Voting card

Our voting cards turned up yesterday. Not a big event in itself but, in Democracies, voting is an essential part of having your say. Nice to know we really will be involved.

The Mayor

The meeting between the Mayor and the Brits finally happened. In fact he turned up with at least half of the list of prospective councillors. The best part was the beginning; we were given an electronic calculator and an electronic thermometer both bearing the Partido Popular logo. From then on in it was all downhill.

A long winded complaint about the lack of town centre parking on the one day of the year when there is a big event in town. A marathon moan about the lack of facilities for stray dogs in Pinoso. One chap held the floor for at least fifteen minutes about his particular problem with his health card. It went on. The Mayor smoked a lot, the tanslator tried hard but buckled under the stress of rabbiting, idiomatic English.

I was dead sensible of course (well it is my Blog) and I asked a straightforward question about the plans for the drainage system in our village and got a straightforward and concise reply.

We didn't see the end. Maggie could bear it no more.

Monforte del Cid

Every year students and teachers from the Adult Education Colleges in our area get together for a bit of a celebration. Each of the participating towns takes it in turn to host the event and this year it was the turn of Monforte del Cid.

Twenty of us doing courses in Pinoso went to do our bit for intercollegiate solidarity.

First thing, naturally, was a bit of something to eat and drink just in case the 30km journey had worn us out. The food was set out on long tables in the town square. Next on the agenda was a tour of the town. Our group was guided by a young person from the host college. I think our original guide may have been on a basic skills course as a young woman had to take over the reading of his prepared notes when anything with more than two syllables caused him real problems. We saw museums, music schools, churches, old cemetries, the headquarters of various of the Moors and Christians groups and the Town Hall. We were all flagging by now so the upholstered seats in the town auditorium, where we were given an offical welcome, heard a "humorous" monologue and were presented with a book showcasing the work of Adult Ed students, was very welcome.


The main event of the day though was troughing down for lunch in the garden of the Sports Centre. Unfortunately Monforte produces a lot of different alcoholic beverages and we had to sample them all to avoid any sort of inter district rivalry.

A thoroughly enjoyable day.

Political meetings

This evening I went to the meeting organised by the Partido Popular to woo the British vote in Pinoso. That's the one mentioned in the Elections and Information post of April 24. Unfortunately the PP's candidate didn't show up. The people who owned the venue sort of expected him but then again they weren't quite sure whether he was coming or not.

Now there's a vote winning tactic!

Life is just a bowl of cherries

May Day, a public holiday. How did we pass our time? A cultural odyssey, a relaxing meal, a boozy day in the pub or a trip to the seaside? No, we went to the opening of the new "English" supermarket, bar and Internet cafe in Pinoso. Majorettes marched to the tune of the British Grenadiers, a chap with a shaved head and an ear ring sang to a sort of karaoke backing track and we nattered with lots of other Brits about the quality of the free sausage rolls.

Going offline

Ya.com phoned us up at the end of February. Would we like a cheaper, faster ADSL connection? We signed up. A couple of days later our current Internet provider, Iberdrola, told us they were going to stop all Internet services at the end of April. What a happy coincidence.

Despite their contract being full of guarantees about speedy installation etc. Ya.com have still failed to hook us up to their system. And April has passed. Iberdrola haven't turned us off yet but I expect to be offline soon - and for a while.

Distinctly odd

My old mate Jaime had his 50th birthday party last Saturday and Maggie and I were invited. The party was in the flat that Jaime shares with his ex girlfriend Pepa in Betera just north of Valencia city.

There were about a dozen people at the party. It started ordinarily enough. People were coming in from all over Spain and most of them had to be picked up from a bus or train station so it took a while before we were all assembled. Most turned up with a bottle in their hand or a gift for Jaime. Plenty of hugs and handshaking. But this is when it started to differ from any party I've ever been to.

Pepa was masterminding the do. She'd sorted the food, the cake, the drinks etc. but, as people settled in they weren't offered a drink, either soft or otherwise. As people stood or sat around chatting there was no music. The food was rolled out and people filled their cardboard plates but the group stayed close to the table - none of that retreating to your favourite perch with a plate stacked high with twiglets and sausage rolls. Wine was poured into our paper cups but when we stopped eating both the food and drink were whisked away. There was no all night nibbling allowed. No more drink was offered and the Spaniards seemed happy to sit there without food, without drink and without music. No thought of dancing, no drunken mates to be helped.

There was a birthday cake, in fact there were two, one from the current girlfriend and one from Pepa. A tense moment. We got a glass of bubbly to lubricate "Happy Birthday" but most of the guests took a swig and then abandoned the rest. That too was tidied away once it had served its purpose. We were offered coffee but not as the signal to find our coats and hats, rather as the customary end to a meal.

Maybe three hours later, after a heated discussion on the abuse of maternity rights and the state of the Nation's youth followed by a quick foot massage the party was suddenly over. Everyone who was going got ready to leave, those of us who were staying began to unpack our jim jams.

Actually by now I wasn't much to do with the party. Unable to keep up with the language I'd been quick enough to down several of those glasses of fake champagne before they disappeared into hyperspace and then I helped myself to a bottle of Scotch and settled into the comfy chair in the corner.

Elections and Information

I'm quite excited by all the electioneering that's going on around me for the local and municipal elections on 27 May. Nonetheless, for one reason or another, I've only got to one public meeting so far.

On Saturday, a friend told me he'd heard the present Mayor was going to hold a meeting, with an English translator, sometime this week.

Whether I agree with this chaps politics or not I was impressed by the initiative and the idea. I thought it would be good to go. To support the idea, to show "we" are interested etc. The problem is finding out where and when it is. No posters, no information in the Town Hall, the Party's office is locked fast (four weeks before polling day!), their phone goes unanswered and they haven't answered my email.

April showers

They had an open day at the castle in Novelda.

We went.

It rained, again.

Divine retribution

I've said before that we have something resembling a medium sized radio telescope in our back garden so we can watch "Castaway Dancing Celebrity Chef" beamed directly from the country with the best TV in the World. We also have a TDT, digital set top box so we can be horrified by Spanish TV and it's diet of Mexican soaps and cheesy game shows.

The TDT box packed up the other day, just like the first one we bought about a year ago. We'd learned from our mistake though and we'd bought the second box from a local shop just in case it needed to be returned.

The man in the shop told me to come back when the bloke from the suppliers had been, any time after 10.30. The bloke didn't show up yesterday or today so the man from the elecrical shop phoned to see where he was. "Oh, its Santa Faz (a public holiday named for a saint) in Alicante so he's taking a long weekend" said the Alicante based supplier.

It's probably something to do with the skirts on Rebelde Way being a bit too short I reckon.

Foul weather

Maggie has just had a well desererved break from school with the Easter holidays. Unfortunately for her the weather has been horrid with day after day of very wet rain which has stopped her doing anything very exciting.

As a bit of a last ditch attempt to have good time she booked us in for a weekend break at a hotel up the coast in Gandia but, as you can see from the picture taken from our 11th floor room, the weather gave no quarter. She'd guessed it might not and booked us in to a place that fed us three times a day and made a big deal out of it's Turkish bath, spa and biothermic shower but, between meals and after we'd had our pores opened we had no choice but to avoid the cold and wet in bar after bar after bar.