Life in Culebrón

Maggie suggested we should marry. It wasn't that, after a 32-year-long trial period and 28 years living under the same roof, we were ideally suited; it was because she thought it might be easier to arrange for care and nursing if we were legally bound. I was my usual enthusiastic and romantic self. I said fair enough. The list of documentation for a civil marriage in Pinoso is not too onerous. Proof of identity and sometimes proof of address. Something to prove that you are free to marry – single, divorced or widowed plus a full birth certificate for each person. Foreign birth certificates need an apostille and have to be translated, by an official translator, into Spanish. That translated birth certificate can be no more than three months old at the presentation of the paperwork to the Justice of the Peace. On top of that we would have needed a couple of Spanish speaking witnesses when we handed over the documentation and later, at the ceremony, two more to sort of represent each ...

Maggie and I got married down in Gibraltar a couple of weeks ago. The chances that I won't blog about that are very slim so we'll leave the details for now. Anyway, after a few days on the Rock, with friends and family, our wedding party dispersed and we newlyweds toddled off to wander around Andalucía. Our first stop was Seville.  Now I'm not sure how many times I've been to Sevilla but, without trying too hard, I can easily bring eight or nine visits to mind. The very first time I was there I stayed over three weeks and, as historic centres don't change much, I've always felt to know the heart of the city quite well. The terrible thing is that, looking back at my photo albums, it turns out that the last time we stayed there was fifteen years ago. Seville is a great place to visit. It's just full of Spanish clichés, it brims over with history, culture and life. I've had some interesting experiences in Seville over the years, not all of them pleasant and...

Spaniards can happily talk for hours about food. One never-ending topic of conversation is the “best” way to make almost any traditional dish, from fabada to cocido. This piece is about paella, or maybe rice. For a few years, I have made a rice dish at home that I describe as paella to Maggie. I would never make the mistake of describing it as paella to any Spanish person. I would always describe it as rice with things. That’s because I added things that are “not allowed” – like pepper and onions – and I use pre-prepared caldo, a ready-made broth, to cook it in. However wrong my version was it was a quick and easy meal for me to cook that we both liked. The principal taste came from the broth prepared by a company called Fallera, who ruined the whole thing by discontinuing the broth. Since then, I have tried several other ready-prepared broths and I’ve liked none of them. Next, I worked my way through a couple of varieties of packets of powdered flavourings that can be added to the wat...

Nearly everyone who lives in Spain has to do an IRPF, income tax, return each year; the declaración de la renta. Before Brexit, some Britons argued they paid their taxes in the UK and didn’t need to pay in Spain. While there may be rare exceptions, in general, if you live here, you pay income tax here. Many Britons living in Spain are also taxed in the UK, for example, on Government Pensions (ex-teachers, ex-military and the like). However, thanks to a bilateral tax agreement between Spain and the UK, the income that is taxed in the UK isn't taxed again in Spain. People, living in Spain, with an income below 22,000€ from just one source, and paying tax on that income, don't need to file a tax return. If the income is below 15,000€ the income can come from two sources but the second income can't be more than about 2,000€. These figures change each year, but they are roughly accurate for now. So, it’s not easy to avoid doing a declaración. It's not a particularly onerous,...

I know as much about flamenco music as I do about quantum mechanics. That's quite a bit. Sorry, that was a typo - that's almost nothing. So if you know anything about flamenco I apologise now and suggest you read no further. Nonetheless, for a style of music that tends to make me fidget after listening to about twenty minutes of it, I have seen an awful lot of live flamenco and  I've bought even more recorded stuff. So if you know next to nothing about flamenco you may like to read on. Long, long ago, when we were new to, and relatively lost, in Spain, we went to the Benicassim Festival and we stumbled across a set by Enrique Morente. The name was new to us but we were entertained as we watched. We later learned that Enrique was a bit of a flamenco legend. A typical bio reads: "Enrique Morente revolutionised flamenco by blending traditional forms with poetry, rock, and jazz. His fearless innovation expanded flamenco’s expressive range and inspired a new generation of a...

I wear contact lenses. Because my eyes are a funny shape they have to be "old fashioned" rigid contact lenses. Little plastic discs that float on the tears in my eyes. They're not a bit like the flexible contact lenses that most people wear. One of the consequences of their characteristics is that the liquids needed to clean and store them are not available at the local supermarket. The liquids generally come from an optician. There are three opticians, that I know of, in Pinoso, and Maria, the optician for one of them, has the lens solutions I like most for my particular contacts. Maria must have had sex within the last nine months or so because she's quite pregnant at the moment. Someone had mentioned this to me - the pregnancy, not the sex - so I thought I'd stock up on lens solutions. Just in case there was none of that "having the baby behind the tractor before getting on with the ploughing" spirit of the old Soviet, and she closed the shop for a wh...

Antoni Gaudí, was a well known Catalan architect; he's the bloke who drew the original plans for the Sagrada Familia. He's well on the way to being declared a saint; Pope Francis made him a Venerable earlier this year. Gaudí was knocked down by a number 30 tram in Barcelona on his way to his daily confession at Sant Felip Neri church. Apparently he was hit when he stepped back to avoid one tram but reversed into the path of another going in the opposite direction. He didn't actually perish at the scene but was so badly injured that he died three days later.  As a result of Gaudí's death, a public inquiry was held in Barcelona. One of the people who played a significant role in this inquiry was Mercedes Rodrigo. Mercedes and her sister, María, were a bit like the Bronte sisters in that they achieved individual recognition at a time when women didn't. María was a pioneering Spanish composer, pianist and teacher; she was the first woman to premier an opera in Spain. Me...

I typed the first draft of this when the lights were off - all over Spain. What a strange experience that was. We were fine but it did make us think about the number of things that would be difficult or impossible without power. You know the sort of thing - even if it were possible for the staff to get past the supermarket shutters to open up  they would find the the lights, freezers and cold displays off, the price scanners wouldn't work, the tills wouldn't open and even if the customers had cash there would be no way to compute the bill or store the loot. We imagined abandoned electric cars with depleted batteries, abandoned thermal vehicles with empty tanks (no electric to work the fuel pumps) and traffic chaos as all the traffic lights failed. Perhaps one of the oddest things was that, when we got in the car, the radio started up, as it does so often, and we didn't notice that the programming, which told us about the blackout, was being broadcast on what is normally a c...

I once shook Desmond Tutu's hand. He didn't really shake mine back -  he was looking the other way and talking to someone over his shoulder but he was also shaking any hand that was thrust towards him, and mine was one of those. Our palms touched so I've always claimed it as a handshake. The truth is, but for that handshake I remember nothing else about that day. I presume Nelson was still locked up, I suppose Queen, and many others, were still playing Sun City. No matter - both Dessie and I thought we should be there that day and we were. Google tells me it was probably 1988. That may be the last time I was on a big demonstration—the ones where I joined one of the coaches to take protestors to London. I'm sure I did some picket line duty into the 1990s, and I've been a half participant in a couple of things here about worker's and women's rights but my real demonstration days were Cruise Missiles at Molesworth, the Miners' Strike, Ban the Bomb, and the ...

The Pinoso Pensioners’ Club has a WhatsApp group. At times I wonder if the the application is totally under the organiser's control but the messages are often interesting. Anyway, a few days ago, there were a few lines on it exhorting me to join in with the upcoming Merienda de Pascua (Easter Picnic) at the Club HQ. The message suggested I pick up my wicker basket, load up on monas , get out my typical apron and headscarf, and come to share my victuals with my friends – to keep alive an old tradition. Now, I have to say that I don’t like it when I don’t know stuff like this. What aprons? What baskets? I did know about monas . They’re a version of toñas  and a  toña is a sort of sweet bread presented as a rounded loaf, some 20 cm across. I understand that one of the odd things about the toña is that it includes potato in the mix. The mona – which would usually translate as a female monkey – is the same sort of bread but with a hard-boiled egg set into it. Often, the eggs ...