Life in Culebrón

My mum, that's really our mum but I often claim ownership, lives in Cambridge. She's 94 years old and she doesn't remember much. Telephone conversations between us are often very, very short and completely non sequitur because she doesn't really know who's talking to her about what. Most of the responsibility for caring for Mum falls on my sister. I'm happy to believe that the main reason for that is because she lives closest but I know that the real reason is because, between the two traditional sexes, just one usually gets lumbered with anything associated with care. The other has a pressing need to pop down the pub. To salve my conscience, and, I suppose, to see my mum, I've taken to popping over to England to visit her every couple of months. Well, that may be being a bit economical with the truth. I think I've done three trips between December and the first week in March and the next one is planned for May. Because of where Mum lives, I can do the w...

I was thinking about oil the other day. When I say oil, of course, I’m not thinking about Castrol EDGE C1; I mean olive oil. In Spain, you can buy other oils—sesame, corn, Castrol, and so on—but oil, for most purposes, really means olive oil. The oil came to mind because I was in our local winery this week. They have a small supermarket there which features a gourmet section devoted to high-price, high-quality local foodstuffs. One of the star products is olive oil. Good olive oil is made by cold-pressing olives to produce extra virgin olive oil. The best olive oils are monovarietal. The comparison with whisky is obvious. Blended whiskies can be very good, but the experienced tippler is likely to prefer a single malt. Equally, with olive oil, some of the blended, or coupage, oils are very tasty, but if you pay your money, you will end up with single oils made from, for instance,  Arbequina, Picual, Hojiblanca, Manzanilla, Cornicabra, Empeltre, Verdial, Lechín, Riquela, or Blanqueta...

I went to see a magic show last Sunday. I’ve never liked performing or being on stage, and it’s obvious that, in a magic show, some punters are going to be pulled out of the audience to become part of the act. With that in mind, I chose where to sit, hoping the magician would hardly notice me, let alone single me out as the person who supplied him or her with a wristwatch to pulverise or magic rings to test as being forged from pure titanium—and it worked. Dylan hadn’t been so careful. I think he said he was eight years old. Among other things, Dylan had to draw a picture of the magician. Just before he did that, he was asked how good he was at plástica. The answer from young Dylan wasn't a description of his abilities but a simple numerical response: 7 or 8. For me, before I came to Spain, both those answers would have seemed odd. For a start, I’d have expected the question to be how good I was at Art—plástica sounds like something for recycling and, as to my abilities, I would ha...

It was a curious delight to discover that Jumilla (well, actually they said Yecla but that turned out to be wrong) — so near to Culebrón, scarcely forty kilometres away — was once a haunt of daring highwaymen. Perched where the old kingdoms of Valencia, Murcia, and Castile once met, the town’s rugged hills and twisting roads made it a natural stage for adventure and intrigue. In centuries past, Jumilla played host first to the ruthless marauders of the 17th century, and later to the gallant caballeros of legend — Spain’s own Dick Turpins, whose charm could steal a heart as deftly as a purse. By the 17th century, Spain had sunk to her knees, hollowed by famine, plague, and unending war. Across the sun‑scorched fields of Valencia and Murcia, farms lay abandoned and soldiers, weary of empty promises, melted away into the hills. Desperation deepened when, in 1609, King Philip III turned against the Moriscos — Christian converts from Islam whom suspicion still branded as “secret Muslims”. B...

Alberto Chicote—Chicote to one and all, except perhaps his mum—is a Spanish chef and TV celebrity. He came to fame with a Spanish version of the Gordon Ramsay show Kitchen Nightmares, or Pesadilla en la cocina. That's the programme where Gordon/Alberto is invited to a restaurant, orders some food and, based on what he eats, how he is served, what he sees in the kitchen, and what he gleans from talking to owners and workers, sets about a plan to make the restaurant more successful. In both Spanish and British versions, it seems absolutely essential that there is a lot of swearing. Chicote has often said that croquettes—croquetas in Spanish—are the ultimate litmus test for a restaurant. He always asks for croquetas if they are on the menu. His idea is that a good croqueta is a sign that the cook knows something of kitchen technique and uses quality ingredients. He's looking for handmade croquetas, not the horrible mass-produced and frozen ones that we are so often served. He is q...

There was a time when blogs were cutting-edge rather than faintly quaint. I first heard of them in an episode of The West Wing — something about Josh and a gas-guzzler, if I remember rightly. They began to take off around the start of the millennium and, by the time we arrived in Spain in 2004, were still new enough to feel vaguely adventurous. They sounded interesting. I’d kept a diary for years, so that slightly dutiful “captain’s log” approach — more record than invention — was already second nature. The difficulty was not how to write one, but what on earth to write about. No one was going to be gripped by the news that I’d been to the shops or that the car was making an unfamiliar noise. That changed once we began to settle into Spain. Suddenly there was an avalanche of things happening — new customs, new frustrations, small triumphs, daily absurdities. I assumed, with only a mild dose of egocentric bias, that if I found them interesting, someone else might too. Apparently I still...

Just next to the Red Cross building in Pinoso, where the Badén either starts or ends, there’s a modest structure with a sign that reads La Amistad El Pinos – the clubhouse for the local pigeon fanciers and, so far as I know, still very much active. A little way away, in the Santa Catalina district, just above the school where Calle Centro climbs past Calle López Seva, and about a hundred metres on, as the tarmac peters out, a cluster of beehive-like structures crouches on the left. Both places are associated with those pigeons you see from time to time painted in brilliant fluorescent hues, colours that make the Guinness toucan look positively dowdy. In these corners of Pinoso, the centuries-old Spanish passion for pigeon fancying lives on, dividing into two worlds that rarely meet: the rigorous, athletic Colombofilia and the vibrant, theatrical Colombicultura. For a cloth-capped British pigeon fancier accustomed to the quiet dedication of the garden loft and/or the great adventure of ...

On Sunday, 8 February 2026, Pinoso inaugurated its Bicentenary Fountain — a heartfelt tribute to all the Pinoseros and Pinoseras who came before us. Once again, water flows in the heart of our town square, from a fountain recreated as a faithful replica of the one built at the end of the nineteenth century in what was then known as the Plaza de la Constitución. It also serves as a living homage to the many women who would leave their daily tasks behind to queue patiently with their pitchers around the basin, waiting their turn to carry home the essential water of every day. To honour that memory, a bronze sculpture of a woman water carrier will now stand at this spot, reminding us of those early mornings when filling a pitcher meant far more than a domestic chore — it was an act of life itself, and a moment of connection among neighbours. Originally, the water came from the Encebras springs, channelled through a gallery that supplied the town for generations. Later, when water ran low,...

I couldn't think of anything to write for the blog, so I turned to Facebook. Rob suggested I tackle the mystery of why vegetables often go missing from Spanish restaurant dishes, and Ruth asked about translating Spanish menus. I started to see a link between the two, so let’s see how it goes. Cheap, excellent vegetables are everywhere in Spain, yet they often disappear once you sit down in a restaurant, especially at menú del día level. Menús are inexpensive set meals available all over Spain at weekday lunchtime. First, there's tradition and hierarchy. In much of Spain, vegetables remain culturally secondary to the main event. A proper main course demands substance—meat or fish—with veg relegated to soups, stews or garnishes. Vegetable-led dishes feel like home cooking to Spaniards, not something you pay good money for in a restaurant. It's exactly the same idea that my dad would have had: that a proper meal was meat and two veg. Well, you see the similarity even if the ve...

If you’re living in or around Pinoso, you’ve likely noticed the Town Hall gearing up for a milestone celebration: the 200th anniversary of Pinoso’s independence from Monóvar. The calendar of events ranges from historical exhibitions opposite the church to performances by local theatre groups through to a formal event and for the first time in years there will be a correfoc in Pinoso. However, the most enduring tribute to this bicentenary will be the inauguration of the newly redesigned Plaza de España, complete with a brand-new central fountain. With such a significant anniversary on the horizon, this year’s Villazgo promises to be even shinier and brighter than usual. Pinoso broke free from Monóvar in 1826. The royal charter of privilege—a formal legal document granting special rights or status—was signed by King Fernando VII on 12 January that year. This document granted the town the status of Real Villa, a town recognised as such by the monarch, with full municipal jurisdiction and ...

The other morning on the radio, half drowned out by my electric shaver and then the shower, I realised someone was talking about problems in the Spanish education system. It caught my attention because I spent about twelve years teaching English here, in enough different contexts to see that system at close quarters. Earning a crust as an employee in Spain — especially if your Spanish isn’t top-notch — can be hard. What saved me was ending up in a town in Salamanca province where being a Brit was still a novelty. A local language academy was happy to employ me so it could advertise native-speaker classes, and from there it became relatively easy to find work whenever I moved. Over the years I taught everyone from tiny, biting children through to university students trying to beef up their CVs, as well as employees in places as varied as shopping centres, power stations and chemical works. I also spent a year teaching across the full secondary age range in a state-funded but privately r...

Sometimes I use words that I don’t really understand. Recently, those words might have been health-related: "Just off for a PET-TAC scan," or "I’m glad to hear that your lymph nodes were OK." It wasn’t a health word that I eventually noticed, though; it was one related to churches. Now I’m not a big church user. I usually go into them if they’re open and in some place I’m visiting, but I’ve no idea why. They all look pretty much of a muchness inside—nice enough if you like statues and gold leaf and lots and lots of stone. I have tens, maybe hundreds, of photos of the insides of churches and, unless the photo has a caption, I never know where they are. This all started some while ago on a walk around Yecla in the Purísima church. Our guide pointed out a big red and yellow umbrella that she told us all basilicas have. I’ve noticed them since in various big churches and I’ve said, "Ooh, look, there’s one of those big red and yellow umbrellas to say that this place...

I often go to the cinema on Tuesdays and I usually buy the tickets online. The price of my ticket is just 2€ because of a government subsidy. The ticket for Maggie, mere stripling of a girl that she is, costs €7.40 at the over 60s rate. While it's rare at our habitual cinema, it's common at other venues, that I am asked for identification to prove that I am over 65. If I did not have my official ID with me, I presume they would refuse entry. So, despite having an unquestionable right to the subsidised price (because I'm over 65), I must prove it. In practice, this remains a theoretical concern, as carrying official identification is a legal requirement in Spain. For visiting Britons, and I presume for people of other nations, there is an obligation to carry official ID which means a passport for British citizens. Spain has a deep-rooted culture of identification, and ID cards are requested in the most unexpected situations. I often have to provide my ID number for local the...

I don’t know if you remember—or were even aware, in fact—of the Lake Wobegon series by Garrison Keillor. For me, it was a radio programme about a fictional town in Minnesota where, each week, he began by saying, “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.” Pinoso is rather like that—quiet. Life here rarely moves at speed. While a few people always seem to be hurrying off to do something “mightily important”, Pinoso generally takes its time. Last week we went to the Christmas concert given by the town band. When it ended, they played the town’s anthem and everyone stood; if I’d been wearing a hat, I’d have taken it off. Perhaps a hand-on-heart moment was called for. Maggie leaned over and whispered, “It’s the Trumpton theme.” I’m sure she meant it fondly. We spent Christmas Eve with friends who live in the centre of Pinoso. They remarked that most of their neighbours live to a grand old age. There were plenty of stories: “Pilar is 93—and remember so-and-so? She lived to be 106.” The longev...

I've written about Christmas in Spain so many times that I thought I'd never cover it again. But at the moment, next to nobody is reading the blog so I thought, why not? It's an easy to write, and timely. It's done without reference to sources. I can imagine having to defend its content line by line with most Spaniards; it's a personal take. No doubt errors abound. It's begun, of course. The lights are up in the streets, the municipal nativity scenes are in place, Mariah is singing and Lidl Christmas adverts are on the telly. But the festivities haven't really begun yet—if we don't count the work shindigs and the end of course meals for clubs and classes—because, as you know, any Spanish event, to be worthy of its salt, has to involve eating. Go to the beach and you need a picnic with the rolls wrapped in albal silver paper. Go hiking up a mountain and there may be no mention of stout shoes but there will be a three line whip on taking your almuerzo (lat...