Dancing in the streets

I saw something about the fiestas in Cañadas de Don Ciro this last weekend. Now Don Ciro really is no more than a wide spot on a very rural road but they have fiestas. It reminded me that I hadn't written anything about our own local fiesta which was a couple of weekends ago now. 

The Culebrón fiesta is one of a series for the outlying villages which are part the Pinoso municipality. The first village fiesta takes place in late Spring and they go on through the Summer with the villages taking it in turns to have a weekend of festivities. The fiestas are not usually particularly exciting or expansive but they are deeply ingrained in local culture and they offer the villagers a break from the routine with a chance to have a bit of a natter with friends, family and neighbours against the backdrop of some planned activities.

There are usually two key themes. One is religious. Nearly all the fiestas are tied in to the patron saint for the village. The saintly effigies usually get an outing. Sometimes the saints stay away from home for days and sometimes they just get a quick tour of the village. There are as many variations as saints.

The other theme is eating, well eating and drinking. Most of the Pinoso villages have a sit down evening meal. Occasionally the meals are classy with ceramic plates and decent cutlery but usually it's plastic plates and glasses with mass catered food. The quality of the meal is importantish, it's always a topic of conversation afterward, but really it's the sitting and chatting and drinking and laughing that matters.

The dinners used to be followed by showband type bands, orquestras playing paso dobles and jotas. As budgets shrank, in the smaller villages, so did the number of musicians and nowadays it's often a playlist and a laptop. Mind you people have been complaining that the Motomami tour by Rosalía doesn't have any live musicians either!

The activities to go with the feasting, drinking, dancing and religious observance can be legion. Traditional games are very usual. In this area something, a bit like horseshoes, called tanganilla or caliche, is common, a cooking competition (traditionally for men) making gachamiga (a sort of garlic pancake) is standard issue too, maybe a communal picnic, vermouth sessions, foam machines, water slides or bouncy castles for the kids, cake and a drink type sessions - chocolate with churros, horchata with fartons, sometimes basketball or football competitions or even summer cinema. I've seen things as mundane as domino competitions and face painting and as innovatively simple as beer tasting sessions. It all depends a bit on your budget and it all depends a bit on what is considered acceptable in your neck of the woods. 

The activities are a bit academic. Village fiestas are not really about activities. They are about nattering to your neighbour, having a beer or a wine and remembering old so and so alongside the opportunity for a bit of partying.

One of the key figures in organising the village fiestas in the Pinoso area are the pedáneas or pedáneos. Britons tend to describe these people as village mayors or mayoresses but they are more actually the interface between villagers and the local administration. They also represent the village in any number of local functions. So if the street lamp outside your house fails or if you feel the bins are not being emptied properly the idea is that you moan to the representative and they pass on your moans to the town hall. Our village rep is Belgian. She's hard working and organised. She, and her family, seemed to have done most of the work to organise the fiesta. The one area where there were probably other willing helpers was with the organisation of the religious part of the proceedings. 

The programme was similar, but different, to the pre Covid years. On the Friday evening there was a vermouth session - a few litres of vermouth, nuts, crisps, olive and mixers and space to chat. On Saturday there was a market for second hand stuff and for craft stalls and the like. There was nothing for the Saturday afternoon. The evening meal on Saturday evening was organised into tables for friends and family groups rather than the more usual long table free for all. There was nothing on Sunday apart from the all important evening mass and procession followed by the "Wine of Honour" which is a  sort of end of event stand up buffet. 

Looking in, as someone who knows nothing about how things were organised and as someone who is not particularly integrated into the village, it felt as if the fiesta had a different emphasis to past years. It had a more businesslike feel. The timetable was more precise and none of the smaller elements were there - no competitions, no kids games. In fact, mass and procession apart it could have been almost anywhere sunny in Europe. The evening meal for instance was absolutely Spanish but the menu didn't feature anything that might be alien to a Dutch or Scottish diner. Anyone who saw the advertising and wished to could have a stall at the market or a place at the dinner table. That meant there were far more people involved than usual but not, necessarily, villagers. The religious ceremony maintained its village base with almost nobody, except the invited dignitaries and musicians, not having ties to the village.

It was nice to have the fiesta back. 

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

I remember when we made the decision to move to Spain. It wasn't because there were people with guns in the street, not a sign of religious fanatics demanding that girls stayed covered and away from school. It wasn't even as though we were working in terrible conditions for a pittance. I, we, thought it would be good to move from one prosperous, well organised and safe country with lots of personal freedoms to another prosperous, well organised and safe country with lots of personal freedoms.

I can hear the guffaws at that last sentence. I've read the Tweets and Facebook entries that suggest Spain is only one step short of being some Banana Republic, where nothing works as it should. I agree with some of the complaining. I'd like to be able to get my ID card without any effort too just like I'd hoped that my British passport wouldn't have a turn around time of four months. I might even prefer not to have to carry any ID. I understand the concerns about the ways that some animals in Spain are treated but the name of the RSPCA suggests the problem is not just Spanish. I wonder why there aren't more complaints about the strange Spanish dichotomy which is quick to introduce same sex marriage legislation (for instance) but still laughs along with the local theatre group as they parody Chinese people in the most grotesque manner. It would be nice if my Internet connection were a bit more stable but my sister says exactly the same about hers in rural Cambridgeshire. I do sometimes fret about the freedom of information in Spain and the clearly unrepresentative election system and over combative politicians but, again, Spain is far from alone and it wouldn't take much time to think of a couple of matching British concerns.

So, Julie Andrews, Sound of Music, Sonrisas y lágrimas in Spain, ringing in my ears I decided to change tack. What is it that are as good as warm woollen mittens and packages tied up with strings? And I'll keep away from the heavier stuff. Just fluff.

The restaurants. One of the things I most like about Spain, and I was reminded of the other week when we ate at Casa Eduardo here in Culebrón, is how the meals progress. My co-diners were obviously unimpressed with the food but we all seemed to be having a good time. I squinted at the pile of debris around us, the spills on the table cloth, the different coloured remnants of all that wine, water, beer and Fondillón in the glasses, the crumbs and crumpled napkins, the remains of the meal. I looked across to the family nearest to us packing up to go; the children getting their mouths wiped. The aftermath. The style of eating, the sharing, is something I approved of long before we moved here. Just as I approve of the meal times, of making the main meal of the day at lunchtime and, in doing so, saying that the essence of life is more important than work. Yep, dining out is always good fun. I like the food too. I know lots of people don't but even if you don't care for the food you must approve of the fact that it obviously didn't come, ready prepared, in a packet. 

The traffic. I know that on the coast, in Madrid and even in Petrer the traffic is just as bad as it is in Peterborough or Brum but I live in Pinoso and all of the roads around here are close to empty. I used to do a daily work trip to Cieza and I was sure that one day I would do the run from the A33 motorway to the Pinoso border without seeing a single car. I never did but two cars in 22kms isn't bad.

Car parking. It's becoming increasingly frustrating to park in Pinoso. What the terraces of the bars haven't swallowed up then the builder's skips have. In truth though there is plenty of free parking here and, even in the bigger towns and cities, you'll find something if you are willing to hunt around.

Cheap booze. I mean, honestly. Even something as recent as the newish explosion of varieties of national and local bottled beers cost less here now than they did when they were first introduced to the UK back in the 1980s. Or a gin and tonic where that description and not tonic and gin may be accurate. If you don't like booze then the price of a coffee is a treat too. Even better if you're on a nice terrace with the sun shining and the world passing by.

The weather. Or maybe not. I really love those days in July and August when the earth creaks with the heat but winter is horrid. Winter inside that is. The violence of the storms also rattles me, I expect the trees to fall as the wind whistles and the car to suffer as the hail batters down. When the sun shines, outside, at any time of the year, it's lovely but in an unheated bathroom on a cold December morning I'm reminded of my life in Britain when Harold Macmillan and Lord Beaverbrook were in charge.

Fiestas. I enjoy the fiestas and romerias and ofrendas and what not. The best ones, to my mind, are the ones where you end up sort of mixed in with the event, rather than the ones where you stand behind a line, real or not, to watch things go past. Nonetheless, even the pure spectator events - like Carnaval or the Cabalgata de Reyes are pretty good. I've long been a fan of pre-historic sites, Avebury is probably my favourite, I like the idea of continuity and sometimes, as the romeria carries the figure of this or that saint past the unfortunately parked Toyota hybrid, that same sense of continuity invades me, even though it's not a past I share. 

Places to visit. If the fiestas sort of come to you then the things to go to, the castles, cave paintings, ancient sites, galleries and museums and what not are everywhere in Spain. It's a long time since I spent much time in the UK but I remember lots of great places there from the Monkwearmouth Railway Station and the Crich Tramway Village through to the Ferens and Walker galleries. There is no denying though that the offer here is full and excellent. There's nearly always an exhibition or a gallery or a church or a castle or a tower or something to be visited in any size of town and mostly the entry is free.

Ironmongers. Shops with a counter and someone to serve you can be a bit intimidating in another language. Easier to browse the shelves in the Chinese Bazaar but if you want some solution to hanging something on a hollow door or the right glue for the job then the ferreterías are an Aladdin's Cave of fun. And, anyway, shops with counters that sell individual buttons or just the right sort of shirt are still an experience. 

The scenery. I mean without going to the Sierra Nevada or the Pyrenees or Guadarrama or the Gredos, the road from Pinoso to Yecla has its moments. Or that bit down from Hondón de los Frailes to Albatera and so on and so on. And what about the Med? It may be a filthy sewer in reality but it often looks spectacular. Mind you I suppose that's a bit unfair. Whether you're in Russia, Costa Rica, Australia or Dorset there is likely to be some great scenery too and it's probably true that lots of the things I like here I've liked in all the other places I've ever lived. Maybe that's a cue to stop listing.

I still think Spain was a good choice though.

And I worked in Community Education for years

Yesterday I went to see the 32nd Encuentro de Cuadrillas in Patiño, an area of Murcia City. Cuadrillas are musical groups made up of between 15 and 20 people. The programme told me that Cuadrillas, are typical of the Murcia Region and first made their appearance during the 17th Century to provide music at many of the annual round of rites and festivals. It goes on to talk about the variety of musical styles and the range of instruments used (many of which I presume are not in common use) and how the repertoire has been handed down orally from generation to generation.

It's not the first time that I've seen Barandillas. On the last Sunday of January in Barranda, a satellite village of Caravaca de la Cruz, they have a Fiesta of Barandillas. I've been there three times and it has always been gloriously sunny. The groups take up positions throughout the village centre so that you can watch one group for a while and then move on to the next. There's also a big market and the town is packed to the gunwales with people.

So, the description of Patiño said something about hot chocolate and churros (pastries) to start, then a mass before the groups performed on a central stage. There was also the mention of "jam sessions" along one of the town's streets. The added incentive was that there was free food at lunchtime. Free pelotas made and given away by the good citizens (nearly all women) of Patiño. Pelotas are meatballs. It's a name that means different things in different areas; basically they are all meatballs but, that said, each town and village, possibly each cook, produces a quite distinct product. In this case the meatballs are quite small and, apparently, made from turkey. The broth that accompanies them is as important as the meatballs themselves. In Pinoso we have meatballs too which are called faseguras (in Valenciano) and relleno (in Castellano) but I think they are made from pork and sausage meat (though I could be wrong).

Anyway. So I'm expecting a central stage but music all over the place. In fact it was just the Cuadrillas on stage, one after another, with chairs for the audience. At the front, between the chairs and the stage, there was room for people to dance and lots of people had brought castanets to click along. There may have been more music on the streets in the afternoon but I cleared off after grabbing my free food so it hadn't happened by a little after 3.30 pm when I left.

I was writing this up in my diary this morning and I wrote that it hadn't been as good as I'd expected. It was a bit of a revelation because, thinking about it, the event in Barranda, with the musicians surrounded by people, with the spontaneous dancing along the streets, with music on every corner has the advantage of being much more participative, much more community like. The Patiño event had performers to be watched and listened to (and maybe danced to) but it was nowhere near as inclusive. Thinking about it all the events I enjoy most are inclusive ones. In some of those the participation is simply as a crowd but where the crowd is so close to the action as to be a part of it and there are others, like the ofrendas, the flower offerings, and the romerias (short distance pilgrimages) where the participants are the event.

Getting down

Spain is full of fiestas. Fiesta is an idea that we foreigners living here begin to get a glimmer of but which most of us never quite understand fully. It's not just a street party or a carnival. A proper fiesta is based on traditions, sometimes traditions based on beliefs. Fiestas are a collective expression of a community; it's not about somebody organising something and other people watching. Fiestas are commonplace, often nearly ignored by locals yet usually loaded with symbolism in the clothes, dances, music, songs or other manifestations such as language and bonfires. Recognising, and altering, those symbols is something often passed from generation to generation. Fiestas are periodic and repetitive - with the same basic things happening year after year.

There are, within towns and cities, fiestas and fiestas. Some are only fiestas in name because they were designed by tourist boards or trade associations. They don't fit the spirit of the definition above. They can be big, they can be enormous, but they do not, necessarily, represent the spirit of a community. You'd have to ask a local to be sure but I think that, for instance, San Juan in Alicante is one of those seminal fiestas. If you go and watch the parade it's impressive but the real San Juan is not in watching - it's in participating. In getting into a barraca and eating, drinking and dancing with your friends, in sitting around a bonfire with people you met at school etc. It's one of the reasons I like the Easter celebrations in Spain - the Church may think they're religious events but I think that they are much more an expression of a community. Here in Pinoso I think Santa Catalina is like that, in Valencia the Fallas and in Ciudad Rodrigo the encierro at Carnaval. There are thousands of others. I should say that in these days of mass tourism some of the fiestas may lose some of the spirit of that description. I know a couple of Valencianos who think that Fallas is just one huge commercial inconvenience nowadays aimed at tourists. The Wine Horses in Caravaca struck me as one enormous booze up and people have said the same about the Bando de la Huerta in Murcia.

In fact it was to the Bando de la Huerta that we went yesterday. A bando is usually the sort of thing that the town crier reads out, a proclamation. Town Halls here still pin bandos to their noticeboards. As an example in December last year the town of Yecla issued a bando banning the collection of wild plants, like holly and ivy, connected with Christmas. In this particular case, so Wikipedia tells me, the bando is a programme, often with a critical political message, for the fiesta written in verse. Huerta is the key word here though. The dictionary definition I knew, before living in Murcia, was market garden but it's a lot wider than that - it means the fertile, irrigated land of Murcia (and Valencia). It's the countryside, the agricultural land.  From that quick look at Wikipedia it seems that the Bando was originally a festival organised by rich people to mock the peasants in the countryside with their funny habits and clothes but, nowadays, it's a celebration of the traditions and customs of the countryside and the wealth and harvests that it produces.

We've been around this area for ages and it's the first time that we've been free to go. We didn't stay long and we didn't participate. We just watched some of the parade and we were even a bit late in arriving to see all of that. Apparently Pinoso had a group in the parade and we missed them for instance. One of the reasons we were a bit late was that we couldn't find anywhere to park. The city centre was closed off, cars were parked, and double parked, everywhere. Obviously everyone wanted to get in on the act. Outside all of the bars there were piles and piles of men and women drinking and talking and wearing waistcoats and "traditional" dress. Very odd to see young men with modern haircuts, piercings and tattoos consulting their mobile phones, beer in hand, wearing zaragüelles, a type of big, baggy, white boxer shorts and often alpargatas, the shoes we Brits call espadrilles. In a way that's where the fiesta was. In just the same way that it was in the Floridablanca gardens where a barraca, a sort of temporary HQ set up by a peña, one of the neighbourhood or interest groups that participate in the fiestas, was in full swing and oblivious to the passing parade as they served traditional and typical Murcian food and where there would be folk music, displays of bygone days and the like. We could see the fiesta around us, everywhere but we didn't really get involved.

Just to say that the Wikipedia article about the Bando is about 10 pages of A4 long so there is lots more to know about this event if you're interested. Bear in mind too that the Bando is just one of several events happening in Murcia this week as a part of the Spring Festival.

Fiestas de la Virgen in Yecla

You may have seen my snaps of blokes in bicorne hats shooting off arquebuses (old fashioned musket type rifles) in the streets of Yecla. If you haven't, and you want to, there is a tab at the top of this page for my photo albums. The one you want is December 2018. You may wonder why.

Well, basically, in 1642 during The War of Cataluña 61 soldiers from Yecla, under the command of a Captain Soriano Zaplana, went off to fight in line with some treaty signed with a Catalan noble. The Yeclanos were in Cataluña for six months but they were never called on to fight. They all got back to Yecla safe and sound. They were well pleased so they went up to the Castle in Yecla, did a lot of praying and suchlike and then took a picture of Our Lady of the Incarnation, known as the Virgin of the Castle, down  to the town where she stayed in a church for a few days so that people could do even more praying and genuflecting. As the soldiers carried the picture down the hill to the town they shot off their guns Hezbollah or Hamas style. That was the start of the tradition. The Virgin in procession with lots of men shooting off guns. That's what you can still see today.

The celebrations were a bit of a movable feast at first but in 1691 a group called the Brotherhood of the Immaculate Conception was formed and, as a result, the town adopted that particular version of the Virgin Mary as their patron saint. The brotherhood commissioned a statue and when she was finished, in 1695, she replaced the original picture, from the castle, in the processions.

There was a bit of a blip in the celebrations in the late 1700s because of a fifteen year nationwide ban on the use of gunpowder. The Yeclanos kept asking for their fietas to be exempt and in 1786, Carlos III granted that concession. The guns, silenced for 15 years, took to the streets of Yecla again. The regulations for the revitalised fiestas, written in that year, remained in use right through to 1986. I presume that the style of the suits worn by the soldiers date from that time too.

There was another blip in 1936 when the Republicans set fire to lots of churches and burned lots of religious statues amongst them the 1695 Virgin. The one that gets an outing nowadays is a copy of the original. It was carved by Miguel Torregrosa in the 1950s and given a Papal blessing in 1954.

To be honest I'm not quite sure about all the details of the celebrations. It's a very male festival, and women are notable by their absence. Things like flag kissing and even flag waving are reasonably obvious but there are also children, referred to as pages, who have some part in the festival which I don't quite understand. The web in general and Wikipedia in particular has not helped. The key part though is that there are sixteen groups of soldiers (plus a couple on non aligned groups), each led by a Mayordomo, which dress up in those 18th Century clothes and process through the streets of Yecla shooting off their guns as they escort the Virgin from one place to another.

Should you ever decide to go you will need ear plugs. It is very, very loud.

All squishy

There's a certain tendency to euphoria sometimes. It would happen from time to time driving across the fens or maybe with the MGB in the Cotswolds. Just feeling glad to be there, to be passing through. It happens a lot here. As I drive across some Spanish landscape with, maybe, high hills, or never ending plains or, perhaps, just watching that ochre yellow dust trail as a car or van drives along some dirt track I start grinning for no particular reason.

Maybe it's my age but nowadays I've got to the point where small pleasures cheer me up quite as easily as things on a grander scale. Maybe it's always been like that. Lots of the films that I've liked most across my lifetime of cinema going have been the ones that are classed as independent film.

There are lots and lots of celebrations in Spain. They are everywhere if you look. I wonder if they have a more obvious impact in small towns and villages. The centre of Pinoso is more or less closed off for the eight or nine days of the fair and fiesta in August. We were in Bilbao once, at Easter, and a parade was routed down one side of a dual carriageway whilst traffic continued to flow on the other carriageway - the place is simply too big to stop because of an Easter parade. I thought the penitents looked lost and out of place in a way that they don't as they invade the streets of Jumilla or Hellín. Mind you they close a lot of the centre of Valencia to traffic by the Fallas, Alicante for Hogueras and Murcia for the Spring Festival so I could well be wrong.

Lots of the events are religious in basis, Catholic in fact. Not a lot of Divali or Eid celebrations in the streets here. Often, when I say to Maggie, "Do you fancy coming to see the san Antón stuff in Villena?" or "What about going to see the sawdust carpets in Elche de la Sierra for Corpus Christi?," she'll answer "I'm not a Catholic." Well, neither am I but I'm beginning to really like some of the smaller scale, home grown parades and what not. Actually I think that for most Spaniards the events aren't that religious either; they are more cultural or traditional or just theirs.

Pinoso fiestas is full of happenings. Fireworks and folk dancing here, mascletàs and vermouth sessions there and big events like the concerts and the fancy dress parade. And my favourite event? - the flower offering. Old costumes, lots of flowers and heading to the church to lay them at the feet of a carved wooden statue in the church, with the inevitable mass - not that I've ever been to the mass. Strange choice. I know what I think the reason is. I think it's because I'm soppy. It's like that line in Wonderful World about shaking hands. In the ofrenda there are little groups - from the villages and from organisations but there also seem to be family groups and just, well, people. They wave at their pals as they pass, they break rank to say hello, the smiles are enormous. The pleasure is infectious.

I went to see a little procession in Chinorlet last night. Chinorlet is only about 3kms from our house but it belongs to Monóvar rather than to Pinoso. I didn't know which figures were being moved about so I asked Google. The first result was the 1998 fiesta programme. Heaven knows why. It gave me the answer though. Twenty years ago the procession was at the same time on the last Sunday of the fiestas. The billing says Solemn procession of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Sainted Virgin of the Rosary. Solemn? Well sort of. There were a lot of candles and nice frocks and suits for some of the men alongside a couple of second commandment graven images. The statues are on either wheeled floats or carried on strong shoulders and backs. All through this little village, of fewer than 200 people, there were knots of people sitting on chairs outside their homes, standing around chatting, passing time waiting for the procession. I suppose that "everyone" who has a weekend home in Chinorlet was there over the weekend.

It's a bit odd. I'd decided to write this piece yesterday evening suggesting that this was something about as Spanish as mantillas and peinetas. This morning, on my Facebook feed, there was a photo of a bunch of people loading a carved catholic figure into the back of a decorated pickup truck. I presume that they were setting off on what is called a romeria here in Spain. The photos were from my brother in law from when he passed through Messajanes in Portugal. It reminded me that I've seen those carved virgins making the rounds in the background of lots of Sergio Leone and Robert Rodriguez films. But, who cares about facts? The next time I watch the Virgin of the Assumption heading up the little road to Caballusa or another Virgin trekking from Aspe to Hondón de las Nieves I'll think that I'm watching something as Spanish as it gets and I may well grin.

Cows

My brother went to see a bullfight in Alicante. He seemed quite surprised that it was bloody - I wondered what he'd expected. Personally I am totally opposed to bullfights. Arguments about art and heritage cut no ice with me. I'm a bit ambivalent about some things that some people consider to be animal rights issues though - animals in zoos being a good example.

It's a bit the same with bull related events here in Spain. There are lots. Some are plain barbaric, they are simply the abuse of animals by humans reduced to their most savage but others aren't, in my opinion, quite so bad. There are some bull events that worry me no more than people keeping their dogs inside all the time or the donkey rides at the seaside. I'm sure you've seen Sanfermines on the telly where all those people run in front of half a dozen bulls in what's called an encierro, and which I think we call bull running. I don't care about it one way or the other. I'm not interested in seeing it but I don't worry that it happens either. I cannot say the same about the events where bulls are or were cut to pieces with lances or brought down by thousands of darts in their body.

Now in sunny Pinoso we have a bull related event, though they're actually bullocks rather than bulls. The locals always refer to them as vacas, cows. The bullocks are introduced into a big fenced area where anyone over the age of 16 can choose to join them. On the stupid side of the fence there are a number of islands and obstacles which give a semi safe haven for the humans when they have a bullock close behind. Lots of people sit atop the sturdy fences that surround the arena, or indeed on some of those islands and obstacles, to watch the action but there are probably as many people in the makeshift cafes or chiringuitos dotted around the site having a drink and natter. Traffic between the food and drink stalls and the arena is non stop.

Yesterday evening I went to the venue a good half an hour before the event was scheduled to start. I was going to take some pictures of the chiringuitos and their customers. I had no intention of taking any pictures of the event itself. Inside one of the chiringuitos a bloke asked me if I'd take a picture of him and his mates. I did. Then he asked if I'd take some more inside the ring, he explained, and this made me feel reasonably stupid, that he and his chums were the team that made the event work. They were the animal handlers. Perhaps if I'd read the legend on the red shirts they were wearing - Vacques el Pinos: Organizacion - I'd have caught on earlier.

Whether I'd misunderstood or whether the plans changed in the couple of hundred metres walk I have no idea, both are equally plausible, but I was taken to the pens where the bullocks are kept before the event and told to take photos to my heart's content. Given that all of the potential pictures were either directly into bright sun or of bullocks behind sturdy and close spaced bars in dark interiors that wasn't quite as good an opportunity as it may sound. The blokes were being pleasant to me but they were also getting things ready. I felt out of place and my Spanish showed the strain. Anyway, eventually, they suggested that I could use a viewing platform on top of the pens to watch the action and that's what I did.

The process for letting the bullocks in and out was really clever. The animals started in individual pens. There were also two paddocks and a passageway that led to the arena outside. One of the paddocks was empty and, in the other, were two animals with big horns. From their colour I recognised them as mansos or cabestros. Manso in Spanish means something like calm or docile. When you watch the Sanfermines bull running there aren't six bulls; there are twelve. Six of them are these mansos. The idea is that these non aggressive animals know the ropes and they lead the way for the fighting bulls showing them where to go.

So when it's time for a bullock to do its stuff a pen is opened by opening a door, the door opens against a wall so that it forms a barrier that the bullock can't pass and behind which the door opener can hide. It's the same on the gate that leads from the pens into the passageway, the doors are opened, whilst the handlers are shielded behind the metal gates. The bullocks take the obvious path - out into the arena. The bullocks then chase around the arena for a while every now and again giving someone a scare and occasionally catching someone and giving them a bit of a going over. I was on the phone with my camera hanging limply by my side as I watched a young man get thrown about three metres into the air, twice, pushed around on the floor a bit before the bullock was finally distracted away. He was fine. The bullock was fine too.

After a while it's time for the bullock to come in. A door was opened from the paddock where the mansos were so that they could trot out into the arena. The bullock saw them and came over to join them at which point the mansos ambled back into their paddock. The bullock followed and, as soon as he was inside a door, the door was closed behind him using a pulley system. At the same time another two gates were opened allowing him to pass from one paddock to the empty one which was where each successive participant ended up. A lot sweatier and probably scared and confused but basically no worse for wear. I was standing next to some bloke who later introduced himself as the cattle breeder who had supplied the animals for the event. He was from Xalo and even though he was shouting in Valenciano to the red shirts I suddenly realised that the mansos were actually mansas, that is to say they were cows not bulls. That's presumably why the bullocks were interested in following them. All together very informative interlude.

There are lots of pictures in the August 2018 snaps section which you can access by clicking on this link or on the tab at the top of the page if it's still there!

Too much of a good thing

When I turned up for work this morning there was nobody there. The school was closed. Nobody bothered to tell me but it gave me the surprise bonus of being able to get to the Wine Horse Festival, Caballos del Vino, in Caravaca de la Cruz. There are all sorts of Fiestas but if we agree that a Fiesta is some sort of street based celebration open to the general public then I have been to a lot of fiesta type events recently. More specifically in the last week or so. A bit back there was Easter where we saw various processions in Pinoso, Tobarra and in Murcia. Then we went to the Moors and Christians in Banyeres de Mariola, the Romeria to San Pancracio in Sax and more Moors and Christians in Onil.

Easter in Spain I described a few posts ago so I'll skip straight to Moors and Christians which is loosely based on the triumph of the Christians over the North African invaders/rulers. In most places, as the name suggests, there are two main bands; The Moors, the North Africans, and the Christians, the eventually successful Spaniards. Generally the Moors get the better costumes. Sometimes there are Smugglers and sometimes Students. I don't know why and I'm too lazy to find out. Moors and Christians vary a lot. Sometimes there are big floats and lots of camels and horses. In other places the various troops march shoulder to shoulder keeping strict time to the music. We've seen one, I forget where, where the costumes included 18th Century soldiers uniform for lots of the participating groups. In the two and a half I've seen in the last few days the various groups haven't been particularly marshall. Some of them have vaguely marched, kept in step, but many more have simply gone for a stroll with a drink, usually a spirit and mixer, in hand. The strollers have been supported by members of the same group firing off arquebuses - those old fashioned blunderbuss type guns.

The Wine Horses is tied in to the Moors and Christians in a way. The usual story is that when the Castle of Caravaca de la Cruz was besieged by the Moors, in around 1250, the defenders ran out of water when their cisterns were exhausted. A group of Knights Templar loaded up some fast horses with wine skins and sped into the castle taking the besiegers by surprise and relieving the defender's thirsts. There are lots of events to make up the festival but the biggest one, up for World Heritage status, is a vague re-enactment of the Templar charge with four blokes, all men as I could see, running alongside an impeccably turned out horse wearing a fancy decorated coat, taking turns to do timed runs up the approach ramp to the castle. There are thousands, and I mean thousands of people on the approach ramp and lots of them have been drinking for a long time by the time the horses start to run. The crowd parts to let the horses through, well that's the idea any way. One bloke hauled me out of the way as I tried, vainly, to get a photo that wasn't too blurred and so badly framed as to be useless. He was quite cross with me. "It might have run you down," he kept saying to the degree that, eventually, I pointed out that it hadn't though. People bumping into me as they fled the horses made it difficult enough to take snaps without somebody saving me as well!

I have to say that the one I probably liked best though was the Romeria. This is the one where some statue of a Saint or a Virgin gets taken from one church to another little church. Sometimes the statues go in carts but usually they go on the backs of the faithful. The last couple we've been to have involved the carrying part followed by a Catholic mass but most people seem to just take it as an opportunity to go for a picnic in the countryside. Lots and lots, and I mean lots, wandering along dusty tracks hauling cool boxes and picnic tables just seems so Spanish and a great way to pass a day.

With a bit of luck though we won't have the opportunity to get to any more fiestas in the next couple of weeks. You can have too much of a good thing.

Out on the blowout

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 their fiesta. On Sunday I went to see the first transfer of the image of Santa Catalina to her first overnight stop with a local family and, this evening, as a lead in to the actual Saint's day on the 25th, we popped up to have a look at the hogueras, the little bonfires that families, friends and other social groupings gather around.

We parked the car and walked towards the first little bonfire we saw. Maggie drew in breath through her nose and that was enough for someone to offer her a hunk of bread and one of the local longaniza sausages, cooked in the embers of the fire, with a drop of mulled wine to wash it down. I heard someone there describe me as the Culebrón photographer. I'm not sure whether I liked that or not.

We strolled on, we were offered wine served as a stream of red liquid from the wooden version of a wine skin. We bumped into, and chatted with, some Britons we know who were having a drink outside one of the district bar's. We walked on towards another little fire where I was invited into the patio of the house to take a snap of a small shrine to Santa Catalina. That, of course, led to the irresistible offer of food: first buñuelos which are a bit like doughnuts made with pumpkin, then variations on gachamigas, more longanizas, some unnamed bits of cold and very unpalatable fat and then some broad beans cooked in a ham stock. The wine I had to surreptitiously pass to Maggie as I was driving.

We had only popped in for a quick look see. Very pleasant way to pass a cool November evening; very hospitable and, as Maggie said, November is a great time for a fiesta to add a bit of cheer to the colder and darker nights.

Fallas in Elda

Spanish websites have improved no end in the time that we have been here. Nowadays it's nearly as easy to find something in Spanish as it is in English.

There are dishonourable exceptions of course. RENFE the state rail provider has a useless website. It may be possible to book a ticket and it may not but trying to find what trains go from where to where is impossible, so far as I can tell.

This being the case I had no worries about trying to find some information about the Fallas taking place in Elda this weekend. Google gave me the website and there was a skeletal but serviceable calendar. There wasn't much in the way of background information so if you didn't know what Fallas are then you would be a bit stymied but I did visit last year so I had a vague idea of how it all worked.

The basic idea is that a number of groups, comisiones, based on neighbourhoods build a falla. A falla is a sort of flammable tableau made of individual figures (which I think are called ninots) set against a built background. Usually the tableau represent a contemporary theme - maybe something political or sociological. Each Comisión also elects a series of "Carnival Queens" with a court of "ladies in waiting" and sends representatives, the mayordomos, to a central council which co-ordinates the whole shebang. There are activities all year round but the whole lot culminates with the tableau being built in the streets for a climactic weekend when there are parades, a mascletá (a sort of sound only firework display) and the burning of the tableau. The religious element, and there is nearly always a religious element in Spain, turns, I think, around San Crispín and San Crispiniano (The Henry V, Agincourt saints) the saintly brothers who are the patron saints of shoemakers. Shoemaking is an activity associated with Elda.

Last year I went looking for the various statues and found about four of the nine. I also followed a couple of the processions from their home base to a church but it was all a bit hit and miss. This year I thought to do it properly. So I tootled around the website and the Facebook page and eventually I found a timetable. Tomorrow, Sunday looked like a good day. I thought I could go to the mascletá at half past one and also wander around some of the fallas statues. I couldn't find the location of the individual fallas though and when I put the location of the mascletá into Google maps it came up with a blank. Another Google search and I found newspaper articles that gave me a clue as to the location but it had taken me a long, and frustrating, time.

Eventually I sent a snotty Facebook message to the Central Council something along the lines of "Do you want any tourists at your fallas? The answer has to be no. That's why there is no map of the location of the fallas and why the address of the mascletá isn't a real address. Ah of course, it's only for the people of Elda. The families with years of pure blood. I should have known". to give them their due they came back to me within a couple of hours with a little map and with a street name for each of the fallas and a comment to thank me for the message because it would help them improve the organisation.

So, if you have nothing much to do on the 18th of September and you are within striking distance of Elda I'll see you at the Fallas de Elda roundabout (Calle Juan Carlos I and Calle Jardines area) at half past one.

Forgetting Lionel Richie

Spain is in full fiesta season. Our local town, Pinoso, has just finished its fiestas or, more accurately, is about to finish in a couple of hours. The fairground has already left town, the barriers will be taken down tomorrow and all those temporary road signs removed. I would say we'll be back to normal but after so many days of non stop action lots of the town's bars and restaurants will be locked fast for a couple of weeks as will a lot of other businesses and we won't be back into the usual routine till September.

When we first got here I was keen to go to most of the various types of fiesta from the tiny village celebrations, where the fun might be a foam party or a bouncy castle, through to Moors and Christians, Semana Santa, Carnaval, Three Kings and all the other big events with thousands of people, late nights, lots of revelry and long, long processions. It would take ages to go through the various types of events we've been to. Maggie got tired of fiestas ages ago. She wasn't, for instance, for bothering with Romans and Carthaginians as long ago as when we lived in Cartagena.

I'm a bit underemployed at the moment. The real problem with not working is not earning. Time rich, cash poor as we used to say in the nineties. Maggie is working - all summer. So, if I do anything it costs money, which I don't have, and I have to do it alone.

I did think that I'd take advantage of the local fiestas this year as a cheap and easy to access form of entertainment. The truth is that my unwillingness to speak Spanish coupled with my increasing churlishness and a good dose of been there, done that means that I simply can't be bothered. I took one look at the children beating each other with the sausage dog shaped balloons at the village fiesta and turned on my heel. I grimly resolved to get involved in the Pinoso celebrations but I took the insinuation that I was some sort of sex offender quite badly and decided that a beer in front of the Spanish version of First Dates on the telly was a much more entertaining option.

I promise I will try to get out and about to a few more fiestas in the three weeks left of summer but I'm not guaranteeing anything.

Uninformed

I'm sorry but I've been reading again. La familia de Pascual Duarte this time. In it, at one point, the "hero" of the book is wondering about taking a steamer to America. He has to queue. When he finally gets to the front the clerk gives him a list of prices and sailing times. He complains that that isn't what he wanted. He wanted a conversation about the possibilities. To my mind this is a real difference between we Brits and the Spanish. We like to read our information and Spaniards like to talk to someone to get theirs.

With a bit of a push from me, and despite a little opposition, the village now has a couple of WhatsApp groups. I wanted one group but some little territorial dispute apparently made that impossible. So we now have a quick, effective, cheap, reasonably inclusive and only slightly confusing channel for sharing information. It's not helped much though. We had an outdoor film in the village last Friday. Nobody seemed to know what film we were going to see till it started. And on Monday I found out that I should have booked up for the fiesta meal last Friday.

I'm sure that it's just the reading and talking thing and nothing to do with that old Knowledge is power chestnut.

Culebrón

Culebrón is one of the satellite villages of the nearby town of Pinoso. Culebrón is an unusual name for a village. Usually the word Culebrón is related to snakes. Big snakes. Or soap operas. Most Spaniards simply presume I'm mispronouncing the name when I tell them where I live. The last headcount said 112 people live here amongst them three British families with a fourth currently rebuilding an old house.

Culebrón is dusty and a browny, beigy, yellow colour. It is not a place where dogs, cats or humans worry too much about traffic - there isn't a lot. It would be wrong to describe Culebrón as pretty but it's not ugly either. There is a complete mix of houses but most tend to be old and look typical for the area - stone built, maybe with concrete facings, blinds and grilles over the windows, various colours of paint jobs. Plenty of oddly shaped concrete and corrugated iron sheds too. There is quite a lot of greenery and trees, mainly pines but with wild figs and pomegranates. The village is surrounded by vineyards, olive and almond groves and lots of crops I don't recognise.

Children are the usual beneficiaries of Spanish wills so houses generally pass to the sons and daughters. Most Spaniards don't like to live in a village so, until we foreigners arrived, country properties were unwanted. In the end the brothers and sisters would agree to keep their inherited house for family use simply to avoid the faff of selling it on. Of course some families live in Culebrón all year round but it really livens up during the summer when people move out of the towns and to the villages where, local wisdom says, it's cooler.

The village is basically cut into two unequal halves by the CV83 road which joins Pinoso to Monóvar. Most of the village is on the North side of the main road but there are a couple of smaller clusters of houses to the South; we're in one of them. Addresses in Culebrón are just numbers. So number 1 is on our side of the village on the slopes of the Sierra del Xirivell. Just on the other side of the main road is Restaurante Eduardo and he's number 17 so my guess is that there are seventeen houses in our little group.

Eduardo's restaurant is one of two businesses that I know of in Culebrón, the other is the Brotons bodega and oil mill. There have been a couple of attempts to make a go of businesses alongside what was the old main road but, like the Bates Motel, moving the road made them untenable. Nowadays, apart from various farmers, the restaurant and the bodega there is no obvious business in Culebrón. There were businesses in the past - for instance a building near to us used to be a shoe factory not so long ago. There are no shops so vans and lorries bring essentials like bread, cheese and bottled gas to some impenetrable timetable. Of course there may be thriving Internet businesses or cottage industries that I don't know about but I rather suspect that the 8Mgb download speed  and the less than 2kw power supply to most houses may be a little limiting.

Services are few and far between. I think a bus stops outside Eduardo's once a day on the run to the hospital down in Elda but that may be old information. The village school which was opposite the little square has long gone, there's a bit of a run down basketball/football area next to the recycling bins, the post box and post delivery is a bit unreliable, the public phone was taken away a while ago but most of the village (not our part) got mains drainage and fire hydrants a few years back. There is also a little chapel, an ermita, used principally during the village fiesta as well as a social centre which is used for community and private events. We do have a Neighbourhood Association which occasionally organises trips and always runs a couple of meals each year.

Our village fiesta is a weekend in July. There is a repetitive programme on the fiesta weekend but it's then when the village is busiest. My guess is that the talking and socialising is infinitely more important than the gachasmigas competition, the chocolate y toña session or even the Saturday evening meal with live music under the pine trees. Mind you for the past three, or maybe four, years there has also been a morning walking and running race organised to coincide with the fiesta and that brings hordes of people to Culebrón.

There's lots more to Culebrón but this piece is already too long so that will have to do. Good place to live, advantages and disadvantages like everywhere, but not too shabby at all.

Fira i festes

Every year, in Pinoso, we have fiestas the first days of August - a mixture of events, a funfair, stalls, parades, taunting young bullocks and temporary discos. It goes on for eight or nine days.

Last night was the official opening of the 2015 edition. There is a new councillor in charge of the organisation after the elections back in May. It's still the same party in power but the councillor with the responsibility for the fiestas has changed from Eli to César. The programme, the remarkably glossy, 90 plus page long programme was very late out, just two days before kick off and that caused a bit of grumbling.

When we first got to Pinoso the pregonero or pregonera, the person who makes a speech and then officially opens the fiestas, used to deliver their opening address from the balcony of the Town Hall. It's the usual routine for the majority of the small towns and villages acrosss Spain. It's the obvious thing to do. Flanked by the mayor, appropriate councillors the carnival queens and their ladies in waiting bedecked in traditional dress.

When the Socialists were elected the format changed drastically. It's quite possible that I have misremembered some of the detail but only the detail; they moved the area for the principal participants from the balcony to the square in front of the town hall. There was a stage but it was only enough to raise the great and good high enough so they could be seen - more dais than stage. There was a big TV screen and the town press office made a promotional video about the fiestas and another which was used to introduce the Pregonero/a before they made their speech. Much more was made of the personalities of the carnival queens and their court - each one walked into the square to stirring music through a corridor of past carnival queens, members of the fiestas committee and other notable locals. When the speeches were over the whole lot trooped off to church for a quick service before turning on the festival lights supported by the town band or maybe other musicians. Firework display next and then off to the municipal garden to see the folk dancing always with invited dancers alongside the home grown talent.

That moving the event to street level, the use of things and people the town already had - like the TV production facilities - seemed symbolic to me. There were other things that first socialist time which were much more community based - working on the idea of participation rather than presentation - or at least based on the Ernie Rutherford principal of we have no money so now we'll have to think. There were lots of other things that first year which were cheap and cheerful like classic cars and vermouth sessions or where the free option disappeared be that the entrance fees for the "pop" concerts or the replacement of the free beer and paella with a paella competition and bring your own picnic.

Whiilst they have been in power one of the noticeable things about the first term of the administration was its prettying up of the town. New or remodelled gardens and play areas, a new cultural centre, a new museum, the renovation of at least one typical town house, development of a town walk, improvements to streets and roads and more. Their critics say that's all they have done. I like most of the changes. Anyway one of the projects was to make the car park alongside the Town Hall much smarter with fountains, a clock, lots of local marble and a big mural on the side of adjoining buildings. Last night, for the opening, the venue was that car park with a high, maybe two metre high, stage as the focus of attention.

The carnival queens were introduced but they walked to the stage without the corridor of people. They were joined on stage by César, the Mayor and the Pregón. There were two big screens this time and the Pregón wore a microphone headset so he could move around as he spoke. Church, lights and then another innovation with the firework display launched from the rooves of a couple of buildings that flanked the car park. The folk dancing was on the same stage rather than in the garden.

It was all very good, I liked it but I wondered too if it were a reflection of what's happening in Spain. For that first administration things looked bad. The Town Hall was in debt, income had fallen and the result was a, probably, less flashy but, for me, much more rooted event. There's a sense that things are improving, that money is starting to flow again. That two metre high stage changed the townsfolk from participants to audience.

We shall see how it all pans out. Oh, and the title is Valenciano for Fair and Fiesta

From books to fiestas

I read something, in an electronic newspaper, yesterday that said that our President, Mariano Rajoy, isn't a big reader. It went on to say that the only complete newspaper he has left on his desk, alongside the daily news roundup written by his staff, is a sports newspaper called Marca. I'm not sure whether it's true or not but he doesn't strike me as any sort of intellectual or even a deep thinker so it may well be true.

It would certainly be in line with the last survey of the Sociological Investigation Centre - Centro de investigaciones sociológicas - which reports that 34% of Spaniards have not read a book in the last twelve months, that 10% read only one book in the last year and that just 7% read more than a book a month. Maybe this explains why many children are unsure of the name of the capital city of Spain.

Talking of books my pal Carlos, writing under the pen name of Carlos Dosel, has just self published a book on Amazon - police story with a Nazi war criminal slaughtering Jews saved from Hungary by a Spanish diplomat. And, as that's a plug for Carlos, I should mention Miguel who writes a blog about The Six Kingdoms and has had a print book published La llamada de los Nurkan. So, even if Spaniards don't read much I happen to have bumped into at least two who write.

There certainly wouldn't have been much reading going on in the village this weekend. It was the weekend of our local fiesta dedicated to Saint James with Saint Joseph tagging along. There is a religious element to the fiesta because the local priest leads a mass from the village chapel before the Saints, in effigy, are paraded around the streets of the village. Jaime is carried by the men and José by the women.  Otherwise it's all very non religious but very community. Someone I see regularly at the Wednesday morning session at Eduardo's commented on the number of people who were only ever seen in the village at fiesta time.

We had the meal on Friday evening. Catered event with metal cutlery, crockery and waiters followed by a duo with an electronic keyboard and songs from the seventies and eighties. I hear they, unlike us, went on till five in the morning. The next morning there was an organised water pistol fight and a session with drinking chocolate and toña (a sort of sweetened breadcake). A bit later, at lunchtime, there was a gacahamiga competition. Gachamiga is a food made from nothing - garlic, flour, water, oil and salt cooked into a sort of thick pancake. The procession was that evening followed by some buffet food and wine. Into Sunday the village was heaving with people taking part in the 5km or so walking and running race. There were over three hundred participants the event being rounded off with food of course. Into the afternoon there was some sort of children's entertainer - you know the sort of thing, bouncy castle and organiser with a floppy hat, baggy trousers and balloon sausage dogs. There was a bit of five a side footie going on at the same time. We got called over because there was a surprise and unscheduled vermouth session and I suppose they knew we would be attracted by the offer of alcohol. We were.

We'd left the village to go and have a very unsatisfactory meal in Aspe where we'd met one of Maggie's pals from Qatar. The after effects of that meal meant that we didn't go to the cena de sobaquillo and, in a way, that was there because we'd suggested it. What we actually suggested was a bring food to share meal but one of the neighbours shouted that down. She said that we foreigners always turned up with an inconsequential and inedible cake whilst the locals took proper food. A cena de sobaquillo is a sort of communal picnic. We'd stocked up with stuff to take but, in the end, we stayed home.

Good fiesta this time though. I tend to be a bit surly and uncommunicative when faced with people. I can hide either behind the camera or the alcohol but Maggie seems to be on a bit of a roll at the moment. Her teaching sessions, and simply being here all the time, means that she knows far more people and she is neither surly nor uncommunicative. She was running from person to person chatting away so I ended up talking to people almost by default.

Care in the community

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 from one group would keep an eye on me. After a couple of hundred metres at most they would pass the task to the next group and so on. Wherever I went I was being watched until I got in my car and drove away.

Tonight we were offered a bit of something to eat as we strolled around. Much better.

Valencian Community Day

We live in the province of Alicante. Along with Castellon and Valencia these three provinces make up the Valencian Community.

Back in 1238, on October 9th, King Jaume I to give him his Valencian name or Jaime I in Spanish successfully took Valencia City as part of the Christian reconquest of Spain. The Moorish invaders weren't actually cleared from all of Valencia till 1305 and the last bits of what is now geographically Valencia weren't added until 1851. Nonetheless, when the powers that be were looking for a day to celebrate being Valencian they settled on October 9th.

In the days when public holidays used to take us by surprise our pal Pepa, who is a born and bred Valencian, told us that on this day the tradition is to give little marzipan sweets wrapped in a silk handkerchief. Wikipedia tells me that this is because October 9th is also San Dionisio's day who is the patron saint of lovers (odd, I thought Valentine had that job sewn up). I remember going in to Pinoso back in 2005 to search out the sweets to hand over to Maggie. All I found were locked and bolted cake shops. Apparently San Dionisio doesn't have much sway in Alicante. His patch is Valencia province so there is no confectionery to be had in Alicante.

I work in Murcia so it wasn't a day off for me today, Murcia day is June 9th. But I did pop into Pinoso to have a look at this morning's events. Basically there was a dance troupe "Monte de la Sal", the opening of a revamped play area named for the recently deceased first president of the current democracy Adolfo Suarez and a play for children called something like "Looking for King Jaume."

It was nice if not exciting. I walked up from the town centre to the new play area following the dance troupe and their escort of giants and bigheads as well as the great and the good of the town. A couple of people said hello to me and all around me people were greeting neighbours and pals. There was even a lot of that high fiving amongst younger people. Pinoso certainly doesn't seem to have much of a problem with community with or without a day to mark it.

So sweet

The sound and picture quality were surprisingly good. Apparently it was a kosher copy of the film so that may explain it. Amazingly, despite its age I'd never seen Mama Mia! As Inma said it had to be a family film but the warm up videos, all Pitbull and Justin Timberlake with Ke$ha involved a plethora of bikini clad groin and breast shots. In my Parade buying days of the sixties they would have been very risqué. Pharell Williams seemed so much more family friendly.

I was greeted warmly and repeatedly. Only one question though - "Are you still alone? When is your señora back?" Nobody mentioned money and I had to ask where the donations box was.

I walked from home as the light faded reckoning that a 10pm start time was a little optimistic. Spain is a lot farther South than the UK though so even on the longest day of the year it was dark just after ten. The film started more or less on time, punctually by Spanish standards, at around 10.20 which saved me from any probing second questions. I was sitting there watching the film on a T shirt warm evening thinking how appropriate a sunny Greek island film was for our first ever Summer Cinema Event.

The man with the computer and projector started a second film but the mood had passed. The coca and infusions were being passed around, people were drifting away. Culebrón's first cinema night was over

The walk in drive in

I had some WhatsApp messages from the village mayoress.

9th June: If you fancy enjoying the change of season come to the summer cinema in El Culebrón. With the aim of raising funds for the village fiesta on Saturday 21st at 10pm we'll be showing a film on the Chapel Esplanade. Bring your own rolls, drinks and sunflower seeds -and 2€ for the seat. We'll be waiting!

12th June: We won't be charging for the seats but we will accept donations.

My guess is that someone pointed out that there were lots of copyright issues with charging for a film but they decided to press on regardless. Quite right. What better way to celebrate the longest day? I liked the grandness of the Chapel Esplanade - la explanada de la ermita, I've never heard it called that before but she must mean the bit of tarmac opposite the village hall by our tiny church.

I'd already been to one film today - the very enjoyable Blockbuster- but I've got my beer chilled ready for this evening and I'll be there even if there is no mention of the film that we will see. I'm sure it will be top quality DLP digital with Dolby sound - the works.

Village hall and pub

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. The blasphemy of a "party tape" was suggested.  Eventually they decided on Raphael - for pasa dobles and cha-cha-cha. I tried a little joke with the woman sitting next to me about it not being the Raphael but she had no idea what I was talking about.

That was like me and the meeting. I was just about keeping up with the gist as the ten or twelve people there mounted simultaneous conversations but to say I understood would be being economical with the truth.

The foot race has been moved to Sunday along with the football and the chocolate. The gachamigas and the church parade have moved to the Saturday. I think we cut out the rockets to save money. I realised that the vermouth session was missing from the plans. I nearly spoke up but, in the end, my nerve failed. Kipling would have been cross. Fortunately when Inma was checking the budget to see if we could save any money anywhere she spotted the vermouth and she had the temerity to suggest scrapping it. Elena spoke up for alcohol as the perfect accompaniment to the football and the vermouth was saved.

Then there was the romería. Someone suggested a romería instead of a procesión. Suddenly everyone was voting. I was nodded at across the room - join in - vote for the romería along with everyone else said the nod; so I did. There was talk about whether it should be in plan formal or informal. Now I know what a romería is. It's a Catholic festival where there is a journey to a shrine or suchlike with or to a saint or Virgin. I asked my neighbour what the route would be but, again, she had no idea what I was talking about. So I asked Inma when she was checking that I'd understood what was going on. "Yes, that's right," she said, normally romería is a bit of a pilgrimage but we just mean that it's not like this - she crossed her hands across her body at waist height - and everyone gets to follow the saints instead. The problem is because the priest can't say mass till eight it's going to be in the dark so we'll have to choose a route that goes to lighter places. Another of those things where I know but I didn't.

And the vermouth? Well as Inma was showing me the running order I pointed out that the vermouth session was missing. "So it is," she said and it was written down on the back of the official envelope.