Plumbers

The water pressure in our house was down a bit. The hot water was taking even longer than usual to get to the taps in the kitchen so when the next door neighbours said they were going to get a plumber in we suggested a job share.

They phoned for him yesterday, to come today. He turned up on time. He was called Lucretio. He tinkered around cleaning things out for a couple of hours (nothing too complicated), serviced the water heater and then went on his merry way. He charged 50€ for about 2, maybe 2½hrs, work and the situation seems to be improved.

I recall it wasn't easy getting a plumber in the UK and that they were very expensive.

Kings

Traditionally Spanish children receive their Christmas gifts on 6 January, Epiphany, the day associated with the arrival of the Three Kings in Bethlehem with gifts for the baby Jesus. The Kings are called Melchor, Gaspar and Balthazar, representing Europe, Arabia, and Africa and bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Nearly every Spanish town of any size has a parade of the Three Kings on the evening of 5 January. This year we went to the one in the small town of Sax mainly because the daughter of one of Maggie's friends was taking part. It was quite a good parade. The Kings were on floats pulled by tractors, Balthazar was a blacked up white person (Very Black and White Minstrels), there were Roman soldiers, fire eaters, people on stilts, a dancing horse, children on donkeys, a small flock of geese, lots of dancers and plenty of the local variation on brass bands - there weren't many sweets being thrown about though.

Aftr the parade the normal thing to do would be to go home for a big meal and then the children would go to bed in anticipation of their gifts to come on the morning of the 6th. Of course the power of Coca Cola, Corte Inglés (a huge department store here) and global and local advertising means that Spanish children now often get their gifts from Santa on 25 December and the richer or luckier ones get gifts from both Santa and the Kings.

Belén

As part of their Christmas routine most Spanish houses set up a nativity scene, called a Belén after the Castilian word for Bethlehem. There are lots of nativity scenes too in shop windows, outside in the streets as part of municipal celebrations etc.

For some reason or another an individual in Pinoso rents a shop which she calls a Belén museum. Unsurprisingly it is only open around the Christmas. We went to have a nose around the other day.

As usual the baby Jesus was the centre of the show. The Three Kings were just around the corner, there was the traditional figure having a crap in the fields (c.f. Clarence Carter and Patches) and the donkeys and oxen were doing their stuff despite the Angel Gabriel shining all around. But there were other really great bits; the polar bears were pretty cool, especially as they seemed to be mixing it with penguins and the crocodile eating the zebra was noteworthy. Maggie seemed to think there were fewer dinosaurs in Bethlehem than the model maker was suggesting and the volcano spewing forth lava had me vainly trying to remember whether there was a subduction zone running through Palestine/Israel at the time.

We've got a Belén at home but it lacks volcanoes, dinosaurs and all sorts of essential items that I will obviously need to purchase before next year!

¡Feliz Año!

For the first time in years Maggie and I decided to do something a bit different for New Year. We joined our pal Pepa in Valencia where one of the national TV stations (Channel 5) was hosting a 10 minute slot up to the midnight countdown from Valencia, Spain's third largest city. They used three of the stars from a soap opera called "I am Bea" famous for featuring an "ugly" woman in the lead role. The Spanish word for ugly is fea so fea and Bea rhyme. The TV celebs were on a little stage in front of a countdown clock projected against a wall of one of the buildings in the Arts and Science Park.

There were a lot of us there. The organisers played Dance Music before and after the event, we all ate our twelve lucky grapes, one per chime, at midnight, we splashed our fizzy cava wine around, we watched the fireworks as they banged and crashed along with a couple of pieces by Beethoven and Falla and then the three of us had a stroll around an old part of the town amongst the partying crowds.

ETA

I don't usually comment on "hard" news stories but the bomb blast at Madrid airport seems such a shame. Not just for the, currently reported, two missing, four injuries and material damage but because it has put paid to talks to stop more killing.

The Socialist Government here has been treading the difficult path followed by recent UK Governments with the IRA. Over the last nine months, since ETA announced a truce, there has been a lot of toing and froing about how and whether the Government should open talks with a terrorist group that has not formally renounced either violence or its armed struggle. The conservative opposition are very firm in saying "no", public feeling seems to be a bit anti any talking too but, in my opinion, the Government has been doing the right thing; they've used regional political parties, affiliated to them, to talk to the terrorists to try and establish some ground rules. Political dancing if you will but dancing is better than shooting, bombing and dying.

ETA, or presumably radical elements within it, had pushed the boundaries by stealing guns in France and fomenting some street violence a couple of weeks ago. The politicians footwork had to become even fancier.

But a car bomb at Barajas airport can't be danced around. Today has been a bad day for the good guys.

Going up the Hill

We took a couple of friends to the airport in Alicante this evening. When we left our house in el Culebrón, it was 5ºC. When we got to our pals in Crevillente, which is close to the coast, it was 10ºC and it was 11ºC at the airport in El Altet. By the time we got home it was 0ºC in Culebrón.

Culebron is 600m above sea level (1968ft), Crevillente at 131m (429ft) and El Altet at 30m (98ft). It just shows what a gentle gradient can do!

The snow on our palm tree is from last January. No settled snow yet this year.

Boxing Day

We popped down to Benidorm yesterday. We thought that the people who had come out from the UK for a Christmas break would be well pleased with the sunshine.

Well, at least we didn't lose

It was "el Gordo" today, the National State Christmas lottery. There were 180 series of 85,000 tickets on sale. Each ticket costs 200€ but they are sold in tenths of a ticket at 20€ per pop. The biggest prize is only 3 million euros (so you'd only win a tenth of that if you bought, as is usual, one of the 20 euro vouchers) but there are thousands and thousands of smaller prizes.

Along with the 80% of the Spanish population I bought a lottery ticket nd this year, for the first time the lottery "touched" us and we got our stake money back!

Villancicos

We went to a carol concert, un concierto de villancicos, this evening. Nothing special really; five or six of the local musical groups - a neighbourhood group, the church choir, the local brass band, the traditional dance group, etc. all going through two or three Christmas favourites.

We only recognised a few of the whole repertoire, nobody greeted us like long lost friends and, to be honest, the standard wasn't that great but it was a pretty enjoyable little event nonetheless. The whole thing was cosy; friends greeting friends, people waving from the stage to their pals. Small town life and Christmas spirit at its best.

Brushes with Systems

I sent an email to the customer services department of my bank.

Question: Can you tell me why you've charged me 10.85€ on an account I closed 6 months ago?

Answer: According to 16 article minister rule law ECO/734/2004 of march 11 about departament bank clients (B.O.E. 24/03/2004), we inform you that to attend your consult you need to have electronic signature according to the rules law 59/2003 of december 19, about electronic signature (B.O.E. 20/12/2003).

I think they mean no. The email back to them was quite terse.

Now that I'm in the Social Security system I thought I'd get myself a permanent health card. The man at the health centre was very helpful. He stared at his computer screen. He confirmed that I was "live" on the system and he stuck a little sticker on my temporary card. "Does this mean I'll get my permanent card soon?", I asked. "Probably not", he said, "I've phoned to ask the people who deal with it what to do but they're not answering and I've no idea what this message on the screen means". "What should I do then?" "I don't know, why not come back when it's someone different on the desk who might know?"

I went to the Consumer's Office in the Town Hall to see if they could help me with a bit of advice about my damaged car. The man was very nice. He told me I was stuffed. Best you can do is make a civil claim against the insurance company. He suggested I talk to the JP who works at the Town Hall every morning. Apparently there is a small claims procedure. The Consumer's office man promised to leave a note for the JP. I even saw him start to type it.

The JP starts at 8 in the morning according to the reception desk chap in the Town Hall. Unlike me, however, he didn't turn up today till 9.30. He had no note from the Consumer's Office. "Waste of time talking to me", he said, "You need a solicitor".

Ah ¡Viva España!"

It's a bit cold

It has remained pretty warm here until the last couple of days. We've been getting as low as 7ºC every now and then and the highs have been around the 17ºC mark but yesterday and the day before the night time temperatures fell to 1ºC and it got no better than 9ºC. There was a morning frost on the cars. Days are still generally sunny with bright blue skies though

When I was down on the coast yesterday it was noticeable that the temperature was signiicantly higher, over 20ºC. We tend to lose 4 or 5 degrees as we climb the 600 metres or so between the coastal areas and home.