Life in Culebrón

Have you seen those photos of the Greek Islands? Blue and white paintwork everywhere and the boats apparently suspended in mid air on a transparent crystal clear sea. It's the light that makes those photos so stunning and it's the same sort of light that we have here. A popular late 19th and early 20th Century Spanish painter, Joaquín Sorolla, is most famous because of the way he captured the Mediterranean light. I often think of Sorolla when anyone comments on the limpid, flawless blue sky in even the most mundane of my snaps. So, when we first came to Spain I envisaged a house with big French windows, with gauze like curtains moving gently on a whisper of warm breeze making and unmaking pools of light on the tiled floor. Obviously we would wear, white, probably linen, clothes as we Virginia Woolfed our way through the days sipping on ice tinkling lemonade or a more alcoholic gin and tonic. Nobody sweats in those images, we would just luxuriate in the brightness of it all....

If I were to ask you whether you'd expect summer in Spain to be warm or cool what would you say? Exactly. I like it warm. I like the unremitting heat of the Alicante summer. Sun every day, no rain for weeks or months, the sound of flip flops on the street and the telly full of people having outdoor parties and frolicking in the sea with orgiastic fiestas in every town and village. So summer here is as mythical as Christmas in England. There it's snow, robins, family camaraderie, goodwill, never ending mince pies and the warm feeling of gift giving. It's sort of true, it can be true but most of it is some sort of aggrandisement of the truth. People of course love to complain. In winter we complain about the cold and in summer we complain about the heat. This always amuses me slightly. Anyone who knows Spain knows that there are bits that are, generally, cool and rainy. The coolest (temperature wise) place I can find for yesterday was Covatilla near Bejar in Salaman...

Summer began at six minutes to six last Friday. Just a few minutes later we arrived in Santa Pola on the Mediterranean coast. It was pure chance, we'd been nearby doing some shopping and we thought why not? We didn't do much. We parked next to the beach, walked around the corner to an area that has been developed with bars, cafés and restaurants alongside the marina and had a drink. The sun was shining with that early evening hazy shine. Some people were wading in the water, others were swimming. The sea was sparkly. The expensive and not so expensive boats in the marina bobbed up and down and made those tinkling, ringing sounds that moored boats do. The bar was comfortable, modern looking with light filtering through blinds and awnings. It was a bit pricey with slim young servers and ice cold (alcohol free) beer. Say what you will about far off exotic lands but the Med takes some beating when it's on form. It was one of those moments. A couple of days earlier I'd...