Life in Culebrón

Summer began at six minutes to six last Friday. Just a few minutes later we arrived in Santa Pola on the Mediterranean coast. It was pure chance, we'd been nearby doing some shopping and we thought why not? We didn't do much. We parked next to the beach, walked around the corner to an area that has been developed with bars, cafés and restaurants alongside the marina and had a drink. The sun was shining with that early evening hazy shine. Some people were wading in the water, others were swimming. The sea was sparkly. The expensive and not so expensive boats in the marina bobbed up and down and made those tinkling, ringing sounds that moored boats do. The bar was comfortable, modern looking with light filtering through blinds and awnings. It was a bit pricey with slim young servers and ice cold (alcohol free) beer. Say what you will about far off exotic lands but the Med takes some beating when it's on form. It was one of those moments. A couple of days earlier I'd...

Tell someone that you live in Alicante and most people think coast, they think we live by the side of the sparkling Mediterranean. It may, in reality, be one of the most polluted stretches of water in the world, full of plastic, sewage, lead and agricultural chemicals to rival the dead patch in the Gulf of Mexico, but there's no denying that the Med can look lovely. Actually we live inland, about 60 km from the coast. We also live up a hill so we are at about 600 metres which means, other climatic factors being equal, we are 5.8ºC cooler than at sea level. That difference is notable at this time of year. Very noticeable. As I type, Bohème like, my little hands are frozen. So, one of the conversations between immigrant Britons is based on the major division between those who live on the coast and those who live inland. There are all sorts of perceptions about the Spanishness, or not, of the two locations. The probable truth is that the influence of immigrants is a product ...

We went to see some friends on the coast the other day. Alicante province is loaded with Britons. It's where most of we British immigrants live. Here, on the Costa Blanca, down in Malaga, on the islands of course - Balearics and Canaries. Notice the trend? Coast and Mediterranean. There are plenty of us in Murcia and on the Costa Brava too but less so. We're everywhere of course. You'll bump into Britons absolutely everywhere. In the museums in Extremadura, in the countryside of Huesca, in the most obscure corner of Salamanca, we'll be there. We're an adventurous bunch. The coast is maybe 60km away from Culebrón, just an hour, but it's not the same as where we live. It's odd though, there are stacks and stacks of us in Pinoso. I've no idea why. I mean, in our case it was pure chance. We set out from Santa Pola, on the coast, looking for somewhere we could afford. By Pinoso we could just about do it. I think that lots of people like Pinoso because it...

When Spanish people here in Spain talk to me about the winter weather in England they usually talk about the cold. Obviously it's colder in the UK, in general, than it is in our bit of Spain. I explain that whilst it may be colder outside it's usually much warmer inside. I go on to say that the most depressing thing about the UK in winter is not the cold but the light, or the lack of it, that sort of grey miserableness and the all pervading dampness Well, for the past, maybe, three weeks, it has been wet and miserable here. It's not quite the same. It's not been cold and we haven't had any of those English type days where a grey dawn turns into a grey morning and then it's night again. Light by 7.30am and not dark till around 6pm. But we haven't had our normal sunny and blue days either. Our floors have muddy trails across them. Both our front and back doors lead directly to the outside world. The doormats are sodden and dirty footprints (and paw prints)...

Summer is just about to end. Very properly this year it finishes on a Sunday evening so we can all get back to work on Monday morning. Calendar controlled, on the first of the month. The TV is full of the great return as people finish their holidays. Of course there are lots of people in Spain who don't have a job to go back to and I presume those tour guides, restaurant workers and ice cream vendors who get seasonal work in July and August will be up bright and early on Monday morning to get down to the dole office. I just saw an advert on the telly for a beer that has been running all summer. It shows lots of people having a really good time. It's sunny, the people are young, happy and tanned. The beach has a starring role and the tag line is Mediterráneamente, a word that is probably about as real as its English equivalent, Mediterraneanly. The strange thing is that I have to agree. There is something very special about being near the Med in summer. I know I'v...