Do you think I should take a coat?

It's an old photo. December 2007

I left the bathroom wearing just a t-shirt. Well, jeans and shoes and stuff too. My intention was to put on the hoodie that was hanging on the kitchen door but, as so often nowadays, I was distracted by something else and I forgot. It wasn't till I began to feel chilly that I remembered my original plan. 

My overcoat was also hanging from the same hook as the hoodie. Time for that to go into storage I thought. The overcoat, a long dark overcoat, is probably my favourite coat. It came with me from England. It was two or three years old when we got here so it must be closing in on 20 years old now. The lining's a mess and if you look at it closely it's got that sheen on some of the seams to bear witness to its longevity. March is the month when the weather starts to take a turn for the better here in Alicante. 

The t-shirt incident and the coat reminded me of a story I'd read, as a youth, about a civil servant and an overcoat - Dostoyevsky perhaps, or Kafka? Google says it was Gogol. The story tells of a minor civil servant whose life becomes dominated by saving for a new warm coat. As soon as he has it the coat is stolen from him by a couple of ruffians. The police will do nothing and he dies of a fever brought on by his coatlessness. If Gogol could write a short story about an overcoat I could blog about one!

In the North of Spain people need cold weather clothes just like they need central heating and insulation. Here, in Alicante, when people wear a scarf it's really only because they want to wear a scarf. It's just conceivable that on a couple of days each year a scarf may actually be necessary, gloves even, but, basically, proper cold weather gear isn't really called for in Alicante. It's not that we don't have winter or anything. As I have remarked tens of times it is perishing inside in winter but outside, when it's not nice, the best description, often, would be something like chilly. As we've closed in on Spring my denim jacket has come into its own and, before that, a sort of thick cardigan I have has done sterling work through the traditional winter months. Sports jackets are good too, a bit of a barrier against the cold but without too much weight. With a pullover and sports jacket I'm set up for most Winter Alicante weather except rain. 

This year I may have worn the overcoat ten times. When I wear my overcoat people don't notice the sheen, they don't laugh at it, they notice that it's big and dark and coatlike. When I wear the coat Spanish people often comment to me on the coldness of the weather. The wearing of a long overcoat is certain proof that it's cold. 

If March is when the weather cheers up late October and November is when we notice that things are changing for the worse. Last November I bought a jacket; one to wear outside against the cold and rain and wind. It was a bit of a whim but it was cheap and it was a nice sort of yellow colour. It's made of a vaguely waterproof sort of material so it could be a replacement for the rainy day waterproof jacket I bought in 2009 in Salamanca. The new jacket also has a bit of a lining so it is warm enough to replace the padded jacket I bought in Granada in 2016. I've tried hard to wear it, what with it being new and things, but I reckon it's been out fewer than four or five times in the four months.

The clocks change on Sunday. The sun has shone all today and I was able to cast off my pullover for several hours. Very soon that t-shirt will be fine as long as I remember to add the jeans, sandals etc.

Night glow

Sometime, at the beginning of last month, I fired up one of the butane gas heaters in the living room for the first time this season and, a couple of days ago, the pellet burner roared into life after a rest of  at least six months.

We're closing in on the time of year I really dislike in Spain. The time of year when you can't be sure that the washing on the line will dry, when it's colder inside than out. The time of the year when the water in the shower takes ages to run hot, when the bathroom mirror drips with condensation, when it's best to choose today's outfit the night before when the room is still heated. It's the time of year when I can't hear the telly for the roar of the pellet burner.

Since we turned the clocks back we've had a couple of nasty, cold, wet, windy days but winter hasn't really arrived in inland Alicante yet. The mounds of leaves in the garden still say autumnal but winter is very nearly here.

Over the years we've owned six of the butane gas heaters. We were down to three and one of them wasn't working as it should - the fibreglass type matting was shredded and the gas was burning incompletely and unevenly. I whizzed it in the bin and did a bit of research. Whether we should buy blue flame as against catalytic or radiant heaters; which manufacturers were to be trusted and which not. I settled on a radiant type with 4.2kw output from a firm in Murcia and I was pleased when it was available at two different prices in two local shops. I could support local businesses and still feel like a wise shopper without going online.

I set up the heater pretty quickly. I know about hot water to soften the rubber pipes to make connecting the pipes easier, I know about the "sell by date" on the tubing, I know about the different pressures on the regulators and I had all I needed in the garage. But the stupid thing wouldn't fire up. Next day back in the shop the man didn't really believe me but I'd taken a gas cylinder with me. He couldn't make it work either. They got me another for the next day. The new one works.

It was Maggie who turned on the pellet burner. It fired up OK and I went out to work. I expected a toasty living room when I got home. No though. Cool, cold, miserable in the living room with Maggie in a thick cardigan. The pellet burner had given up the ghost. I sorted it out the next day.

The pellets in the heater were the last we had, leftovers from last season. I was sent to buy more. We've had trouble with the quality of pellets over the years and we now get them from a shop about fifteen kilometres from Culebrón. When I got there the shop was obviously open but the door was locked. I've seen this before. It's not an ironmongers that is overwhelmed with customers and the owner is quick to pop out to their warehouse. I waited, and waited. Two other people waited with me for a while. Half an hour. I got the pellets though and yesterday the living room was bathed in that reassuring orangey light.

Winter solstice

They're voting in Cataluña today.

Today, at 5.28 in the afternoon, Winter begins in Spain.

It's not usual for Spaniards, or even Catalans, to vote on a Thursday - it's usually Sunday, a non working day. There are rules, though, about the timings of elections in Spain. Today was the first possible day for the vote after the central Government dissolved the Catalan Parliament by using Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution following the Independence vote in October.

Although I don't like winter I always think of the solstice as the turning point. I know it's not technically true but I always think that, from today, we start to gain, rather than lose light. Winter may be on the point of starting but, at least, in one sense we've started back on the route towards the better, warmer weather.

And don't forget yesterday's post.

Crackling

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 I mean they had fans for fanning themselves and they were waving them. When we saw the Misteri it was hot in the church, hot like the boiler room of the Titanic, infernally hot. We were on a balcony, dripping with sweat and looking down on the action. The players clothes were dappled with rivulets of sweat. The audience was a sea of beating fans. The fans were really impressive. A still audience in constant movement. The Facebook screens on mobile phones were less impressive though they confirmed my "bored to tears" theory.

Fans are not an oddity or a rarity in Spain. They're not touristy Geisha or Louis XVI coy. They're a working tool. Spanish women, and some Spanish men, fan themselves almost incessantly. I dislike it, intensely, when the person alongside starts to fan themselves and me in the process. People complain about second hand smoke, why shouldn't I complain about second hand breeze?

I don't really care for aircon either. In buildings it's not so bad and if people weren't so determined to make it fridge cool inside I probably wouldn't complain at all. Cold is nice at first. Walking from the sunlit street into an air conditioned shop can be very pleasant experience. But why are people determined to reproduce winter like temperatures? Rooms so cold that the warmth just drains from your body. Horrid. And, in a car, that horrible claustrophobic feeling that aircon produces as the torrent of cold air fights the heat streaming in through the hectares of glass. Open the windows I say with the added bonus that you'll be able to hear the cicadas sing even as you pass at 120 km/h.

Choose your weapon

Well over thirty years ago, closer to forty, I had a job working in the Lake District doing things like building dry stone walls, getting rid of invasive species in woodland and building paths. It was a job creation scheme so we eschewed machinery. Why use a JCB to dig a ditch - better to employ twenty lads with shovels. We had chain saws but I didn't like them. I didn't like the way they jumped in the air at start up or bounced against the wood as you began. Visions of severed limbs danced before my eyes. Better a big axe or a sledge hammer. For some reason a vision of my foot cleaved asunder must be beyond my imagination. I've continued to prefer hand tools. In fact I didn't buy an electric drill (though I've borrowed several) until about two years ago. 

In inland Alicante it gets cold. I've mentioned this before, several times before.  Indeed it is one of our main concerns from December to April. Keeping warm inside. Outside is fine. Pleasant. Inside though it's Hell's freezer.

Rural Spain in winter smells of woodsmoke. Nearly everyone in the countryside has a fireplace though I'm always amazed at the number of Spaniards who seem not to notice that it's freezing and sit around in completely unheated homes apparently out of choice. And in those fireplaces we burn wood. Some houses have open fires and some have wood burners, the ones with doors, the cast iron ones being better than the sheet steel ones. Maybe better heeled residents have the upmarket pellet burners.

We have a woodburner but it had to be small to fit into the fireplace we inherited and we didn't upgrade to a larger model when we got a new fireplace and chimney to complement our new roof. The stove heats the living room nicely but it will only take shortish bits of wood which means that any wood that goes in it has to be the right sort of length and girth. Wood never comes in stove sized chunks even when we pay good money to buy some from a supplier. Some is OK but the majority needs sawing, hacking or smashing to size.

I used an axe when we first got here. This involved a lot of protective clothing as wood splinters and flying bits of wood attempted to gouge out my eyes. I spent the winter covered in bruises lots of them on my forehead. I broke two axes before I decided this was a complete waste of time and went back to calor gas type heaters running off gas bottles. But for some reason this year a small pile of wood that we had at the back of the house attracted Maggie's attention and we had a fire in the woodburner. That supply didn't last long so I cut up lots of other bits of wood that we had around. Old bed bases, wooden palettes. The detritus of country living. But then there were only quite hefty logs left.

In the local ironmongers we asked about hatchets and axes and we were directed to a large sledge hammer with a blade on one side. Brilliant for opening (i.e. splitting) logs said the shop owner. He was a liar. I asked later, in another shop, about an axe but 50€ seemed a bit steep especially as I'd had trouble with the handles breaking in the past so I didn't buy one. The sledge hammer bounced off the logs. Wedges said our pals as we talked wood cutting over Saturday morning coffee. The huge car boot sale organised by the TIM magazine over at Salinas on Sunday provided me with two steel wedges in return for a wedge of cash. Cutting wood seems to be an expensive business.

The wedges and sledge hammer work well. I may well break my back splitting the logs or have a heart attack with the effort but at least I've not been reduced to buying one of those nasty chain saws or even worse ordering some ready cut stuff from the "leña man."