Heat and Dust

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.

Actually of course, nowadays, being good Spaniards, we walk on the shadowed side of the street, we look to park the car in the shade so that the steering wheel will not singe our hands and the seats other parts of our anatomy as we return to it and we would always choose to eat inside, in the air conditioned interior of a restaurant, rather than out with the flies and the dust in the street. It's alright to have a drink in the street but always in the shade. And whilst you're there the most important thing about a beer is it's temperature. That's one of the reasons Spaniards drink small beers and not pints (well that and the metric system). Eating outside we leave to the tourists. We're sometimes taken aback when guests want to sit in the sun or eat outside. We're not really good Spaniards though, or at least I'm not. Maggie would do the Spanish thing and drop all the blinds on the house and leave us in permanent twilight if she had her way. Windows and doors would stay firmly closed until the sun had dipped out of sight or at least until it starts to cool down a bit. I'm still for a through draft and a bit of natural light in the house. We're also lucky that, up here, at 600 metres the evening temperatures drops into the teens which makes it easy to sleep without taking to the old Spanish trick of sleeping on the terrace. Of course it's also the summer heat that means that Spanish events, like theatre or pop bands, don't start till lots of Britons are thinking about whatever the summer equivalent is of cocoa and a bedtime book.

It really is a splendid light and, as I've said before, I like the heat. Yesterday I polished my car and as I collected the various implements with the job done I noticed the fine patina of dust already on the car. I smiled. Just as it snows in Stockholm in winter it's warm and dusty in Culebrón in July.

Winter solstice

They're voting in Cataluña today.

Today, at 5.28 in the afternoon, Winter begins in Spain.

It's not usual for Spaniards, or even Catalans, to vote on a Thursday - it's usually Sunday, a non working day. There are rules, though, about the timings of elections in Spain. Today was the first possible day for the vote after the central Government dissolved the Catalan Parliament by using Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution following the Independence vote in October.

Although I don't like winter I always think of the solstice as the turning point. I know it's not technically true but I always think that, from today, we start to gain, rather than lose light. Winter may be on the point of starting but, at least, in one sense we've started back on the route towards the better, warmer weather.

And don't forget yesterday's post.