Surveys and pigs

Somewhere, somehow, in my internet travels I got suckered in to doing some online surveys. Usually they are about selling and buying things, occasionally they are about politics. I get points for filling in each one and I can swap the points for prizes.

There has been a series recently asking which personalities would be good for advertising what sort of product. The survey usually starts with 20 pictures of celebs and I have to say which ones I know. They give me a second chance by naming the celebs. I wouldn't be good at this even in the UK but here I am hopeless. In the survey that came today I knew two people - Carlos Saura and Jane Fonda. Anyway I did the survey, got the points and I had a look to see what my points would now get me. Plenty of DVDs, bits for computers etc but there is a section called "Solidarity" that I hadn't noticed before.

I know what I´m after now - not the goat; I'm going to get those three piglets.

Priceless

I just couldn't miss this. I pinched the photo from Jesús Berenguer's website about Pinoso. It's the town's priest blessing the new electric scooter and car for the local police

You are now entering Alicante

My old chum Alan Crawford, very decently, came to see me on his way to Seville. I usually try to entertain visitors though I usually forget to feed them.

Fortunately the fiesta season is well under way - we could have got involved in a couple of romerias (a sort of short distance pilgrimage) or any number of local patron saint festivals but we chose to go and have a look at the Moors and Christians procession in Petrer instead. It was alright. Moors and Christians are definitely a local thing.

Feeding has to be relatively traditional too, well at least once during the visit of any guest. So we avoided the chop and chips establishments which represent my normal eating out price level and went to the restaurant in Encebras where they do all three of the very traditional local dishes. We stuck to the rice, cooked in a paella, served with rabbit and snails. In fact we did really well on traditional stuff, tomate y ali oli, embutido seco, the rice, perusas and a little glass of mistela. The waitress was very keen to stress that although the wine bottle label said it was from Yecla this was a simple geographical accident and the wine belonged, emotionally, to Pinoso. I think Mr Cs favourite was the fried cheese with tomato jam which has no particular link with the area so far as I know! Awfully pricy though. We winced when the bill came.

And to round of the day in a nice Spanish way, as we drove home from the theatre at around 1am, we were pulled over by the Guardia for a licence check. I must have taken too long finding it, or maybe I was over familiar with the little lad who was wearing the Guardia uniform, because they also checked the car documentation at the last minute. I think that's about the fifth or sixth time I've ben pulled over and I still find it slightly nerving.

Grey days

It has been a little damp over the past few days. It's rather a pity that we have a large hole in our roof.

Anyway, I hear the weather in the UK has been nice so I thought some of you would like this picture. The drain, or badén, that runs down one of the main streets in Pinoso is usually dry.

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.