We popped into Portugal for a cup of tea

A little while ago I mentioned that Maggie may be interested in a job in Albacete. As it turned out the project she had applied to, with the British Council, where native English speaking teachers are placed in Spanish state schools, eventually offered her a job in Ciudad Rodrigo.

Ciudad Rodrigo is in the province of Salamanca about 730kms from our current home in Alicante and just 30kms from the Portugese border. We went to have a look his weekend. It was a ten hour drive with a couple of coffee stops and two hours of traffic jams around Madrid. We came back via Toledo but that was farther and took just as long.

Splendid little place, a walled city with lots of monumental buildings in the historic centre and a small modern town outside the walls. About 14,000 people and, according to the "electoral role", two Britons. The Duke of Wellington passed through as he chased Napoleon out of Spain. One of the few times we Brits have been on the same side as the Spaniards.

The school looked a bit rough though.

We strolled around, ate local specialities, watched a wedding in the cathedal, went to the "urinal" museum. People were uniformly helpful and friendly. On Sunday, as a bit of a detour on our way home, we really did pop into Portugal and buy a cup of tea.

There are a few pictures here

Tax refund

You may remember, back in October, I was dead pleased to be paying taxes and Social Security. It meant I was in the system. Better still I'm now due a tax rebate.

You can make your tax declaration any number of ways in Spain. I used an Asesor, a sort of accountant, to put mine together. I wasn't a tricky case. No investment income, no Swiss bank accounts, no money really.

I paid the 35€ they charged me to get the finished tax declaration asking Hacienda (the tax people) for a 392€ refund.

At the Asesor: "Only trouble is we don't seem to be able to get the OK from Hacienda on their Internet site, take the form to the bank and they'll transfer the cash"

At the bank: "Ah, the reason this doesn't work is that your bank account is a non resident account and only residents can pay tax - it's a paradox. Ask the Asesor to ask Hacienda to pay by cheque"

At the Asesor: "Come back in half an hour"

At the Asesor: "Hacienda say they won't pay by cheque - what about just opening another bank account?"

It went on and on until eventually I got my bank to give me a temporary account number to transfer the money to.

By the time I was done the Asesor was closed for the afternoon.

Fined

With not having got to bed last night till just after 6am I was rudely awoken by someone hammering at the door around 10am. They had been stopped by the Guardia Civil for a traffic offence and as they weren't quite sure what it was they were in trouble for they wanted me to act as translator.

Standing barefoot on the dirt road (just enough time to pull on T shirt and jeans), feeling very groggy and not quite knowing what was going on the Guardia officer gave me a very "oh Gawd here we go again" look as he wound down the patrol car window. It turned out that they were being fined for not carrying a copy of their insurance certificate (70€), their log book (10€) and their "MOT" (10€). They now have to produce the documentation at the local traffic office which is about 50 minutes drive away and where there is a remarkably long and time consuming queing system.

Providing the documentation is OK they will just have to pay the 90€, not at the traffic office but at a bank and that will be it.

Las Hogueras

All over spain there are celebrations to mark the shortest night of the year. One of the biggest events is in Alicante and as that's very close to home I went to have a look.

Originally items of houshold furniture were burned in the streets, old chairs and other junk, but, in some places the tradition has developed into a huge event. In Alicante there are neighbourhood associations that now club together to pay for the construction of their Hoguera. Some are true works of art. They will be burned at midnight tonight.

Whilst the main event may be the burning the streets are just alive with people, streets are closed off, there are "hospitality tents" all over the place, bands on every corner, disco music pumping out, thousands of locals and visitors everywhere.

I watched the mascletá (the sound fireworks designed to build up a deafening rythm) and watched the "folklore" parade where groups from all over Valencia and adjoining provinces send a representative float. I got quite animated when the float from Pinoso went by - I sort of waved and called to someone - a bit outgoing for me.


All this I got from the official programme but I met up with some Spanish pals and they weren't too bothered about watching stuff, they wanted to be involved. So we went down to the beach where groups of, mainly, young people sit around their own small Hogueras, well camp fires then, and laugh, talk and sing. A few people were drunk but they were the exception rather than the rule.

I was quite surprised when two of the young women I was with started to undress (that sort of undressing where women take off their bras underneath their shirts in a sort of Harry Houdini manouvre). Once in their bikinis they started to write out their wishes on little bits of heart shaped paper, grabbed a couple of apples and headed into the waves. The wishes and the apples go into the sea. If the wishes don't come back they will be granted (paper sinks) whilst if the fruit (which floats) is washed ashore that's a sign of good fortune, related in some pagan way to a good harvest.

Then we went on to a barraca, the sort of party headquarters for one of the groups that had built one of the big Hogueras in the town. Plenty to drink but, again, more laughing, talking and dancing than alcohol consumption.

A bit of a walk around the town to look at some of the bigger Hogueras, a couple of snacks, a final beer and then, because we're not young enough to party the night away we left. It was around 5am and there were still, literally, thousands of people on the streets.

The dustbin lorries and street cleaners had to mix it with the revellers

A small but effective swindle

I stopped at the lights in Alicante and a group of young Ecuadorians advanced on the car to clean the windscreen. "No thanks", they did it anyway. So I handed over a mean 50 centimos. One of them put his head through the side window, worried about some sort of snatch and grab I sort of pushed him back. A coin rattled against the inside of the door "I've dropped a euro" he said, the lights were changing, I pulled a euro from my pocket, gave it to him and drove away.

Of course he'd dropped a single centimo to make the right sort of sound as it fell. He made a profit of 99 centimos on that transaction as well as the 50 centimos I'd actually paid.

15 June 1977

When Franco died in 1975 the way was clear for democratic elections. It was a bit touch and go at the beginning as to whether democracy or a continuation of the dictatorship would win out. There was some fancy footwork but, thirty years ago today, the Spaniards went to the polls for the first time for a while.

Thirty years apparently represents the longest period of stable democracy in Spain's history.

A Spanish fishing boat rescued 26 refugees from a sinking raft off the coast of Libya yesterday. They were heading for Spain.

Quite a change in 30 years from some backward dictatorship to a modern European country.

Castilla la Mancha

A pal wrote recently and said there were lots of windmills in the Cambridgeshire Fens. They're very common here too. These are on the plains of Castilla la Mancha, Don Quijote's stamping ground.

He'd have a job tilting at these.

En bici

The MG is running well at the moment but, mainly because the weather is so nice, I've been using a bike to get to and from work for the past three or four weeks.

This morning I was riding to my 8am Spanish lesson. I was going the wrong way in a one way street and I had to stop for a parked car. A coach was coming the other way. As I scooted around the parked car I crashed into the pavement, mounted it, scraped down the side of a wall and started to fall back into the road. As I smashed into the side of the coach I visualised myself falling under the wheels but somehow I survived.

There may be a lesson there about traffic rules!

A packet of fags and a last will and testament form please

Maggie needed to get the equivalent of a police record check for her job as a teacher here in Spain. You buy the form from a tobacconist.

After the Spanish Civil War the licences to run tobacconists (an estanco) were dished out by Franco's Government to those who had faithfully served the cause and would find difficulty earning a living otherwise - people whose legs had been blown off, the widows of war heros etc. As nearly everyone smoked there were tobacconists everywhere, even in the remotest village. So tobacconists provided a good network to distribute official forms through a semi governmental organisation. They still do.

A Night at the Theatre

Our village neighbours association went to Madrid over the weekend to see a musical. Keen to be a part of the gang we paid our money and went too.

Six hours on the coach got us to our hotel in the northern end of central Madrid just an hour before the show started. So with checking in and across town travel we had just enough time to throw our bags into the room, wash our hands and face and get back onto the coach. At least it was a posh hotel.

The musical, Hoy No Me Puedo Levantar (Today, I can't get up) was the story of the 80s told through the music and lyrics of a group who were dead famous here in the 80s - Mecano. The show started at 10.30pm, and lasted over four hours so we got out just before 3am! We didn't understand most of the dialogue, we didn't know the songs, the cultural references generally passed us by, the dancing looked a bit duff to me and the humour was very Spanish - slapstick and politically incorrect. My bum ached a lot too but the show was definitely a bit of an experience.

We also got a few hours in Madrid on Sunday and we were reminded of the pluses and minuses of small versus big town life. Plus points - stacks going on, lots to gawp at, exciting and interesting. Minus points - noisy, busy, smelly and expensive - I'm still reeling from the cost of a plate of whitebait, a beer and a soft drink topping out at 17€ - maybe four times what we would have paid at home.

One in the eye

A few months ago a male ginger cat sauntered on to our patio and begged food. He's been coming back on and off ever since for his breakfast and tea.

I already had a name waiting for him - Harold - pronounced 'arrold for Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday.

Harold has not been allowed in the house as male cats have a rather malodorous way of marking their territory.

Maggie said it was time to get it sorted out and she took charge. So poor old Harold was captured tonight, put into a plastic cage and taken off to the vet where he is now languishing waiting for a check up to make sure he's fit before he gets his balls chopped off. All for the long term good really. He'll soon be able to kip on our sofa and live the pampered life of a house cat, provided of course he ever forgives us for his false imprisonment and comes anywhere near the house again.

I'm just a bit worried about the poor little sod. He doesn't really know he can trust us yet and he must be a bit scared waiting at the vets and wondering what's going on.