La Colonia de la Sierra de Salinas

In Cambridgeshire Henry Morris invented the Village College to try and help to stem the flow of country folk to the towns. In Spain the 1907 Law of Interior Colonization and Repopulation had a similar aim.

Today we drove up the Sierra de Salinas mountain chain on the recommendation of one of our pals who had been up there on his bike. It was a lovely spot on a splendid blue sky day. Along the route we passed through an area that was signed as La Colonia de la Sierra de Salinas where, according to the information boards, 49 "poor but suitable" families were given their share of 1400 hectares of public land to farm in 1914. Each tenant received a house, land, a cart, a horse and farming tackle with which to try and cultivate the typical Mediterranean crops of grapes, olives and cereals.

As well as the 49 houses the Colony also had some public buildings namely a storehouse, a police post, an administration block, a school and a church. I noticed there was no bar or other social area which sounds, to me, like a grave oversight for any Spanish community.

At its height the colony had 287 inhabitants but the bad harvests, the outbreak of the Civil War, and the general harshness of rural life half way up a mountain meant that the colony was abandoned. Nowadays the homes are used as weekend cottages.

We drove down to Villena after our visit to get a bite to eat, exhausted by our exertions. The Colonists used to need a whole day to make the same journey. Maybe they got a spot of something when they were in town too.

16 pence a pack

I really approved of the radio doctor on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. Full of good advice. He wasn't the sort to recommend a trip to the GP if you had a bit of a sniffle. He did suggest that men of a certain age should take low dose aspirin though and I'm still taking his advice.

As I remember in the UK, in 2004, a packet of aspirin in a supermarket or one of those shampoo and  sun cream shops was going for around 16p. A hundred dispersible 75mg aspirin were about a quid so it was a bit of a shock when I got to Spain and a pack of 30 tablets was around 4€.

Then I found out that Aspirin is a Bayer trade mark in Spain so, by asking for Aspirina, I was asking for the equivalent of Anadin  rather than the generic. Acido acetilsalicilico may be a bit of a mouthful but salicylic acid is the generic name and the tabs come in at about a quarter of the price.

As older men we were talking about illnesses. My pal Geoff said that he didn't take all the aspirin that he was prescribed and would I like them? When he dropped them off I wondered why he was being prescribed the Bayer brand rather than the cheap generic equivalent. I could have sworn that the Spanish health care system had pledged to save millions by prescribing generic. Maybe I misunderstood or maybe it's the doctor who misunderstood.

Businesswomen in Pinoso

Everywhere in Spain boasts some dish that is considered to be local and special. The other day in one of my classes there was a gentle argument about whether Café Asiatico, a coffee loaded with a sweet liqueur, typical of the area around Cartagena, had been invented in the Murcian village of Albujón or whether everywhere in Spain had some form of alcoholic coffee.

Pinoso lays claim to producing the best longaniza sausages, light cakes called perusas and a thick pancake used to make the local stew called gazpacho. Another speciality is a sweet bread produced in dome shaped cakes dusted with sugar and usually served with thick hot drinking chocolate - chocolate y toña.

Today was the tenth edition of a fair in Pinoso dedicated to the town's businesswomen and women entrepreneurs. It was opened by a local actress called Ángela Boj and there were a bunch of stalls to represent the majority of the local businesses owned and operated by women. It was fair enough but the most popular stall was the one giving away chocolate y toña. I got my ration.

Furniture

Yecla, a small town very close to us here in Culebrón, has a national reputation for furniture making. Every year they have a furniture trade fair with the final Saturday being open to the public.

We went along not knowing quite what to expect but hoping that in amongst the extended furniture shop displays there would be some old bloke with a flat cap turning chair legs on string driven thing. There wasn't. Just stand after stand of pretty gruesome furniture. Well I thought most of it was pretty horrid anyway.

Never mind, at least we've done it now.
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Country life

I've forgotten exactly what Ohm's Law says but I know that it gives you the relationship between current and volts and something else electrical. When I did know what it was I worked out that a 13 amp UK plug was getting stretched with a 3 kilowatt device, like a big electric fire or a fast kettle plugged into it.

Down in Cartagena our electric supply is 5.5kw, so two fully loaded 13 amp plugs worth. It's pretty typical for a newish Spanish house. If we're not careful with the cooker, kettle, heater combinations it's easy to pop the circuit breakers.

It's been horrid weather in Cartagena for the past few days and, when we got back to Culebrón it was cold, wet and windy here too. Because of the rain we haven't been able to hang out any laundry in Cartagena. In Culebrón we have a tumble dryer so we brought all the laundry back with us.

I set the washer going as we were still unpacking. A little later we turned on the tap to make the welcome home cup of tea but the tap spat and bellowed as spurts of water mixed with air exploded into the sink. Obviously the water had been off and when it did finally start to flow sensibly again the pressure was next to nothing. It was still bad this morning. My shower involved kneeling with one hand on the mixer tap.

Back on Friday afternoon the washer was bleeping. ERR 10 on the display. Maggie set it going again. The low water pressure had caused the machine a problem. The washer load done I loaded up the tumble dryer. In Culebrón we only have a 2.2kw electric supply but when we got the house rewired the sparks put in a circuit breaker board capable of dealing with 5.5kw. What this means is that the fuses hardly ever pop but that everything goes slower as more demand is put on the supply - lights dim, the air conditioner slows down and defrosting something in the microwave takes longer than driving into Pinoso to get the unfrozen version from the supermarket.

I'm on the Internet, it seems to be taking a long time to load something. I check the speed and we have 2.75mgb. We are way below the Alicante, Valencian or Spanish averages but at least we have broadband of sorts - not everyone around here does.

Geoff, who lives about 3km from us, phones me. He's been having trouble with his phone. His land-line, provided by some sort of radio system, has been on the blink. The mobile signal is weak, coverage is a bit dodgy. We have the conversation OK though.

It's always nice to come home. To get comfy on the sofa in front of the telly with our own things around us but there is no doubt about it that basic services in the Spanish countryside are miles behind the services provided to town dwellers.

In a bad mood

I'm going to complain about Spaniards, or rather about Spanish behaviour, so, if you're Spanish and you're easily offended this is one entry to skip.

We were in the Mercadona supermarket car park in Yecla. It's a tricky little car park, all wrong angles and sturdy pillars. As we stowed away our purchases I noticed that the car across the way was getting ready to leave. Another car turned the corner and could easily have waited for us both to go - reversing lights and open doors on the car were a dead give-away as to our intentions. But no, this bloke couldn't possibly wait a few seconds to make it easier for him and easier for us. He had to plough on blocking both of us from leaving. As the newcomer began to manoeuvre into the free space next to me he was within centimetres of bumping into my car. I didn't know where the horn was but I found it just in time. He decided to do a circuit and let us both go.

A little later we were at the "Feria de la Tapa" - lots of stalls selling lots of snacks. Spaniards and eating definitely go together. I usually enjoy the crowds, the life, the hustle and bustle but today it just seemed that everyone was determined to slam into me. I was standing quietly at a counter waiting to get some michirones. I wasn't looking forward to asking, I was sure that, given my mood even the simplest phrase would elude me and I was cross with myself because of that. Suddenly a fat, fifty something woman purposely barged into me in an attempt to get past me and to the front. I repulsed the first onslaught and with a quick shoulder movement sent her staggering backwards. She just picked the wrong moment. She's probably complaining on her blog about the rude foreigners as I type.

Obviously these are a couple of isolated events but I've been noticing a certain disregard for other people recently. For instance, years of training means that I tend to give way at doorways and hold doors open for people. It upsets me that Spaniards don't. It upsets me that, door in hand, people behind me take the opportunity to push past or that the person crossing the threshold decides to stop mid manoeuvre to turn and chat to their friend who is following behind. I learned years ago that Spaniards seldom say thank you for such a common courtesy but there is something extra disrespectful about being discourteous in the face of courtesy. It's the same on zebra crossings when people purposely dawdle as they cross - as though they are fingering their nose at you.

Maybe it is a difference between their tribe and mine or it could just be because I'm a grumpy old man who has been in a bad mood all day.

Sent to sleep

There was a time when every Spanish film was about the Spanish Civil War, usually about the aftermath and the rough handling of the losers by the nasty winners. Fortunately that has changed nowadays and we get a good spread plots and genres.

Most Spanish films are made with TV money and with subsidies from film funds. This means that they look a bit like those BBC funded films, quite modest in scale, with production values that betray their small screen destinations. If they have a historical theme (and lots do) they are nearly always shot in a sort of muddy brown colour and use the Spanish equivalent of thou to prove their authenticity. Obviously they are voiced in Spanish or, to be more accurate, Castilian. Actually, unless you're in one of the big cities it's nearly impossible to find a film in its original language - everything gets dubbed into Castilian. Colin Firth, King George VI or el Rey Jorge VI has a nice Madrid accent.

The Goyas are the Spanish equivalent of the Oscars. There were plenty of decent nominations this year in genre as diverse as horror, social drama, black comedy and historical. They were presented the same night as the BAFTAs and, as in the UK, one film swept the board. It was a Catalan film called Pa Negre - Black Bread. The theme was the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. One of the interesting things about it was that it was voiced in Catalan with Castilian subtitles.

We had our doubts; the Civil War- hmm? But nine Goyas; it just had to be good and with the bonus that Castilian subtitles would make it dead easy to understand. It wasn't in Catalan by the time we saw it this afternoon, dubbed just like all the rest of the foreign films. And tedious. Tedious as they come. Obviously the theme had to be grim, the film colouring sombre and everyone had to live in filthy unheated hovels. There had to be Guardia Civil with capes and tricorn hats and if there wasn't a gay character then how could it be true to life? Film making by cliché. Actually I could be wrong, I had great difficulty understanding the dialogue and I couldn't tell one raggedy haired person from the next so I slept through a good part of it. Maybe it was a cinematic milestone after all.

Smarter than the average bear

Eduardo the cat isn't keen on the journey between Culebrón and Cartagena. In fact he definitely doesn't like it. His protest is a loud wailing from the start to finish of the journey. Sometimes his protest is reminiscent of Bobby Sands.

Eduardo the cat isn't keen on the flat in Cartagena. Warmer than the unheated parts of the Culebrón house maybe but lacking in key elements such as the ability to wander freely and the opportunity to slaughter smaller species of animal.

We were packing up to go. Cats may have smallish brains but Eduardo spotted the signs. Glum expressions on our faces, movement back and forth to the car with bags and boxes. He's learned the trick; run away and Uncle Geoff turns up to feed him. It's worked well when we have had no option, when work awaits on Monday morning 110 kms and ninety minutes down the road; on a schedule. Tonight though we waited him out. He thought it was safe. He came back to soak up the heat in front of the gas fire.

He looks very sorry for himself, his face buried in his blanket on the sofa in the Cartagena flat.

Missing Culebrón.

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Villazgo

Villazgo is an event in Pinoso to celebrate the town's independence from the nearby town of Monóvar in 1826. It takes place in the town on the Sunday nearest to February 12th and it's one of the nicest festivals that we go to each year anywhere.

Villazgo is a celebration of local culture so the stalls are loaded with local crafts, industries and traditions like wine making, basket weaving and shoe making. In the side streets they organise traditional games, basically the local handball and a version of horshoes called caliche. On the stage the town band plays traditional music and the dance groups like Monte de la Sal don the traditional gear and get up and do dances from the local area. Hundreds and hundreds of people wear black smocks that were the everyday work gear around here for years.

Perhaps the best bit though is the food fair. You hand over a few Euros in return for which you get ten tickets, a tray, a wine glass and a ceramic dish. You then go from stall to stall handing over your tickets in return for local food and drink like wine, migas, gachamigas, rice with rabbit and snails, gazpacho (not the Andalucian one but a meaty broth on a dough base), pelotas, longanizas, morcilla, perusas, torrijes, rollitos de vino or anis and lots more that I don't remember the names of. The only down side to this event is that thousands of other people enjoy it as much as we do and sharp elbows are an essential  element of getting to the food stalls.

The programme for the day has, up to now, only been available in the local language, in Valenciano, and I asked a pal who acts as a go between between we Brits and the local politicians to suggest that it should be available in standard Spanish. The answer he got was that the event was "ours" and I suppose by implication if you don't speak Valenciano then you are not one of us. Nonetheless, Maggie has just pointed out to me that the programme for this year is in Castilian too.

Nice and warm outside

As we left Cartagena yesterday it was a pleasant, sunny day and 18ºC. Six hundred metres higher in Culebrón we were down at 15ºC but it was still sunny and pleasant. Inside the house though it was pretty arctic with the motionless cool air in the living room literally taking my breath away.

One of the photos has the cat Eduardo sitting in front of one of the gas heaters that we use to keep the rooms warm. In the living room we also set the air conditioner to heat, that plus two gas heaters and we can get the room nice and warm. The trouble is that the heat just vanishes as soon as we stop pumping the calories in. The other photo with those nice air gaps around the kitchen door perhaps indicate why!

Alicante country houses of a certain age just aren't insulated in any way.

Another trim

I mentioned last week that I go for a haircut when the hair starts menacing my ears. It's much the same with the palm tree in our garden. Not that the palm has ears, at least I don't think it has, though it is a grass apparently and lots of grasses do have ears. No, in the case of the palm tree the time for a trim has come when the fronds start to scrape the roof of the mini as I park up. And that's what happened as we came home this afternoon.

Not being a traditionalist I don't shimmy up the tree using a rope harness nor do I lop off the fronds with a billhook instead it's a pruning saw and a set of stepladders -  more Tunbridge Wells than Elche but, then again, there aren't that many palms in Kent.