Life in Culebrón

I can’t remember when I went to Avebury. It was a long time ago – before my bones started aching all the time and even before my hair turned white. I went to Castlerigg, near Keswick, around the same time. Both are oneiric memories – fleeting and half-forgotten, yet leaving a lasting impression. In both places I felt a link with the past – nothing academic, nothing to do with dates or history. It was a sense of continuity, not of dogma or rhetoric, but of something that was ours – a shared patrimony. I can hardly claim any shared past with Spain. My dad used to say that he’d sailed with Drake aboard the Pelican when it set off around the world. His proof was the name John Thompson on the muster roll. Obviously he hadn’t, but the idea that one of his forebears – one of mine – might have done so would be easy enough to check. I never have, though. Better a good tale than a refuted fact. Either way, my upbringing and lineage place me firmly on the side of the raiding, piratical English ra...

I drove over to Novelda yesterday to see La bajada de la Virgen. I'd never seen this particular procession and I'm always up for a good romería. The idea of a romería is that a saint, well the carved statue that represents a saint, is moved from one place to another in a procession - usually from some sort of chapel to a parish church or vice versa. Normally the saints are carried on the shoulders of the faithful using a stretcher like base but not always, in la Palma for instance the saint rides in a cart. There are all sort of variations. The shrine where this particular saint, Mary Magdalene, came from is on la Mola Hill so she was brought down; bajada implies coming down, subida is when the saint goes up the hill. The style of a romería can vary, some are pretty large scale like San Pancrecio in Sax, San Isidro in Salinas or the Virgen de la Nieves between Aspe and Hondón de la Nieves. Several are much smaller scale including very local ones like moving the Virgen de la Asu...