelligence bit that she actually liked. She said she had conversations and did spoken grammar exercises with Duolingo AI. I've seen the adverts, of course, but I've also seen adverts for penis rings and have never been tempted by those either.

But my sister-in-law does not suffer fools gladly, and if she thought it was alright, it probably was. So I decided to have a look at one of the (several) Spanish AI tutors. I presumed there would be a free version that did the basic stuff and then a paid-for version that would make the tea in the morning. Being of that sort of age where I am constantly reminded of the brecha digital—the digital divide—I asked a couple of everyday AI apps which they reckoned was the best-value AI Spanish tutor. The one I ended up looking at is called Langua, which seems to be related to Langua Talk which is one of those platforms where you can talk to a real tutor using a video call.

Have you ever noticed that on those programmes about the FBI, or in a sci-fi feature film, once something is said it's said. There is no need to repeat anything and there's no hesitation or deviation either. That's what talking to AI is like. It's like talking to a real person but it's very clear and precise. In the Spanish version of Langua you can talk to a man or a woman's voice and that can be in a range of accents and varieties - Mexican, Argentinian, Colombian, Uruguayan or Chilean and, of course, peninsula Spanish. It's the last one that I've been using and I think there are five, or maybe six, different peninsula voices. You can set levels of conversation from beginner to experienced; you can choose set conversation topics or just have a free-form conversation. You can get feedback in the target language or in your native language. I talked with it/her/him about the trials and tribulations of emptying a septic tank, for instance. It’ll do role plays and it produces flashcards (not that I know what they are exactly). You can also do grammar exercises with it. I've been surprised by its flexibility. For instance in the grammar section I asked it to practise the range of past tenses using the vosotros form (which I always forget), and it obliged.

The thing I've found most outstanding about it though is that it understands what I'm saying and even gives me quite a lot of humming and hawing latitude. So when I try to pronounce a word I always trip over, temporizador, for instance, and stumble with two or three attempts, it simply records the word when I get it right or the nearest I get before I give up. If I get a word wrong, it will transcribe the wrong word and then ask me about it later. Because it transcribes what you say as well as what it says, you have a written record of the conversation. This means the AI can provide an overall analysis for you or an analysis of a single phrase. Unlike a real live tutor, it remembers every word so that it will—if you ask—give you either a general analysis of your conversation or a detailed analysis of an individual phrase.

When you get fed up or completely lost, you can just stop. If you want to start again later, you can do so easily without feeling guilty. If it's time to give up altogether, have a cup of tea and then give it another crack—you can. I've only been using it for a few days and it's still surprising me. I suppose the novelty might wear off eventually but, at the moment, it's amusing, and interesting in equal measure. It's not free though. I chose their cheapest plan which costs about 20€ per month; so far I've never reached the cut-off point they told me was roughly 45 minutes per day. I only paid the money to give it a go because the free trial time was very limited. My original thought was that I'd give it up after a month but now I'm thinking I might keep on with it.

This is not a product recommendation as such—I’m very happy with what I've bought—but remember that my sister-in-law was singing the praises of Duolingo's version too. My guess is there are stacks and stacks of variations—all I'm saying is that I've been astounded by what the AI tutoring system I bought seems capable of doing and I'd wholeheartedly recommend it, or something similar, if you're learning a language.

Les Velles de Sèrra

I don't think I'm unusual in keeping my diary on Google calendar. It reminds me of the repetitive jobs, it reminds me of important appointments and it reminds me of birthdays. In fact it's probably one of the main banes of my life with its constant nag, nag nag. I also use the diary to jot down something interesting that I've missed. In that case I put a note to myself, at some appropriate time in the future, to check the details/dates/blood type of the missed event so that I catch it this time around. 

A reminder turned up a couple of weeks ago that said check Les Velles de Sèrra in Elche. So I did. There were several newspaper articles and bits on websites that talked about reviving this ancient tradition. It turned out to be a bit like the scarecrow competitions in the UK or Día de la Vieja in el Cantón with large dolls or mannequins dotted around the streets. In the case of the Velles these were, apparently, mannequins set in a tableau with some sort of commentary on modern life.

I couldn't find any specific information beforehand on where the mannequins were but, when I left home, some 45 kms from Elche, I was optimistic that they would be in central locations. Luckily for us, as we turned up just after 2pm the tourist office was still open. I asked, in Spanish, if there was any information, specifically a map of locations, for Les Velles de Serra. Now my Valenciano is weak to non existent so I had no idea how to pronounce Velles de Serra and the woman behind the desk obviously thought I was asking about the Valencian Fallas which, in Valenciano, are Falles

"Ah, no", said the woman, "They're in Valencia, not here." "No, what I'm after are these scarecrow type dolls that are in the streets here today" "Ah, Velles, no, those came and went." "I don't think so, I'm pretty sure that they are today, I've read a couple of articles that say they happen today until 5pm." At this point the woman checks her computer, "Quite right, today." (Knowing that this is a stupid question) "Do you have a map or a website address with locations?" "I don't think so but my colleague who is in the bathroom at the moment may know." The colleague, a man, joins us. He tells me that I missed them, the Velles that is. The woman puts him right and tells him that the computer says they are on today. He suddenly remembers that he saw some of the mannequins in a school yard this very morning. "They may be on in the centre, or el Raval," he says. I ask him if there are any repetitive locations. He says no. I ask where el Raval is. The woman draws a circle on the map. Thank you, very kind, I say.

We walked around the centre by the Basilica, by the Town Hall, in the old Flower Market. We walked around the central bits of el Raval. We had a coffee in el Raval, the server had never heard of Les Velles de Serra. As hope faded and we headed back towards the parked car, by a purposely circuitous route, I noticed some mannequins outside a shop. The sign with them started with "Che" which I'm pretty sure is a very common sentence starter in Argentina. Good to see the Argentinians keeping their end up for a bit of ilicitano culture. Only a couple of hundred yards further on we found another mannequin tableau about the recent floods in Valencia and this one had a woman guarding it. She told us there were 36 sets of monigotes spread across the city but she didn't know where they were except that some were in some schools.

A bit of a disaster really then. Or maybe it was a triumph in that we found any. Either way the gap between promotion and information seemed somewhat surprising.

Ouch!

You may have noticed that the tagline at the top of this blog has changed. It used to say old, fat, white haired. Through absolutely no effort on my part I've lost a fair bit of weight. In fact so much so that there was some doubt about whether my feeding tube could be removed today. Patri, the nutritionist, obviously thinks I'm not making enough effort to pile in those calories. I'd like to think it was my vivid description of what I'd eaten on the tapas trail in Yecla yesterday or the slightly inflated description of the nature of Shepherd's Pie, which swung the balance. Actually it probably wasn't as my Spanish was particularly stumbling and faltering today. 

The nutritionist didn't remove the plumbing herself. She had to call for a doctor. I could see why. It was specialist work. The tube I've had in since August last year looked exactly like that clear plastic stuff that blows bubbles in home aquariums. The tube was about 30 cms long had a junction at the end with a couple of hard plastic screw caps where I connected the bags loaded with liquid food and where I had connected syringes to push clean water into my stomach. At first the water was a way of keeping me hydrated and later it was just to keep the pipework clean. There was a plastic clip halfway up the tube to help make sure my stomach contents didn't leak all over the floor if I forgot to tighten up the plastic caps. Up against my stomach there was a plastic disc about 2 cms across to stop the tube sliding back inside my guts. Apparently inside my stomach there was a smaller plastic disc up against the inner wall. Getting the tube fitted had been a full on affair - pre-ops, general anaesthetic, mob handed operating theatre - the works. I guess they made a hole in my stomach and then pushed the smaller, interior, disc through the hole a bit like a button in a buttonhole. As the wound healed it closed around the tube; I suppose.

So the doctor comes in, says hello, checked I'd not eaten a hearty breakfast and tells me he's going to tug the tube out - it may hurt a bit he quipped. He wrapped the tube around his hand and jerked. Ouch. Ah, it didn't come out. I'll have another go. Jerk. Ouch. Hmm, I think we might have to find another solution. I'll have one last go. Jerk. Ouch. It's out. The nutritionist mopped up the blood from the wound and put a couple of those steri-strips, on to hold it together then a big dressing over the top and, a few moments later, I was on my way. The first time I've not had some sort of plumbing dangling from me in months.

The Town Council in Pinoso

One nice thing about living in a small Spanish town is that it's pretty easy to be on nodding terms with most of the local councillors. Not that it's really such a great thing but at least it means you can appear integrated when you have visitors from the old country. I often think it must be quite difficult for them, the councillors that is, not the visitors, because they have no easy escape. I saw one councillor, for instance, obviously in a hurry and trying to buy a couple of things from a local supermarket yet he was being harangued by someone, most forthrightly, about something. 

There are thirteen councillors in Pinoso. As with all Spanish municipalities the number of councillors is determined by population. The way it's done, in most, is that there are population bands that determine the number of councillors. Pinoso has between 5,001 and 10,000 inhabitants so it gets thirteen councillors just like Banyeres de Mariola with a population of 7,255 people. It's always an uneven number. Madrid has fifty seven, a village with a population under one hundred gets three.

At the moment all of Pinoso's councillors are from political parties with a national presence. In the past some councillors were from local parties. The Socialists, the PSOE, Partido Socialista Obrero Español is in power with eight councillors and a clear majority. The centre right Partido Popular, the Popular Party, has three councillors and the extreme right, VOX, has two councillors. 

The voting system in Spain is based on political parties and lists. Each party puts forward a list with sufficient names to cover all the potential seats up for grabs often with a couple of supplementary names that may provide a bit of extra publicity. At the national level the party will put its "stars" at the head of lists in different locations. At the local level that list of names will be known to a lot of the electorate. At the regional and national level it's very unlikely that most people will know anything about the people on the list with the possible exception of that first, star, name. Only the politically very aware will know anyone further down the list. Who gets elected depends on a complicated mathematical formula that is designed to provide a form of proportional representation based on the votes cast. This means that the voting pattern in the local and national elections can be quite different because people choose to vote for the party nationally and for people they trust locally. For instance, last time around, in 2023, there were local and general elections but at different times. The hypothetical makeup of the Pinoso Town Council, based on the General Election results, would have seen the PP in power with seven seats. PSOE would have got four and VOX, two instead of the actual PSOE majority.

The term of office for a council is four years. The last elections were in 2023 and the next ones will be on Sunday May 23rd 2027. When the councillors have been elected the council meets to elect a mayor. If one party has a clear majority then it will usually elect the mayor. Where no one party is able to govern alone the parties horse trade until they have the necessary majority to elect a mayor and to form the governing council. In Pinoso with the clear PSOE majority the party elected Lázaro Azorín as Mayor. Once the makeup of the council is known then the councillors in the ruling party, or coalition, are given various responsibilities - education, health, employment etc. I've put the list with the current councillors and their responsibilities at the bottom. Some of the responsibilities were difficult to translate into English.

Lázaro, the mayor, has a second job, he's also a PSOE Diputado in the Congreso de los Diputados in Madrid. For we Britons he's the equivalent of an MP. Lázaro was number five on the PSOE's list for the 2019 General Election as a potential diputado from Alicante. The PSOE won sufficient proportion of the votes in the province for them to send four deputies to Madrid. Later, when the head of the list, Pedro Duque, Science Minister and ex astronaut, resigned (for tactical voting reasons in parliament) Lazaro, as next name on the list, became an MP. In the 2023 elections Lazaro was number three on the lists and he was elected on the proportion of the vote won by his party.

It is the council itself that decides on the payment levels, expenses etc. for the various councillors, though there are guidelines to avoid profiteering. I kept a note of the salaries reported after a council meeting in 2023. I wanted to make sure I was fair in mentioning those salaries here but I cannot find any reference to salary on the labyrinthine Pinoso Town Hall website. There's a section on the website called municipal transparency, transparencia municipal, but I find it somewhat less than transparent! Anyway, given that this information will probably have changed over the intervening years, and given that it may never have been correct, you should take this information as potentially inaccurate. I think that four of the councillors get paid a full salary, for a full working week, and four get paid a partial salary, equivalent to working about 10 hours per week. The full time salaries range from a bit above 48,000€ down to a bit below 34,000€ with the partial contracts paying around 11,000€ per year. 

So far as I know Lazaro waived his salary as mayor because he gets paid as a diputado. Actually he gets paid less as an MP than he would as mayor (a diputado gets a bit below 44,000€ a year according to Perplexity.ai) but they also get tax free expenses of around 24,000€ a year if their "constituency" is outside Madrid and quite a few other perks from taxi allowances to travel costs. Again, according to Perplexity.ai most common or garden MPs get paid between 4,000€ and 5,000€ per pay cheque remembering that, in Spain, most workers get 14 payments in a year.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Pinoso Town Council

Lázaro Azorín Salar: Mayor.

Silvia Verdú Carrillo: Culture and Youth, Staff, Treasury, Education, Waste, Agriculture, Police, Civil Protection and Traffic, Forestry and Quarries

María José Moya Vidal: Social Services, Equality and LGTBI+, Protocol, Health, Pinoso Social and Health Associations, Local Media

César Pérez Cascales: Senior Citizens, Archive and Library, Heritage and Historical Memory, Foreigners, Citizen Participation, Social and Health Care Collectives

Neus Ochoa Rico: Local development, Tourism, Trade and Commerce, Markets and Consumer Affairs, Cleaning of Public Buildings 

José Ángel Pérez Verdú: Parks and Gardens, Outlying Settlements, Roads, Water and Water Resources, New Building, Technology and Street Cleaning

Elisa Santiago Tortosa: Fiestas

Raúl Pérez Albert: Cemetery Industry, Housing, Street Lighting and Urban Development

2024 Population in Pinoso

This was such an obvious blog, but one that had been published on the various Pinoso Town Hall websites, that I decided not to do it. Then, in casual conversation to Maggie I mentioned that it was easy to remember that there are now 345 Dutch and Belgian people in Pinoso (it's a topic of conversation amongst the Brits here, the obvious increase in the numbers of these two nationalities). She replied that she'd seen the article but not really taken it in. So, I decided to take the easy blog.

Pinoso had, at the close of 2024 a population, according to the statistical department of Pinoso Town Hall, of 8,836 people or maybe 8,846 (as the various figures in their article don't quite add up) but we're only talking about 10 people so I've used the higher figure to work out the figures in the next two sentences. Of that population 6,758 are Spanish (76%) and 2,078 people are foreigners (24%). There are 3426 Spanish men, 1039 foreign men, 3342 Spanish women and 1039 foreign women. The figures do not include the possibility of someone choosing not to be classed as male or female. The foreigners include people from 65 nationalities though four countries - Japan, Gambia, Yemen and Zimbabwe - only have a single, I hope not too lonely, representative here.

The biggest group of immigrants is still we Britons (801) followed by Moroccans (235), Dutch (210), Belgians (135), Rumanians (81), Ukrainians (64), Irish (43), Germans (38), Chinese (28), Polish (27), Algerians (25), Bulgarians (22), Italians (21) and Pakistanis (20). 

I think I should mention, because someone said it against one of the Facebook entries, that there are quite a few Canadians!

The last time I did this, at the start of 2022 (so 2021 figures), there were 56 different nationalities living in Pinoso. At that time the UK was way out in front with 835 people or nearly 10% of the population, the next most numerous group were Moroccans with 199 people. There were 71 Dutch, 69 Belgians, 66 Rumanians, 51 Ukrainians and 41 Ecuadorians. 

Tax and minimum wage - today's news

Something in today's news about income tax completely flummoxed me. I think I've got it worked out now. I may be wrong so don't take my ramblings as gospel but I thought you may be interested too.

The current Spanish Government is a coalition. That coalition can usually garner support from other parties to approve its legislation, but not always. Today, one of the news stories was about a row within the two parties that make up the Government. Yolanda Diaz, from SUMAR, has done a deal with the Unions to put the minimum wage up to 1,184€ per month. Because there are 14 payments in the Spanish year that's a total income of 16,576€ per year. At the moment the minimum wage is 15,876€. Yolanda Diaz also pushed through legislation which dropped the working week from 40 hours to 37.5 hours for the same pay. The majority party in Government, the Socialists or PSOE, argue that, as the minimum wage is now a reasonable income, it should be taxed like other incomes. SUMAR argues that as it is still a low income the workers on it should be offered more protection. In recent years the minimum wage has been exempt of the IRPF or income tax.

This news confused me because I know that Spanish income tax (IRPF) is paid in earnings bands with different percentage rates. The lowest rate, on taxable income between 1€ and 12,450€, is 19%. The next band goes from 12,450€ and 20,200€. The tax on that is 24%. There are other tax bands, the highest is for incomes of 300,000€ or more which are taxed at 47%. If the lowest tax rate was 19%, and that applied from the first euro earned, how could a wage be tax exempt?

I also knew that there were tax allowances. For someone under 65 it's 5,550€, increasing to 6,700€ for over 65s and 8,100€ for the over 75s. There are other tax allowances too, for dependants and for married couples. The bit I didn't know was that if the total taxable income was below the minimum wage then there was no tax to be paid at all. Even now that seems a bit odd as it clashes with the idea of the various tax bands.

And that's the change. Presuming that the legislation goes through, in the tax year 2025 even the people on minimum wage will be taxed. As we are just about to have the pleasure of paying our tax bills for the tax year 2024 the rest of this explanation uses 2024 as an example.

1. Exemption for incomes below the minimum wage

Individuals earning up to the annual minimum wage do not have to pay IRPF. In 2024, this exemption threshold was set at 15,876€, equivalent to the annual minimum wage. So, people on low incomes, particularly those earning at or below the minimum wage, are not subject to income tax.

2. The 19% Tax Band

The first €12,450 of taxable income is subject to a 19% tax rate under Spain's sliding scale tax system. Taxable income is calculated after subtracting personal allowances (the 5,550€ and so on) and other deductions. Because of the personal allowances and the exemption for incomes below the minimum wage, many low-income earners do not reach the taxable income level where this 19% rate applies.

3. How the exemption and the 19% tax band Interact

There is an apparent dichotomy which arises because the 19% tax band starts at €0. In practice, no one pays this rate on their first €12,450 of gross income unless their earnings exceed both the personal allowance and the minimum wage.

For instance: A worker earning €15,876 (the minimum wage in 2024) would subtract their personal allowance (€5,550 for someone under 65), leaving a taxable income of €10,326. Since this taxable income is below the exemption threshold (€15,876), they pay no IRPF.

If their gross income exceeded the exemption threshold, for instance if they earned €16,000, they would begin paying IRPF on their taxable income above €5,550. That would mean they would have 10,450€ of taxable income. That figure falls within the 19% tax band (which goes up to 12,450€) so they would pay 1,985.50€ in taxes. (10,450 x 19%)

You can see that, in this case, a small increase in gross pay produces a significantly increased tax bill.

You can also see that there are two possible arguments about whether people should pay tax on their total income or not. The one that has won, at the moment, the PSOE one, is that the personal allowances and the tax bands provide a fair taxation system without needing any extra protection for those on the lowest wages. The PSOE reckons that only about 20% of the people on minimum wage will pay any tax in 2025 and those will generally be single people without dependants.

Singing along

Much to the amusement of Maggie, my partner, instead of resolving to go to the gym or to stop drinking alcohol in the New Year my resolution was to learn the words to Un beso y una flor. It's a song popularised in Spain by the singer Nino Bravo in 1972. 

I don't know about you but I was forced to learn things by rote in Secondary school on pain of serious bodily harm. 

Latin master to an 11 year old me.
"Alright Thompson;  present tense of to love in Latin"
I try.
"Wrong, lift one leg, stand on just one. Try again. Same verb, same tense."
I try again.
"Wrong, lift the other leg too!" 

Should you be concerned I can still trot out amō, amās, amat, amāmus, amātis, amant even when I'm dead drunk. I can also do "I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high etc.," and "So shaken as we are, so wan with care, find we a time for frighted peace to pant, etc. That seems to be it though. There must have been more but they've gone. 

The Spanish used to say, la letra con sangre entra, literally, the letter enters with blood but which equates to our,  spare the rod and spoil the child. Both come from a time when adults were very happy to use severe violence against youngsters and when rote learning was one of the mainstays of any educational system. 

We do learn by constant repetition though, otherwise I wouldn't know tens, if not hundreds, of songs from the ones sung by adults in my childhood like Don't Dilly Dally on the Way or Daisy, Daisy through to all those pop songs of the 60s, 70s and 80s. I do remember making a bit of an effort to learn the words to Jerusalem too when I was at University having been unable to hide my ignorance as a group of about twenty of us did our best to be patriotic, or socialist, or part of the Women's Institute, from the top of a table in the Union bar.

There's a Spanish song, Mediterráneo by Joan Manuel Serrat, that has been voted as the best song in the history of popular music in Spain. You hear it from time to time but it's rolled out far fewer times than songs like Eres tú by Mocedades or Bailando by Alaska or Rafael's Mi Gran Noche. But the song that I've noticed is the one I'm trying to learn, Un beso y una flor by Nino Bravo.

I'm not much for sport but, during the Euros, I could hear that the England football fans were singing Sweet Caroline. I remember too that my mum complained that, in the place she lived until very recently, the residents often burst into a version of that same song. Somehow the song had moved from mere song to anthem. In exactly the same was I found myself swaying gently from side to side as the drunken crowd, out to cheer on the Wine Horses in Caravaca de la Cruz last year, burst into a spirited rendition of Un beso y una flor. I recognised the song and I mouthed a few of the lines that I remembered but the situation reminded me of that table top Jerusalem recital - lots of da, da, da. Some time later, in Pinoso, the town band played the song as part of a concert and, Rod Stewart like, the band's director handed over to the crowd to sing along - ligero equipaje tum, tum, tan largo viaje, tum tiddly. 

That means that on two separate occasions, twice, the song has cropped up as a sing along. It's not happened with any other song, except the Spanish Happy Birthday, so, every day, for just five minutes, as my resolution, I read through the lyrics. So far and we're now into the second month of the year, not a thing, I can't string two lines together. Absolutely useless. My addled brain seems quite unable to cope. But even back in the 60s with those Latin verbs and ancient poems my method was easy - persistence. Just keep going till Elliot or Chesterton or the future tense (amābō, amābis, amābit, amābimus, amābitis, amābunt) ceded before sheer obstinance.

Un beso y una flor, Canción de Nino Bravo

Dejaré mi tierra por ti

Dejaré mis campos y me iré

Lejos de aquí

Cruzaré llorando el jardín

Y con tus recuerdos partiré

Lejos de aquí

De día viviré

Pensando en tus sonrisas

De noche las estrellas me acompañarán

Serás como una luz

Que alumbre mi camino

Me voy pero te juro que mañana volveré

Al partir un beso y una flor

Un "te quiero", una caricia y un adiós

Es ligero equipaje

Para un tan largo viaje

Las penas pesan en el corazón

Más allá del mar habrá un lugar

Donde el sol cada mañana brille más

Forjarán mi destino

Las piedras del camino

Lo que nos es querido siempre queda atrás

Buscaré un hogar para ti

Donde el cielo se une con el mar

Lejos de aquí

Con mis manos y con tu amor

Lograré encontrar otra ilusión

Lejos de aquí

De día viviré

Pensando en tus sonrisas

De noche las estrellas me acompañarán

Serás como una luz

Que alumbre mi camino

Me voy pero te juro que mañana volveré

Al partir un beso y una flor

Un "te quiero", una caricia y un adiós

Es ligero equipaje

Para un tan largo viaje

Las penas pesan en el corazón

Más allá del mar habrá un lugar

Donde el sol cada mañana brille más

Forjarán mi destino

Las piedras del camino

Lo que nos es querido siempre queda atrás

Al partir un beso y una flor

Un "te quiero", una caricia y un adiós

Es ligero equipaje

Para un tan largo viaje

Las penas pesan en el corazón

Más allá del mar habrá un lugar

Donde el sol cada mañana brille más

Forjarán mi destino

Las piedras del camino

Lo que nos es querido siempre queda atrás

A clean break

Being as how they're in season Walnuts are a common sight in Spanish supermarkets and homes around Christmas time. Apparently Britons and Spaniards open walnuts differently.

In the UK, in my youth, Christmas was about the only time of the year we'd have nuts, in shells, in our house. What joy, a reason to bring the crocodile nutcracker out of it's almost perennial hibernation and set it to task. The tail applied the pressure to the nut placed between the beast's jaws.

Now this, plier like, action, is fine for nuts with hard shells - Brazil nuts, hazelnuts and almonds for instance. It was complete overkill for monkey nuts and problematic for walnuts too. Instead of a nice clean break the intricately constructed walnut shells generally shattered when they suddenly lost their structural strength. The crocodile jaws would smack to producing a mixed pile of pulverized nut and shell fragments.

When you buy a net bag of walnuts in Spain they usually (not always) come with something that looks like a flat key. The idea is that you put the short end of the key into the crack between the two halves of the nut, the seam of the shell, and twist. The shell splits neatly and leaves the brain shaped half of the nut in one piece. I bet that's how Rowntrees got those nicely shaped nuts on top of their walnut whips.

Rise, take up your bed, and walk

Maggie tells me I should be explicit and say that I have been given the cancer all clear. She tells me that a sentence built into the story of the Imserso holiday is not good enough. That all the people who have shown concern need to be told clearly and succinctly. Clearly fine, succinctly - not likely given my style.

On 10 January I saw the oncologist at Elda Hospital after doing a PET -TAC at the Vinalopó Hospital in Elche a couple of days before. The oncologist told me that the results showed that the lesion that had been in my throat, in August, was no longer there - the cancer was gone. Every few months I will have to have another TAC scan and then go to see the oncologist to see whether the cancer has come back. I asked what chance there was of the cancer returning and he said 40%. That puts the odds in my favour.

I thought I was done there but Maggie tells me that I should tell you that I'm still having trouble eating. That, even now, I'm taking most food through a stomach tube but that I have started to eat more ordinary food, especially soft food, by mouth. My throat and mouth are not yet recovered - I have a sore throat all the time and my mouth is sometimes slimy, sometimes dry as a bone. My breath is less fragrant than it was. As my taste buds and saliva glands took a pasting from the radiotherapy (and maybe the chemotherapy) eating and drinking isn't a particularly pleasant experience. The treatment has affected my hearing and I'm quite deaf. There are other things which are not quite as before, including things like my facial hair hardly growing as well as changes to other bodily functions which I'm not going to detail here. Full disclosure only goes so far. Oh, and since the day when I was first told that I had cancer until today I have lost 17.7 kilos or two and three quarter stones. I'm very saggy.

By the way Positron Emission Tomography - Computed Axial Tomography (PET-TAC), is the process where the patient, me in this case, is put inside a big tube which allows the medics to take lots of images, a full body scan, that show the activity and metabolism of the body's organs using a radioactive "dye" which interacts with different types of body cells in different ways. People who know what they are looking at can interpret the images to decide what is happening to certain organs and, specifically in my case, to decide whether there was still cancer in my throat and lymph nodes and whether it has popped up anywhere else in other organs.

Holidays on the State

The food tasted horrid. It may really have been horrid but I think it was probably right enough given that it was mass catering. My recentish bouts of radio and chemotherapy have mashed up my taste buds and almost everything tastes odd. In fact until a couple of weeks ago I hadn't tried eating, by putting anything in my mouth, for a bit over three months but, when the oncologist said there was no sign of cancer, it seemed about time to stop messing around and get back to normal. I'm still taking most of my sustenance through a stomach tube though. Whether the food was foul or not it came as part of the package and so, come hell or high water, I was definitely going to force some of it down my gullet. Anyway I'd also promised the nutritionist I'd try. 

Mealtimes, not eating much, I had the opportunity to look around at my fellow travellers. I felt for the few young people who had, mistakenly, booked into the hotel. It was full of holidaying pensioners. Most of us were overweight and a bit doddery. Many of us were rude or at least a bit selfish and unthinking. I'd watch as someone stopped to chat blocking up the narrow aisles between the tables, I'd watch as someone hogged the coffee machine to make just the right mix of coffee and hot milk in blissful ignorance of the ever extending queue behind them. The coffee had, after all to be just right, the wife had been sent for the coffee, the husband expected it just so and the little woman knew her place (presumably at some subservient time during the last century). At least we were the walking wounded, the ones who are still upright. Ah, the delights of old age.

We've just done one of the IMSERSO (Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales) holidays. Eight days away in a hotel in Roquetas del Mar on the Almeria coast for 228.93€ per person. That includes the coach from Alicante to Roquetas, full board and travel insurance including private health cover. The hotel we stayed at was the Hotel Bahia Serena - one of those enormous four star coastal hotels with pools and gyms and entertainment. The photo is of the interior patio of the hotel. 

The Imserso holidays are, essentially, subsidised holidays for pensioners resident in Spain who are enrolled in the Social Security System - there are other groups of people who are eligible too. If you qualify, but your partner doesn't, because they are too young for the scheme, they can also go along. I thought that to be eligible you had to have a Spanish State Pension but English speakers on the same bus as us to Roquetas assured me that wasn't the case. The people we talked to had registered through a travel agent and then used the same travel agent to book them the holidays. Each year there is a period to register and later there is a period to book the holidays. For this season I think that people can register on the scheme through till May (registration opened in November) but the periods seem to change so it's worth checking the Imserso website for up to date information. There is also information there about who qualifies with a points system based on age, income, levels of ability and the like. If you register now it is unlikely that you will be able to book a holiday this season but your eligibility will roll over into the 2025/2026 season.

There are lots of destinations to choose from divided into three categories - coastal holidays, island holidays and short breaks. In our first year of registration we were not able to book the island holidays. I had to wait till the second year. I'm not sure if that's because I didn't have enough points or if it's a general rule for all participants. The main group, the coastal holidays, are along the Mediterranean coast from Cataluña down through Valencia, Murcia and onto Andalucia. There is always a scramble to book up as the new season opens in Autumn. I booked us up online and didn't worry too much about the race to get to the islands. Once we'd found a place that looked OK we considered the job done. There are plenty of people who are hardened Imsersoers. When the booking period opens they hover by their computers with their options well researched. They target what they consider the best deals in the best hotels in the best locations and book multiple holidays. The next time you need Taylor Swift tickets they may be available as subcontractors!

The principal idea behind the scheme is that it helps to maintain the wellbeing of older people who get to relax, to see a bit of Spain and to decrease their potential isolation by mixing with other pensioners in the participating hotels. Philosophy aside it's also a scheme that supports the tourist industry by offering a steady flow of clients in the low season. I think how it works is that the Government guarantees a certain price, for their services, to the airlines, coach firms, hotels etc. Whether the providers sign up or not is a choice for them and their accountants. If, for instance, a hotel decides that there is enough money in the offer they can keep open without having to temporarily lay off staff. 

This was our second Imserso holiday. Last year we went to Cataluña in May when the resort was back in business for the summer but this time, with going in January, the part of Roquetas where the hotel is was, more or less, closed down for the winter and it was a bit desolate. 

I don't remember it as being a particularly difficult process to sign up though going through a travel agent sounds as if it would have been easier. I suppose that, like the hotels, certain travel agents deal with Imserso holidays and others don't. To be honest, I've forgotten a lot of the detail about exactly how I signed up and applied the first time. Nonetheless, like all bureaucratic processes, I'm sure there are slight changes from year to year. That being the case don't take my word for any of this and have a look at the Imserso website if you want to know the truth.

And nobody wears Prada

I was hanging around in the Corte inglés in Alicante the other day. Corte Inglés is a big department store. Like all traditional retailers Corte Inglés has been having a hard time recently but they're still something of a Spanish institution. Anyway, Father Ted like, I, inadvertently, wandered into the women's underwear section. As I averted my eyes, I found myself gazing at small section dedicated to "traditional" clothes from Alicante. I was rather taken with the silk brocade waistcoats but not so much with the 190€ price tag on most of them.

I've often wondered where people get their "traditional" clothes from so Corte Inglés was a bit of a surprise. Maybe all the branches in Provincial Capitals have a "traditional" section. I've asked of course and been variously told that some of the clothes are hired, that there are family heirlooms, that lots are made in family, that there are people who make a living by supplying the clothes and, from time to time, I do see the costumes in shop windows. There used to be a shop in Pinoso, in Plaza Colón, opposite the market that sold fiesta clothes. Down in Murcia, for the Bando de la Huerta celebrations, they move so much "traditional" clothing that you can buy it in the supermarkets.

I've said in the past that the idea of "traditional" dress seems a bit strange to me. (I'm going to give up on the inverted commas now but remember they're there). Who is it who chooses? Who stopped the clock in the 18th or 19th century? Why isn't traditional something from 1945 or 1967 or 2023? And if it were would traditional be what people wear to the office, to a wedding or to do sport?

Probably around 2006 our village, Culebrón, prepared a float for the big parade that is a part of the Pinoso fiesta in August. Culebrón had been promised drains by the PP administration of the time but they were not forthcoming. The float's main feature was an oversized toilet. We were told to try to wear something traditional to accompany the float and that the traditional dress for Culebrón was striped grey trousers or skirt topped off with a white shirt. We did our best.

There's another event in Pinoso which celebrates the liberation of Pinoso from the shackles of Monóvar in 1826. The celebration, called Villazgo, takes place in February. For years it was a great event, nowadays in cash strapped Pinoso it's a pathetic affair held in a car park. I used to buy a newspaper most mornings from a shop called Juanjo and I liked to try and chat to the owner as a way of practising my Spanish. We got talking about Villazgo and Juanjo told me about the typical and traditional form of clothing for men in Pinoso before selling me a sort of smock. Very simple, a big baggy black shirt to be worn with a blue and white neckerchief. He wasn't telling fibs, I know from years and years of experience that it's one of the most common men's outfits for Villazgo. Mine is still unworn. I have never been one for fancy dress and I always think I'd feel like a bit of a fake dressing up as a Spaniard - I was born in Huddersfield after all where cloth caps and clogs might have been more appropriate.

There are several events in Pinoso when people wear something that is called traditional. I often wonder if it's traditional in the way that blokes with bells on their clothes doing clodhopping type dances with clashing sticks on various village greens in England in the guise of Morris dancers or Mummers are, apparently, a part of my heritage. Those Pinoso events include Villazgo. Easter is another. There's a day in the Holy Week celebrations when women process through the streets wearing peinetas and mantillas. You know the sort of thing. Think of a, supposedly, Spanish woman in a 1950s Hollywood film, wearing something that isn't the flouncy fiesta frock. She'll have a high comb stuck into her raven coloured hair to support a very fine lace scarf that hangs around the side of her face and down her back. For most of the time though when the women in Pinoso don traditional dress they'll wear a pleated skirt, called a refajo, which is a huge circle of cloth with a circular, elasticated(?), hole for their waist pleated over and over again and usually in green, red and tonal stripes. It's the sort of skirt that the "carnival queens" wear during the Pinoso fiestas in August but it's also the skirt for the folk dancers.

Another event in the August Fiesta is the ofrenda, the flower offering. People set off from a district called Santa Catalina and parade through the streets to the Parish Church. It's one of my favourite events. The participants smile sufficiently to light up a large city. People from all over the area, even over the border into Murcia, are invited to the ofrenda and the range of traditional clothes is impressive. The contingent from Culebrón always wear those grey trousers or skirts we were told about in our toilet training days. There are blokes in velvet knee breeches and Cordoba style hats, there are women from Alicante dressed in huge silky skirts supported on some sort of scaffolding so typical of the city's San Juan fiesta. As we're in Valencia region it's very difficult not to be aware of the Fallas Fiesta which takes place in March in Valencia City (there are other fallas in other towns too) and even I can tell that there are big differences, as well as seeming similarities, between the women's outfits from Valencia and Alicante. I can't actually remember if either Alicante or Valencia features the breast enhancing bodices but they are also a big part of the ofrenda. To their credit several of our town councillors make a real effort with some splendid traditional clothes in several of these events. Indeed I was thinking of a couple of the waistcoats sported by our current mayor when I was in Corte Inglés.

Mention of the Fallas reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend who was born in Valencia city. She complained that, during the dictatorship, the traditional dress had been discouraged and a sort of Francoist revision of traditional was put in place. I have no idea what the changes were - maybe fewer push up corsets - but she got very hot under the collar about it. She also told me how much her sister had spent on a dress for a recent edition of Fallas - again I forget how much but it made me blanche at the time.

Anyway. So I thought, there's a blog here about the differences that there are between traditional Pinoso and, similar but different, in Monóvar (next town down the road) or Yecla (across the frontier into Murcia). In fact someone told me that the stripes on the refajo skirts are horizontal, as against vertical, in one or the other. I was lying in bed thinking about it. I decided that books, as against the Internet, would probably be a good source of information. 

I went to the library where Clara, the librarian/archivist was extremely generous with her time (and forgiving of my Spanish) as she told me about the local traditional clothes. Basically what she said was that traditional was a load of tosh. That the clothes worn came from a range of periods and the differences between an outfit in one place and another was that one town was doing the equivalent of featuring the 1960s mini skirt whilst another had chosen to highlight the 1970s catsuit (not literally you understand but figuratively) or that two towns had chosen the same basic period but one was stressing Sunday best while the other had gone with working in the fields. Add in a bit of similarity, or variety, because of the seasonal nature of the clothes, the climate they were designed for, the materials they were made of, whether the clothes were made by Balenciaga for a rich landowner or came from Stradivarius for a factory worker and lots of other sensible and obvious factors.

It was a very informative session and I borrowed a couple of books and got to see several reference books with old pictures of the area (sometimes with Clara pointing out her mum or grandma in some grainy B&W photo) but it didn't help me write the definitive guide to traditional dress in Pinoso. Maybe when I've read the books!

Fun for this year

There are lot of strange fiestas in Spain. Every now and then I'll see some article or read a report about this or that event where everyone throws paint at a man dressed as a clown/harlequin for either attempting to steal/failing to steal a religious icon in Guadix and Baeza (Cascamorras), where a man, also dressed as a clown/harlequin, jumps over babies each Corpus Christi in Castrillo de Murcia, in Burgos (El Colacho), where devils capture saints with the intention of burning then to death if they are not sidetracked into climbing onto the balconies of fair maidens with rape in their minds (La Santantonà in Forcall), where six open coffins, with live occupants, are paraded around a church and its cemetery to musical accompaniment in Las Nieves, Galicia (Fiesta de Santa Marta de Ribarteme) or where giant puppets, skeletons and knights Templar parade through the torchlit streets of Soria (Las Ánimas). Once upon a time any list of odd festivals would include the takeover of the town of Ibi and the resulting egg, flour and firework fight (els Farinats) but Health and Safety has turned that into a shadow of its former self.  There are tens if not hundreds more but even I can recognise when a list is getting too long.

Nonetheless, if I come across some fiesta that sounds promising, even if it's kilometres away, I'll log it away in my diary with a note to myself to check out the dates and details closer to the time. My hope is that there'll be something a bit different to take snaps of. The trouble is that I've done most within spitting distance and there is a certain reluctance on behalf of my long suffering partner to spend a fortune on a couple of nights away to see the symbolic bear hunt at La Vijanera in Silió in Cantabria or to see people rafting down the river in Nargó in Lleida. Anyway the years are taking their toll and I'm getting too old or too lazy to drive off to the far corners of Spain to fight crowds of young men to get an out of focus photo of some pagan ritual hijacked by the Catholic Church.

January is a good time for fiestas. Lots of the San Antón festivals are pretty lively and usually involve animals and/or fire. One I went to last year in Vilanova d'Alcolea was a real hoot. It was described as a perfect symbiosis between animals and fire and there was mention of a procession, with horses, passing through all the town's streets, jumping over bonfires along the route. What the description didn't say was that those horses drove the crowd before them in narrow streets ablaze with brushwood in a scene as infernal as any ever envisioned in a doom painting with souls cast into the fiery pit of Hell. At one point I was quite convinced I was going to die in flames. Quite a few of the local San Antón events are much gentler though.

Anyway my diary said I should check an event in Piornal. I had no idea where Piornal was though it turns out that it's in Extremadura, in Caceres, which is a long way from Culebrón. I didn't know what it was about, nor when it was, it's on January 19th and 20th this year and as I'm already booked up for those dates I thought I'd let you know so you could pop over there yourself and maybe get involved if you fancied it.

The fiesta is called Jarramplas and it represents the punishment of a cattle thief who is being driven out of the village. Jarramplas is the name of the character, a man dressed in a coat covered in multi-coloured ribbons, so that he looks like he's wearing one of those rag carpets that were still common in my youth. He wears a conical full face mask with a big nose and two horns sprout from the mask. He parades through the town beating a small drum and people throw things at him; in the past it was any old vegetable but, nowadays, they pelt him with turnips, well small root vegetable called nabos actually. No doubt thanks to the nanny state the 21st Century costume conceals a steel armour undergarment to ensure that Jarramplas isn't killed. You'd think they'd have trouble finding people to take on the role but there are, apparently, enough people willing to brave the volleys of turnips till 2048. Obviously, being Spain, there's a saint, Sebastian, linked to this festival and as well as turnip heaving there are lots of other events in the two days from Saint dressing and foot kissing to a communal meal of migas (we are in Extremadura after all).

No, seriously, Spain really is full of colourful and interesting fiestas and it doesn't take much hunting to find something well worth gawping at. Nearly all the local town halls have Facebook pages where they publicise their fiestas. Now I'm feeling a bit better I'm going to get back into it and see if I can't find something new and fun to point my camera at.

Last year's weather, and some context

The local Medios de Counicación recently published Capito's analysis of the annual data from the weather station in Pinoso for 2024. It's in Valenciano, so I may have got some things wrong. I missed out a couple of details on purpose. I may have missed others by mistake. 

Capi Gonzálvez Poveda, Capito, taught in Pinoso for years and he still runs the local weather stations one of which forms part of the AEMET, the National Weather Service's, network.

So, the maximum temperature was 41°C on 3 July, and the minimum was -2.5°C on 21 December. 

We received 256 litres of rain during the year,  the rainiest day was 11 June, with 41 litres. 

The windiest day was 8 June, when the wind blew at 75 km/h. 

The day with the highest minimum temperature was 16 July, when the temperature didn't drop below 23°C. 

The day with the lowest maximum temperature was 11 December, when the temperature didn't exceed 9.5°C.

There was rain on 55 days, it dropped below freezing on 20 days, there were 29 misty days, no days with hail, and no days with snow; there were thunderstorms on 5 days. 

It was sunny and clear on 152 days, sunny with some cloud on 163 days, cloudy on 42 days, and overcast on 9 days.

They also printed the composite analysis for the 32 years from 1990 to 2021, so here are a few figures for comparison:

The maximum temperature was 44°C on 10 August 2012; the minimum was -11°C on 29 January 2006.

The day with the highest minimum temperature was 18 July 2005, when the temperature didn't drop below 25°C.

The day with the lowest maximum temperature was 28 January 2006, when the temperature didn't exceed 0°C.

Over the 32 years, the averages were rainy on 52 days, sunny and clear on 181 days, sunny with some cloud on 114 days, cloudy on 48 days, and overcast on 22 days.

The same old chestnut

Sometimes I think my Spanish is OK. Other times, I despair. Most of the time, when I have a longer session speaking Spanish, despair is the overriding sensation. 

Right at the beginning, it was verb tables, pronunciation, grammar, trying to understand the structure and learning vocabulary. Even today I try to find a few minutes a day to read through my vocabulary books. Every now and again, as I stumble over some verb tense in a real-world conversation, I go back and have a bit of a read through those verb tables or something on object and subject pronouns because I seem to be a little confused. It amazes me how difficult it is to retain some of the basic grammar, learned vocabulary or phrases after all these years.

My Spanish is miles better than it was when I got here, but it's still terribly pidgin. The only place where I still can fall completely apart is on the phone; but even there I generally manage to scrape through nowadays. In general, in a normal sort of conversation, I do fine. I've had no trouble at all dealing with my cancer treatment and my stays in hospital in Spanish. If someone tries to speak to me in broken English—as they do from time to time—I just plough on in Spanish; giving way simply confirms my inability. Only if the Spaniard I'm talking to turns out to be a fluent English speaker, and very few are, do I yield and speak English.

I went to have a natter with my pal Jesús last week. It was the first time for quite a while and we've been on and off for years now. The original idea was that we'd do a bit of an exchange; an intercambio. We'd talk for a while in English and for a while in Castilian. To be honest, Jesús has never shown much aptitude for English; he finds the sounds almost impossible to imitate, and I don't think it was ever a serious proposition, but we've continued to meet over a coffee for ages now. There have been plenty of missed sessions, and, with being ill recently, I'd more or less given up. When we met this time we spoke not a word of English. We nattered about everything from politics to the cost of the bus fare up to Barcelona. I'm very happy that I can do that, hold a conversation in another language, but to be honest, after 20 years here, I should be able to. I was also, as always, appalled at the deficiencies in my control of the language. As I pound out a spurious version of Spanish I can hear the half-formed sentences, the wrong vocabulary, the mispronunciation and stumbling over certain words, the repeated errors and the strange phrasing.

Recently I've gone back to taking some online classes after a hiatus of a few months. To call them classes is a misnomer. I haven't done a Spanish class for maybe twelve or thirteen years now but I've never stopped slogging away at trying to improve. For instance I've read 45 books this year and thirty-six of them have been in Spanish. I still listen to the Notes in Spanish podcasts/videos and have a few radio programmes which I listen to as catch-up podcasts that cover everything from an "on this day" history programme to an arts magazine and a series of historical, political and topical documentaries. I listen to morning news programme on the radio and it's unusual for us to miss at least one of the TV news bulletins either at 3pm or 9pm. There's more: Spanish is all around us and if it's simply listening to Spanish music or seeing Spanish-language films at the cinema then I'll do that too.

I do a couple of things online too. I use a platform called italki. The basic idea is that I connect with someone via a video call and pay them to talk to me in Spanish. I like to persuade myself that real conversations are my best chance of improving because they are realistic and jump from topic to topic with lots of asides thrown in. Quite unlike those fake sessions about the environment or eating out so beloved by language tutors. I like the online sessions (italki just happens to be the one I bumped into) because it's both impersonal and personal at the same time. I often feel like I'm getting to know a lot about the tutors; they will express political leanings; they will tell you about their family, about things they've done and places they've been but, at the same time, they are just figures on a screen.

The online system makes it very easy to use them for my own ends. Unlike a class where you pay for twelve sessions on a Tuesday at 7:30 in the evening (or whatever), I pay for the sessions as I please and I can shop around for what I consider to be a good price per hour. I try a new tutor; if they're racist, if we don't click, if they talk too much, if I don't like their style or if they want to follow notes or introduce exercises—I simply don't buy another session off them. If I want to change the time or day from this week to next week, I usually can so they have to fit around my schedule rather than me around theirs. It's the same with holidays and the like; if I want to go to the theatre and they only have slots that clash with my theatre visit I forget about them for that week. I don't have to drive anywhere and if the session starts at half past I don't need to think about it till twenty five past. The tutors might have all the disadvantages of the gig economy but not me. I can go to another tutor or forget it for that week. If I want to talk to someone five times in one week or if I want to talk to someone for three hours on the trot or if I want to talk to five different tutors in the same week I can. And if I suddenly stop I don't need to tell them why.

After nearly every online session, I get very angry with myself. In the conversation I had yesterday with Omar, in Galicia, we talked about dubbing films into Spanish and the different ways of dealing with cultural differences in the subtitles and about the markup on cinema popcorn before we wandered onto something about why official Spanish correspondence is so stultifyingly boring. It turns out that he and I have completely different ideas on the need for clear language by the way. That might sound pretty good but I've learned several strategies over the years for making those conversations seem more fluid than they really are. The main one is to lock onto one thing in the affirmations or responses coming from the other person and responding to that. It helps to give the impression that I understood everything when, in fact, I missed most of it. I also have quite a wide vocabulary and that makes me sound more fluent than I am. The truth is though that I'm often reduced to a list of words bound together with inappropriate and random verb tenses while I continually mix genders and almost never use idiomatic expressions be they single-word interjections or those stock phrases that we all pepper our own language with.

As well as the italki I do something similar online with exchange sessions except there the commitment is more regular. I'm not sure whether Manuel found me or if I found him but we met through some online intercambio system. We have a set time and we are pretty strict about half an hour in English and half an hour in Spanish in each section. If we can't make the session then we are pals enough to say so; we simply tell each other via WhatsApp that we have a birthday party or a funeral when we should be nattering so we put it off. I think we've almost become friends and if we were ever actually to meet in person we wouldn't be starting from scratch.

Given all these inputs, I can only think that I must be a bit of a slow learner still having problems—but such is life, I suppose. Some people pick things up easily while others slog away without gaining much traction.

Fit to drive

My Spanish driving licence includes the category to drive small lorries and big vans. I almost never drive small lorries or big vans, the last time was to help a pal move from London to Edinburgh and that was last century. I'm loathe to lose the right though. I justify the expense because my sister and brother in law have a motorhome that requires such a licence. I know their insurance company won't let me anywhere close to it but I self deceive myself that there is some need to keep those classes current. 

In Spain, there is a legal difference between professional and non-professional drivers. Professional drivers, like professional vehicles, are subject to tighter restrictions and more frequent testing than non-professional drivers and vehicles. This means there are differences in the renewal periods for driving licences. In my case, for instance, as an amateur, my car licence lasted 10 years until I became 65 years old, and then, as the curvature of my spine increased, the validity reduced from 10 to 5 years. For the slightly larger vehicle categories on my licence, the renewal period changed from 5 years to 3 years as I passed that milestone birthday. 

A significant UK/Spain difference, unless things have changed in the UK, is that renewing the licence here involves a sort of health check—it's supposed to assess your coordination and your mental and physical aptitude to drive. Once you have passed the initial test (or, as in my case, exchanged a UK licence for a Spanish one), there is no need to retake the practical or theoretical parts of the driving test at licence renewal time but you do have to prove that you are fit to drive by passing a "psychophysical aptitude test". You can go to any licensed CRCs (Centros de Reconocimiento de Conductores), which are dotted around Spain. We have two in Pinoso.

I have never had the least difficulty passing the range of tests for renewing my licence so, when, a couple of weeks ago, the traffic people sent me a message to say that I could renew my licence from such and such a date, I just popped into the office without considering the consequences of my not passing. 

The first thing was, as I went into the building, that I met someone coming out whom I first met years ago in a Spanish class. We were chatting in the doorway of the office. The woman who does the tests understood enough of our overheard conversation in English to pull him back. He'd told me he'd had an eye operation and no longer needed to wear corrective lenses (glasses or contacts). His licence said that he did so, if he'd been stopped by the Guardia Civil, he might have needed to explain why he wasn't wearing specs or lenses. She changed his licence accordingly. She also heard me mention that I'd had cancer, so I was told I needed something from my oncologist to say he saw no reason for the cancer treatment to affect my driving. I had to do that before I could take the actual tests.

I think I've done these tests four, maybe five times now. I've certainly done them in Pinoso at the same place the last three times. The process has never been quite the same; at each visit there are slightly different questions and tests. There are reflex and a coordination tests using computer graphics that make the original Space Invaders (Google it) look sophisticated. When you go "off track," there's a beep to warn you. I could have sworn that the device was on constant beep. Then there was an eye test; the administrator pointed to a line of letters. It was the one below the one I could read easily. "No worries," she said, "that's good enough, but maybe you should go to the optician for a check up." Last time, I'm sure they just asked me to read something on a distant wall. It was similar with the hearing test; I had to sit in a soundproof box, put on headphones, and press a button when I heard a beep. I have no idea what percentage of the beeps I heard, but she said my hearing was okay. I know it has worsened considerably because of cancer treatment. It was only as I listened for the beeps that I suddenly realised that a failure might endanger my "ordinary" car licence, which was valid until 2027 (on the new licence it will be valid till 2030). I also wondered if the C and C1 classes were, maybe, a bit stricter and had been designed for "professional" drivers.

Anyway, after being freed from the soundproof cabin—having answered truthfully that I had not drunk any alcohol for months—all seemed well. She took my photo for the new licence and gave me a bit of paper which allows me to drive in Spain for six months. She also returned my current, plastic licence, even though the computerised application has the effect of instantly cancelling the old licence on the DGT (the traffic authorities) system. As she did so, she mentioned that licences are usually replaced —even in worst-case scenarios—in under three months. 

Because I was writing this I just checked and the application on my mobile phone from the DGT (MiDGT) has already updated so, if I were to be stopped I have both my driving licence and the car documentation on me to prove that everything is legal. 

The State Christmas Lottery

I wasn't going to do this, I've done it so many times before, then I had a conversation. So I thought why not?

If you're going to win the El Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad, the big Christmas State Lottery, el Gordo, on 22 December, an absolutely essential first step to becoming temporarily wealthy, is to get hold of a lottery ticket. If you don't have a ticket your chances of winning are nil. For most people that means buying one. I should qualify that. It's much more likely that you'll buy a tenth of a lottery ticket, a décimo, and with that you have the chance of winning 400,000€. 

If you were to buy a full ticket from one of the State Lottery Outlets, Loterías y Apuestas del Estado (like the one a few doors down from the Consum supermarket in Pinoso) it would cost you 200€. That's why most people don't. Instead they buy a tenth of a ticket for 20€. The big prize, el Gordo, the fat one, is worth 4 million euros for the full ticket or 400,000€ for the typical 20€ stake. Obviously that's before the tax people take their cut. Often you will see decimos on sale in bars and the like. Should you decide to buy your lottery ticket from there you're likely to end up paying 23€. Typically the bar is selling the décimos at 3€ over the odds on behalf of some "worthy" cause.

So each of the décimos has five numbers. The numbers start at 00000 and go on to 99999. There are 193 series of tickets. This means that each number, let's take an example 75045, will be repeated 193 times. 75045 series 1, 75045 series 2 and so on. That's why there are, possibly, 193 winning tickets. Remembering that each ticket is sold in tenths, there are, potentially, 1,930 winning décimos. 

In these days of huge jackpots I suppose that 400,000€ sounds like a mere bagatelle. The big difference is that if all the décimos of a particular number were sold, there would be 1,930 winners and that amounts to a whopping 772 million Euros payout.

There is a tendency amongst groups of Spaniards to buy the same number. The group might be a family - Granny buys two full tickets made up of 20 décimos to hand out to her brothers, sisters, sons, daughters etc. as a bit of a Christmas stocking filler. If the number comes up then each of those relatives will be 400,000€ better off. If it's a factory the car park will soon be full of new BMWs and, if it's a school parent teachers association (AMPA), then the school community will be full of joyful parents and teachers. When the number of the Culebrón village neighbourhood association comes up, on Sunday, we Culebreneros will be splashing the cava around willy nilly. Generally people simply choose from the tickets on display looking for one that ends in their lucky number, includes their birthday etc., but it is possible, online, to see if a particular number, your postcode for instance, is available. 

The tickets are all sold by the different "administraciones", the State Lottery Shops even if they end up with the local pigeon fanciers group or synchronised swimmers fan club. The numbers are allocated randomly to the different administraciones around the country. So the same number may be sold in Alicante, Astorga and Avila or that number may nearly all be sold in some village in Andalucía. 

Certain administraciones have a reputation for being lucky, though actually it's simply a numbers game. If people believe that the Doña Manolita administración, in Madrid, is going to sell the winner, more people will buy their décimos there. The volume of sales means there is a better chance that the winner will come from that administración. It doesn't stop people queuing for hours outside the famous offices though.

How the winning numbers are chosen is also very individual - none of this combining individual digits to get the winning number. There are two enormous "bombos" like those globe-shaped things that you get in a home bingo game to spit out the numbers. In one of the bombos there are all the numbers that are on the individual tickets, that's 100,000 individual numbers. So there is a ball that reads 00000 and another that reads 99999 and there are all the numbers in between. In a smaller bombo alongside there are 1,807 balls each one inscribed with a cash value. Youngsters from the Colegio de San Ildefonso in Madrid stand alongside the two bombos and sing out what it says on the ball disgorged by their bombo. First the number then the prize.

The majority of the little wooden balls, in that smaller bombo, have 1,000€ written on them. This is referred to as the pedrea. For those numbers you'll get 100€ back for your 20€ stake. There is just one ball with the 4 million jackpot and it's the same for the less valuable second and third prizes. There are another ten balls that will produce a win of more than 1,000€. Other prizes are based on having numbers very close to the winners, sharing some of the numbers etc. It's always worth checking your number against any of the dozens of internet sites where the winners are published or going back to the administración to have your number checked. 

Turn on a radio or TV or go into a bar on the 22nd after 9am and you will hear that singing of numbers and amounts, broadcast from the Teatro Real in Madrid all morning, until the prizes are exhausted.

Oh, and if you win some offensive amount of cash as a result of reading this blog don't worry yourself that I'll be offended if you want to offer me large wads of cash as a thank you.

Cautiously optimistic

Just a quick update on my throat cancer. For new readers, during the summer, I got to see an otorrino (Ear Nose and Throat specialist) and, after a few tests he said I had a throat cancer. He passed me to an oncólogo (Cancer specialist). They ordered up a few tests, decided that the cancer was just in my throat and lymph nodes and set me up for a course of 33 sessions of radiotherapy and three of chemotherapy. The radio sessions were in Alicante and the ambulance service took me there for most of the sessions. The chemo was in Elda. Along the way I had a picc port installed in my arm so they could take blood from my veins and put other liquids in. They also put in a PEG tube so I could put "milk shake" type food directly into my stomach when my throat became too inflamed to eat through my mouth. There have been a couple of snags along the way; I ended up on a hospital ward for three or four days because I kept throwing up and the dehydration was damaging my kidneys, but, generally it's been plain sailing.

The last of the sessions of radio or chemo was on 19 October so going on two months now. In the past few days I have seen the oncólogo, the otorrino, nurses in the chemotherapy day centre and a nutritionist. 

The oncólogo didn't really have much to say, but he wasn't worried about me either. He had a good feel of my neck and said he was pretty sure the lymph nodes were no longer swollen. He's going to order a CAT scan and I'm back to see him in about a month. He did say they could remove the picc port from my arm which was taken out by the perpetually cheerful nurses in the chemo day centre. They were also very nice about my Spanish. With the picc gone I was able to have a shower this morning without a plastic sleeve on my arm to protect the dressing for the first time since the beginning of September

The nutritionist said it was about time that I started to eat solid food instead of just feeding through my stomach. She only actually wants me to eat things like rice pudding, custard, creme caramel and the like. I do as I'm told and I've eaten a couple of those things today. They taste odd because my mouth is still slimy but I ate them alright.

The otorrino put his camera up my nose and down my throat and said "I don't see the lesion today that I saw in the Summer". He said my throat was still inflamed from the radio, which I think was to add a bit of caution to his earlier comment. He doesn't want to see me again till March.

And the problems I still have, as an effect from the treatments, are that my mouth is either bone dry or covered in horrible, foul tasting mucus nearly all the time, that I get tired quickly and that I feel dizzy quite often. Not exactly serious concerns. So, not so bad at all.

Paying the premium

When I went to the hole in the wall to get some cash there was a turrón stall in my way. Turrón is a sweet confectionery, associated with the Spanish Christmas, made with almonds, oil, and sugar. In the average supermarket a 250g bar of turrón will cost about 2.50€, most supermarkets carry something slightly better at, maybe 10€ a bar, but most steer away from the handcrafted product because it is breathtakingly expensive. There are all sorts of varieties of turrón, but the traditional ones are the hard and brittle Alicante variety and the soft, oozing oil Jijona style. The varieties of turrón, with chocolate or fruit are really for people who don't like turrón; they aren't much to do with turrón and are trading on the name.

The chances are that if you have some turrón this Christmas, it will be ordinary production line stuff. You might like it; you might not; but it's unlikely to send you into paroxysms of delight. The same is probably true of the majority of foodstuffs that Spaniards tend to rave about and which they buy in truckloads at this time of year. 

For instance angulas, or baby eels, are another Christmas delicacy. I had a quick Google and you can get fresh ones at 118€ per 100g. If that's a little steep the alternative is something called gulas which are made from ground fish reconstituted to look like elvers. A packet of gulas costs a bit less than 3€. This is lumpfish roe as against caviar territory. 

Miguel Angel Revilla, four times president of Cantabria, and well known character, used to always present quality, expensive, anchovies from Cantabria on his official visits. The anchovies I buy for my sandwiches come in triple packs for less than 3€.

It's similar with prawns—what we Britons call prawns. I don't think I'll ever understand the differences in quality when buying the right and wrong type of prawns. Whether gambas blancas, gambas rojas, gambones, carabineros or langostinos are the best and whether the ones from Denia are better than those from Huelva or Garrucha. Not knowing can cost you dear. Six of the better variety in an ordinary restaurant cost me 48€. It still smarts and that was six or seven years ago now.

Faced with such price variations the majority of us tend to plump for something with an everyday cost or, maybe, we push out the boat and buy the next step up. Then, when we taste it, we wonder what all the fuss was about. The problem is that we've bought run-of-the-mill. Spaniards wax lyrical about their air-cured ham. It can be spectacular but you have to be willing to pay for the quality, acorn fed, variety and eat it sliced wafer thin. The ham that most of us get most of the time—in a ham sandwich or as a slice of ham on our breakfast toast—can be anything between average and chewing bacon.

The point I'm trying, so long windedly, to make is that Spaniards often enthuse about certain food products that you may find uninspirational. There are lots of classic dishes, firm Spanish favourites, that often seem very commonplace. Croquetas are a good example; lots have the consistency of wallpaper paste, are served semi heated and taste of nothing much but, if you strike lucky or know where to go they are exceedingly good. Paella is another dish where the difference between a made to order paella cooked with care and the proper ingredients has nothing in common with the bright yellow rice served as part of a set meal in a tourist restaurant. 

Lots of these foods are rolled out at Christmas - mantecados and polvorones, peladillas, roscones, turrón, angulas, gooseneck barnacles (percebes) while other, all-year-round favourites, get a special outing at Christmas—prawns, croquetas, ham, roast lamb, and around here even broth with meatballs (variously named pelotas, relleno or even faseguras). If you get the opportunity go for the quality stuff - it's usually worth the stretch.

I was expecting the Spanish Inquisition

My 'old age' pension is derived partly from the UK and partly from Spain, as I have worked in both countries and accumulated benefits. Every now and again they, the pension people, check to make sure that I'm still breathing and not walled up in some Spanish cemetery. 

Today, was one of those days. There was a letter in our PO box from the UK asking me to confirm that I am still extant. I'm sure they've asked before, and I seem to remember that it was a simple enough process. I signed a form and I got another Briton to witness it. So, today, instead of coming home to read the paperwork, I thought I may as well sort it out then and there where I had access to a post office and at least a couple of people to witness my signature.

Maybe I'd misremembered, something which seems to happen more and more frequently, or perhaps they've beefed up their checks but, when I actually got around to checking the paperwork, they required someone of 'social stature', and with an official stamp, to witness the document. I can't remember who exactly, but the list included people like bank officials, medical staff, town hall employees, the mayor, a solicitor etc. They said I had sixteen weeks to return the form, well minus the two weeks it had taken to get from the UK, so there was no rush, but I like to get these things sorted. The challenge was that I don’t have many contacts who meet the pension authorities' criteria and who wouldn’t baulk at completing an “official” form written in English, which I would need to explain in a world rife with frauds and scams. Then it struck me: my accountant!

In the accountant's office I explained, in Spanish, that I needed someone to witness my signature. 'Ah', said the young woman, 'you want a "fe de vida"'. The meaning was obvious enough, she knew what I wanted but in my Spanish "fe" means faith and the expression I most associate with "fe" comes from the Spanish Inquisition. It's only because I thought to write this blog that I now know that "fe" also has a second translation as ID or certificate.

The Inquisition was supposed to protect the one true faith by searching out heretics - people who practised other religions or didn't accept the absolute truth of the Catholic Church's version of Christianity and its practices. Actually it was about personal vendettas, enriching the church and maintaining its power. The most extreme punishment of the Inquisition was to burn people at the stake and that involved a ritual public penitence before the actual death. That whole process was called, and this is the phrase I knew, an 'auto de fe' or 'act of faith'.

I do this all the time. Someone says 'our David had a puncture' and I see David deflating so I ask if it hurt or if he's OK now. When I try these word associations in Spanish the person I'm talking to generally looks at me as if I'm demented but today when the person in the office said I needed a 'fe de vida' and I said 'thank goodness it's not an auto de fe'. She chuckled. A minor triumph I thought. And I got my form signed.