Oh dear!

I didn't mention in the post about the TV aerial the other day that the roof looked a bit uneven. Well it's been raining a lot today and it seems to have caused a bit of damage. The roof has fallen in.

It turns out that one of the beams has fallen apart either rotted or eaten by beasties. Lots of the others may be in a similar state. We were lucky with this fall in that the damage was in a bathroom, the false ceiling held and only small pieces hit the floor. It could just have well have come through and smashed up something expensive or fallen on me.

We are now looking at an enormous bill and massive disruption. I feel a little sick.

The thing you pour tea from, with a bent nose; you know!!

I swear I'm getting like that. This morning I parked in a street I don't usually park in. The "No Parking" signs said Mes Par, Mes Impar. After some time, and parking on both sides of the road, I decided that May, being the 5th month was Impar so I parked. Only when I got the ticket did I realise that the sign was a prohibition. My logic was completely wrong about what the signs were telling me about where I could and couldn't park.

The only bright spot in this dismal situation is that the ticket was issued by my pal on the local police force. He didn't know I had a new car. He is going to see if he can "fix" the ticket.

And then there's football

As I was driving back from Ciudad Rodrigo tonight, listening to the radio, I heard that Real Madrid had clinched the Spanish league by beating Osasuna, the Pamplona team.

The Cibeles fountain area, traditional spot for celebrating Reals achievements, was being prepared. The team should be home in an hour.

I drove into Yecla, a town in Murcia nearly 350kms from Madrid but just 30kms from Culebrón. Usually, around midnight it's a quiet town but not tonight. Cars with people hanging out of them, flags, horns and hundreds, and I really do mean hundreds, of people of all ages, shapes and sizes gathered in the town's park to celebrate the Madrid victory

On the road

Bank Holiday weekend. There was a 40km traffic jam just outside Albacete, all the Madrileños heading for the coast. I was going the other way. Maggie bound. It was much the same the whole length of the A3 motorway. Must have been hell getting out of Madrid. I had no trouble going in; Yecla, Almansa A31, A3, M50 but as I hit the A6 out of Madrid heading north to la Coruña the traffic ground to a halt. 75 mins for about 5kms but as soon as I got into the tunnel under the Guadarrama mountain range the traffic eased up.

The speed limit in the tunnel is 80kph. I had a Guardia patrol car behind so I stuck to 77, 78. The Guardia got bored and went past at about 90kph followed by lots of other cars. Leading by example.

But we survived

I knew we were going to be OK when there was no flood of woodland creatures down the hillside. Either the fire burned itself out or those brave firefighters did their stuff.

When the next door neighbour rang me to confirm that all was well I was watching an old film where a Spanish speaking Morgan Freeman is the US President and Robert Duvall is the commander of a spacecraft sent to intercept a giant meteorite heading for Earth. People died in the film. We were luckier in Culebrón.

On fire!

As I type the Guardia Civil and local Fire Service are making their way up the track that runs past our house and out to the pine covered hillside behind us. It's on fire.

There are hundreds of such fires every year in Spain. The island of la Gomera in the Canaries has a big one at the moment for instance. The photo is there, not here.

TDT

Terrestrial digital television, free to air programmeing, sent as a digital signal to a standard TV aerial is available in Spain just as it is in the UK. Buy the box and from then on there is no extra cost. The Spanish have plans for turning off their analogue TV in a couple of years a bit behind the British.

The other day I noticed that I'd lost two of the key channels Antena3 and Telecinco. This usually happens when a couple of new digital channels become available so I retuned the box. Instead of gaining channels I lost more.

Eventually I climbed on the roof and wobbled the aerial around a bit - maybe it was a bit loose after last weeks high winds - safe back on the ground I tried again. Success. We now have 34 free to air TV stations and 8 radio. One of the new ones is called "Learn English". I think it must be owned by a bloke who wears a zip up cardigan because every time I've passed by he's been on.

Trobada

I do a Spanish course at the local Adult Ed. Centre. Each year all the Education Centres in the district have a get together. The individual towns take it in turn to host the event. Last year we went to Monforte del Cid, this year everyone came to Pinoso.

We started with breakfast, what else, then went and had a look at the Sports complex, we saw a promotional video about the town, went to the wine making co-operative and a marble cutting factory. Onwards to the town's theatre for a formal presentation of a book that showcases work from the students at each of the centres. There was a playlet too by the group from Villena about injustice. Finally a walk through town, passing the few sights there are, and on to the gardens outside the shrine at Santa Catalina where we tucked into some local food.

Quite clever planning really as marble and wine are the main exports from the area and all the food at both breakfast and lunch was local to the area. There were nearly 500 people who turned up so it must have taken a bit of organising and it was nice that the sun shone.

Out with the vecinos

I went on a charabanc trip with the Culebrón Neighbourhood Association today.

We went to the Cuevas del Canelobre, a limestone cave, full of stalagmites and stalactites, at Busot and then on to Guadalest a small, fortified, hilltop village once completely isolated now completely chocca with tourists.

The thing that impressed me most was that as we got back on the coach after the trip into the cave, at around 12.30, everyone, and I mean everyone, on the coach started to complain about how hungry they were. Emergency rations appeared all over the bus. They'd missed their mid morning snack and lunch wasn't planned till 2.30pm. Hours away. And the first thing we did when we got to Guadalest? - we went to the restaurant and asked if we could have the food a bit earlier than planned.

Good day though.

April 23rd

It's Book day here in Spain on Wednesday because on 23 April 1616 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra author of El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha died and Spaniards make a big thing of Don Quijote and Cervantes.

And on that same day in 1616 William Shakespeare also cast off this mortal coil.

Maggie gets a day off work on Wednesday. She thinks it's to celebrate St Georges day for the one English person in town - she may be right. St George is also the patron saint of Catalunya, the area that contains Barcelona.

Bit lively

I've been doing a lot laughing, shouting and snorting at the radio and TV this last week or so.

After winning the General Election the Socialists had a bit more procedural bother than usual getting both the Speaker and the President in place. They seemed to ride it out with a few merry quips.

The Opposition leader has been having his problems as well. The President of the Madrid area, who looks well hard to me, keeps saying she won't be running against him for the leadership of the party at the next conference. He must be very relieved to hear that!

In the last couple of days we've had the new Government Ministers appointed. The chap from Pinoso stayed on as Finance Minister but there were a lot of women new to post including the Housing Minister - the first minister since the restoration of democracy not to have been born under Franco's dictatorship. The picture I liked best of all was the new, pregnant, Defence Minister, Carme Chacón, stepping out to review the troops for the first time, she was dressed in Mothercare.

Last week I was lost for about an hour looking for a furniture factory in the nearby town of Santomera. The day before yesterday a man there cut his mum's head off and strolled around town with it wrapped up in a bloody rag."Now she'll shut up" he said.

It's difficult to avoid football in Spain. Getafe, a Madrid team, were in the quarter finals of the UEFA cup playing Bayern Munich. Square after the first leg Getafe were beaten in the cruellest of ways in the dying moments of the second leg. A collective sigh of shared pain could be heard throughout the nation. A story in El Pais about Getafe fans turning up in droves to the teams training session next morning to applaud thir defeated heroes struck a note with me.

Today Getafe were back in action against Valencia in the Spanish equivalent of the F.A. Cup. On his way home from the State Opening of Parliament the King was asked who he reckoned for the game "Those who lost will win" he said. Another Getafe fan. They lost, 3-1.

Franco used to do the football pools you know. Somehow it's hard to imagine Hitler, Mussolini or Pinochet doing the same.