Life in Culebrón

Last Saturday we joined some people from the language exchange group to go on the tapas trail. One of the participants was a bloke from Surrey who has partnered up with a young Spanish woman. He was saying to me that his perception is that whilst we Britons go out for a drink Spaniards go out for an eat. Obviously I agreed with him as it's true. Lots of Spanish life revolves around food. It depends on your criteria but the Santa Catalina area of Pinoso has been described to me, by Spaniards, as the poorest bit of Pinoso, the most authentic bit of the town and the district with the strongest community identity. There's nothing to stop all three being true. I've always known the area as Santa Catalina, named for the patron saint of the district, but there is a definite drift to calling it the Barrio de las cuevas - the cave district - where caves are the houses dug into the hillside. Either way I've been up there a couple of times this week to have a look at bits of...

There is a district of Pinoso called Santa Catalina and today is Santa Catalina's day, Well it's today if you use the Byzantine calendar or tomorrow if you're on the Latin calendar. So Saint Catherine. The day is celebrated here by lighting bonfires in the street and having an associated "picnic". An efigy of the Saint also starts doing the rounds of people's homes. When we first moved to Pinoso I went to have a look at the bonfires. Unlike this evening, when it was a very pleasant 13ºC, it was cold back in 2005 and I wore a big black overcoat with gloves and a scarf. Unlike tonight Maggie wasn't with me. I was alone. A couple of years later I was working at a furniture shop and a new co-worker turned up. She recognised me as the man with the long coat and she told me a story. The people who lived in Santa Catalina didn't trust me. I looked shifty. Maybe their children weren't safe with me around. As I strolled amongst the bonfires a person f...