Life in Culebrón

Thanks to William Blake, and probably more particularly to Hubert Parry, we know what colour England is. It's a green and pleasant land. I heard the tune the other day and it made me wonder what colour Spain is. Round here my first thought is dust coloured. Alicante is summer and the summer is all orange and yellow and buff with a bright yellow sun.  Blue as well. People often comment on the blue of the Alicantino sky. And the Med of course, despite being, apparently, full of plastic and other even more horrid things often gleams bright turquoise or sky blue. Just over the border into Castilla la Mancha, where they are a bit short of Mediterranean colour, they like to paint their towns white and indigo blue to compensate.  If the Manchegos paint their towns blue and white the Alicantino tradition is of different colours to the facades of adjacent houses. Villajoyosa is well known for it but even in the streets of Pinoso the tradition is there if you look. Alicantino houses als...

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...

It was hard to believe but, when I got up yesterday morning, the sun wasn't shining. In fact it was trying to rain. All day it was dull. Of course half of Spain is similar to the UK for summer rain with lush green meadows and contented cows but not our bit, our bit, not far from the Med, is picture book Spain. I've written about summer before but it's just such a wonderful thing that I can't not mention it again. I haven't worn socks for weeks. My only real fashion choice is which colour T shirt to choose today. The sound of flip flops on the pavement is a summer sound. Generally the sun just comes on in the morning and goes out in the evening. And the light; it's just lovely - crystalline skies so blue that they're like a child's painting. The air is dry, a sort of dusty yellowy dry, that plays hell with the cleaning and makes the plants wilt but just makes it feel so - well, summery. And there are noises too. Things sort of move with the heat. Li...

We've just been to Menorca an island about the same size as the Isle of Man and the most easterly point of Spain. Ryanair had an offer on cheapish flights and, as we've only ever done Mallorca in the Balearics, it seemed like a good opportunity. We went for a long weekend. I have this marking system for films that I go to see. The scale is from one to five. I work on the assumption that if someone manages to finance and release a film in ordinary cinemas it will be perfectly OK. So the natural score for any film is three out of five. If it's better than expected it gets four or very rarely a five and if it's not so good a two or even a one. The problem with this system is that some perfectly well made Hollywood romcom will get the same score as a well made art house film. To solve the problem I added a couple of grades, three plus and three minus, to allow for a bit of personal comment on a film. Basically three plus is for a well produced film that I enjoyed and th...

Summer is just about to end. Very properly this year it finishes on a Sunday evening so we can all get back to work on Monday morning. Calendar controlled, on the first of the month. The TV is full of the great return as people finish their holidays. Of course there are lots of people in Spain who don't have a job to go back to and I presume those tour guides, restaurant workers and ice cream vendors who get seasonal work in July and August will be up bright and early on Monday morning to get down to the dole office. I just saw an advert on the telly for a beer that has been running all summer. It shows lots of people having a really good time. It's sunny, the people are young, happy and tanned. The beach has a starring role and the tag line is Mediterráneamente, a word that is probably about as real as its English equivalent, Mediterraneanly. The strange thing is that I have to agree. There is something very special about being near the Med in summer. I know I'v...