Life in Culebrón

I wrote about the Pinoso Book Club, El Club de Lectura Maxi Banegas, only a year ago but that's not going to stop me doing it again. The group is named for a local teacher and poet - well loved and still missed. You may have seen the poetry competition named after her. It also just happens to be her centenary this year. The club is organised by the Pinoso public library, which is housed in the Centro Cultural - the modern building halfway up el Paseo de la Constitución, next to the Indian restaurant. Like the majority of book clubs I've heard of, the plot is simple. The group reads the same book. I don't actually mean that - we have more than one. I thought to change the sentence to read that we all read similar books, but that doesn't work either. So I'll take it that you know what I mean. Anyway, after reading a book, the group comes together and comments on it. We have some, nominal, say about books for inclusion in the next "course," but really, the li...

I've just come back from watching the awards ceremony for the 21st Maxi Banegas National Poetry Competition. Maxi was a local teacher and poet. It's a nice little event. This year it was half way up our "emblematic" salt dome hill near the Fatima chapel in a sort of wooded clearing. Lovely setting. There were some songs from Andreu Valor, and an unnamed musician, as a guitar duo before the awards for a couple of photo and writing competitions and then the big prize for the poetry competition. As I said all very gentle and very pleasant. There was wine and there were snacks afterwards provided by the local bodega, Bodegas Volver, but I didn't stay. Maggie was watching Liverpool lose the Champions League final so I was alone. There is something pathetic about eating ham and drinking wine alone in a crowd but that was only half the reason for clearing off. There were plenty of people I'd nodded to in the audience. With a glass in hand they may well have tr...