Life in Culebrón

In January 2006, when I started this blog, anything I wrote about things Spanish was new. With the passing years repetition crept in. Nowadays I often repeat things. I have almost no alternative. My only hope is that new readers will think the regurgitated topics are new. I was playing with the idea of writing, yet another, Christmas piece, then I considered the number of seasonal entries I've written over the years. Thinking economy of effort and suchlike I decided to do a BBC and to trot out the old stuff again as though it were classic. I have to say that even just tagging up the entries bored me after a while. I hope they don't bore you right from the start and whatever number you plough through, before surrendering, you find something informative or amusing or, at least, readable.   Click on the link to get to the older post. Sorry about all the repetition over the years and please remember that what was true in the past may have changed slightly over time. Christmas begi...

It's a sort of Spanish Christmas Day today. Obviously Covid spoiled the usual parades and yesterday's buzz in the streets but the Three Kings were out and about delivering presents overnight and today the kids are on the TV news whooping over their booty. It's been good Christmas weather. Up North there have been the usual pictures of snowploughs doing their stuff, people leaving their houses by the upstairs window to slide down snowdrifts and shoppers using skis to get to the supermarket. In the Val d'Aran, the other day, the temperature was -28ºC. Here in Culebrón, for the Christmas period, it's usually been sunny by day and bitterly cold overnight. The water we put out for the cats was solid, solid ice this morning but I am glad to report that the extra insulation that we added to our water pipes seems to have done the trick and, so far, we've not woken up to frozen pipes and no water. Today is also the day that the Pascua Militar is celebrated. I forget wher...

I've just been scanning through a number of other English language blogs looking for inspiration. It's time to write a blog entry and I can't think of anything to write about. I could do New Year of course but I must have done cava (which is not, by the way, pronounced carver - but more like kavva), red underwear and the twelve grapes about as many years as I've lived here. I've already done a bit of a Christmas piece so I can't do that again even though it's still in full swing with the shopping centres clogged with cars and the telly full of perfume adverts. It's still a week to Kings and I've done Kings so many times that regular readers must be able to imagine what a Roscón tastes like. We haven't done many non British Christmas events but, even if we had, there's not a lot of mileage in living nativity scenes, carol concerts or Christmas story telling. I didn't get caught by any jokes yesterday on "Day of the Innocents...

As I remember it, In England, Christmas gets off the ground just after the schools start back in September. Nothing frantic but there are unmistakable signs. Displays of trees in John Lewis, re-organisation of the display stands in Clinton's cards. It builds to a crescendo as the 25 th  approaches. Then a couple of family meals, too much drink, some tedious board games, the DFS 9am Boxing Day Sale and, although you may still be off work, Christmas is over. In Spain it's different. My sister tells me that in Tenerife there was Christmas all over the place in November but, generally, in most places in Spain, you could miss any signs until December is well under way. Here in Pinoso, for instance, the Christmas lights weren't turned on till the 10 th  of December. Schools break up a couple of days before Christmas Eve. Families get together on the 24 th  and 25 th  echoing that yo-yoing between his and her families of Christmas day and Boxing day in the UK on al...