Casa Mira

Maggie once helped some people, preparing to be official tourist guides, to get ready for the part of the exam they had to do in English. To be honest I've forgotten the details, then again I forgot why I'd gone back into the kitchen a while ago and I'll probably have to re-read this sentence to see where I'm heading, so that's nothing new. The point, though, was that these people had a scripts to learn for each of the places they were going to show. Word for word scripts.

Now there's nothing wrong with "This cathedral is a milestone in the development of the Gothic, marking a symbiosis of technique and aesthetic that characterises so many other great churches built before the onset of the Renaissance".  I have no idea what it means but that's probably because I'd bunked off school or had a note from my mum that day.

This morning though we had to get up early to get to Novelda for nine in the morning. Novelda is about 25 kilometres from Culebrón and it has some notable Modernista style buildings. Modernista is the stuff we Brits call Art Nouveau - all inlaid wood, and curved lines based on the shapes of plants and flowers. For the past couple of years the tourist office has organised a Modernista Weekend to celebrate the style and we'd signed up to visit a house, Casa Mira, that's not usually open to the public. It had only been possible to book a place by phone after a given time on a set date and it took me ages to get through; I reckon I must have dialled at least 100 times, but it proved to be worth it.

The chap who was showing us around adjusted his straw boater, checked his portable microphone and loudspeaker combo and away he went. He started by talking about how people from Novelda had taken advantage of the early development of railways in Alicante, he talked about how the businessmen had been wheeler dealers who risked their money and invested as distinct from the monied classes who just earn and spend. We got stories about how the entrance way was designed to impress prospective clients, about the current owner sitting at the window and chatting with neighbours, about the people who had worked in the house and so on. I'd be lying if I said that I thought the guide was one of those inspired types you remember forever but he was good enough. It reminded me that it's a long while since we got one of the robot voiced facts and figures monologue tours. So much the better.

No photos though, private property and all that.

Thinly spread

I have been trying to think of a post for a few days and I couldn't. The rest is just space filler.

My bosses at work asked me if I could design a course for people working in "hosteleria" and I said of course. I nearly always say of course unless they ask me if I want to work with biting and dancing on the table aged children. I knew exactly what they meant with hosteleria, waiters and bar staff and suchlike. I see that the dictionary definition says hotel trade. It's quite odd how much difference there is at times between what Spanish people say and what books and dictionaries and text books say they say.

The book I'm currently reading is Los ritos del agua. As I read any book, particularly if it's in Spanish, I have to look up a fair few words. One of the great advantages of reading on an electronic book is that it has a built in dictionary so I can find key words without interrupting the flow too much. Anyway I came across a word, vahído, which the dictionary says means blackout or funny turn. I could see a use for that word given my personal history so I tried to remember it. I've been here a while now though and I know that it's wise to check with a few Spaniards whether a word is in everyday use before I try to use it in an everyday way. Lots of words are dictionary correct but hardly ever get an outing. Over the years I've struggled to learn several words that I thought would be dead useful - imbornal, escotilla, injerencias and ciclotímico spring to mind - only to find that they are double Dutch to most Spanish people. Nobody seems to use vahído.

Anyway, back to waiters and an English language course. So I asked my bosses if they could find a suitable book for me to lean on whilst I set about doing the basic course outline. As I trawled the Internet I was surprised how much stuff I found, in English, particularly worksheets and vocabulary lists, that I would disagree with. I know it's "better", at least it was better when I was at school in the 1950s and 1960s, to say "May I go to the toilet?" or "May I have more bread, please?" than to say "Can or Could I" but I think it's disservice to teach people "May I" in the 21st Century.

Then I got around to some of the things I would tell the Spanish food and drink people about the sort of things that I thought Britons living in or visiting Pinoso would like to see. One of the first was maybe to use British instead of English. Now I know that Scots like to be Scottish and the Welsh like to be Welsh but I think it may be asking a bit too much to expect a Spanish server to spot the difference between a Maesteg and a Renfrew accent.

Then I thought about information. About how we Britons tend to like things written down. Menus with prices, lists of snacks and the varieties of sandwich. Opening hours and a sample menu, to gauge the price as well as the range, outside the door. Things like that.

Next up were some of the things we do that are a bit out of the ordinary for Spaniards. Butter on bread and nowadays oil too, vinegar on chips, pepper alongside the salt. Drinking hot drinks like tea and coffee with hot food. Not thinking of vegetarianism or even veganism as something odd. Liking your food to be your food rather than having, for instance, communal starters in the middle of the table.

And I wondered about the confusion at times over simple words like eat and drink. Comer is Spanish for to eat but it also means to lunch. Ages ago, when we lived in Ciudad Rodrigo I often used to be in a bar, between classes, at around 4pm in the afternoon. Maybe a little late for lunch in a small Spanish town. It was common for a Briton, or a French person, to approach the bar and ask one of the waiters who looked after the tables in the street, on the terrace, if there was anything to "comer". The servers would say no and turn them away but I knew that inside there were lots of cold foods, tapas, sandwiches and the like that were just what the travellers were hoping for "to fill a gap." A simple misunderstanding. And we understand drink too. "Do you want a drink?" - as someone enters your house means tea or coffee, "Do you want a drink?" - as you talk about what to do in the evening means alcohol. Tricky.

So, to be honest, with a bit of food vocabulary, a bunch of stock phrases, lots of role plays and a bit on our idiosyncrasies I think that building a fifteen hour course will be pretty straightforward.

Do I have a volunteer?

Pinoso has a pretty good theatre space and it gets a lot of use. Events are usually inexpensive or even free. The price being right I'm a reasonably regular attender.

The pre event news must have slipped me by, but, in this month's What's On, there were a couple of dates for theatre pieces presented as part of the first ever Pinoso Comedy Theatre competition. Tonight was the premiere. First up was Estocolmo: Se Acabó el cuento by Carabau Teatre. The evening was introduced by a chap called Javier Monzó. In towns like Pinoso there are a handful of people who make things happen and Javier is one of them.

Now my spoken Spanish is bordering on terrible. Under certain circumstances the idea of speaking Spanish is also terrifying. As a listener though I generally I understand what's going on. The radio or TV news or a film at the cinema aren't usually a problem for instance. Listening to real, conversational Spanish is a bit more difficult but, usually, well within reach. Sometimes though, before even the simplest language, I just get lost and bog down.

Listening to the comedy theatre tonight I soon gave up on the idea of understanding it all. I could just about keep up with the gist but I only understood about 10% of the actual jokes. What worried me more than anything though was that the actors in the two man show kept bobbing off the stage and pestering the audience for low level participation. Listening to comedy is hard enough but being a part of the show?

My Jamaican nan wants to know why I love chocolate spread so much, but mi Nutella

So I'm in a restaurant. I have wine and rice in front of me, outside the sun is shining and I don't have to work. Someone passes who knows me. They ask how I am and I respond that life is terrible. If this were an English person they would give a sort of half hearted, well mannered, version of a smile. If the person were a Spaniard they may well ask why.

I arrived late at the Monday evening intercambio session a few weeks ago and a friend was introducing herself to a Spaniard new to the group. After the formalities she added that English people can be a bit difficult to understand because they, we, joke with the language all the time. I watched as she struggled to explain exactly what she meant but I realised that it was true. When Maggie asks if she should put the kettle on I can't stop myself asking if she thinks it will suit her. I often explain to my students that the greeting "hi" is probably somebody playfully responding to hello pronounced "'lo"  with its opposite and that "hiya" is another form of wordplay against high.

Yesterday evening a Spanish pal posted a list of English words used by Spaniards in everyday conversation for which there is a perfectly good Spanish word available. The list included things like apariencia instead of look or pasatiempo instead of hobby. Along with the like I put the comment, in Spanish, "It's not our fault" and he responded with "Nobody says that it is, Chris". Ooops, that wasn't what I meant at all.

Maggie often tells me that I compound my difficulties in speaking Spanish by giving similarly obtuse answers when Spaniards speak to me. But I can't help it. It's how I think.

To justify  myself to my Spanish friend I responded with a blog I found which started with - El peculiar sentido del humor británico  - the strange British sense of humour can seem disconcerting at first. With strong self criticism, an almost imperceptible sarcasm and a very dry style it may seem like a completely new language.

Roll your own

My dancing is terrible. In fact I don't dance. I can't clap in time, I can't keep rhythm, I can't sing. At junior school they wrested the triangle from my grip enraged with my inability to strike it at the appropriate moment. At Grammar School I was beaten for singing badly. It was presumed that I was singing so tunelessly to be rebellious.

I can't roll Rs either. This is essential for speaking Spanish reasonably well. The R at the beginning of a word has to be rolled and the double RR has to be rolled. To Spaniards I sound like a Benny Hill Chinese person.

There are dozens of YouTube videos with tricks, methods, advice and examples of how to roll Rs. They all start by saying that everyone can roll Rs. Just the same way as my music teacher, Philip Tordoff, told me that everyone could sing just a few moments before he set about me with a ruler.

Apparently the trick, for Rs, not for singing, is to put the tip of the tongue on the alveolar ridge and expel enough air so that the tip of the tongue vibrates. The tongue, to produce a Spanish R, has to be somewhere near where it would be if a British person were to say de. I can do that. I can make my tongue vibrate but there is some coordination necessary with my vocal cords and that just escapes me.

It is, as Mr Jones my Latin teacher used to say, a bugger.

Bàsquet: els equips cadet i infantil inicien la competició

I am often quite concerned by my Facebook feed. Apparently I have friends, acquaintances and friends of acquaintances who believe that wearing particular clothes is dangerous, that seeking a better future is intrinsically wrong and that arguing that people should be treated equally is woolly minded thinking. I listen to Trump and Matteo Salvini and Viktor Orbán knowing that Jair Bolsonaro is about to join their ranks and I wince. I think of my home country and its isolationist anti cultural bigotry and I wonder where it all went wrong.

My dad used to talk about how, in his youth, there was hope for a world order of sorts. People working together to solve common problems. Obviously we're now on exactly the opposite track. United Nations, World Trade Association, European Union. Forget it. We'll do better on our own.

On the most parochial of levels, with something very tiny, I don't like what's happening in Pinoso. I have some mobile phone application that collects news articles. Amongst others it takes the news from the local Town Hall. It's news that isn't news really but it helps me to keep up with what's going on locally. Since we got back from our holidays though I wonder if there has been a change of policy, if the news has been Marine Le Pen-ised; Pinoso for the Pinoseros? This was the crop of news headlines yesterday:

Música, jocs i màgia per celebrar el dia de la Comunitat Valenciana

Handbol: inici de lliga amb derrota

Bàsquet: inici de la competició

Futbol sala: resultats del cap de setmana

“Meldo” visita la escuela infantil municipal

Futbol: resultats del cap de setmana

You may notice that they are all in Valencian, the local language rather than in the worldwide version of Spanish or in both. I'm not that interested in the games and magic to celebrate Valencia day, the handball, what happened with the basketball or five a side teams or even about Meldo visiting the nursery but what if the news were about local taxes or changes in administrative procedures that had a direct effect on me? 

The last time I saw a full list of the nationalities living in Pinoso it read like this, ranked in number of people from each country: Spaniards, Britons, Ecuadorians, Ukrainians, Moroccans, Colombians, Bulgarians, Argentinians, Uruguayans, French, Paraguayans, Cubans, Brazilians, Romanians, Germans, Bolivians, Swedes, Algerians, Pakistanis, Italians, Norwegians, Dominicans, Georgians, Lithuanians, Belgians, Portuguese, Czechs, Russians, Venezuelans, Thais, Belarusians, Slovakians and someone from the United States.

It's likely that only a percentage of one of those groups speaks Valenciano. So am I to presume that the rest of us can go take a running jump?

Round midnight

It was just after ten and I was putting away my paperwork at the end of the class when a WhatsApp message pinged on my phone. It said that Maggie was helping a couple of friends out with a bit of a medical emergency. One of them was having trouble breathing and, at the local health centre, they needed someone who understood Spanish. Maggie stepped into the breach.

Later it was decided to transfer the ill person to the nearby hospital in Elda for tests and what not. We ended up going too and so, around midnight, we found ourselves hanging around in the Urgencias, the Accident and Emergency of the local hospital. Nobody was watching the telly high on the wall, someone was throwing up on the pavement outside, the drinks and snack machines were doing a slow but constant trade. The main activity though was waiting; staring at mobile phones or talking in small groups. Nobody looked rich, nobody looked well dressed, one woman was even in her dressing gown and nightie - when things happen quickly I don't suppose there is time to spruce yourself up. Quite a few of the men were in shorts despite it only being 11ºC.

It reminded me of so many places with old plastic chairs or faded and lopsided posters on the walls, dole offices for instance, but, more than anything, it brought to mind my occasional overnight coach trips from Petrer to Madrid and on to Salamanca and Ciudad Rodrigo. A motorway service station and an A&E waiting room when the world has slowed down for the day are surprisingly similar places.

No particular news on our pal as I write- stable but not fixed.

Oh dear! I shall be too late!

Sleep's a funny thing for we older people. Put me in front of the telly or set me to reading in the garden and I'll soon be snorting away and dribbling onto my shirt. On the other hand staying asleep in bed is a problem. If it's not the bladder or my aching back then I just get bored. So today was quite odd because, when I first looked at my watch it was nearly 10am. That's the day gone I thought.

Getting up late on Sunday isn't a venal sin or anything but it does have a big disadvantage in Spain. It basically knocks out any daytime events.

Most people know that the Spanish tend to eat late - lunch from around two but maybe as late as four and dinner from maybe nine till around ten thirty. Summer times can be later. I remember reading a Blasco Ibañez (1867-1928) book where the family were preparing a grand lunch for friends and they were planning to eat at twelve thirty. I wondered at the time if the more modern, later, meal times were to do with changes in the working day and then promptly forgot all about it. I was reminded of the earlier sittings recently with the debate that has been going on about ending the clock changing that goes on every March and October. In a radio discussion someone was arguing that clock time and schedules were different things. He said that, before the time in Spain and France was moved to coincide with the time in Nazi Germany, Spaniards had always eaten at around one in the afternoon. When you think about it as Spain sets down to eat at 2pm the clocks are chiming one in England. In turn that made me wonder what the UK will do when the rest of the Union stops changing its clocks. Maybe the staunchest of Britons will argue for proper British time, GMT, to go along with blue pàssports and non pink driving licences.

So Spanish morning events almost inevitably finish at around 2pm. Markets and selling events will start to pack away even before that time. If you have an all day event everything will re-open for the evening session anytime after 5 or 6pm but if it's an evening only event it can start anytime from 8pm to midnight even in Autumn. Summer start times for evening events are often around either side of midnight. So, as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes this morning and looked at that 10am watch I knew that it was unlikely we'd be going anywhere much today.

“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.

You may have noticed, I hope you've noticed, that I haven't posted for a while. That's because we haven't been in or around Culebrón for a long couple of weeks. Indeed we went for a remarkably enjoyable cruise around the Baltic from Southampton. The boat spent a lot of the time at sea and so, for days and days, we were without affordable Internet access unless you consider £80 for a couple of weeks WiFi to be reasonable. Once back in Spain it's taken us a while to get back onto an even keel. (Sorry).

The majority of the passengers on a Fred Olsen Cruise Ship do not have jobs. They have sizeable pensions instead. So, the very Anglo, second question of, "And what do you do?" isn't much use to pigeonhole individuals in an Orwellian, doctor good, shelf stacker bad, sort of way. It was substituted instead by the "Where are you from?" question. I suppose Huddersfield scores fewer points than Berkshire but I don't think it's as reliable an indicator. As an aside Spaniards very seldom ask what you do after they have your name. Instead they ask about your family, your food tastes or whether you like Spain. There doesn't seem to be the same need to peg your status.

It was a small boat and we were soon on nodding terms with dozens of people. We engaged in lots and lots of conversations with lots and lots of people. When we were asked where we lived we told the truth and so we'd get questions about weather, about food, about house prices or about bullfighting. Without doubt though the favourite question was what the Spanish think about Brexit.

I noticed that, when we were answering those questions, Maggie and I have different perceptions of some things Spanish. It has never crossed my mind that I will die anywhere other than in Spain whilst Maggie envisages a possible return to Albion. Apparently we have different ideas about everyday things like how clothes fit or how long the winter lasts too. On Brexit though we seemed to be in agreement. In our experience the Spaniards who live here don't think very much at all about Brexit. It's not an important issue on the street. It's there on the news from time to time but it's not a big item or a long item or a headline item. For your average Spaniard any question to a Briton about Brexit is more a demonstration of good manners than a question with an interesting answer. To be honest it has a similar status for me. What the Spanish authorities decide to do to we foreign immigrants after Brexit may cause me problems but the wayward behaviour of a bunch of British politicians a couple of thousand kilometres away is of very little interest. Not that it won't affect me of course. I'm just about to lose my vote in the UK and I'll lose my European and local vote too when I'm no longer a European citizen but..

Anyway it's good to be home. Every time I go back to the UK I find it much less like the place I used to live, which is obvious enough if you think about it. So I'm a little less comfortable each time. Mind you being fluent in English, even if it tends to be an old fashioned English, helps a lot and a couple of weeks of being able to say exactly what I wanted, when I wanted, was very nice.

BTW: The photos of the trip are in the tab just underneath the Life in Culebrón photo.

Horny handed sons and daughters of toil

There are all sizes of tractors. Probably the most common around here are really old, really beaten up and quite small tractors. Think of a tractor the size of a 1950s Massey Ferguson, the sort of tractor Peter Rabbit's Mr. McGregor would have, if he'd had a tractor. They use them in the vineyards where there is just about space for them to manoeuvre, they use them to haul trailers full of grapes to the local bodega, they use them for the almonds and to go to the bar. A couple of days ago four big tractors roared past the front of our house followed by a medium sized tractor hauling a trailer. They were going to pick almonds. I know because the tractors each had one of the umbrella like nets at the back which are fastened around the tree trunk whilst the tree is given a good shaking. Sherlock Holmes wise I could also deduce that they may well be picking almonds because, when I passed the industrial estate the other day, I could hear the machines working and see the mountains of almond shells in the yard. Oh, and when we were eating outside the village hall on Sunday a tractor and trailer rig went by and nearly everybody there shouted encouragement to the farmer. I could see almonds in the trailer.

Pinoso is rural, it's surrounded by lots of small villages and by vineyards, wheat fields, almond and olive groves and goodness knows what else. And that's the thing. Those people in the village, at the meal, who urged the farmer on, knew what he was harvesting and my guess is that they usually know what's been harvested because they have friends or family involved. I don't. Some things are obvious, the grapes for instance, and maybe peaches or cherries but there are plenty of fields with green things in them. They could be artichokes or peas or peppers or melons or potatoes or onions or aubergines. I may be able to tell close up but I can't guess from as I see the workers stooped over, picking by hand, or the tractors going to and fro.

We have farmers as a near neighbours. They have plenty of kit, sometimes though, for things like big combines or the mechanised grape picking, they hire it in. They work all hours. They work the fields under artificial light quite often. Yesterday evening a tractor started ploughing up the field, which has been fallow for three or four years, directly opposite our house. They finished, I think, though to be honest I'd stopped paying much attention to the noise by then, around 10pm. I'd suspect they stopped to go home for the evening meal. They started again well before first light, around 4.30am.

But why have they ploughed up the field and why was it so urgent? I don't like not knowing that sort of thing.

Our menu today

Egg and chips is a typical Spanish dish. Egg and chips is a typical English dish too. I wouldn't be surprised if half the world has a similar claim to egg and chips. Of course there can be lots of differences between one plateful of egg and chips and another dependant on the quality of the ingredients and the preparation. I like my bacon sandwiches in white bread with lots of butter and with crispy but cooled bacon. I know people who are appalled at the idea of butter and white bread and pour ketchup or brown sauce on theirs. So preparation, ingredients and personal taste all make a difference when we're talking food.

Sometimes Spanish people ask me if I eat British or Spanish food at home. I suppose the question is whether I eat paella or roast beef and Yorkshire pudding because, most of the time, the stuff I cook is probably stateless. I might think it's chilli con carne or biryani but a Mexican (or is that a Texan) and an Indian wouldn't recognise it as such. And who lays claim to chicken with garlic and lemon? Eating out of course it's possible to choose. Spanish pizzas, hamburgers and Spring rolls have numerous Spanish touches but the sign above the restaurant door still says American or Italian or Chinese. There are plenty of restaurants though that sell food that most would class as local, as traditional, as Spanish. Lots of it, like pork chop and chips or fried hake is as nationless as egg and chips. Hand over the steamed mussels and tell a Belgian that they are typically Spanish and I don't think they would agree however normal it is for Spaniards to eat mussels.

There is obviously lots of food that is Spanish through and through. Nobody would doubt the parentage of the myriad of rice dishes that we lump together as paella or the less internationalized classics such as fabada Asturiana, marmitako, cocido, michirones, calçots, patatas revolconas, flamenquines and hundreds more. I heard someone once say that lots of the best Spanish food depends on the shopping and I tend to agree. The cooking is often simple but the food is well conceived and tasty if the ingredients are good. Las papas arrugadas, something typical of the Canary Islands, are simply wrinkly boiled potatoes usually served with a sauce made with oil, vinegar and paprika pepper. This is hardly haute cuisine but they can be splendid. Or they can be very ordinary. It's the same with so many of the dishes. I had the local rice with rabbit and snail dish in a restaurant in Chinorlet when I was with my mum and the one word to describe it would be sublime. I could not believe that rice could be so good. I made a reservation to take Maggie to the same place. The rice was good but nothing special. It may have been a different cook, the wood may have burned at a different temperature, maybe it was a variation in the amount of salt, the rabbit may have been from a farm rather than caught on the mountains, maybe it was the wrong season for the snails - who knows, but it wasn't as good. And if you go into a restaurant where one of the starters on the fixed price 9€ lunch is labelled as paella, or if there's a photo of it, I can guarantee that the rice will not leave you impressed. It's only paella in name, not in spirit, not in ingredients, not in the care. I've had worse fabada in a restaurant than the stuff that comes out of the cans bought in the local supermarket and I've had fabada that made me understand why the dish is famous in Spain.

So the upmarket Spanish restaurants work in two modalities. The first is a restaurant that cooks the same food as your mum or your grandma (dad or grandfather if you prefer) but tries to do it better. My grandma never cooked gazpacho pinosero so I can't comment but I've enjoyed traditional food, of this type, in lots of those restaurants. The second style is food that may pay lip service to local cuisine but the interpretation is a very personal one, that of an auteur chef. As the waiter describes the dish they tell you that the small spot of reddish paste represents a traditional local food or that the tiny mound of mashed potato flavoured with almond represents the symbiosis present in the local agricultural economy. Well, if they say so.

For the past two years, on Maggie's birthday, we have gone to a restaurant with a couple of Michelin stars. Last year I had to try hard not to laugh out loud when the waitress was telling us about using the mould that grows on corn as one of the ingredients. If I'd been in argumentative mood I may have asked why that corn fungus had never caught on in the majority of the bars, cafes and restaurants of the world. Last night we went to a place in Almansa. No names no pack drill. The room was pleasant, the servers were very personable and efficient. The problem was that the set menu, which included  a very creditable 12 or 13 courses for a reasonable 69€, was quite unpleasant. I can't say that I enjoyed a single dish. Most were OK, edible enough, the sort of thing you eat as a houseguest so as not to upset your host. Not something you would choose to eat but something you force down behind a pantomime smile for someone else's benefit. A couple of the courses were, literally, hard to swallow, the sort of food that was close to making me gag. Tuna hearts stuffed with something that I missed in the description, but which looked like snot, resembled nothing more than a couple of glassy fish eyeballs. By the end of the meal I was really hoping that they did ordinary coffee; surely good coffee would overpower the variety of tastes lingering in my mouth?

But I suppose we'll be back to another one next year. Hope springs ever eternal as they say even if kangaroos just hop.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night

I know there's a rearguard action. I know that people talk about the character of the surface noise on vinyl discs and the value of the smell of books. I know that paper book sales increased and e-book sales fell last year and that there's a new version of the Nokia 3310 but, in the long term, it just has to be digital that wins.

One of the many losers to date has been traditional mail. When someone asked me to write a reference for them a couple of years ago I thought about a document in an envelope with a stamp. I could feel the smirk as they gave me the email address. Be that as it may the Post Office in Pinoso is a good place to meet fellow Britons. We seem to be heavy postal users in comparison to the locals. My guess is that there is a lot of toing and froing with grandparent/grandchild presents and Callard and Bowser butterscotch. Moreover because so many of us are of a certain age, there is still a lot of traffic in greetings cards. It's fine, we say, sending a greeting via Facebook or one of those nice GIF things on Instagram but you can't put it on the mantelpiece.

I still send a handful of cards each year, not many but a few. I had one to post today. Now getting stamps isn't as easy as it used to be. The Rowland Hill concept of a universal, one price, postal service has long gone. Here, and I think in the UK, the size and colour of the envelope as well as the weight and destination are factors which affect the final price. A letter or card weighing less than 20g sent in a standard size white envelope to a Spanish address is currently 55 cents. If it's a bit heavier (up to 50g) or the envelope is pink or square or something add an extra 10 cents. Within Europe that becomes 1.35€ or 1.65€.

Now Correos, The Post Office, is aware that people don't like to pay for stamps. I know lots of people, Britons, who work on the assumption that the Post Office will give the benefit of the doubt. They bung a stamp on the envelope, throw it in the post box and expect that the mail will get through. As a consequence Correos is not keen on selling stamps. Go into the office with a pile of Christmas cards and ask for so many national and so many international stamps and they will take the cards from you, sort them into neat weighed and colour coded piles, count up the cards, do the sums, take your money and then print a bundle of stickers that get stuck on the envelopes. If you try to buy generic stamps they will suggest that you come back with the envelopes.

Tobacconists or estancos sell stamps too. In the olden days it used to be one of their main forms of income. They sell all sorts of stamps but if you simply ask for national and international stamps they give you stamps that show either the letter A or a B. The idea is that those two stamps cover the most common transactions. You can see the thinking clear as day. When the price goes up each year there is no need to print a whole new bundle of stamps.

When I got to the Post Office there was a big queue. Counter service in Correos is not quick. My birthday card was in a square, blue envelope so it would cost 1.65€. I had some stamps in my wallet. I presumed that the stamps have a monetary value so an A would be worth 55 cents. I only had three of the A stamps left but my arithmetic was strong enough. That would do nicely. I slid the card into the post box and walked away.

As I passed the tobacconist my Baden Powell inspired Cub Scout training kicked in. Be prepared I thought. Replace your stamp stash. As the woman handed me the stamps she explained that the international stamps had gone up in price by 10c this year and she gave me some stamps, with a face value of 10 cents, to go alongside the B stamps. "You'll need one of each on the envelope," she said. "But I thought the whole idea of the lettered stamps was to avoid this" I replied. "So did I," was her response, "it's absurd but that's how it is."

So, if the birthday card doesn't arrive by the 3rd then you know I tried.

Fit for purpose

There are lots of things that I've done in my life which I regret. Some are big things, which I'm not going to tell you about, and some are small. I admit to wearing leg warmers in the 1980s. Something that causes me psychological grief every now and then is remembering my last leaving do. I rambled on and on for hours. I would be briefer given a second opportunity. My colleagues bought me gifts; amongst other things a Panama hat and a couple of sophisticated deck chairs. There was obviously an expectation that I would be sitting out in the sun.

It is true that being outside is one of the pleasures of Life in Culebrón, life in this part of Spain in general. I seem to remember that those chairs also served in our unfurnished living room for a while! We've got a sofa now (though Samuel the demi kitten is making sure that we will need a new one very soon). The Panama lives on, albeit with an extra hole, other than the one for my head. The chairs went the way of all flesh years ago. The Spanish sun bleaches things and destroys plastics, textiles and wood in all manner of ways. What the sun doesn't manage the huge changes in temperature and the infrequent but torrential downpours and high winds finish off.

This has given Maggie a hobby. Whenever we go into Carrefour, whilst I search for a new seasonal wardrobe or computer bits, she gravitates towards the outdoor furniture section. One of the odd things is that in an area where they say the sun shines 300 days each year outdoor furniture is not cheap. In fact it is shockingly dear. Maggie's hobby has now extended to searching the Internet for bargains. I'm not sure where the six chairs came from a couple of months ago but the design left something to be desired. I fear, that in assembling them, our Spanish neighbours may have learned several Old English expletives. Repetition I understand is one of the key elements in learning something. I damaged my hands so badly fastening up dozens of Allen key bolts with the toy tool that came in the box that I bought something resembling a proper tool for the next time. That next time proved to be yesterday. There was an eBay chair, bench and table set to assemble. This time the design was better and things fastened together more or less as they should but it would have helped if they'd remembered to pack sufficient nuts and bolts in the box. Oh, and to pack the glass for the little side table so that it didn't arrive in thousands of little cubes.

This hunt for perfect outside furniture has, according to Maggie, helped her to become more Spanish. It happened a couple of years ago now. None of the furniture can take the battering it receives from the climate. Well, with maybe one exception. "I used to think it looked horrible but now I think it looks OK - I think I'm becoming Spanish." She was talking about "stone" benches and chairs. I use the inverted commas because I presume that it's some sort of stone composite rather than the product of some advance on Palaeolithic flint knapping technology. Anyway, as I said, that was a while ago. I have no idea whether the steel and fabric kit from eBay is a product of Hispanicisation or not.

All squishy

There's a certain tendency to euphoria sometimes. It would happen from time to time driving across the fens or maybe with the MGB in the Cotswolds. Just feeling glad to be there, to be passing through. It happens a lot here. As I drive across some Spanish landscape with, maybe, high hills, or never ending plains or, perhaps, just watching that ochre yellow dust trail as a car or van drives along some dirt track I start grinning for no particular reason.

Maybe it's my age but nowadays I've got to the point where small pleasures cheer me up quite as easily as things on a grander scale. Maybe it's always been like that. Lots of the films that I've liked most across my lifetime of cinema going have been the ones that are classed as independent film.

There are lots and lots of celebrations in Spain. They are everywhere if you look. I wonder if they have a more obvious impact in small towns and villages. The centre of Pinoso is more or less closed off for the eight or nine days of the fair and fiesta in August. We were in Bilbao once, at Easter, and a parade was routed down one side of a dual carriageway whilst traffic continued to flow on the other carriageway - the place is simply too big to stop because of an Easter parade. I thought the penitents looked lost and out of place in a way that they don't as they invade the streets of Jumilla or Hellín. Mind you they close a lot of the centre of Valencia to traffic by the Fallas, Alicante for Hogueras and Murcia for the Spring Festival so I could well be wrong.

Lots of the events are religious in basis, Catholic in fact. Not a lot of Divali or Eid celebrations in the streets here. Often, when I say to Maggie, "Do you fancy coming to see the san Antón stuff in Villena?" or "What about going to see the sawdust carpets in Elche de la Sierra for Corpus Christi?," she'll answer "I'm not a Catholic." Well, neither am I but I'm beginning to really like some of the smaller scale, home grown parades and what not. Actually I think that for most Spaniards the events aren't that religious either; they are more cultural or traditional or just theirs.

Pinoso fiestas is full of happenings. Fireworks and folk dancing here, mascletàs and vermouth sessions there and big events like the concerts and the fancy dress parade. And my favourite event? - the flower offering. Old costumes, lots of flowers and heading to the church to lay them at the feet of a carved wooden statue in the church, with the inevitable mass - not that I've ever been to the mass. Strange choice. I know what I think the reason is. I think it's because I'm soppy. It's like that line in Wonderful World about shaking hands. In the ofrenda there are little groups - from the villages and from organisations but there also seem to be family groups and just, well, people. They wave at their pals as they pass, they break rank to say hello, the smiles are enormous. The pleasure is infectious.

I went to see a little procession in Chinorlet last night. Chinorlet is only about 3kms from our house but it belongs to Monóvar rather than to Pinoso. I didn't know which figures were being moved about so I asked Google. The first result was the 1998 fiesta programme. Heaven knows why. It gave me the answer though. Twenty years ago the procession was at the same time on the last Sunday of the fiestas. The billing says Solemn procession of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Sainted Virgin of the Rosary. Solemn? Well sort of. There were a lot of candles and nice frocks and suits for some of the men alongside a couple of second commandment graven images. The statues are on either wheeled floats or carried on strong shoulders and backs. All through this little village, of fewer than 200 people, there were knots of people sitting on chairs outside their homes, standing around chatting, passing time waiting for the procession. I suppose that "everyone" who has a weekend home in Chinorlet was there over the weekend.

It's a bit odd. I'd decided to write this piece yesterday evening suggesting that this was something about as Spanish as mantillas and peinetas. This morning, on my Facebook feed, there was a photo of a bunch of people loading a carved catholic figure into the back of a decorated pickup truck. I presume that they were setting off on what is called a romeria here in Spain. The photos were from my brother in law from when he passed through Messajanes in Portugal. It reminded me that I've seen those carved virgins making the rounds in the background of lots of Sergio Leone and Robert Rodriguez films. But, who cares about facts? The next time I watch the Virgin of the Assumption heading up the little road to Caballusa or another Virgin trekking from Aspe to Hondón de las Nieves I'll think that I'm watching something as Spanish as it gets and I may well grin.

Knee high to a grasshopper

Do you think there's a cultural element to how we sweep up?

Just after the tiniest of earthquakes, yesterday evening, we had a bit of a downpour. It didn't last long but there was sufficient rain for our guttering to leak. So today I was on gutter cleaning. The mud from the gutter had to be swilled and swept from the interior patio and, because I was now mud spattered, damp and sweaty I thought, masochistically, to clear away the rotting peaches from under the tree and then to sweep the front yard.

The usual Spanish dustpan is like the one in the photo or maybe a plastic version of it. The way most people I see around me sweep up is to brush with one hand and collect with the other. I don't seem able to do that. I've tried but it  just doesn't seem natural. I prefer to sweep the debris into a pile and then to sweep the pile into the dustpan. It's the way that I've always done it. Learned at my mother's knee.