Life in Culebrón

Summer is an interesting time in Spain. When the sun shines the country slows. In August the country treads water. It's not as true as it once was and it's never been 100% true but it's true enough for a blog. The first to prepare for the Spanish summer, which lasts from 1 July to 31 August, are the TV advertisers. From the beginning of June happy groups of friends and families will begin to appear on TV screens, sitting around big tables in the garden eating paella or pizza and drinking beer. Most of the rest of Spain begins to prepare for Summer around San Juan, June 23. Those who have a beachside or country property start to ackle it up for the summer. It's amazing how many people have access to a country home or a seaside flat. In both cases the trick is inheritance. The money from the sale of Grandma's house made the flat affordable. The other option is that Grandma's house is where the family now spends Summer. The house gives the family roots, they may li...

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 wa...

Last night, well this morning I suppose, the windows started to rattle and the wind howled and the thunder thundered and the lightning lit the bedroom from time to time. When I got up a couple of hours later the sun was shining on the puddles on the patio and the cats were tiptoeing from dry spot to dry spot. It's a sign of the time of year. Like my feet hurting. Neither is new. I've complained about this, the feet that is, a lot. It stems from walking miles in flat bottomed sandals at Benicassim pop festival but the foot pain was always bad each summer long before the Benicassim debacle. Really the trouble starts as I move from proper shoes with proper socks to sandals and lighter shoes worn with those funny short socks. In Spanish the socks are called pinkies. Isn't that a great name? So Summer, early Summer when it's still Spring, is big storms and uncomfortable feet. And flies, hundreds of flies, thousands of flies. No, not just flies really; all sorts of small flyi...

There are a lot of flies in Culebrón. There are also plenty of wasps. The most common type in Culebrón don't seem to be quite like the one that stung me in Elland when I was at Junior School. I inadvertently squashed the poor beast as I rested my chin on a low wall to marvel at a Mercedes 220 SE "Fintail" passing by. Mr Kemp, the Headteacher, used an onion from the Harvest Festival display to lesson the considerable pain. I've been stung a couple of times here but, to be honest, I've hardly noticed. Obviously British wasps are tougher. National pride and all that. Anyway, as I said there are lots of wasps. One of the common questions on Facebook, amongst the Britons living here, is how to deal with the hordes of them swooping and hovering over swimming pools. Being poor and poolless our wasps have to make do with drinking from the water bowls that we leave for the cats. Recently the wasps have also been feasting on something growing on the leaves of the fig tre...

If I were to ask you whether you'd expect summer in Spain to be warm or cool what would you say? Exactly. I like it warm. I like the unremitting heat of the Alicante summer. Sun every day, no rain for weeks or months, the sound of flip flops on the street and the telly full of people having outdoor parties and frolicking in the sea with orgiastic fiestas in every town and village. So summer here is as mythical as Christmas in England. There it's snow, robins, family camaraderie, goodwill, never ending mince pies and the warm feeling of gift giving. It's sort of true, it can be true but most of it is some sort of aggrandisement of the truth. People of course love to complain. In winter we complain about the cold and in summer we complain about the heat. This always amuses me slightly. Anyone who knows Spain knows that there are bits that are, generally, cool and rainy. The coolest (temperature wise) place I can find for yesterday was Covatilla near Bejar in Salaman...

Summer began at six minutes to six last Friday. Just a few minutes later we arrived in Santa Pola on the Mediterranean coast. It was pure chance, we'd been nearby doing some shopping and we thought why not? We didn't do much. We parked next to the beach, walked around the corner to an area that has been developed with bars, cafés and restaurants alongside the marina and had a drink. The sun was shining with that early evening hazy shine. Some people were wading in the water, others were swimming. The sea was sparkly. The expensive and not so expensive boats in the marina bobbed up and down and made those tinkling, ringing sounds that moored boats do. The bar was comfortable, modern looking with light filtering through blinds and awnings. It was a bit pricey with slim young servers and ice cold (alcohol free) beer. Say what you will about far off exotic lands but the Med takes some beating when it's on form. It was one of those moments. A couple of days earlier I'd...

Coming home was just brilliant - that feeling of being in Spain when Spain is almost a parody of itself. It's not really hot but it's very definitely summer. Probably in the low 30s. Nice and warm, hot enough to make anyone sweat, hot enough to make it dusty, hot enough for those sudden gusts of wind to be very welcome and nearly hot enough for a spaghetti western snake to slither by. I finished teaching the last of my courses this morning. No more work for a few weeks. I'd celebrated with a beer and a chat in the market square. The streets were lunchtime deserted as I went for bread. The cicadas sang. My sandals kicked up little swirls of dust as I walked. In the car, on the way home, I had the windows open and the new Florence on quite loud. Loud enough for the bloke working on putting up the dodgems in the market car park to look up as I passed. I waved and wondered why he was working at such an odd time. Coming around the Yecla-Jumilla roundabout they're redoing...

A faint aroma of woodsmoke accompanied me to the shower this morning. Presumably a sensorial reminder of a short stroll along the beach in Alicante last night amongst the tens of impromptu mini bonfires, or hogueras, there. One of those essential, but detail, elements of celebrating San Juan, St John the Baptist, in any number of coastal Alicantino towns. Strange stuff around midsummer; midsummer day on the 24th of June, the midsummer of Puck, Bottom, Oberon and Titania. How is it that summer begins, the summer solstice is on the 21st, and then a couple of days later it's midsummer? Lots of Spanish people say that Midsummer Night is the most special night of the year. I like it too. Something special about the long day, the short night and the promise of night-time warmth in the name alone. In Cartagena I remember that every street corner had some group of family and friends setting fire to something or hurling bangers around. In a slightly more restrained Lincolnshire I have t...

I love the heat of Alicante in the summer. The unremitting, unrelenting nature of it. At times, it's too hot but that's often the best bit. There seems to be no escape and, just then, there's a slight gust of breeze or you walk into the shadow of a building - even more perfect. A few years ago we went to see the Misteri d'Elx. This is a religious play, performed in the Basilica in Elche by an all male cast in Ancient Valenciano. It's one of UNESCO's intangible World heritage things. I think it's possibly the most boring thing I've ever seen - though I would urge you to go and see it. There's still time to book up for this year! 11th, 12th and 13th August with tickets on the Sabadell instanticket website. I was reminded of the Mystery yesterday evening as we saw a trio of live bands. The crowd was bopping up and down as crowds are supposed to do for contemporary music. Lots of the young women were waving fans, I don't mean they were fans waving ...

Somewhere I came across a newspaper piece about Los pueblos más bonitos de España, the prettiest villages in Spain. The organisation that promotes this list seems to be a not for profit organisation. Whatever its origins or purpose it gave us a simple holiday plan. We have friends who run a casa rural, a country house for rent, which goes under the name of Vientos de Gudar in the village of Fuentes de Rubielos in Teruel. With a visit to our friends, and their house, as our ultimate destination we decided to do a mid distance tour from Culebrón up through the villages listed in the provinces of Castellón and Teruel with our end point being Fuentes. The first stop on the list was Vilafamés then on to Peñíscola, Calaceite, Valdearobres, Morella, Cantavieja, Puertomingalvo and Rubielos de Mora. We also stopped off in La Fresneda and Beceite which didn't feature on the list but were recommended by locals. The villages varied. Peñíscola for instance is a busy seaside resort with t...

It was hard to believe but, when I got up yesterday morning, the sun wasn't shining. In fact it was trying to rain. All day it was dull. Of course half of Spain is similar to the UK for summer rain with lush green meadows and contented cows but not our bit, our bit, not far from the Med, is picture book Spain. I've written about summer before but it's just such a wonderful thing that I can't not mention it again. I haven't worn socks for weeks. My only real fashion choice is which colour T shirt to choose today. The sound of flip flops on the pavement is a summer sound. Generally the sun just comes on in the morning and goes out in the evening. And the light; it's just lovely - crystalline skies so blue that they're like a child's painting. The air is dry, a sort of dusty yellowy dry, that plays hell with the cleaning and makes the plants wilt but just makes it feel so - well, summery. And there are noises too. Things sort of move with the heat. Li...

Last week it rained a lot. Even here in sunny Alicante it rains from time to time. Fortunately it didn't do what it did to lots of Southern Spain, it didn't come down in tremendous sheets, causing floods that destroyed everything in their path. It rained in a very English way. Heavy, persistent rain rarher than a tremendous downpour. The weather has improved since then. Blue skies from time to time but generally it's been quite grey with the occasional shower. It's stayed relatively warm though - in the high 20s - but I'd be mightily disappointed if I were here on holiday especially with the cool evenings. We've closed  the workroom windows which have been open since we we wedged them that way back in June. We've also taken to closing the front and back doors to stop the cool draught passing through the house. When I changed the duvet cover yeterday morning I considered substituting a slightly thicker and warmer quilt. The towels in the bathroom a...

Summer is just about to end. Very properly this year it finishes on a Sunday evening so we can all get back to work on Monday morning. Calendar controlled, on the first of the month. The TV is full of the great return as people finish their holidays. Of course there are lots of people in Spain who don't have a job to go back to and I presume those tour guides, restaurant workers and ice cream vendors who get seasonal work in July and August will be up bright and early on Monday morning to get down to the dole office. I just saw an advert on the telly for a beer that has been running all summer. It shows lots of people having a really good time. It's sunny, the people are young, happy and tanned. The beach has a starring role and the tag line is Mediterráneamente, a word that is probably about as real as its English equivalent, Mediterraneanly. The strange thing is that I have to agree. There is something very special about being near the Med in summer. I know I'v...

I'm back in Culebrón for the weekend. Before I left La Unión I checked the State Weather Service to see whether I would need a wooly or not. After all Culebrón is at nearly 600 metres. I was a bit undecided - daytime temperatures have been fine, sunny and clear with maximums of around 27º/28ºC most of the week. Minimums though were a little scary. It got as low as 10ºC on Wednesday and it rained. I decided against a jumper though, I have some in Culebrón anyway, and I stuck to packing T shirts. Mind you, around 7pm this evening I decided it was a bit chilly and I dug out an old cardigan and closed the doors. It's on the cards. The clocks go back this weekend. It'll be dark around 7pm and we can look forward to a gradual worsening until the depths of December when it will be dark by 6pm. As I was driving to work the other morning I realised that trees were shedding their leaves and as I sat outside a bar the other morning around 9am I wished I'd chosen a long sleev...

It's definitely summer now. I suppose summer is a special time of year around the world but here, on the Mediterranean coast, it seems to have a distinct significance. The expectations for summer are somehow much greater than they were, for instance, in the UK. And mention of the UK gives me the perfect cue. We were in the UK last week. I've spent less than a couple of weeks there in the last nine years so, as things change, at times I found myself feeling less like a local and more like a tourist. Interesting place I thought. Full of life, lots of bright ideas all around. Very dynamic. It was also all a bit frenetic. Full and in a hurry. Traffic was incredible, cars everywhere and the poor old TomTom was going mad with beep beeps for radars. I was deeply impressed with being able to wave my credit card at the terminal on the bar and pay for a pint of bitter without codes, PINS or ID. I was a little less impressed with paying three quid for a bottle of water.  It was nice...