Life in Culebrón

Maggie tells me I should be more explicit. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t mean in a way that would have Nadine Dorries calling for my funding to be cut. No — she simply means more detailed. So, an unusual blog this week: basically, a list for Pinoso people of the things planned to celebrate Pinoso being a town in its own right, without any interference from those Monover@s, for 200 years. Friday 6th February at 6.00 pm In the Font del Canter — that’s the sort of showcase thing in the little square opposite the main door of the Parish Church — there will be an exhibition that promises to be more than just facts: a look at the soul of Pinoso over the past two centuries. The Town Hall describes the display as allegorical, a word I had to look up in English, so the interpretation of the display is entirely mine. Friday 6th February at 8.30 pm In the Auditorio — the theatre just a bit up from the health centre, around the back of the Pensioners’ Club. One of the two local theatre groups, Yoric...

It was in Vilanova d'Alcolea in Castellón that I really thought I was going to be burned alive. I ran faster that evening than I have since I was fourteen when I was being chased around a cross-country course by some deranged PE teacher who beat me with a stick if I tried to slow down. Then again, only last weekend, in Novelda, a group of men and women, dressed as devils, were making as though to set me on fire. Here in the Comunitat Valenciana, from tiny villages in Castellón to the bustling streets of Valencia or on the beaches of Alicante, people like to set things on fire and to set off pyrotechnics—fireworks of all sorts, shapes, and sizes. It's not just the Fallas in Valencia or the Hogueras de San Juan in Alicante; it's absolutely everywhere - even in the streets and villages of Pinoso. Valencianos always seem ready to put another log on the fire or light the blue touch paper and stand well back at the drop of a hat.  I hoped to find an organised and methodical way t...