Well, I didn't know that!

I've recently been in one of those linguistic slumps where I feel that my Spanish is so deficient that self flagellation seems appropriate. These dark moods are brought on when I come away from some film without having understood the plot or when I've no idea what the people in the queue behind me are talking about. It happens too frequently. This time my response was to give up on my one to one online, italki, Spanish lessons. My penance began just before Christmas.

It didn't last long though. I've spent years and years trying to speak Spanish and I'll be damned if I'm going to give up now. Well, that's today's position statement anyway. Tomorrow it may be back to deep despair and a retreat to comforting chocolate treats.

So, I'm online and nattering to Miriam. On my insistence our sessions don't have any structure. I just wander from this to that topic. It has been suggested to me that my thought patterns are a bit random anyway, which must be particularly trying for a Spaniard attempting to decipher my linguistic deviations in mis pronounced non sequitur conversations peppered with dodgily translated idioms. 

I was talking about the walk I went on in Elda last weekend. I went to collect firewood for the Hogueras de San Antón. Miriam wondered what I was talking about. "You know, the bonfires for Saint Anthony". She apparently didn't.

The event itself was interesting. A group of around 60 people set off from a little chapel dedicated to Saint Anthony in Elda to another little chapel on the Barranco Gobernador, behind the Campo Alto Industrial Estate. About a third into the journey a mule cart joined us. When we arrived at the destination chapel, and after the obligatory pause to eat a late and extended breakfast, people began collecting twigs and branches as symbolic firewood for the bonfires which are one of the traditional ways to celebrate the Saint's day next weekend. The firewood was handed to the cart driver who stacked it neatly. The whole collection routine was serenaded by a dulzaina and drum band. With the wood collected the band took to playing dance music and a group of women improvised a version of a traditional dance. Then I walked the 7kms back to the car. 

Miriam asked me why we were collecting wood for San Antón. I was a bit surprised. This particular event is, obviously, specific to Elda but, so far as I know, celebrations for San Antón are pretty widespread. We've been with a cart collecting wood in town for the same thing in Villena and I know that there are bonfires in Úbeda down in Anadalucia. There are more up at Forcall in Castellón. In fact Forcall looks about as pagan as you get with blokes dressed in overalls, daubed with devilish symbols, harassing a couple of people dressed as Saints with blacked faces, big hats and mandarin fruit necklaces. The devil's crew also bounce pigs bladders on sticks in front of pretty girls and they all dance around a huge town centre bonfire. Very Wicker Man. Whilst there are no bonfires, or misplaced bladders, in Pinoso for San Antón we usually have the horses on the street and the local priest blessing animals in front of the church. When we lived in Ciudad Rodrigo they dressed the door of the church with sausages and black puddings, as well as blessing pets. There was something in Cartagena too when we lived there, I forget exactly what but it involved choirs. The point is that there are San Antón events of one sort or another in every corner of Spain but Miriam, who's smart, she's doing her PhD, didn't know what I was talking about.

Fiestas conversationally forgotten we went on to talk about fibre washers. I wanted to know if it were a direct translation from English to Spanish - arandela de fibra. Washer is not a common word but we had no problem in agreeing that we were talking about the same thing, the small flat rings that go between two joining surfaces to spread the pressure or act as a spacer or seal. Fibre was more difficult. I tried suggesting that it was a bit like the old "cardboard" suitcases or like those storage boxes that we used last century for document storage and which got a new lease of life at IKEA as hip storage solutions. We never got there; we abandoned the conversation. I said it didn't matter anyway because, always, in an ironmonger's, you end up describing the use of the thing as you never know the technical term. "I don't know what it's called but you use it to get the juice out of oranges" Miriam agreed; she said she too had to describe things in ironmonger's and told me the tale of wanting a support to put on her gas cooker so that her coffee maker didn't overbalance. She didn't know the word. Obviously. Nobody does. She went on to suggest that sometime the technical term was useless anyway because, often, it's unshared knowledge. She gave me an example. She was cooking and she asked her boyfriend to pass her the espumadera. Apparently an espumadera is a big slotted spoon, the Spanish presumably comes from the idea of skimming off froth. Do you know the technical term for that sort of spoon in English? I don't.

And the point of these ramblings? Well, living in Spain I have less back catalogue than I had when I lived in the UK. I can't sing along to many songs here, old Spanish films mean nothing to me, when someone aged 85 dies and Spain goes into mourning I wonder who they were, why they were important. I feel that I'm sort of failing to "integrate". When Spaniards ask me if I've ever eaten a paella it suggests that they can think of us a breed apart but I'd like to be equally offended when someone asked me if I enjoy the work of Leticia Dolera. The truth is though that it's just normal to not know everything about anything. Otherwise how could we keep on learning new things till that moment we draw our last breath?

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P:S. If you're thinking of trying the online learning thing and you decide on italki if I recommend you and you take up some sessions we both get a discount of some sort. It's easy to message me.

Ars Gratia Artis

Luis Garcia Berlanga was a Valencian born, Spanish film director who made some 19 films between 1951 and 2002. He was born on 12 June 1921, 100 years ago give or take, and his centenary is being celebrated all over Spain through lots of screenings, exhibitions and new books. I went to see one of his films, el Verdugo, The Executioner, at the Fundación Paurides in Elda on Wednesday evening. 

Now Elda is our nearest large town so I know it reasonably well but I'd never heard of the Paurides Foundation. The bit of town it's in didn't seem particularly salubrious. The woman who dragged her three kids past me as I was locking the car gave me a very fierce look as though I didn't belong. I double checked that I'd locked up securely. Google maps, on my mobile, refused to speak and was almost invisible in the bright 7pm sun as I searched for the venue. I found it though. The Paurides Foundation turned out to be a neighbourhood based arts and culture centre with a nice little auditorium of about 60 seats and a maximum Covid audience of 30. There were about 20 of us there to see the film. The screening was free as were the film notes.

There was an intro from the bloke who seemed to be in charge which I think was mainly to give the latecomers time to arrive - Spaniards call it courtesy time, Brits call it lateness. I missed some of the little jokes in the film, not all of them, but I had no problem keeping up with the main plot line. I winced as the end of film discussion was hijacked by one of those blokes who is keen to prove that he knows more about the film/director than the organisers. All very much par for the course for any film club type event. With a bit of luck I'll be back next week for at least one of the other two titles they are showing.

What was most remarkable about this event was that it was completely unremarkable. As I was driving away, in my unscathed motor, I though how I've got used to there being quite a lot of free or inexpensive cultural events going on left right and centre in nearly all of the towns, large and small, round and about. Even here in Pinoso, a town of only 8,000 people, we have, from time to time, free concerts, cheap or free theatre, book launches, poetry and writing events, guided visits and almost anything else cultural you could think to shake a stick at. I've heard lots of complaints that arts and culture are underfunded and undervalued in Spain but I actually find the opposite. What I don't like is finding out, after the event, that I missed something I really would have liked to see. You have no idea how guiltily happy I was that Yo Yo Mar had been Covid cancelled in Alicante; imagine if I'd missed him because I didn't know he was on until after the date!!

Out for the day

I went on a bit of a trip yesterday. The title of the event translates as something like From the Vinalopó to Exile. Vinalopó is the name of our mighty local river which trickles into the sea at Santa Pola and which gives its name to the area. The theme was the end of the Spanish Civil War.

We were shown things in Petrer and Elda but the bit I liked best, apart from eating, was going down the air raid shelters in Hondón. Hondón is a very small village just 9 km from Culebrón. Not the most obvious place for an air raid shelter dug 40 metres into the ground and with space for 250 people.

So it's March 1939, right at the end of the Spanish Civil War (The result of an army rebellion in 1936 against the elected Leftist Republican Government) the Republic is in tatters. The President, Azaña, reckons the only chance is to hang on long enough for the Nazis to start the Second World War so that the French and British may stop looking the other way and come to his aid. Then Republican Barcelona falls to the Francoist troops and Azaña runs away, resigns, and never comes back.

With Azaña gone the ex Prime Minister, Negrín, takes over as President. The Republican Government has moved its headquarters to Elda which just 25kms from Culebrón. The main reason is that Elda isn't being bombed non stop though there are other reasons like decent communications and a strong manufacturing base. Meanwhile Madrid is, miraculously, still in Republican hands. It won't fall to the rebellious Francoist troops till right at the end of the war but in Madrid a Republican Army Colonel, Casado, mounts a coup. He and his pals reckon that all is lost and waiting for the French and British is a stupid plan. They want to cut a deal and save their skins. Franco doesn't talk to them. They have nothing to offer.

So it's all gone pear shaped, the elected President has run off, half your army is caught up in some Communist rebellion and it's pretty obvious that you've lost. Negrín decides the jig is up. He's in Elda. The nearest aerodrome (think of a mowed and level grassy area rather than tarmac runways) is in Hondon, or as we now seem to call it el Fondó using its Valenciano name. The big cars drive in from Elda with a famous writer and poet in one, a fiery Communist Party woman orator in another and Negrin himself in a third. They clear off in a couple of aeroplanes along with some pals. Later that night the remnants of the loyal Republican Army command meet with the left over political big wigs and the next days more planes leave taking them away - generally to Oran. Though it may not seem geographically obvious Algeria is less distance than any other safe country especially for a flimsy 1930s plane loaded to capacity.

That's where our tour ended and about three weeks after those planes left the last few Republican cities - Alicante, Cartagena and Almeria - fell.

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If you look at the comments below someone wrote to say that there were a couple of incorrect facts in this piece. One was that Negrín was never President and the other was that Azaña wasn't holding out for an Anglo French "rescue". Have a look  at the comments section if you're interested.

A clean pair of heels

There's a shoe museum in Elda. You have to ring a bell to get in. They have some very odd (sic) shoes. Elche has hundreds of shoe factories. Nowadays lots of them have signs with Chinese script characters over the door but the product still carries the label "Made in Spain."

If Elda and Elche are the most important centres this area, in general, has a tradition of shoes and leather goods. The tiny village of Chinorlet about 3km from us has a factory that makes handbags. Our next door neighbour has a company that produces bows and buckles and the like to stick on leather goods.

Pinoso too has a history of shoe making.  In the middle of town there is a small square dedicated to the shoemakers, (just like there are places dedicated to marble and to wine the other big industries of Pinoso). A local firm, Pinoso's, always has a stand at the celebration of the town's identity, the Villazgo celebrations, where you can don an apron and pose with a shoe last looking like you're doing something very footwear. When I taught one of my students said that her family had a firm that produced a part of the soles for shoes and another was a sort of shoe broker selling designs overseas. Just beside the library, on one of the principal streets of the town, there is an anonymous building which always attracts my attention when I walk by because the powerful smell of epoxy resin that issues from its open window. I have no idea what they are up to but unless they are the glue sniffing unaccompanied minors that the far right party Vox is always going on about then it's something shoe related.

So Pinoso is still a shoemaking town. I don't quite know where the factories are though. I had a vague idea there was one near the sports centre, Maggie thought so too, and maybe on the industrial estate. I asked a Spaniard I know who seems to know almost anyone local over a certain age. He wasn't quite sure where the companies were either - maybe on the industrial estate he said but he also wondered if it were more backstreet workshops than big factories. I asked if he thought a factory on the corner of Calderón de la Barca and Camino del Prado was shoe related - "Could be," was the response.

Sometimes it's amazing what you don't know even after ages and ages even if you're home grown.

Down the Social

This is a quickish update on the post The Headlong Dash - the one about having to claim the old age pension from the Spanish rather than the British authorities. It's even drier and dustier than usual as it's aimed at anyone trying to use this blog for information rather than for it's charming whimsy.

When I first started to think about the pension I did a bit of information gathering. One chap, on one of the expat forums said that I needed to take a copy of my "vida laboral," my work history, and my British National Insurance Number to a Spanish Social Security Office. Once there, through the wonders of information technology, the Spanish Office would have access to my UK history and everything would be sorted in a jiffy.

Using my Spanish digital signature, I booked an appointment at the Social Security Office (INSS) in Elda and applied online for my work history which was posted to me as hard copy. From my British Personal Tax Account I was able to get my UK pension start date and an official looking National Insurance number.

The Social Security Office was a haven of peace and tranquillity at 10am in the morning. As I tapped my appointment code into the machine by the entrance I noticed there were just two people working. Each had a customer. Otherwise there was me and the security guard in view. I clutched my deli counter type number and watched the screen. I only waited a few minutes. The man who interviewed me was wearing a snood.

I told him I was coming up on 65 and that my UK pension was due a few months after that. Once we'd established who I was and that I'd worked in Spain as well as the UK he turned to his computer. He didn't need my Spanish work history as he had it on his screen. He confirmed that I would get a pension paid proportionately by each government - 30 plus full years in the UK and  a bit over 6 full years in Spain so the ratio would be one to five or thereabouts but paid through the Spanish system. He seemed to suggest that I'd get the full pension.

Now that he was reasonably sure I was in the right place at the right time he gave me a long, long form to fill in and sent me off to a table in the foyer to do it. Most of the form was about my dependents, other allowances that I may want to claim, about my partners income (but, as we are living o'er brush, that doesn't count!), how much money I had stashed away in offshore accounts and the like. I'm a simple man with a simple lifestyle so all I really had to give were name and address type information, full bank account details (down to things like BIC and IBAN codes) and a detailed work history. Even then it took me about forty minutes to complete the form, maybe longer. Like all official forms I wasn't sure what it all meant and some of my answers were guesswork - who remembers how many months they were unemployed forty plus years ago? There were some technical words that were a bit tricky to translate on the form too but not many. Just an aside. Spanish funcionarios, local government workers and civil servants, are notorious for having two hour long breakfast breaks. The chap who was interviewing me put on his coat and went out while I was wrestling with the form; fifteen to twenty minutes later he was back. Just enough time for a quick coffee.

The form completed there was a short wait before I got back to the original desk. Generally I just sat there while my man copied the information from my hand written form onto his computer. I told him some of it was guesswork but he said that was fine. After quite a lot of tap tap tapping he printed out a copy of what I'd completed and told me that was it. If anyone needs anything they'll get in touch he said but he added that it all looked pretty straightforward. He also confirmed that, having worked in Spain, my healthcare entitlement was good to the day I die without any reference to my UK history.

Retirement date 30th April 2019.

Fallas in Elda

Spanish websites have improved no end in the time that we have been here. Nowadays it's nearly as easy to find something in Spanish as it is in English.

There are dishonourable exceptions of course. RENFE the state rail provider has a useless website. It may be possible to book a ticket and it may not but trying to find what trains go from where to where is impossible, so far as I can tell.

This being the case I had no worries about trying to find some information about the Fallas taking place in Elda this weekend. Google gave me the website and there was a skeletal but serviceable calendar. There wasn't much in the way of background information so if you didn't know what Fallas are then you would be a bit stymied but I did visit last year so I had a vague idea of how it all worked.

The basic idea is that a number of groups, comisiones, based on neighbourhoods build a falla. A falla is a sort of flammable tableau made of individual figures (which I think are called ninots) set against a built background. Usually the tableau represent a contemporary theme - maybe something political or sociological. Each Comisión also elects a series of "Carnival Queens" with a court of "ladies in waiting" and sends representatives, the mayordomos, to a central council which co-ordinates the whole shebang. There are activities all year round but the whole lot culminates with the tableau being built in the streets for a climactic weekend when there are parades, a mascletá (a sort of sound only firework display) and the burning of the tableau. The religious element, and there is nearly always a religious element in Spain, turns, I think, around San Crispín and San Crispiniano (The Henry V, Agincourt saints) the saintly brothers who are the patron saints of shoemakers. Shoemaking is an activity associated with Elda.

Last year I went looking for the various statues and found about four of the nine. I also followed a couple of the processions from their home base to a church but it was all a bit hit and miss. This year I thought to do it properly. So I tootled around the website and the Facebook page and eventually I found a timetable. Tomorrow, Sunday looked like a good day. I thought I could go to the mascletá at half past one and also wander around some of the fallas statues. I couldn't find the location of the individual fallas though and when I put the location of the mascletá into Google maps it came up with a blank. Another Google search and I found newspaper articles that gave me a clue as to the location but it had taken me a long, and frustrating, time.

Eventually I sent a snotty Facebook message to the Central Council something along the lines of "Do you want any tourists at your fallas? The answer has to be no. That's why there is no map of the location of the fallas and why the address of the mascletá isn't a real address. Ah of course, it's only for the people of Elda. The families with years of pure blood. I should have known". to give them their due they came back to me within a couple of hours with a little map and with a street name for each of the fallas and a comment to thank me for the message because it would help them improve the organisation.

So, if you have nothing much to do on the 18th of September and you are within striking distance of Elda I'll see you at the Fallas de Elda roundabout (Calle Juan Carlos I and Calle Jardines area) at half past one.

Festival time

I see that Adele was on at Glastonbury. I don't imagine that a Spanish festival would think to go for that same sort of mix - Enrique Iglesias alongside Vetusta Morla? Last year, as I remember, Florence inherited the top spot in Somerset, now something like that I can imagine. Indie band turned money spinner alongside the long line of competent but unexceptional bands yes, one time big pop act now reduced to second or third class status, yes, but current big industry acts, no.

I like plenty of Spanish bands but I'd be hard pressed to tout any of them as material for world domination. To date there have been no Spanish Kylies or Abbas or U2s. Luz Casals, Paco de Lucia and Mecano aren't really of the same clay.

We've been to quite a few Spanish festivals like SOS in Murcia, Low in Benidorm and FIB in Benicassim. We've also seen some Spanish big name acts from old timers to plenty of current top forty stuff and tons of indie. We've done hardly any big name international stuff though. Yesterday, more or less by chance, we ended up at a mini festival in the nearby town of Elda. We'd never heard of the festival, EMDIV, but we saw some unneeded tickets for sale on a second hand site and we ended up with them. Small scale stuff indeed. Just one stage, seven bands with DJ sets in between for the roadies to do their work. There were some filler bands, local stuff with a local following like Gimnastica and Varry Brava, but three of the Spanish bands were quality acts, standard festival fodder, Zahara, Sidonie and Supersubmarina. There was a nice enough band from Ireland too, the Delorentos, who seemed to have a really good time.

I was alone for a while whilst one of the DJ sets was on. Lots of young people were jumping up and down and singing along. Even with the music there to listen to I have no idea whether the lyrics were English or Spanish. I have albums by Supersubmarina and Zahara and  I vaguely recognised a couple of tunes but the chances of me singing along (only under my breath of course) are pretty remote. I did sing along to some old Fat Boy Slim stuff though. It's an age thing I suppose. I think it may be too late for me to learn a new repertoire.

It was the same concern when we were trying to decide whether to go for the unknown bands at the start of the day or turn up for the mid order and headline bands. It was pretty obvious that we would not be doing the full fourteen hour stint. My legs won't hold me up for that long, my contact lenses would make my eyes sore and probably I'd just fall asleep anyway. Going early had the advantages for snaps, if there's light the photos tend to be in focus, but, then again, a band on a stage in broad sunlight doesn't look quite right. Early also has space advantages. I like a bit of space around me, I like being able to move around. When it gets to 2am and whether it's the drink, the drugs or the pure exuberance that makes young people jump up and down (fine) and crash in to me (not so fine) I don't like it. I don't like being, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner until the set is over and the crowd moves off to the bars, the food stalls or the toilets.

We went early. We were there to hear the very end of the second band set, we watched three bands over the next four or five hours in relative comfort with good viewing positions, very little vomit or beer spilled on us and the chance to get a drink, go to the toilet and try some of the, always interesting, festival food. By the slightly late running 1am band it was a bit more unpleasant. The brusque passing manoeuvres, the constant dodging to avoid burns from fags or flaring joints and the wobbly neighbours made us retreat to somewhere near the mixing desk, on the edges of the crowd. We watched for a while but it was cocoa time and we were home by around 2.30.

Bread cartel

When I couldn't get a beer in Tarragona many years ago I decided to learn Spanish. I did a few years of those one or two hour a week Spanish classes at the local Adult Education Centre. I also took a lot of holidays in Spain. As a consequence I started to notice things about Spain in newspapers and magazines. Spain speaks Spanish and so do Nicaragua, Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica - twenty countries in all as I remember if we don't include the USA. It was all the same to me - they were all interesting, all linked in some way. Spain was first but I bought cumbia, son and salsa music (on cassette), I read books by Garcia Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Isabel Allende and Elena Poniatowska. I drank piscos, canelazos and malbecs. I hunted out Dos Equis beer. I crossed the Atlantic a few times heading for Mexico or Cuba and I still have a hankering to visit Argentina and Chile as a hangover from that interest in the 1980s.

But if I thought that there was a link between Spain and lots of America I don't think it's a view shared by most Spaniards. The only conversations I have had with Spanish people about Latin Americans have usually centred on their strange use of the Spanish language rather than the quality of their beer, food, football or music. The Latin American food section in the international part of Carrefour has no more stock than the British section. There aren't many TV imports from Latin America nor are there lots of celebrity Latin Americans here in Spain - at least so far as I know.

Spain of course has strong trading links with Latin America and there are daily news stories from that part of the world. I've had Argentinian, Venezuelan, Mexican, Peruvian, Puerto Rican and Ecuadorian students in my English classes because they work for Spanish firms here. There are lots of people who look South American out and about in the towns and cities. Surprisingly though there isn't much obvious South American influence in High Street businesses. I'm not saying there is none. At one time there were lots of locutorios - cheap phone, Internet and money order places - which were South American owned though they seem to be disappearing. Otherwise there is a smattering of South American businesses. Every now and again you will see a Venezuelan or a Peruvian craft shop, an Ecuadorian bar or a Mexican restaurant but they are far less noticeable than the range of Chinese ventures for instance. Perhaps it is a sign of the socio economic situation of the majority of the South and Central Americans. They tend to be workers rather than entrepeneurs. Murcia, for instance, has, I understand, the largest Ecuadorian population outside Ecuador but the only Ecuadorian business I know of is a bar that sells intersting food in Jumilla and another bar that failed in Cartagena.

We were in Elda today. I'd gone to sign on for dance classes (it's a long story and I couldn't so you will never know) and as we strolled the streets we noticed a sign that said Colombian bakery. So we went in for a loaf. Inside it was like Greggs, well with a bit more character. Caracol Internacional was on the TV with a story from Venezuela. We decided to get a coffee and the chap behind the bar talked us into eating some sort of chicken and egg pasty and a beef and rice and potato pasty and a cheese and soft dough ball thing. "Hot sauce?" he asked, "Yes, please," I replied. That seemed to surprise him. Spanish people aren't generally keen on spicy so maybe it was an unusual answer. I was tempted by the spongy sweet looking cakey thing but I decided investigation was turning into gluttony so we paid up and left.

It made me think though that we Brits maybe got a better deal from our old Empire than the Spaniards got from theirs.

Heel and toe

Maggie had an appointment in Elda today and naturally enough I got to drive. Elda and Petrer are our local  big town.

Some towns are easy to navigate. Somehow you instantly grasp the basic arrangement of the town or city and getting from one place to another is easy. Petrer and Elda are not like that. They are supposed to be two towns with different town halls and each one has street maps that don't show the other so, at times, it's not easy to say whether you are in Elda or Petrer. Elda is where the dole and tax office is whilst Petrer has the long distance bus station and the shopping centres. The hospital is called Elda Hospital but I would have thought it was actually in Petrer. Who knows? Petrer is also called Petrel at times, or it could be the other way around. One of them is predominantly Castilian speaking whilst the other speaks Valencià. Despite visiting them regularly over the past nine or ten years navigation is still a bit less certain than Rosetta putting down Philae on the surface of the singing 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet

I suggested that instead of just going to the appointment we added in a tiny adventure. Tinier than tiny. Elda has a history of shoe making and so it has a shoe museum. I went there years ago when we were still house hunting. I was amused and rattled in equal measure that time when I had to ring a bell and respond to a reasonably detailed interview to gain admittance. My Spanish was even worse then and I was appalled that I couldn't just walk into a museum. The museum visit would be our midweek adventure.

The museum door was open today and we just walked in though old ghosts came back to haunt me when the chap on the desk asked if he could ask us some questions. We said yes. He asked us where we were from. We answered. We passed. I'm sure the entrance exam has got easier over the years. Maybe though other people were asked harder questions because in all the time that we were in the museum we were alone.

On the first floor there were a lot of wooden lasts and a lot of sewing machines. Despite trying to sort it out I still have no idea about the basics of making a shoe. Not the most informative museum I've ever been to.

On the second floor there were loads and loads of glass cases full of shoes, boots, sandals and anything else people put onto their feet. There were some mad designs, some interesting designs, some surprising designs (Venetians in the Middle Ages liked high high platforms) and lots and lots of them. It was pretty interesting in a dull sort of way. It was the same with the rows of portraits of important people from the shoe industry in Elda or old shoes from semi famous people signed over to the museum with love. You'd know you were famous wouldn't you when the shoe museum in Elda asked you for some of your old footwear?

Anyway its over now and I'm in the waiting room with Maggie and we've had enough of a wait for me to write the whole post.

The Shoe Museum

There's a shoe museum in Elda. It's not surprising; shoes were big business along the valley of the Vinalopó. They still are but, as you might imagine the industry has taken a battering from the Chinese.

There are often pieces in the local papers about Chinese firms based here importing shoes from China and then bunging them in boxes marked "Made in Spain" before shipping them all over Europe with names that sound Spanish or International. Stories about counterfeiting of branded shoes abound. Spanish workers regularly march around with banners or go in coachloads to Madrid and dump shoes in front of Government buildings.

Anyway, ther's a shoe museum in Elda. It's a big building, a modern and quite impressive building with interesting displays as I remembered and I hadn't been there for a while. So when I went to Elda to sign on yesterday I thought I'd have another look around.

I've been here in Spain a while now and lots of things that used to phase me no longer do. So, when I had to ring a bell to get into the museum I wasn't surprised. The bloke on the intercom said the door should be open, hang on he'd ring the woman on the information desk and get her to open the door. She came and opened the door.

"Yes, what do you want?"
"I'd like to have a look around the museum"
"Oh, right, come on in then"

I lounged on the counter looking through some leaflets whilst she shuffled some papers, looked around a bit and eventually picked up a walkie talkie.

"I need to find the caretaker to turn on the lights"
"Oh, if it's a bother I can go and get a coffee and come back in half an hour"
"That's not such a bad idea, why not do that?"

So I did and whilst I was having a coffee Maggie phoned me and set me a task that meant that I never got back to the shoe museum.