Life in Culebrón

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...

My mum tends to get cross with people when there is no need to. I think I may have inherited some of her angry genes. I do get fed up, though, of some Spaniards thinking that because I stutter over Spanish I don't have a clue about what's going on around me. I wrote an email for some tickets to an event the other day. There had been a cock up in the process, at their end, so it was a reasonably lengthy email. I got a reply in Spanish. A couple of hours later I got a message with a similiar message in a close approximation to English and, at the same time, another email in Spanish to check that I was aware that the performance was in Spanish. Did the email writers think I was that Shakespeare writing monkey with the typewriter? We're in the Carrefour concourse. Some people approach me to persuade me to sign up for a WiZink card. Now WiZink is the bizzare name that some people from the Banco Popular have thought of for a range of products that they label as basic...

I was asked if I'd ever written a post about learning Spanish. To be honest I wasn't sure. Normally my blogs complain about my inability to construct an error free phrase, which Spanish people understand, rather than anything on the methodology. I had a quick search through the blog and I couldn't find anything specific. So, here it is but, before launching into it, I should say that there are tomes and tomes on the theory of learning languages. People who know how brains work have theories about how to learn languages or language acquisition in general. They know much more than me. They are right and I am wrong. This attempt is going to be, relatively, short. It will contain lots of generalisations and it's a personal and not a researched view. And, of course, you need to bear in mind that my Spanish is rubbish. Learning a language is easy. The vast majority of children do it. The method is also pretty obvious. The children listen to the words and phrases. They ...

There's one of those professional looking videos that does the rounds on Facebook that I rather like. In it a succession of people walk into a bar and greet nobody in particular. Then someone comes in and sits down at the table without saying a word. There are meaningful looks between the waiters and the bar becomes a little less lively. The bar owner goes over to the customer and asks "Is it that we slept together?" The client immediately grasps what is being said and restores calm and good humour to the bar by saying hello to everyone and no-one in particular. It's absolutely true. Spaniards say hello to the room. Waiting in a bank or post office you get to greet lots of strangers. Maggie and I were in a hospital waiting room yesterday morning and everyone who came in said hello or good morning as they looked for a space to wait and most people said goodbye too as they came out of the consulting rooms and headed off somewhere else. I know this is the custom. M...

Here are some ramblings from this weekend. Once upon a time Pizza Express used to serve really good pizzas in interesting buildings. The person who launched the restaurant chain was a chap from Peterborough called Peter Boizot. One of his other ventures in the town was to try to restore the old Odeon Cinema to its former glory as a single screen venue. I've not been to Peterborough for ages but I have this vague recollection that the venture failed. People must prefer multi choice cinemas. Spain, like everywhere else, has multiplexes in amongst fast food franchises and out of town shopping centres. The big, single screen cinemas are a thing of the past. Youngish people, twenty somethings, I taught in Cartagena still talked nostalgically of the city centre cinemas so it can't be that long ago that they disappeared. Nowadays the old cinemas are gone, boarded up or used as retail outlets. Years ago, on holiday, I saw my first ever Rus Meyer film in a cinema in central Alic...

The other day I wrote an essay for my Spanish class. It was that essay which gave me the idea for the blog about trademarks and names. I got the corrected essay back today and there were few enough mistakes for me to bother to correct them on my original. So here, for my two or three bilingual readers, is my attempt at complaining, hopefully in a light hearted way, about a few things Spanish. Nothing new in the content but waste not, want not, as my old uncle used to say - that was before he was dead of course. Cuando vivía en Ciudad Rodrigo buscaba el lavavajillas en un supermercado pero no puede encontrarlo. -Perdona, ¿dónde esta el lavavajillas, por favor?-pregunté a un reponedor- El mistol está cerca de los congeladores, al fondo -me dijo. Fue la primera vez que escuché este sobrenombre para el lavavajillas. A veces, en Inglaterra lo llamamos Fairy Liquid pero, normalmente, utilizamos un genérico – washing up liquid – detergente para fregar platos. Ya sé que hay muchas cosas qu...

I signed up for a weekly Spanish course yesterday. I haven't quite given up on the language yet - despite what Maggie says, and what I know to be true, that I will never speak Spanish adequately. I have just finished a blog post. Looking for information I was wading trough official bulletins, where laws and official notices are published. I could understand them but I wouldn't pretend that it's easy reading. It's the same with books, I normally read in Spanish but, at the moment, I'm reading a book written by an Englishman and it seemed perverse to read it in translation. I have to admit that it's much more comfortable reading in English. We took Maggie's car for an ITV yesterday, the road worthiness check. The tester took the car off us and drove it through the various test bays himself. I have the feeling that he was only doing that with us immigrants. Easier to do it himself than explain the various actions he required of us. Bank yesterday too to...

Maggie thinks we should be greener. She fancied solar panels to provide at least some of our power. Good idea. After all it's pretty sunny where we live. Just by chance a cold caller got in touch and it was Maggie who took the call. So, this morning, a man came to talk to us about solar panels and other green solutions. He told us it didn't make economic sense. Plan scotched. If solar power was Maggie's concern mine was a the palm tree. The palm tree that I've been spraying religiously to protect it against the dreaded boring beetle thing. The palm tree is fit and healthy - so fit and healthy that it's growing into the power lines. Just a bit of bad luck and either the tree gets fried or it blacks out our house and the two next door. For various reasons I don't want to talk to the power company but our neighbours came up with the bright idea of moving the tree rather than the power lines. I checked with the environmental people at the town hall to m...

I get pulled over fairly frequently by the police, usuallly the Guardia Civil. Normally it takes seconds - they see I'm wearing my seat belt, see that the car has been checked for roadworthiness or whatever and I'm soon on my way. Not always, they sometimes have big guns and give clear instructions about leaving the car s-l-o-w-l-y. I've been breathalysed either three or four times as well. Always 100% clear. On the way to stay in a hotel in Cartagena last week I was being followed by a police car with speed cameras mounted on the roof. I signalled left and pulled into a parking bay. The policeman started gesticulating and shouting. Once out of the car in that flurry of tripping over things fluster he told me off for crossing an unbroken white liine in the centre of the road. I shouldn't have turned left. Today we went to visit a bodega though here in Portugal they seem to be called quintas. When it got to the wine tasting I only took about half a mouthful of ...

One of my favourite ways to start any blog entry is a reference to the past - when I was a boy..... when I lived in Elland and what not. I don't quite think of my time in Spain in the same way. Although we have been here for close on ten years now all the Spanish stories seem fresh. So I wasn't going to blog my visit to the theatre yesterday evening until I realised that it was four years ago that I last smelled greasepaint in Torre del Rico. I met Barry and Carole (remember us as barrel) when I delivered a lot of furniture. I seem to recall that they had a lot of space to fill in their house cum converted bodega and I spent hours if not days fastening together Mexican style flat pack furniture. Nowadays we just say hello and catch up when we pass in the street in Pinoso but Facebook keeps me up to date with their comings and goings. It was because of Facebook that I realised that Carole would be on stage on Saturday evening. She's a member of a group called Asociación ...

I'm cool with a romería and with Elena gone on to her birthday party it was up to me to save the vermouth session. Last night we had the annual village meeting to plan the summer fiesta. I forget the reason. Actually I've got a bit of a bad head this morning because I popped into Amador's bar on my walk home and that sort of set me on the path of wrongdoing and amnaesia. I've just remebered a conversation with Eduardo outside his restaurant which was faltering, as always, but this time because of alcohol rather than more general stupidity. Anyway, whatever the reason everything got changed around a bit this year. So on Friday instead of the vermouth session to kick off the village fiesta we're going to have a catered meal followed by the music and dancing. Cost cutting was the order of the day because the grant from the Town Hall will be 900€ again this year and lottery ticket sales haven't been very healthy either. There was talk of not having live music....

I'm not much of a dancer. I don't care for it anyway but then I hurt my hip dancing in 1973 so there was a bit of a hiatus till I tried it again. That must have been the mid 90s. I hurt myself again then though I can't really blame the dancing. I was so drunk that I was a tad unsteady and I cracked my head on the wall when I was in the urinal. I didn't notice at the time but Maggie was apparently put off dancing by the trickle of blood running down my forehead. Anyway I don't dance. So last night at around 2am I was the only person left seated at the big long table where we'd just eaten. Several people tried to persuade me to dance. I said no, I always say no. Looking at my actions from the outside I must be a bit of a party pooper. I never dance, never sing, never get involved in the hilarious games. Stand offish. I'm better when I've been drinking but I had to drive last night so there was no liquid help to hand. The events leading up to the non ...

This is another in my series of moans about Spanish websites. We booked a couple of days away with the Castilla la Mancha tourist website. I booked and paid online without any difficulty. I got a confirmation of the purchase by email. The next working day a courier turned up with the voucher and a really well presented booklet. I was well impressed; the website had worked, the organisation seemed efficient. The package contained a voucher which can be exchanged for a series "weekend" breaks. I could either ring or send a request by email. So, for the usual reason of avoiding a phone conversation, I sent an email. The next evening I got one of those "This is an automatically generated message, delivery of your message has been delayed, you do not need to do anything, we will try to resend the messsage." I checked the email address and I even replied to the email that they had sent me as a foolproof way of getting the address right. I've just had another ...

Every so often in Culebrón a robot voice phones us offering better and cheaper telephone services. Yesterday evening, in a fit of something, I pressed the button for more information and found myself talking to a woman with a very thick South American accent. The sales spiel was all about faster Internet, free National calls, a couple of other useful/useless services and lower prices for the whole lot. As we pay too much and only have a 3Mgb connection I was interested but also cautious. We had a hell of a job getting connected last year because the only company willing or able to put in the line was the old state monopoly company. I think that, by law, they have to pick up on providing the lines that don't make commercial sense. A bit like the Post Office delivering to some remote Highland cottage for the same price as it does to central London. In order to make it worth their while we'd agreed to stay with them for at least 18 months. When it looked like I was going to bu...

I'd collected my new bank card, got the bath sealant, the potting compost and some pop so it was time for a coffee and a smoke. I popped into the local British run bar in the centre of town and "ordered up a cup of mud" (Tom Waits from the Red Sovine song Phantom 309.) The owner was looking serious. Business is bad. The Britons who live on pensions paid in Sterling have seen their Euro income drastically cut. The younger, working age, Britons have lost their jobs because of the financial slump and have headed back to the UK. The self employed Brits were generally associated with construction, housing etc. and as that market has dried up so has their income. The early morning Spanish breakfast trade has also shrunk with the offices, shops and banks that the Spaniards worked in being closed or merged. The final nail in the coffin is that this particular bar has always been "working class" and a Spanish café just up the road has bought some classy new tables, cha...

Each year the Culebrón Neighbourhood Association arranges a meal. We eat under the pine trees in front of the village hall. That's where we were on Saturday evening. As usual people were keen to greet us and Maggie explained time and time again that her contract time in Salamanca was now over and she had a new contract in Cartagena. Our travel and living arrangements were discussed over and over. But with that conversation ended we all looked at our feet a while, shuffled and then remembered an impotrtant appointment with someone else three or four metres away. When it was time to grab a seat at the table we were, as usual, carefully but courteously edged from the centre towards the ends of the long table. Left to our own devices. But, the President of the Association was waiting for her family to turn up which they finally did something like an hour after the arranged kick off. They took the spare place settings at the end of the table so that, suddenly, we were no longer the...