Life in Culebrón

Now, anyone who has ever heard of Pinoso will know it is famed for wine (Pinoso’s bodega is the biggest producer of organic wine in the province), marble (we have the largest marble quarry in Europe), shoemaking (now largely a thing of the past), and Mediterranean agricultural products (Frutos Secos Mañán is one of the largest almond producers and processors in Europe). Not much is said about salt. Yet Pinoso is a major salt producer. Unfortunately, the town sees little of that wealth: the salt deposit is owned by the Spanish Treasury (Hacienda), and the profits from working it go to a French company within the Salins Group. We’re friendly with wine. Well, we’re members of the local "Amigos del Vino" here in Pinoso. We usually go on trips out in a charabanc which have some passing association with wine. If possible, we like to drink some. But last week we went on a trip with a different focus. We followed the route of that salt from deep inside our emblematic hill down to the...

There's a hill to the East of Pinoso. It's a rounded, dome like, formation which stands about 320 metres above the surrounding terrain though its summit is 890 metres above sea level. If you know Pinoso it's the hill with a couple of telecoms masts near it's summit and you can see it from almost everywhere in town. It's called Monte Cabeço and it's a sort of visual reference point for most Pinosoeros. Travelling home, with Spaniards, on a coach from Madrid years and years ago the man behind me tapped me on the shoulder when el Cabeço came into view, "Look," he said, "It's our mountain". One of the wines produced by the local Pinoso Bodega is named for the hill, it's called Diapiro and diapiro is the Spanish equivalent of the technical word, diapir in English, to describe the geological phenomenon where the light, and plastic, salt has been squeezed up through the harder, surrounding rock. The salt in Monte Cabeço has been mined for y...

Tell someone that you live in Alicante and most people think coast, they think we live by the side of the sparkling Mediterranean. It may, in reality, be one of the most polluted stretches of water in the world, full of plastic, sewage, lead and agricultural chemicals to rival the dead patch in the Gulf of Mexico, but there's no denying that the Med can look lovely. Actually we live inland, about 60 km from the coast. We also live up a hill so we are at about 600 metres which means, other climatic factors being equal, we are 5.8ºC cooler than at sea level. That difference is notable at this time of year. Very noticeable. As I type, Bohème like, my little hands are frozen. So, one of the conversations between immigrant Britons is based on the major division between those who live on the coast and those who live inland. There are all sorts of perceptions about the Spanishness, or not, of the two locations. The probable truth is that the influence of immigrants is a product ...