Life in Culebrón

I always say that it's a part of my cultural education to get out and about in Spain a bit. Getting out and about has several levels. If you consider that our house is a little island of Britishness then going to a bar and getting a coffee is a journey to Spain. It doesn't really matter whether the out and aboutness is big or small. Memorable things happen on the doorstep just as much as hundreds of kilometres away though, obviously, the reverse is also true! Out and about can be villages and towns and cities and parks and castles and museums and hills and churches and, even if they fail you, your luck may be better in a restaurant with something that you've never heard of on the menu. Out and about can be fiestas. Most countries have theatres, cinemas, museums, concerts, coastline, woodland, prehistoric sites and so on and most places have fiestas too. The Tar barl festival in Allendale in Northumberland, the one with the burning tar barrels on the head, is as barmy as any...

I'm sure you've heard my theory before that you don't learn popular culture; if you're born somewhere then the culture is yours be that food, music, TV programmes or YouTube influencers. You can't help it. The talk at work, the talk at school, the stuff your parents tell you, the memes and gifs that turn up on your phone, the little snippets you read in the newspaper all help to make sure that you know what's going on. That's how, I suppose, I learned about MOTs, Trooping the Colour, Premium Bonds, the Boat Race, laverbread, the RNLI Lifeboats, Spaghetti Junction, Engelbert Humperdinck, driving on the left and how to make tea.  Changes in language are similar. Ordinary people are in charge. Words and phrases come and go. Some old academic bloke might argue that there is a perfectly good phrase to describe keeping a safe distance during a pandemic but everyone else is going to say social distancing whether he likes it or not. Somebody once asked me about how ...

We went to see some street theatre last week. It wasn't good. Blokes talking in funny voices wearing tight trousers and red noses as they tripped over imaginary obstacles. What was good was that it was on. We couldn't get past the barriers that marked off the performance areas because we hadn't pre-booked our tickets but it didn't matter much as there was a bar beside two of the three spaces we went to and we were able to sit at the bar, non alcohol beer in hand, and half watch the performances.  If there is still a limitation on the permitted number outside a bar (for ages it was 30% of capacity then 50%, keeping a couple of metres between the tables etc.) it is no longer noticeable. We're all still wearing our masks. I sometimes wonder, as I wash the car down in the local petrol station or tramp across some field looking for cucos, why I'm wearing a mask but I still do. The tea leaves suggest it won't go on much longer. I decided not to add a pack of ten o...

We went to a couple of things yesterday. One was reassuringly Spanish but the other followed a disturbing new trend. There was a fundraising event in Novelda. Some local bands, names unknown to us, were playing a mini festival to raise money for victims of the flooding of a few weeks ago. We turned up a bit after, not much after, the advertised start time of 1pm and, as we expected, absolutely nothing was going on. Lots of people with pony tails, black t-shirts and big bellies were faffing around with bits of wire onstage but no bands. Obviously 1pm comes as a surprise every time. Normal, predictable, foreseeable behaviour. The bands kicked off with the normal, predictable and foreseeable twenty minutes to half an hour delay. The bar was another surprise for the organising team. The surprise was that people arriving might want to buy a drink from the bar. The system was predictable enough. You couldn't pay with cash at the bar you had to buy tickets first - this is a common, ...

I've given up not wearing shorts. I don't like them, I think they look stupid (especially on me) and, more than anything, they seem to require that I wear footwear which leaves my feet severely compromised. But shorts are so commonplace that I've decided to stop fighting and to wear them. We went to a barbecue last week at a posh, modern house. It was time to go so I washed my hands and face and combed my hair. I didn't think to change my faded shorts and my rolls of flab displaying t-shirt till Maggie appeared wearing a spotty dress. "Do I have to dress up?," I groaned. I did, so I did. A shirt with a collar and leather shoes. I even shaved. We weren't out of place but I could have got away with the shorts, well maybe. Perhaps I would have needed to iron them first. Most people, even if they were in shorts, looked neat. I cultivate crumpled and scruffy. Like those 1980s Bacardi ads but without the firm flesh. We went to see the opening speeches of...

I bought a book, second hand, from the Spanish Amazon site. The book is in Spanish but it was sold by a bookseller in the US, I think. It's called Plazas de España, Squares of Spain. I was rather expecting a version of a treatise on the architecture, development and use of the public square in Spain suitably dumbed down for a plebeian audience. It had a bit of that, in the introductory pages, but the bulk of the book is a selection of photos of some of the more impressive squares with one of those factual and instantly forgettable descriptions. "This square, built in a Rococo style with Neoclassical additions ordered by Carlos III, is one of the most ornate of all Spanish squares." It reminded me of some of the terrible guided visits we've been on - to your left a crucifix from 1752 inspired by Michael Angelo and, over the fireplace, a scene from the Battle of Lepanto painted by Plácido Francés y Pascual in 1871 - now if you'd follow me we'll move on to the ...

I just said goodbye to Maggie and set off to watch people walk up to the repeater; the masts on top of our local hill. I have no idea why but, every year, hundreds of people hike up the hill in the pitch dark and then have a bit of a party. But I didn't go. As I walked to the car I thought it was a bit cold, a bit miserable and a bit dark. In fact I'm sitting on the sofa, with el Intermedio on in the background, well that and lots of perfume ads for Mother's Day on Sunday. Last Saturday we planned our afternoon carefully - early show at the flicks, back via the supermarket with just enough time to unpack the cereal and canned tomatoes in time for an 8.0 clock concert in the local theatre. It didn't quite pan out though. First we need to master the 24 hour clock so we can tell the difference between 18:00 and 8 o'clock. Fortunately the local press posted their report on the Pinoso website promptly. I was able to read the report before I expected the event to star...