Double egg, beans and chips please

We're not in Culebrón at the moment. We're in Asturias and it is raining quite a lot. Asturias is on the North coast of Spain just a bit across and down from Cornwall. We came to have a look at the village of Lastres because a TV programme we like, Doctor Mateo, based on the British TV series Doc Martin is filmed there. Lastres was a bit grotty and the few restaurants that there were were remarkably pricy. Instead we had lunch in Colunga just a few kilometres along the coast.

We had Fabada Asturiana which is a bean stew with black pudding, spicy blood sausage and a fatty bacon like substance. We should have drunk cider along with it but I stuck to water as I was driving.

Everywhere in Spain boasts some sort of traditional food and whenever tourists turn up in the region they ask for the local speciality. So, in Valencia you'd order a paella, in Extremadura it would be migas (breadcrumbs and fatty pork), in Galicia you have no choice but to eat either octopus or pimientos de Padrón (small salted fried peppers) and so it goes on all around Spain. Now this is fine if you pop out for lunch to Segovia one day and want suckling pig but if you are wandering around a province it can become wearing to be offered the same food in every restaurant you go into day in day out.

Luckily we've only got another day to go here so we can eat the other speciality - chorizo in cider and then we're off to Soria, or at least we think we're off to Soria where, as I remember, it's another sort of bread and sausage based dish served with fried eggs.

Dead in their beds

We moved into this house on 1 April 2005. Today I put up our very first smoke alarm. It was an advert on British TV the other night that made me think to get one. I'd have got more but they don't seem to be readily available in the shops

Smoke alarms and carbon monoxide monitors aren't exactly conspicuous fittings but I'm not sure that I've ever seen one in a private house here. Certainly there are none of those publicity campaigns to persuade people to buy and maintain them. It's a strange difference.

Perhaps Spanish houses don't burn or maybe because the majority of the windows in the majority of Spanish houses are barred people prefer to die in their beds silently slain by smoke, rather than to die scorched and screaming pinned flat against unyielding iron bars.

Maggie's take

I just told Maggie the story about the King and the hearing aid shop. She wondered if the shop assistant would take the call from her mother and leave the King waiting just like they do every other customer.

It made me giggle

The Zarzuela palace has confirmed that the King wears a hearing aid. Journalists began to suspect that he did when he was seen leaning close to hear someone speak at a public function.

The hoot though was in the last line of the news story. Telecinco (A commercial TV station) had film footage of King Juan Carlos coming out of a hearing aid shop!

Can you imagine the scene in Buckingham Palace? "Philip, I'm a little fatigued, might you go to the hearing aid shop and purchase a few spare batteries on my behalf?

Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age.

I was just trying to remember how we met Paul but I can't. He's English though, he lives in Culebrón and we expat Brits just tend to bump into each other. I know scores of people to nod at or to speak to occasionally without knowing anything about them except their first name and one other key fact. "Hi Robert, how's the folk dancing going?"

I know Paul's family name and we know his wife too. She, amongst other things, is Maggie's Avon rep.

Last night Paul had his 50th birthday party at the one remaining bar in Culebrón. It's a British bar called Litani and Tim, who I know relatively well (without knowing his surname), runs the bar there. Tim is a big man, he's got tattoos, he was a butcher and he's returning to the UK to drive lorries. I've always liked Tim.

Last weekend we took my mum to a place called El Cortijo over Paredon way to get Sunday lunch. She said she was surprised that Maggie and I were going to a British run place for Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding. It's maybe the third time we've been there but the food has always been good with keen pricing and we thought that she'd be more at home in a place where we didn't need to translate the menu.

Back at Litani Bill was doing the disco, he played music like The Bachman Turner Overdrive "You ain't seen nothing yet" We had an intelligent conversation with Stuart and Joyce and another with a North American couple. They were very positive about their Spanish experiences. Two people, one an old customer of Rustic Original who I'd prepared furniture for, commented favourably on my blogs and magazine articles. When it came to food time there were bits of pork pie and cocktail sausages as well as empanada and tortilla. All in all a very pleasant evening and no need for a word of Spanish.

The Ides of March

The toilets at Beeston YMCA used to get vandalised a lot in March. My caretaker had a theory. Winter should be over, Spring tantalises us - snowdrops, daffs and the occasional day when the sun shines but then, bang, freezing cold, driving rain - winter all over again. The youngsters didn't think it was fair, they'd been cooped up too long and they took it out on the toilets.

I think that same effect is why I haven't been writing blog pieces. We're waiting for something to change. So this is a rather contrived entry. And it's too long.

Our house is in Culebrón in Alicante and our rented flat is in Cartagena in Murcia. Some 110kms or 90 minutes journey time separates the two. We do the journey frequently coming back to Culebrón as often as we can mainly so the cat can have a bit of a run around and murder smaller animals.

So, down our track and on to the twin carriageway road up to Pinoso hedged in by vines, almonds and solar panels. Into town, into Pinoso. At 7.10 in the morning the bus for Alicante picking up, the Ecuadorian day workers waiting for their lift to work. With a population of just 8,000 it's small so we're soon out of town heading across the rolling countryside and heading for Fortuna. We pass a couple of bodegas where the grapes from the vineyards are turned into the local red wines - usually palatable and strong but hardly masterpieces of the craft. The road winds and drops down into Murcia with the marble quarry that supported the town, until this recession hit, behind our left shoulder. Nothing special about the road, hardly any traffic at any time of the day, maybe a bit busier than usual with the early commuters. As we get on towards the village of Salado Alto the landscape becomes John Wayne like all grey dust, cañons and solitary hills. We've been dropping since we left Pinoso and as we turn and twist on the badly surfaced road that takes us down to Mahoya we're still going downhill. Mahoya is great, it's a non descript village on some back road to nowhere but at whatever time of day or night we pass the two bars there seem to be open and busy. Over the dry river bed and into a couple of roundabouts on the outskirts of Abanilla then right onto the Santomera road. There are orange trees now because we're lower but this road is lined with metal box buildings, galvanisers, tyre places, paving stone manufacturers and big restaurants - the sort used for wedding receptions and communions. Lots of roundabouts and then right onto the A7 motorway, the road that runs in and out of Barcelona and follows the coast of the Med all the way down to the Costa del Sol.

It's light by now as we slip into the traffic and head into the outskirts of Murcia city. Nueva Condomina stadium and shopping centre to the right, Thader shopping centre to the left as we start to juggle with the traffic. The speed restrictions say 80 but the traffic wants to do 100. Take your choice, stay relatively legal and become a traffic hazard or go with the flow. Somewhere in this blur of traffic we've moved onto the A30 and there's the sign that says 50kms to go. It's around 8.10 if we're on time. Past the last dodgy intersection, the final one where cars cut from the outside lane across three lanes to take their turn off. We start to climb. We're only going up to 340 metres but it's a steep hill. We're passing through pine forests now. At the top the view opens up. As we begin to drop the motorway divides and we keep left, heading for the coastal plain. The crops have changed again, some oranges but lots more green stuff, market gardens. The sun coming up from the East is in my eyes but the road's nice - that dark tarmac with new sharp white lines and the traffic has thinned out after the melee of Murcia. It's a straight run, past the old crop sprayer biplane, past the scrap yard with classic cars for sale. Some ten kilometres out of Cartagena we take the turn and end up on an urban dual carriageway surrounded by a motley collection of industrial buildings. As we pass the almost derelict shacks where single light bulbs burn and sad washing hangs on improvised lines we're almost into town. We head into the residential areas with cars parked all over the place, with blind views on right angled junctions and pedestrians happy to assert their rights on the multitude of zebra crossings. There's the school, pull up in the road outside, Maggie collects her things, a quick peck. See you later.

Eddie and I do the last kilometre or so alone, park up on the waste ground and let ourselves in to the block of flats where we live. From Culebrón and the countryside to Barrio Peral and town life.

Nothing to report

I haven't made any posts for a while because nothing much has happened that relates to the generality of life in Spain but I thought I should post something to prove that I'm still alive.

I didn't get the job. They didn't take to me but that was probably for the best as the working day was based around shifts and the journey from Cartagena or Pinoso would have been difficult and may have led to Maggie and I living in separate places again.

I've been buying cheese, rather than shampoo, for the marketing people. This time I had to buy different brands but with the same expiry date for each brand. It was very difficult to get the number required with the correct date. This time at least I understand why it was being done though I'd better not say as I hope they may give me more work.

My mum's here at the moment for a week to sample the delights of Cartagena and Culebrón. She has been shocked to move from the very temperate climate of Cartagena to the blasted heath that is Culebrón this weekend.

There have been a couple more posts on the TIM website and in the TIM magazine. Far too many grammatical and spelling mistakes for my liking (all my fault)!

I'll be back when I have something to say.

On the road

The rights and wrongs of running cars in Spain, originally registered on foreign plates, is one of the staples of the many expat Internet bulletin boards. Whatever the legal technicalities the idea is pretty simple. If you live in Spain your car should have Spanish plates, Spanish insurance and the rest whilst if, for instance, you live in the UK your motor should have UK plates, tax, insurance and safety checks. Living here means you spend more than 183 days of the year in Spain.

A Swedish chum who lives in Pinoso was pulled over at a police checkpoint a couple of weeks ago. Her car, which was running on Swedish plates, was briefly impounded until she was able to register the vehicle on temporary "tourist" plates. Now she is going through the process of re-registering on Spanish plates. The police told her they were having a bit of a blitz on foreign cars and that there would be no fine (I can't remember whether she said that could have been two or three thousand euros) if she got on with the re-registration.

Obviously, as EU passports are no longer stamped with entry and exit dates, keeping track of where a car lives has become much more difficult. I presume too that a year means a calendar year so it wouldn't be enormously difficult to organise a perfectly legal stay of nearly 12 months with a short six months on each side of the new year.

My guess is that all the police look for is a full and current set of paperwork whether that be Spanish or from another EU country.

Villazgo

On 12 February 1826 good King Ferdinand VII granted independence to Pinoso from the larger nearby town of Monóvar. Nowadays, on the most appropriate Sunday nearest the 12th, the town puts on its gladrags, well lots of traditional smocks and frocks, to celebrate the town's coming of age.

The main event centres around eating - as do all Spanish celebrations. In this case punters buy eight tickets which can be swopped at the participating stalls for a drink, a snack or other edibles. It starts slowly but by 2pm the site is heaving with people balancing wine glasses and local delicacies on paper trays as they elbow their neighbours to create enough eating space. Spaniards have a remarkable facility for eating without stopping speaking and the noise level is incredible. As it all starts to tail off the heaps of rubbish and food on the floor become more noticeable and make for an interesting orienteering exercise.

As well as the food there is a traditional competition a bit like horseshoes, there's a stage for local bands and dancers, a street market and stalls by most of the local community associations. Some of the stalls, both from professional vendors and the local groups are really well done and echo ages old crafts and traditions. Pinoso was big for shoe making for instance so one of the stalls encouraged passers by to don the apron and sit amidst the heaps of ancient tools doing their Pinnochio's dad impression.

Lots of photos on the my snaps link or here.

Who goes there?

The town Hall in Pinoso produces a glossy magazine each month, called el Cabeço, as a way of keeping its citizens up to date. It's always good fun with plenty of argy bargy between the political parties in amongst the real news and those human interest stories with a local flavour - Pinoso man moistened; Titanic sinks!

Big stories this month included the idea that Spain's strategic oil reserve may be pumped from the refineries at Cartagena into the caverns formed where salt has been "mined" from our local mountain. There are our new water prices too, a new tiered pricing system which will see those houses that use most charged a massive 1.10€ for every 250 gallons of water - luckily for us we don't like washing much and I expect we'll be in the 28 cents per 250 gallons bracket.

It was the population figures that I lingered over most though.

At the start of 2010 there were 8,031 people living in Pinoso (that includes the villages such as Culebrón), 6,627 or 82.5% of those people were Spaniards and the next largest group? Go on, you've guessed, I can see that little knowing smile - yes, us, the Brits with just short of 8% of the population or 624 people whupping those Ecuadorians (162), Ucranians (95) and Moroccans (81) by miles. There are 42 different nationalities in Pinoso.

Bin and gone

I hear that in the UK it's only MENSA members who have a chance of keeping track of which rubbish has to be put out on what day and date - Tuesday for the organic stuff, every third Friday for household waste etc.

Here in Spain there are no household collections. There are big containers dotted all over the place though. Round Pinoso the basic green jobs are for general stuff then there are the recycling bins - yellow ones for containers, blue for paper and light green for glass. You have the responsibility of getting the stuff to the bins.

The general rubbish is picked up overnight in urban areas and maybe two or three times a week in rural areas. The recycling bins are cleared less frequently.

It's a simple but effective system.