Life in Culebrón

I thought I'd talk about rubbish collection. True, we have a general election this weekend so I might have written about that. After all I've been shouting at the television because the right wingers, populist allies of Trump, Kaczyński, Bolsonaro and Hofer, are using their election spots to show security camera footage of illegal immigrants (they say) involved in brawls and muggings. I might equally have held forth about the incredible distortion of the truth that the British press seems to have swallowed hook, line and sinker about Cataluña in general and about Clara Ponsati in particular. Actually though I laughed out loud when I read about the rambling 59 page warrant for her arrest. I thought back to the multi page letters I get from the Tax Office or the Land Registry and just knew that that part at least was true. But no, rubbish collection it is. Generally here, you take the rubbish, the stuff that doesn't get recycled, to some big containers in the street. In tow...

We were in Shropshire last week for a family wedding. We stayed in Shrewsbury for most of the time. I think the last time I was in Shrewsbury was 47 years ago when I went to hunt for trilobites on Wenlock Edge. Shrewsbury looked rather nice with lots of fashionable, at least for we Spanish country bumpkins, shops and eateries. Maggie pointed out an organic veg shop offering two figs for a pound, £1 that is. She noticed them because we have three fig trees in our garden. One is a small tree with green figs and the other two are larger trees that produce the earlier higos and the later brevas. Just as mares and stallions, geldings and fillies are all horses to me then all the things that grow on the three trees are figs. Now I like figs alright. Often, when we lived in the UK, I'd eat as many as a dozen over the summer. Here, when the fruit is ripe, the birds feast on the ones at the top of the tree and leave us the rest. I think I've eaten three this year. Sometimes other pe...

Given my remarkable range of abilities you will be surprised to learn that, after university, I found some trouble persuading any employer to give me a job. At one point I was placed on a job creation scheme where, among other things, I was interviewed for Woman's Hour on the BBC Radio 4 (or was it still the Home Service?). Anyway, one of the skills I learned, as well as how to hack down Rhododendrons with a billhook or build steps on Great Langdale, was how to piece together one sort of dry stone wall. Should you ever be on the road from Newby Bridge to Graythwaite the wall just by the entrance to YMCA Lakeside is mine. It was still solid the last time I passed. Dry stone walling involves building in stone without mortar or any other materials except maybe a bit of soil. UNESCO has classified it as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland feature on the UNESCO list of places that have examples. The UK,...

We went to a couple of things yesterday. One was reassuringly Spanish but the other followed a disturbing new trend. There was a fundraising event in Novelda. Some local bands, names unknown to us, were playing a mini festival to raise money for victims of the flooding of a few weeks ago. We turned up a bit after, not much after, the advertised start time of 1pm and, as we expected, absolutely nothing was going on. Lots of people with pony tails, black t-shirts and big bellies were faffing around with bits of wire onstage but no bands. Obviously 1pm comes as a surprise every time. Normal, predictable, foreseeable behaviour. The bands kicked off with the normal, predictable and foreseeable twenty minutes to half an hour delay. The bar was another surprise for the organising team. The surprise was that people arriving might want to buy a drink from the bar. The system was predictable enough. You couldn't pay with cash at the bar you had to buy tickets first - this is a common, ...

I presume that you have seen images of the disturbances at Barcelona's el Prat airport or the pictures of Barcelona on fire. As you may imagine it has been big, big news here and it continues to be so.  I presume you know that it started when the Spanish courts handed out long, long prison sentences to the leaders of the Catalan independence drive at the time of the illegal referendum a couple of years ago. Following the ruling I suspect that Spanish judges spend a lot of time reading law books but have very little idea of what's happening amongst ordinary people. The legal arguments the judges made were absolutely sound, the ruling was coherent but it took little account of the context in which it was being issued. When the Catalan politicians made their choices they knew they were acting illegally and they knew they could end up in prison. Nonetheless, if the judges had chosen to pitch the decision at a different level there may have been much less of a backlash. Inste...

Have you seen those geode things at the craft markets? They look a lot like a pebble on the outside but inside they're (sort of) hollow with lots of crystals growing into the space. The crystals that form inside a geode can be all sorts of minerals. I checked on eBay and I could have bought geodes lined with prasiolite, celestine, calcite, pyrite, barytes or chalcedony though far and away the most common is amethyst, the purple coloured quartz. A couple of weeks ago we went to see a geode in the now abandoned Mina Rica, Rich Mine, which is in the municipality of Pulpí just on the border between Murcia and Almeria. Between 1840 and 1960 the mine produced iron, lead and a little silver. This geode is 60 metres underground and it's a little larger than most. In fact it's 8 metres long and just a bit short of 2 metres wide and high. Eight metres is more or less the length of the old London Routemaster RM buses. Inside there are selenite crystals (gypsum to you and me) w...

I didn't sleep particularly well last night. I kept waking up with some half formed Spanish phrase rolling around the empty quarters of my mind before lapsing back into semi unconsciousness. It wasn't the thought of what the Catalans might do after the sentencing of their pro independence politicians today, it was because I was off to the Social Security office. When I was last in that office, just before Christmas, I was told that my old age pension would include a little from Spain and a lot more from Britain. I started to get money from the UK, on time, in May. I expected a top up from Spain last month.  But it didn't come. Worse than that, trying to find out why not, I found, online, that my health care had been downgraded from a constitutional right as a worker to a bit of a dispensation for foreigners. Given that the UK has been a hotbed of political idiocy for a few years the less I have to depend on anything coming from there and the more I can rely on things di...

I remember sport, things sporting, at school with a mix of horror and shame. Rugby was shivering on frost hardened mud with my hands down my shorts waiting to be crushed. On my cricketing skills my report noted that I would do better if I didn't run away from the ball. At university I did a fair bit of sailing and canoeing but they never captivated me nor did I show any particular skill for them. Between then and now I have generally avoided anything that involves wearing shorts, Lycra, oddly shaped sunglasses, vests or neoprene; in fact anything that smacks of sexual fetish or sweat. Yesterday though, for some strange reason I spectated at two sporting events. No neoprene you understand. Street clothes for me and well away from the activity. Just watching. You know that round here there is a local language, a lot like Catalan. I usually call that language Valenciano. The Spanish that the world speaks is called Castellano. It can become a bit odd at times - why do I say...

Spaniards are very ID conscious. They carry ID cards and use them all the time. One of the first tasks of anyone moving here is to get a foreigners identification number, the NIE. It's a bit like your own personal VIN. It will turn up on all sorts of documentation from your tax return to your driving licence. It's not difficult to obtain but it does involve form filling, fee paying and going to an immigration office or National Police station. In the past it meant a lot of queuing but nowadays appointments can be booked beforehand, usually online. Appointment systems are now used by nearly every agency including traffic, social security, land registry, employment and immigration. Europeans from the European Union have more rights in Spain that someone from Senegal or the US. We're also able to sidestep some of the things that we should do from tax registration to driving licence swapping. Brexit will put us on a par with the Senegalese and Americans so there has been a ...

We went to see Raphael last night. For those of you who don't know who or what Raphael is this is what Wikipedia has to say about him: "Miguel Rafael Martos Sánchez, born May 5, 1943 in Linares, Spain, usually simply referred to as Raphael, is a worldwide acclaimed Spanish singer and television, film and theatre actor. A pioneer of modern Spanish music, he is considered a major influence in having opened the door and paving the way to the flood of Spanish singers that followed on the wake of his enormous success." This is something like an English person going to see Cliff Richard. Incredibly famous at one time, still very popular with the faithful and even today most young people would still recognise the name. I always think there are three things about seeing a band or a singer. There's the show, the presence, then there's the content, the music and finally there's the atmosphere; the chemistry between audience and performer. I'll use old band...

Last year we couldn't go to Yecla, to the Jazz Festival. We went to St Petersburg instead. Tough call - eighth largest town in Murcia or the jewel of Tsarist Russia. We went to Yecla in 2015, 2016 and 2017 though. Absolutely cracking event, usually five nights. The bands are often really good - good enough to cost money with Amazon later. And the acts are introduced by one of the wise, avuncular Radio 3 DJs which adds to the fun. Even better it was free and, because it was free, you could sit where you wanted. Given that the Concha Segura is all red velvet and gilt choosing between stalls, boxes and the dress circle is a difficult but pleasurable call. We even tried the Gods one year. All we had to do was to turn up early enough to get the full choice. The Festival started yesterday but Lord Grantham, Maggie Smith and the rest won out. Dubbed versions are fine but the once a week English language version film is better. Downton Abbey in Spanish? Hardly! Just before we set o...

Maggie has a plan for a bit of a rebuild of our house. Demolition and rebuild apart there is also a long list of ancillary jobs. One of those is putting a sliding door between the kitchen and living room. Maggie has something specific in her mind's eye, something rustic, something wooden, and a visit to the Fundación Casa Pintada in Mula yesterday made her wonder about reclaimed doors. I remembered that we'd been to a market where they had a supply of antique doors. We misremembered (something that seems to happen more and more frequently) the name of the market and ended up going to a place called el Mercadillo el Zoco in Algorfa rather than the Mercadillo el Moncayo in Guardamar. I've been here, in Spain, a while. It's not new to me, not novel, but it still takes me by surprise when we go somewhere public and Britons apparently outnumber Spaniards. It can happen in bars, in housing estates, and even in towns. It happened today. Maggie was sure that there were lo...

I bought a new car yesterday evening. I mean new new. Pensions mean I have an income. Pensions mean I can get finance. The registration letter has just flipped over from K to L and my new SEAT Arona has an L registration. There can only be about 23,382 cars in front of mine in Spain with that registration letter. So far I haven't seen another on the road. I parked the Mini outside the dealer and drove away without saying goodbye after nearly 220,000 kilometres or around 137,000 miles together. The SEAT had just 10kms on the clock. They'd put a red cover over it. As though there would be champagne and stuff. It wasn't like that. I sat in the drivers seat whilst Juan Carlos tapped the screen where the radio should be to tell me that this activates the automatic parking and that is the on/off for the mirror blind spot warning and so on. He wanted to know what colour I wanted the ambient lighting! I remember my mum being dead pleased that her Ford Prefect had a heater and...

For years and years I used Brylcreem. Not a lot you understand but some. More like those 1970s adverts about a little dab of Brylcreem on your hair giving you the Brylcreem bounce. Nonetheless, as we entered the 21st century it became more and more difficult to find. Not impossible but difficult. Then I moved to Spain. No RAF here, no Brylcreem back story. I asked people to bring it in their hand luggage but the terror bombers and HM Revenue and Customs put paid to that. But luck was with me. Pinoso is a bit backwoods, a bit short on the latest trends. Juanjo had some in his shop. It said Ryelliss, Abrillantador del Cabello - hair brightener is one possible translation. It makes your hair shine is the idea. It was brilliantine. Then I realised that the biggest supermarket chain in Spain carried it too. So Juanjo and Mercadona kept my hair in place and shiny for years without Brylcreem. There was none in Mercadona last time, Juanjo has none. Online everyone is out of sto...

I started to write a blog earlier this week. I didn't post it because it was boring. That's not going to stop me now though. Here it is. "Leaves are swirling around in eddies outside our front door. More sweeping. It's what I expect. September has come, the weeds have started to grow again, there are piles of rotting figs under the trees. Where the branches overhang the path it is painted purple with gravity squashed fruit. The flies are out in squadrons and the crickets have stopped singing. Out in the vineyards the tractors and grape harvesters are doing their stuff and the air smells of sweet fermenting wine. Temperatures have dropped considerably and before setting the washing machine going I need to scan the sky to decide whether it will be a good drying day or not. This morning I couldn't even sit outside to read with my second mug of tea because it was a bit nippy and a bit blowy. The one good thing about the hot weather going away is that everyone sto...

Spaniards seem to like napkins more than Britons. Now I'm not trying to say that we Britons don't like napkins or that there is something intrinsically right or wrong about using napkins. Go into a British restaurant and there will be napkins. They give you piles of them in McDonald's because, as the bun disintegrates, you will end up with a palmful of slimy hamburger patty, lettuce and ketchup and you will need them to clean up. If my family home was anything to go by the English use them only when we are being a bit posh; Christmas or when friends came to dinner. Normally though, especially at home, no serviettes, no napkins. Spaniards on the other hand put napkins out as naturally as they put out the cutlery and bread when they are setting the table and there is no Spanish restaurant, bar, barbecue, picnic or home without them. Order a beer in a Spanish bar and you probably won't get a beer mat - sometimes yes and more and more frequently but not usually. The bee...

My foot hurts. It's been a bit of a problem since I made the wrong choice of footwear for wandering around the Benicassim Festival site. The blisters were very big but that was ages ago now and, although the blisters are long gone, my heel still hurts. More worryingly it's getting worse rather than better. I thought strapping it up or cushioning the heel may help. I went to the chemist and wandered around the displays. I found a couple of silicone heel cushions and, according to the box, they were just what I needed. Then I bought some lint, twenty individually wrapped pads, and a roll of sticking plaster. Total price 23.80€. Of that nearly 12€ was for the lint. Bit of a shock. To be honest it wasn't a surprise. I just didn't like it. For years I've thought that the stuff they advertise on the telly that you have to buy from pharmacies (and lots of medical stuff can only be bought at pharmacies) is exorbitantly priced. You know the stuff; the spray fo...

Maggie and I may be among the last few people in the world who are awoken by a clock radio alarm. A thirty year old clock radio at that. The wake up programme is Hoy empieza todo on Radio 3, a contemporary culture and music station. We don't listen for long, even if we're very slothful it will only be about twenty minutes though the programme stays on in the background. I change the bedclothes on Friday. As I fought with the duvet cover the main presenter on the programme was talking to the organisers of a "pop" festival that runs in Miranda de Ebro in Burgos about 700km from home. They said that they were giving away a package of two tickets, travel and accommodation for the festival and to enter all you had to do was to make a comment on their Twitter account. Now I've never quite mastered Twitter but, eventually I posted something as to why I wanted to go. I said I was old (and may die before the next one), because I was poor (and I wouldn't ...

There's a shoe museum in Elda. You have to ring a bell to get in. They have some very odd (sic) shoes. Elche has hundreds of shoe factories. Nowadays lots of them have signs with Chinese script characters over the door but the product still carries the label "Made in Spain." If Elda and Elche are the most important centres this area, in general, has a tradition of shoes and leather goods. The tiny village of Chinorlet about 3km from us has a factory that makes handbags. Our next door neighbour has a company that produces bows and buckles and the like to stick on leather goods. Pinoso too has a history of shoe making.  In the middle of town there is a small square dedicated to the shoemakers, (just like there are places dedicated to marble and to wine the other big industries of Pinoso). A local firm, Pinoso's, always has a stand at the celebration of the town's identity, the Villazgo celebrations, where you can don an apron and pose with a shoe last looking ...

We've just had a bit of a debate about where we were going to go this evening. The wine harvest fiesta in Jumilla is in full swing and tonight they have a Queen tribute band. Down in La Romana there's a Moors and Christians parade with music and bull running later. Chinorlet, the nearest village to Culebrón, is also partying for the weekend. Tonight they have a children's parade and then a band. In fact, within 45 minutes maximum travelling time we could go to Elche, Aspe, Cañada del Trigo or Fortuna instead. Oh, I nearly forgot and one of the outlying villages of Pinoso, Paredón, is at it too. In fact August 15th, a bank holiday for the Assumption of Mary, is the day when there are more fiestas in Spain than on any other day, the official count is more than 1,000. Jumilla is probably our first choice but the tribute band are not due on till half past eleven which means a start nearer midnight in reality. My guess is we wouldn't be home till maybe 2.30 and we'...

I don't quite remember when but it was long before we lived here. We were in Spain for a holiday and a couple of friends, Pepa and Jaime, invited us to stay in their flat in Bétera near Valencia. Bétera was having its annual fiesta and we went into town one evening to take part. I think there was a parade, there were stalls and a fair, we ate some tapas, we drank some beer and all sorts of normal fiesta things. The next evening we went back to the fiesta and to the town centre. We didn't park in the same place. We walked much further than we had the night before. I didn't know why. As we walked through the streets in the centre of the town most of the windows were boarded up, there were no cars in the streets. The whole town was odd. Either Jaime and Pepa didn't explain very well or we didn't have enough Spanish to understand what was going on. We waited in the main street with hundreds of other people. At the appointed hour someone lit the blue tou...

I've complained before about our occasional tussles with "authority" here in Spain and how it's quite tricky to complain or fight back. It's not just the language. Some of the processes can be a bit Kafka, a bit Catch 22. You may remember that the tax people questioned my 2014 tax returns. It cost me 118€ to defend myself, not a lot but 118€ that I could have invested much more wisely in, for instance,  throwing the money in the dust and trampling on it. Their final response after a couple of months was "we will take no further action". They didn't say "whoops" or "sorry" or "here are your expenses" and I rather suspect that we will go through the same rigmarole for my 2015 returns in a few months. We also had some trouble with the Land Registry, the Catastro. The Land Registry sets the rateable value of houses and this figure is used by the Local Town Hall as a way of fixing the local taxes which, in the end, pay ...

If I were to ask you whether you'd expect summer in Spain to be warm or cool what would you say? Exactly. I like it warm. I like the unremitting heat of the Alicante summer. Sun every day, no rain for weeks or months, the sound of flip flops on the street and the telly full of people having outdoor parties and frolicking in the sea with orgiastic fiestas in every town and village. So summer here is as mythical as Christmas in England. There it's snow, robins, family camaraderie, goodwill, never ending mince pies and the warm feeling of gift giving. It's sort of true, it can be true but most of it is some sort of aggrandisement of the truth. People of course love to complain. In winter we complain about the cold and in summer we complain about the heat. This always amuses me slightly. Anyone who knows Spain knows that there are bits that are, generally, cool and rainy. The coolest (temperature wise) place I can find for yesterday was Covatilla near Bejar in Salaman...

I've given up not wearing shorts. I don't like them, I think they look stupid (especially on me) and, more than anything, they seem to require that I wear footwear which leaves my feet severely compromised. But shorts are so commonplace that I've decided to stop fighting and to wear them. We went to a barbecue last week at a posh, modern house. It was time to go so I washed my hands and face and combed my hair. I didn't think to change my faded shorts and my rolls of flab displaying t-shirt till Maggie appeared wearing a spotty dress. "Do I have to dress up?," I groaned. I did, so I did. A shirt with a collar and leather shoes. I even shaved. We weren't out of place but I could have got away with the shorts, well maybe. Perhaps I would have needed to iron them first. Most people, even if they were in shorts, looked neat. I cultivate crumpled and scruffy. Like those 1980s Bacardi ads but without the firm flesh. We went to see the opening speeches of...

People keep asking me if I'm bored now that I'm retired. I say no. They ask me what I do and I say I don't know. What I do know is that I'm not getting lots of the things done that I mean to get done because I don't have enough time. Probably the thing is that busy means one thing and another. When I visited the UK a few weeks ago I noticed the immediateness of everything. Buying a beer is a plish plash operation. Ask, get, pay, drink or sometimes ask, pay, get, drink. Table service, the Spanish norm, obviously slows things down anyway but even if I order at the bar before sitting it's a much more leisurely process. The format is based on trust not mistrust. Paying, getting someone to take your money, can actually be a problem at times and I often pay at the bar as I leave to speed things up a bit. I reckon it's digital stuff that makes people want to go faster. To watch Hill Street Blues in my youth I waited for the episode each week. Now people watch...