Twelve lucky grapes

Tonight when the clock (Reloj de la Gobernación) on the old Post Office (Casa de Correos) in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid starts chiming midnight  people all over Spain will start popping grapes into their mouth trying to eat at the rythm of the boings.

If you manage to eat all twelve grapes in the alloted time then the idea is that you will have a prosperous year.

The tradition appears to have started at the very end of the Nineteenth Century in Madrid but it was popularised all over Spain in 1909 by grape growers from Murcia and Alicante who had a glut of grapes and found a clever way to shift them.

The sorry looking white examples in the photo will provide the twenty four grapes for Maggie and me. They have been sitting on the one vine that we have in our garden which grows reasonably well. I think it may be because its roots are very close to our cess pit! We covered the bunches with paper bags back in October to try and keep the grapes relatively fit quite a while after they are ready for picking. I have no idea why we get black and white grapes from the same vine but we do.

¡Feliz Año!

Breathe in

We have a Tom Tom. Excellent little device for getting you to somewhere and getting you away again. It does mean though that I have even less idea about where I'm going and where I've been. The machine just tells me to do this or that and I do.

One disadvantage of allowing the device to take you to a place in Spain is that lots of the streets in the old town centres look like the ones in the photos. Narrow and with difficult angles. Tom doesn't worry too much about road widths and it's possible to find yourself in a street with a nearly impossible right angled turn. Scrapes along the walls show that other people have found it tricky too.

Nowadays of course roads are built with modern traffic in mind and they are perfectly navigable. I have this theory though that to compensate the designers of underground car parks have mimicked the labyrinthine design of the old Spanish town centres. Many underground car parks have huge pillars in strange places, a bizarre layout and lots of protruding obstacles out of sight below the waistline of any car.

You just know you'll be in California soon

Over the past couple of days we've passed the Giralda a couple of times, we've seen the Torre de Oro, the Maestranza bull ring, we've drunk sherry, eaten salmorejo and today we were in the Mezquita and on the Roman Bridge. For those of you who have as much trouble with geography as I do that means we've been in Sevilla and Cordoba; we're in Andalucia.

Andalucia is the part of Spain that provides all the tourist clichés - the swirly frocks, bullfighting, sherry, flamenco, prancing horses and castanets.

We were strolling the old streets of Cordoba, we weren't the only foreigners. In fact the visitors may well have outnumbered the home crowd. We passed a bar (something I try to avoid) and sounds of flamenco floated out into the street. For once we weren't put off by the little knot of people huddled around the door. We pushed through, leaned against the bar and listened as some old chaps passed the guitar between them and took turns strumming and wailing flamenco. Several of the crowd joined in. It was like being in Dingle without the Guinness or the fiddles!

New personal best

There have been high speed trains in Spain for a long time. As visitors to the Seville Expo in 1992, before we met, Maggie and I both went on the one that links Seville and Madrid. Until today that was the last time for either of us.

On December 19th this year the newest AVE or high speed line was opened between Madrid and Valencia with a spur off to Albacete. This now makes Spain the country with the second longest system of high speed rail links in the World, after China.

Albacete is only an hour and a half by road from Culebrón and at just 22€ for the round trip it sounded like a good way to pop into Cuenca for lunch. At one point the speed indicator inside our carriage showed us as doing 301 kph. As the take off speed for a Boeing 747 is 290 kph that must mean today I set a new personal land speed record. The journey only took us 30 minutes and though I can't find any detail about the rail distance between these two provincial capitals the road distance is 160 kms.

To be honest the train wasn't that spectacular inside; it looked like a train. From outside the locomotives are impressive though. Apparently they use the Talgo series 112 on the route. The loco has been nicknamed "the duck" though I have no idea why!

New stations have been built in both towns as the AVE runs on a different gauge to the majority of Spanish trains. The station in Albacete includes a small shopping centre and multi screen cinema. We ate miguelitos there, a cake speciality from the nearby town of Roda. I recommend them.

And the lunch in Cuenca was good too if a little hard on the wallet. I tried another local recipe called morteruelo which is based around hare, pheasant, chicken and pig's liver mashed up into a paste. Maggie played it safe with roast lamb.

Eating at Christmas

Teaching English to adults is a good way to gather local information.

Coming up to Christmas an easy topic is holiday traditions in Spain and the UK. Whilst it's not true that "everyone" in the UK eats turkey on Christmas day it is as true as saying that there are no longer pea soupers in London and that we Brits don't all stop for afternoon tea (still firm beliefs for most Spaniards.)

"On Christmas Day we will have roast turkey, carrots, sprouts and various forms of potatoes followed by Christmas pudding - what will you eat?" The Spanish answer is that there is no answer. If there is any sort of routine it seems to be that the starters will be lots of small dishes and nearly everyone seemed to include gambas or langostinas in their list of starters - what I'd call prawns - unshelled and dead tasty. The queues around the fish counters in every supermarket we've been in over the past week add circumstantial weight. Main courses were as varied as traditional food gets in most Spanish houses - fish is big, roast lamb turned up a lot and various forms of paella were strong runners too. Puddings seem to come with the guests as their contribution.

Oh, and it's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day when the families come round with the same alternating year pattern of in laws for one of the dates and your family for the other much as we do with the 25th and 26th.

Nobody but nobody mentioned popping out for a curry though one of my students said that as there would be forty of them this year they had booked the meal at a restaurant to save on washing up.

No taxes without drains

As a follow up to the last post (not the haunting melody but my last entry on this blog) I wrote out my appeal against the new drainage charge using the official form downloaded from the SUMA website.

On Tuesdays I meet with a Spanish bloke called Carlos to do a language exchange. I fail to speak Spanish and he talks some English. I asked him to check the grammar and what not of my appeal. "No problems," he said, "all the right boxes filled in and the explanation is simple but clear and accurate." The last item asked me to list any supporting documentation I was sending and as I had none that's what I'd written.

"You should send a copy of your DNI," said Carlos.

The DNI is the Identity Card that all Spaniards carry. I have an equivalent but it would never have struck me to send a copy. Thinking about it though I knew that Carlos was right. Everyone, but everyone wants to check your identity here and it has become so routine for Spaniards to show their ID that it never crosses their mind that it's an intrusive and overly bureaucratic measure.

Lots of faff to post the letter too. "Better not to fold the documents, get a big envelope," was what Carlos had advised. So I bought an envelope. I'd filled in the Certificated letter form at the Post Office and handed it across the counter with the unsealed envelope. "Just one small detail and you'll be there," said the friendly chappie at the Post Office, "You need to complete a Registered mail certificate as well as a sort of receipt."

It's away now. Just a simple form and an item to post but it feels like a small scale triumph whether SUMA finally accept the appeal or not.

Excuse me, what am I paying for?

The majority of the local taxes in Alicante are collected by an agency called SUMA. So the water bills, the rubbish collection, car road tax and the equivalent of the council tax all come from SUMA despite actually being set by the local Town Hall in Pinoso.

SUMA, in my experience, is an efficient organisation. I pay most of my bills by "direct debit" and SUMA's notifications always come a couple of weeks before the due date reminding me to check that I have sufficient funds in the bank etc. So unlike the banks, phone company and electric people who just take the money on random dates often without notification (though to be fair the phone and electric people have improved recently) SUMA do it the correct way.

So the other week a notification arrives that says that there has been a bit of a cock up on their part and that for some tax period they have either made an error in or forgotten a charge relating to sewerage and sewage charges. The language is the archaic stuff of official documentation and there is no date set on which they intend to take the payment (only 42€) though there is a section which tells me my rights should I wish to challenge this ruling. My guess is that this is notification that there will be a charge and that shortly they will send an actual bill.

Now we got new drains in Culebrón a while ago but ours was one of the six houses that was left out of the scheme. I could see a link, new service, new charge. So I wrote an email to them asking what the charge was and whether it applied to us as we don't have any drains. Their reply came back in a couple of days (another good sign, most Spanish organisations don't respond to email) though it offered no explanation except to tell me the official routes for lodging a complaint. Those routes include going into an office, using their virtual office (which requires an electronic signature) or sending the official form which has to be validated in a post office before the envelope is sealed.

I have two forms of electronic signature on my computer but neither of them will get me past their gate-keeping. Going to an office is a bit tricky as their working day and mine don't mesh and sending an official complaint by post seems a bit drastic. All I really want to know is what I'm paying for and whether it's a one off charge or an annual increase.

I've just spent an hour or so writing the few lines in Spanish (checking and rechecking grammar and phraseology takes me ages) to try to explain what I'm after, saying that I'm not after any sort of privileged information so we don't need the secure measures that they are asking for etc.

This could be the real test as to whether SUMA really is more human and one notch easier to deal with than the majority of Spanish bureaucracies. It would be so nice if they just did the decent thing and replied with a nice simple explanation in everyday language. Somehow though I doubt that will be the case.

Monday update: Not only have they replied (well done boys!)) but they've also said it's probably a mistake and I should appeal the decision as it's a recurring payment.

La Comunidad Británica

Back in November the Royal British Legion, Pinoso Branch, organised a Remembrance Day Service in the local Parish Church. According to a pal of ours who was one of the organisers the Town Band pulled out all the stops to learn the hymns. By all accounts the event was a resounding success attended by Brits and Spaniards alike.

Tonight we went to a carol concert. The bulk of the carols were performed by the Parish Choir but the first two carols of the evening were performed by a group of Britons who had formed a small choir especially for the occasion -  "The British Community Choir." For a couple of songs  Britons and Spaniards sang side by side. It was a splendid little event.

Next May there are local elections and one of the political parties has been using the services of another British pal of ours to act as their liaison. He speaks good Spanish and offers a sort of general help-desk to Britons. One of his recent innovations has been an email newsletter which includes a "what's on" guide and my guess is that that newsletter has produced a massive upsurge in British awareness of local events and opportunities.

In my opinion all the people, Britons and Spaniards alike, who are involved in these sort of initiatives should be well pleased with themselves.

Well tricked

"What do you fancy doing today? - I want to go to the Nueva Condomina Shopping Centre," said Maggie. I groaned.

It's not that I've got anything against shopping centres but I only choose to go to them when I need or want something that one of the shops there may have. Maggie goes to shopping centres for fun. She may have some vague idea about buying a top or shoes or something else but that translates into traipsing around shops that don't sell tops or shoes or that other thing. Different philosophy.

She had something in her favour though. I teach English to the staff of another shopping centre and the boss there had mentioned that a couple of quite well known Spanish fashion designers had created the Christmas lights at the Nueva Condomina so there was a vague reason for going.

"Alright," I said.

I have to say I was mightily disappointed. These two blokes, José Víctor Rodríguez Caro and José Luis Medina del Corral trade as Victorio and Lucchino. They made their names as ready to wear fashion designers who branched out into bridal wear, interior design and perfumes. They are also famous for being a married gay couple and for using themes from Southern Spain; from Andalucia as their inspiration. Maybe I missed something but the lights looked like they were from a Chinese Shop and it took me a while to even notice the half life size figures hanging from the ceiling.

I left Maggie to it. Fnac, the bookshop, was good though and they were playing music by a Spanish Tom Waits sound alike that I liked so much I actually bought it.

Good morning

Sunday morning and I was strolling around the garden with a pot of tea in one hand and a cigar in the other. Down the road I noticed the "higos chungos" glowing red against the broad green leaves in the early morning sun. I finished the tea and went to take some snaps and then had a look at Wikipedia. Apparently they are not called higos chungos but higos chumbos -  though it's apparently a common mistake. Chungo means something akin to dodgy, dicey or nasty and higo is fig; seemed reasonable enough - a dodgy sort of fig. We'd definitely been told they were called chungos.

Apparently the plant is Mexican in origin. The leaves of the cactus are eaten like vegetables and the fruit, well as fruit. In Spain the leaves are used as animal fodder but in my search for information I came across lots of Spanish recipes and childhood reminisences of the "We always used to get these as children when we went to see my gran at Christmas," type.

As we never got around to eating the thousands of ordinary figs that grew in our garden I don't imagine we'll be braving the spines of these prickly pears as part of our Christmas diet.

And it's cold

Bit miserable in Culebrón today. Maggie is upset about losing her break in the UK because of the unofficial strike by the air traffic controllers. I'm fed up because of the accusations at work that I smell like an old tramp which may lead to me losing my wage and then, on top of that, it's freezing in this house.

Now I know a bit of frost is nothing if you live in Bradford or Burgos but it's pretty unusual in Alicante and it's more of a shock to us because of the contrast between our weekday residence and inland Culebrón. Yesterday was chilly; pullover and sports jacket weather in Cartagena (11ºC) but 600 metres higher and I'm worried about the pipes freezing and reduced to wearing socks in bed.