Food for thought

When it rains, and it has rained an awul lot over the past six weeks, these beasts break cover. And the locals go out, hunt them down and cook them for tea with a bit of rice and rabbit.

This one is safe though: he's on the top of our new compost bin.

More on quill pens

The bank said, finally, that Maggie and I could borrow money if we wanted to. The interest rate seemed OK to me, 1.75% above base rate but there is a set up fee, an administration fee and they are demanding that we take both the "in case of death" insurance and the "in case of dole" insurance. But, when all is said and done, that's just the way it's done here so no real complaints about any of that.

However, the loan agrement has to be notarised, goodness knows why, as the contract would still have the same force in law with or without the notary's stamp. Maybe it's just the mania that Spaniards have for rubber stamps. Even the lorry drivers, when they deliver things to the shop, are really concerned that I just sign the delivery notes rather than stamp them.

Anyway, so the contract needs notarising. I asked the bank how I did that as Maggie and I are seperated by some 750kms. Do we use a notary in each town for a signature, can the notary from one town confirm to the notary in the other town that everything is above board? Answer, no: there is no way, other than Maggie and I being in the same place as the Pinoso notary, for the contract to be notarised.

Scratch, scratch - pass the carbon paper and my powdered wig will you?

Trillas

This rather fearsome bit of wood is called a trilla. We have two or three of them in the workshop at the back of the shop and I was cleaning them up ready for sale.

The shape is a bit like a sledge or sleigh - narrower at the front than the back and with the front part curved up slightly - like Ali Ba-Ba slippers. Underneath there are rows of sharp flints hammered into the wood and, on the newer ones, there were a couple of serrated metal runners too. On top there are lots of hooks and fastenings so that the sledge can be fastened behind a cow, ox, horse, mule or donkey and dragged round and round your wheat harvest to smash it up on a hard circular surface. A farm worker would sit on a chair placed on top of the trilla to add a bit of weight and to guide the animals.Once the harvest was cut into little bits it was thrown into the air. The light stalks blow away and the heavy seed falls to the ground.

To be fair

I often complain about Alicante province. About the Town Halls that seem happy for constructors to pull down nice looking old buildings and replace them with concrete boxes. Anyway, today, I went for a bit of a drive round to cheer myself up. I went to Castalla and Biar, on to Onil, Alcoi, Tibi, Agost and back to home ground around Novelda and Petrer.

I'd forgotten just how breathtaking the scenery around here can be. I passed ripening wheat fields, olives, vines and cherry orchards, I went over at least one pass that was more than 800 metres high (Snowdon is about 200 metres higher) I drove through fog, hail and brilliant sunshine, I watched the steam rising off the tarmac as the rain hit it and I stopped for a couple of splendid coffees that cost less than a quid each. And Biar, as the snap shows, isn't all concrete boxes.

The Republican Heartland

I suppose that George Orwell gave me the idea that Catalunya was the heartland of the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War and, as such was the last city to fall to the conquering rebel armies of General Franco. In fact Barcelona fell in early February 1939 and Madrid on March 27th. The last strongholds of the Republican Government were round here. Alicante went on 30th March and Murcia fell on the last day of the war on 31st March.

Someone had mentioned to me that, towards the end, several key Government figures, like Negrin (one time President) and Dolores Ibarruri "La Pasionaria" used a house about 10kms from Culebrón as their headquarters and that there was an old aerodrome and some underground bunkers on the same site. On the way home I stopped to take a few snaps. It looks as though someone is doing the house up.

Modern banking

The last time I remember getting a bank loan I was driving the MG across the fens when my mobile phone rang. They wanted to sell me some money, I wanted to buy some and five minutes later it was a done deal. Well they did send me papers to sign but basically it was done.

I wondered if we may be able to borrow money for the roof. So I went to the bank where we have an account. I wasn't actually asking for a loan just for the information about the possibility of a loan.

In order to do this both Maggie and I had to supply our annual tax declaration, two payslips, property deeds for the house and a signed declaration allowing a credit history search with the bank of Spain as well as the usual identity documents. All the documents had to be photocopied and for good measure they photocopied my contract as well. The decision will take a couple of days.

I'm told there will be a set up fee for the loan, as well as the obvious interest, and the contract for the loan will have to be notarised.

It feels a bit like there must be rooms full of men sitting at high desks with quill pens waiting to process the application.

Planning the fiesta

Someone had the good grace to invite me to the planning meeting for the village fiesta in July. I didn't feel much like going along as we'd just had the quotes for the roof and I was toying with the idea of downing a bottle of Scotch or two, but it seemed churlish not to try and do my bit.

There were about 20 people there and maybe five or six babies and children. Usual sort of meeting with more conversations than people, lapses into the local Valenciano language at machine gun speed for individual group discussions and lots of exchanges along the line of "Well Pepe's lad could do the tables - Silvia charged us too much last year" which obviously left me completely nonplussed as I don't know many names. I kept up for a while, I even wondered about making a suggestion or two but I was too scared to speak, and then of course I started to lose the thread - my thoughts drifted back to the whisky.

Recent experiences with attempting to participate in community meetings have all been pretty disastrous. I'm wondering if I shouldn't join the Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding brigade - stick with my own.

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.