Life in Culebrón

I occasionally see British TV and it is full of people who don't have "Anglo" names. Presumably their families went to the UK from all around the world. They are just there - no fuss, nothing different - getting on with their jobs as reporters, soap actors, presenters and the like. It's so normal, so routine that it's completely unexceptional. Back home in Pinoso I was reading through the list of entrants and prizewinners in a competition to design a poster for some event a while ago. I was half looking for a British name. The last time I saw any information there were 42 nationalities represented in Pinoso yet, amongst the names of the entrants there was not a single one that didn't have a double barrelled Spanish surname. I may be wrong but I've never noticed anyone in the Carnival Queen competition who isn't Spanish either and whilst I have seen the odd Brit amongst the dance troupes and choirs I haven't noticed Algerians or Senegalese doing...

Knowing what time to go to something can be quite tricky. We've been celebrating in the village the last couple of weeks and by arriving about twenty minutes late for the Neighbourhood Association meal for instance we were something like an hour early. This isn't always the case. On sure fire way to make sure that you are late is to presume that the event will start late. It almost certainly will but you can't presume and if you do expect a punctual start. Lots of things do run to time, or at least more or less, but time has an elasticity in Spain that is sometimes surprising to we Brits. I'm still amazed for instance that TV programmes can start both late or early. Away from punctuality there is a time for things. Like the way that lunchtime starts at around 2pm or evening meals around 9 or 9.30pm. When I'm working this timetable which involves most businesses closing in the mid afternoon and then re-opening for an "evening" stint suits me fine. Tha...

Spain has the highest number of reservoirs per inhabitant in the world. At least that's what it says on Wikipedia. I am always wary of these superlatives. I remember hearing in the UK that NHS Blood and Transplant was the best service in the world and I wondered what their criteria were for that statement. My mum is also the best mum in the world. I bet you, mistakenly, thought yours was. My unchecked and unverified perception is that it is generally pretty sunny in Spain in summer. It is especially sunny along the Mediterranean coast. I hear it even stops raining in Galicia and the rest of Northern Spain in summer. You might think that a hot dry country like Spain would have water supply problems. Whilst we have lived here there were, a few years ago, some restrictions on the agricultural use of water. It wasn't a big thing though - we were on the verge of trouble rather than in trouble. The last big problems that I can find reference to were down in Andalucia in the mid...

We had a will written in the UK years and years ago. A really tall, avuncular chap did it for us. His office was like something from Dickens with big ticking clocks, overstuffed chairs, a leather trimmed desk and legal documents tied with ribbons. Leeds Day in St Ives. Spanish inheritance law is quite keen on blood. Distant relatives outrank unmarried partners by miles. For years, several years, we have been going to get a Spanish will. Last week we finally got to a solicitor, un abogado. The chap who talked to us wore jeans and a T shirt and looked significantly younger than some of the clothes I was wearing. There were no ticking clocks. "We're more your juvenle delinquent and petty thief office," said the boy lawyer. "One of our colleagues down in Alicante can come up and help you write a will but why don't you try the noatary? If your will isn't tricky they can do the job faster and cheaper than us." Notary sounds really old fashioned to me. L...

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...

Maggie needed a new mobile phone. She lost her old number as a product of the house move back to Culebrón from Cartagena. We cobbled together a solution but when her HTC phone, which she has never taken to, started to have software problems she decided it was time to get a shiny new phone and  a brand new number. The range of offers was bewildering. Contract or pay as you go. Real or virtual networks. Household names like Vodafone and Orange or newcomers like Pepephone? Eventually the choice was made about which phone and which set up. There was a last minute scramble when the device they used in the Yoigo shop to scan identity documents wouldn't take a British passport. The passport was much thicker than the Spanish ID cards the scanner had been designed to cope with. Maggie's Spanish ID was no good as it didn't have a photo. They managed in the end though. The thing that surprised me was the number. Spanish mobile numbers are nine figures long and begin with 6 whi...

It's quiet in Culebrón. The wildlife makes a noise it's true but the chirping of the birds hardly constitutes noise pollution. On the other hand it's not quiet in the centre of Cartagena where we lived until just two days ago. Oddly though I've noticed the noise here in Culebrón much more than I did in Cartagena. In town the passing crowds produce a constant background hum. Occasionally there are shouts and bangs but, generally the noise level is pretty consistent and almost unnoticeable. Culebrón doesn't really have background noise. Culebrón is still and quiet. We haven't got our summer  cicadas yet. I was outside the other night enjoying the warm evening air possibly with a brandy and a cigar to hand. Peaceful. Then a car passed, making a right racket, then another. Next the dog at the farm down the way went  guau, guua, guau   (Spanish dog you understand). An insistent and unpleasant bark. Our neighbours dog answered. Time to get back inside and wat...

I seem to have started to say uuf! when something goes wrong. This is a difficult word to spell. It's not the same as pah! or oops! It's more like a phew! Spanish cockerels go kiri kiri kiri. Obviously no Spaniard has ever heard a cockerel. If they had they would know that cockerels go cock a doodle doo. It's the same with the strange half words, half grunts that we, and they, use to express surprise, to explain away a small mishap to be sarcastic and the like. PG Wodehouse knew that we Brits made specific noises under specific conditions. I remember the books emphasising HAH!! when the hapless hero was caught out by the stern and  haughty aunt long before his final salvation thanks to Lord Emsworth, the Port and Lemon or Jeeves. It is only in the last few days that I've caught on to the fact that Spaniards emit different non word sounds to us. This explains why one of my colleagues often seems to dismiss most of my humorous comments as mere tomfoolery with a ha...

Sorry to be indelicate but imagine we are in the toilet. No, not we, you or I, separately, apart,  in different but similar toilets. The sit down toilet, not the stand up one. This toilet is in Spain and on the wall there is a notice which says "Do not throw the paper in the toilet" - well it says it in Spanish but the translation is good. Now paper, papel, is a bit of a multi purpose word. For instance the car parking tickets are often papeles and you can use it for receipts and other things made from paper. The very first time I saw it I thought ah, they mean paper towels and the like but no, alongside the stool was a wastebasket full of soiled toilet paper. Now Spain is a country blessed with an interminable supply of flies. Unsurprisingly they are attracted by this copious quantity of food. The original concept of  the waste basket isn't particularly pleasant but add in a cloud of flies and it becomes decidedly nasty. For years I presumed that this wa...

Pinoso is definitely going all out for the tourist trade. Back in February we got the new street furniture and today we got the Maxi Banegas route. Veritably a seething cauldron of tourist activity. But who, you ask yourself, is Maxi Banegas? Well, a couple of years ago, I asked that same question and  I drew a blank . But tonight I got a clear answer. Maximina Banegas Carbonell was born on September 15th, 1923. She grew up in her father's barber's shop at Monóvar street, in a warm and family atmosphere, humble but educated, surrounded by books and newspapers, ideal for Maxi's formation and imagination. Her family's sacrifice and her desire for bettering herself, in spite of the difficult times during and after the Civil War, bore fruit on September 29th, 1951, when she graduated as a Primary School Teacher. She taught in Bacares (Almería), Monóvar, different municipal districts from Pinoso, and finally at San Antón School, where she stayed until her retirement i...