Life in Culebrón

Every now and again, someone asks me for suggestions for things to do. I suspect it’s because I put photos of almost everywhere we go online, so it looks like we’re constantly out and about. We really aren’t. Still, it made me wonder whether there was a blog in it, a sort of local, "things to see and do".  I imagined it would be simple: mention a few places I liked, add in a few side references, and in no time I’d have an easy and interesting blog. So that's what I started to do. My first thought was the Casa Modernista in Novelda. Not far away, a nice, easy visit—interesting, without much walking and well laid out. People we’ve taken there have always liked it. Recently, opening times have become a bit haphazard, so it’s best to book. The Fundación Mediterráneo, which oversees the Novelda house, also runs the Azorín museum in Monóvar. It’s a nice enough old house, with links to the writer. It has wooden furniture and pretty floor tiles but its main attraction is that it’...

Given my remarkable range of abilities you will be surprised to learn that, after university, I found some trouble persuading any employer to give me a job. At one point I was placed on a job creation scheme where, among other things, I was interviewed for Woman's Hour on the BBC Radio 4 (or was it still the Home Service?). Anyway, one of the skills I learned, as well as how to hack down Rhododendrons with a billhook or build steps on Great Langdale, was how to piece together one sort of dry stone wall. Should you ever be on the road from Newby Bridge to Graythwaite the wall just by the entrance to YMCA Lakeside is mine. It was still solid the last time I passed. Dry stone walling involves building in stone without mortar or any other materials except maybe a bit of soil. UNESCO has classified it as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland feature on the UNESCO list of places that have examples. The UK,...

Culebrón is a part of Pinoso. Pinoso is a part of the province of Alicante but Pinoso, like Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana, is a frontier town. There are no adverts for Viagra here but there are different languages and different holidays. Even if it's only with Abanilla, Jumilla and Yecla there is definitely a border, the border with Murcia Region. We have plenty of hills of our own in Alicante. Looking North from our front garden we have the Sierra de Salinas (1238m/4061ft) and the Sierra de Xirivell (810m/2657ft) is to the South. Indeed the garden itself is at about 605m/1984ft but over the border, into Murcia, the Sierra del Carche is higher still at 1372 metres or 4,500 feet. Maggie has tried to get us to the top a couple of times before but today we finally made it. To the very top, to the geodesic point. Admittedly we didn't walk, we went in a little four by four, but we got to the top. It was pretty crowded and very cosmopolitan at the top of el Carche. There was a Swis...