Life in Culebrón

We all have our favourite words and expressions. One of my oft repeated phrases, when I'm saying where I live, in Spanish, to a Spaniard, is to say that I'm paleto and cateto. I thought these were two synonyms to describe country bumpkins. It turns out to be much more complex than that. And all I really wanted to say, with just a touch of humour, is that I live in the countryside. As I write I'm sitting outside the front of our house. The birds are chirping and I can hear a tractor working somewhere up on the hillside. There are dogs barking, of course there are dogs barking!, thankfully in the distance. I can see three of our four cats in various shady spots. I can see roses and trees and lots of other greenery, including far too many weeds, and piles of fallen blossom from our neighbour's tree. Country life. We country dwellers represent a small percentage of the total Spanish population. Exactly how small a percentage depends a bit on how you do your sums. Yecla isn...

Maggie often comes home and tells me about a house that she's shown or a new house on the books of the estate agency she works for. At the best I'm vaguely interested. The other way around I often start a conversation with "I'm reading this book about ....," and Maggie is just as responsive. So, if I can't tell her I'll tell you. Don't think of it as a book review though, think more of it as a bastardisation of the book alongside my own ramblings. The book in question was written by a woman called María Sánchez. This is the sort of Spanish name I approve of. It's like one of the names in a Learn Spanish text book. There are plenty of Spanish names that are easy to say like Fernández or García but there seem to be many more which don't exactly trip off the Anglo tongue: Úrsula Corberó, Sandra Sabatés, Lidia Torrent or Isabel Díaz Ayuso for instance. Maria's book title is dead obvious too, at least in Spanish - Tierra de mujeres. It...