Life in Culebrón

One of my shorter pals had relatives who were horny handed sons of toil. Generation upon generation of farmers. They lived, as I recall, on the edge of the English Lake District. When the Ordnance Survey began to mark scenic viewpoints on their one inch maps (my long term memory is still fine) suddenly lots of cars began to pull up at the top of the farm lane to have a look see. The family turned this to their benefit by setting up a stall selling fresh eggs. We were in Madrid for the weekend. We went on the AVE, the high speed train which, as usual, was on time both there and back. I only saw the indicated speed on the carriage displays once during the journey, a disappointing 296 kph. We stayed in some really nice hotel close to Alonso Martínez underground station. For some reason they gave us a junior suite with two washbasins, two tellies, a sofa and a king sized bed. Straight off the train we dumped the bags and walked across the road to the Reina Sofia Museum - well museo i...

I've read a few books by a Spanish author called Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867 -1928). A couple of the books were about life in Valencia, about the new bourgeoisie, the sort of people who didn't make their money by the sweat of their brow but by playing with money. The sort who despite being in debt need a new carriage to keep up appearances, the sort who would go on to be politicians if only they would stop impregnating the scullery maids. I found the picture the books conjured up of Spanish life at the tail end of the 19th Century fascinating. We went to Valencia to catch up with one of Maggie's nieces who was in the city for a European Arts Project. Maggie had booked a hotel that was about 3km from the Cathedral, near to the City of Arts and Sciences. It was in a district full of the sort of buildings that conjured up the characters from the Blasco Ibáñez books.  Big impressive buildings with lots of decoration, ample windows, high ceilings and fancy facades. Th...

It was quite early, maybe around eight in the morning, but the newsagent in Chatteris was open. I was on my way to some absolutely essential meeting I'm sure. Chatteris is a town in the Cambridgeshire Fens, stories of incest, potato headedness and child swapping abound. Chatteris was not in the fast lane of the (then) 20th Century. A couple of older women were in front of me, they were buying but chatting. After waiting nearly five minutes I asked if I might just have a packet of Hamlet and be gone. I had the correct change, it would be a quick exchange. The woman behind the counter wasn't having any of it and didn't heistate to chide me for my hurry. On Monday I was in the library cum youth centre in Sax. Six of us were gathered around a table parked at an edge of the big barn like room. We Brits outnumbered the Spaniards two to one. The idea is that it's a sort of group language exchange - I have no idea why we use a room large enough to stage a concert in. My fel...

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 w...