Life in Culebrón

On Monday afternoon I was going through the programmes for the local theatres. We booked up a couple of events. That put a little smile on my face. Goody, goody, I thought. Out and about a bit, I thought. Away from the house for a while, I thought. Those were my thoughts as I crossed the patio and the living room heading for the kitchen to make a cup of tea. If someone were to ask me if I were a theatre goer my answer would be diffident at best. Now and again, sort of, well no, not really. But, as I waited for the kettle to boil I started to think about it. I went to see a loads of plays when I was at University. At the time I knew a lot of drama students, some of whom were young women, maybe that was one of the attractions. Another was that the Gulbenkian Theatre was on campus and free. It was also really close to the Student's Union. The bar in there was very useful when I thought that I was going to die of boredom whilst watching a Congreve play. It gave me the incentive to get ...

When Spaniards talk about electricity, in the house, they talk about light or at least they use the word whose principal English/Spanish dictionary translation is light. Or take tyre; there is a Spanish word for tyre but the commonplace word translates as wheel. It's pretty normal that a word we'd use in English has a direct translation into Spanish but the Spanish and English usages are different. Sometimes we have one word - slice for instance - whilst Spaniards have several and sometimes it's the other way round. I was talking about this with my online tutor this morning. We got onto how words change with situations. It's unlikely that you would use the word piss directly with your doctor and equally improbable that, down the boozer, you'd talk about urine, micturition or passing water with your mates, though you might use the last if you were talking about a drive through the Lake District. The tutor said that he always found funerary language difficult. The w...

Irene (pronounced something like eeh rainy not eye reen) runs a little charitable setup called Gatets sense llar del Pinó s. Google translates the Valencian to English as Homosexual kittens of the Pinós but I think that may be a Google glitch! Translated to Spanish it says Gatitos sin hogar de Pinoso which is something like Homeless Pinoso Kitties. Maggie looks at Irene's Facebook page quite often. She'll say "Oh, look at this poor old cat, with three legs and a duff eye that has been abandoned" and I'll respond with something along the lines of "Well, we've got plenty of space, what's another cat to us?" Maggie thinks of the feeding, the damage to the house, the things being pulled off the shelves and the vet's bills and common sense saves the day. But, a couple of weeks ago there was a picture of a few weeks old Siamese like kitten with watery eyes on the Facebook page. Usual comment from Maggie, usual reply from me. I'd reckoned wi...