Life in Culebrón

The wettest April since Noah took to boating according to some news reports. We had Easter tide guests. We were confined to barracks. The Easter parades were cancelled. Sight seeing was off. We presumed the shopping centres would be closed for the bank holidays. We Brits here in Pinoso seem to call bank holidays, Red Letter Days. I presume that's because the holiday dates are printed in red on paper calendars. I'm going to call them bank holidays because that's what I've always called public holidays. National Holidays are the same all over Spain. Most people will not work on those days but that doesn't, necessarily, mean that they will work fewer days in the working year. The Spanish logic is that bank holidays are not actually holidays, they are days when you don't work. So only the extra non working days need to be included in the holiday calendar. If, for instance, a National Holiday falls on a Sunday, like Christmas Day 2016, it will not be shown as a b...

It's The day of the Valencian Community today, a day off work in Valencia. On Thursday it's the día del Pilar - officially the Fiesta Nacional de España - and that's a holiday in the whole of Spain. In Culebrón then, or anywhere in Valencia, just three working days for most people this week. I noticed that someone on one of the Facebook pages I read was complaining about "yet another" Spanish holiday. In fact there are fourteen official days off. In England and Wales there are normally just eight unless some Royal does something. There's a big difference though. In England the holidays are holidays - you get your eight days off come hell or high water. So, if Christmas day were to fall on a Saturday and Boxing Day on a Sunday there would be substitute holidays on the Monday and Tuesday. In Spain they are not holidays they are non working days. One none working day is the 25th of December. If that day happens to fall on a Saturday then you don't have to...

I heard something on the radio this morning about a charity, that had been collecting toys for poorer children. The charity had been robbed and the toys stolen. The radio interviewer was sympathetic. "And just two weeks away from handing over the toys." he said. Now I know that the traditional day for gift giving in Spain isn't until January 6th. Nonetheless it struck me that the interviewer took no account of Santa doing his rounds. Every year, at Christmas time, for years now, I have been teaching English to Spaniards. I tell my students that we eat turkey, I know not all of us do, vegans and vegetarians don't and probably a whole bundle of other people for ethical or religious reasons, but we do. That's me, my family, most of the people I know. We have turkey, we play Monopoly or Scrabble, we eat mince pies and ignore all but one of those "Eat Me" dates which may or may not still exist. James Bond films, the only time of the year when we eat n...

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 wa...

Wikipedia tells me that Don Juan Tenorio,written by José Zorrilla in 1844, is the more romantic of the two principal Spanish-language plays about the legend of Don Juan. The other is the 1630 El Burlador de Sevilla probably written by Tirso de Molina. So now you know. It's a Spanish theatre tradition to perform El Tenorio on All Saints Day as part of the Bank Holiday "celebrations". In turn this has made it one of the most lucrative of Spanish plays. It's a pity poor old  Zorilla sold the rights soon after he wrote it. He thought it was just another pot boiler. I fear that a play written in the mid 19th Century, based on an older 17th Century work, is going to be a bit of a push for my Spanish. But blow it. Something traditional that we still haven't done being performed in Jumilla just 35k from home with the most expensive tickets priced at just 10€. Why the hell not? It must be worth a punt. We can always sneak away at the intermission if needs be. Maggie ...