Well tricked

"What do you fancy doing today? - I want to go to the Nueva Condomina Shopping Centre," said Maggie. I groaned.

It's not that I've got anything against shopping centres but I only choose to go to them when I need or want something that one of the shops there may have. Maggie goes to shopping centres for fun. She may have some vague idea about buying a top or shoes or something else but that translates into traipsing around shops that don't sell tops or shoes or that other thing. Different philosophy.

She had something in her favour though. I teach English to the staff of another shopping centre and the boss there had mentioned that a couple of quite well known Spanish fashion designers had created the Christmas lights at the Nueva Condomina so there was a vague reason for going.

"Alright," I said.

I have to say I was mightily disappointed. These two blokes, José Víctor Rodríguez Caro and José Luis Medina del Corral trade as Victorio and Lucchino. They made their names as ready to wear fashion designers who branched out into bridal wear, interior design and perfumes. They are also famous for being a married gay couple and for using themes from Southern Spain; from Andalucia as their inspiration. Maybe I missed something but the lights looked like they were from a Chinese Shop and it took me a while to even notice the half life size figures hanging from the ceiling.

I left Maggie to it. Fnac, the bookshop, was good though and they were playing music by a Spanish Tom Waits sound alike that I liked so much I actually bought it.

Good morning

Sunday morning and I was strolling around the garden with a pot of tea in one hand and a cigar in the other. Down the road I noticed the "higos chungos" glowing red against the broad green leaves in the early morning sun. I finished the tea and went to take some snaps and then had a look at Wikipedia. Apparently they are not called higos chungos but higos chumbos -  though it's apparently a common mistake. Chungo means something akin to dodgy, dicey or nasty and higo is fig; seemed reasonable enough - a dodgy sort of fig. We'd definitely been told they were called chungos.

Apparently the plant is Mexican in origin. The leaves of the cactus are eaten like vegetables and the fruit, well as fruit. In Spain the leaves are used as animal fodder but in my search for information I came across lots of Spanish recipes and childhood reminisences of the "We always used to get these as children when we went to see my gran at Christmas," type.

As we never got around to eating the thousands of ordinary figs that grew in our garden I don't imagine we'll be braving the spines of these prickly pears as part of our Christmas diet.

And it's cold

Bit miserable in Culebrón today. Maggie is upset about losing her break in the UK because of the unofficial strike by the air traffic controllers. I'm fed up because of the accusations at work that I smell like an old tramp which may lead to me losing my wage and then, on top of that, it's freezing in this house.

Now I know a bit of frost is nothing if you live in Bradford or Burgos but it's pretty unusual in Alicante and it's more of a shock to us because of the contrast between our weekday residence and inland Culebrón. Yesterday was chilly; pullover and sports jacket weather in Cartagena (11ºC) but 600 metres higher and I'm worried about the pipes freezing and reduced to wearing socks in bed.

Not enough cash

Maggie is due to fly to Blighty tomorrow. She was concerned that the weather may be a problem but no, it's the air traffic controllers.

For the past year the controllers have been a bit disgruntled. Some of them top out a salary of around 900,000€ a year but, as their Union points out, at least half of them only earn around 200,000€ a year. The Government though thought this was a tad too much, especially in light of the proposed privitization of the airports, so they introduced new working conditions which basically set the working hours, before overtime, at 1670 hours per year.

So today, the controllers took their revenge. Lots of them didn't turn up for work and Spanish airspace has been closed down. The timing was perfect, it's a long bank holiday weekend here stretching through till Wednesday so the airports were busy. They are now full of stranded passengers.

The Interior Minister has just been on telly threatening to send in military controllers and the Union has recommended to its members that they turn up for work at 10 this evening but whether they will, whether they'll be able to clear the backlog etc., remains moot.

Poor old Maggie, she's been looking forward to this trip for ages. Fingers crossed.

Saturday update. The flight is cancelled and Maggie can't go to the UK as she planned. As I type she is checking her options for other flights. I feel so sorry for her. She was so looking forward to it.

Meanwhile the Government has declared a State of Alarm (the first time this has happened in Spain since the return to democracy in the 1970s) and is threatening the controllers with legal proceeedings which could lead to gaol terms. Military controllers have also been put into the air traffic control centres and Air Force officers have taken over control of the majority of the flight control centres. Some of the controllers have turned up for work as usual but, apparently, it's very piecemeal.

There was a little note that the controllers are meeting in a motel just outside Madrid and that other guests have been giving them a really tough time.

Glad it's all over

Like Captain Sensible, the residents of El Culebrón were glad it was all over. The biggest cheer of the afternoon came when the Annual General Meeting finally came to an end. The Association was celebrating its tenth birthday. We've been members for five of those. Like all Spanish public meetings it had bordered on chaos with personal attacks and insults thrown into the mix. At one point the chairwoman attempted to re-assert order with a spot of fingers in mouth whistling.

Nothing much was decided except to accept the annual accounts and to agree a small increase in the annual membership fee from 18€ per household per year to 20€. I must have missed the re-election of officers and acceptance of last years minutes amongst the din.

From the accounts it appears that only 21 households actually sign up to the Neighbourhood Association so the 2€ increase is hardly going to make much difference to the annual figures.

When I used to stage AGMs getting anyone there was always the difficulty. The "Vecinos" never have any problem with that because, like any Spanish event, the principal reason for being there was to feed. No problem about the menu either. The two traditional dishes for the area: a rice paella of rabbit and snails and the warming rabbit stew called gazpacho (not the cold soup from Andalucia) as usual. I chose the gazpacho but I ate the breadlike base along with the stew rather than keeping it apart to spread with honey afterwards. I've often been accused of having strange eating habits but spreading honey on stew soaked pastry has always seemed a bit perverse to me. Maggie went for the rice.

Pleasant enough do. We were the only Brits there this year amongst the 60 or so diners and a couple of Spanish acquaintances actually made sure we sat with them which was a pleasant change. Normally we end up being pushed right to the edge of things. The conversation didn't exactly flow but we held our own.

Tu vista favorita

For the past eleven weeks I've been watching a programme on Spanish telly called "Your favourite view." The format is simple; forty celebs, walked us through their favourite area of Spain, usually the area where they had grown up. To add a bit of spice the TV company hired a helicopter to overfly and film the chosen areas. Four views each week, a vote by text message and at the start of the next programme the winner of the last programme was announced. Spectacular views but basically standard stuff.

Tonight was the final. The ten chosen views were to do battle in a live show. The presenter, who has anchored the programme over the last ten weeks, had changed out of her habitual  red anorak and stripy T shirt and was dressed in a military style jacket and spike heeled fetish boots. The setting was the helicopter hangar. No audience, just the presenter.

Voting was only possible via the TV company's website. The cumulative vote was shown throughout the show so it soon became pretty obvious which views weren't in the running. Nonetheless, as the programme neared its end I went online to vote even though my favourite was in the cat in hell section.

I had to register. I had to wait for an email response. Before I got a response the system closed down. Never mind, Trujillo wsan't going to win anyway. The Cañón del Río Lobos in Soria did. That's it in the snap.

Excellent programme I thought but maybe Cuatro should get a bit of advice on both voting methods and building up the voting tension from those Strictly Come Dancing or X Factor people.

Nothing to do with Culebrón

The photo was in a national newspaper as a competition winner; it's by a woman called Cristina de Middel. I thought it was interesting for two reasons. The first because I thought it was a nice snap but also because I thought it summed up the Spanish attempt at using English. Close but not quite.

Consider that the translations are of one, two and three words - there are several mistakes. Dreadful as our Spanish is we always ask for menus in Castilian because if we get the "translated" version we often simply can't make sense of it.

Roaring log fires

Down in Cartagena it's still a toss up as to whether you will need a jacket to go out. A shirt or a light pullover usually does the job but up here in Culebrón it is distinctly cooler - read cold.

The house is built to keep cool, not warm, and coming inside is like entering an ice box. Normally we pump heat into the living room from a couple of calor gas heaters after we've used the heat setting on the aircon unit to get the room to a reasonable temperature. Yesterday though it was raining too so we decided to stay in and, for the first time this year, we lit the log burner. Warm hands, warm feet - luvverly.

Now there's remarkable

The Mini garage that I bought the car from offered me a cheap deal on servicing for the next three years. It looks like a good offer but the problem is that the garage is in Elche - only 45kms from home in Culebrón but a long way from the weekday home in Cartagena.

I went to talk to the BMW/Mini dealer in Cartagena - could they offer me the same package? After lots of hooing and aahing the answer was no. Par for the course.

I rang the garage in Elche, I explained that I'd like to take up their offer but that it would be a problem getting in to see them to sign the paperwork and make the payment. Was there any chance I could do it by phone or post? I didn't expect them to say yes. This is a country where things are done face to face but the woman on the phone surprised me. "Of course, I'll send you the contract by email, you send it back signed by post or email, transfer the cash to our account and I'll send you the finished paperwork by mail."

There was no particular fuss, the email turned up, I've made the payment, it looks like we have a deal.

Jijona

When I was a lad I fell over regularly and often bumped my head. I have no idea why as I hadn't discovered cheap brandy then. Anyway, my mum would rub the bump with butter. Again I have no idea why unless she was on the brandy herself but I suppose it meant that I got some sort of attention and that made me feel better.

I have no doubt that when lads fell over in the 1950s in Alicante their mums would apply olive oil. The stuff that's to hand. Using whatever is to hand happens all over the World.

In Jijona which is in the hills behind Alicante they have a lot of almond trees and hens and bees. The result is that the town is famous for a sort of nougat called turrón which is made from almonds, eggs and honey. There are two traditional types. The tooth breaking variety has whole almonds set in a brittle mass of eggs and honey whilst the soft one, that drips oil, the has the almonds reduced to a paste along with eggs and honey plus extra almond oil. Turrón and Christmas are inseperable in Spain.

It was a nice sunny day today and a Sunday afternoon drive seemed like just the ticket. We set off for Alcoy after seeing a programme on the telly last night extolling the virtues of the countryside around there. When we passed the sign for Jijona we changed our plan as neither of us had ever been there. We expected to find the town bustling with people buying in stocks of Christmas turrón but instead the place seemed to have been abandoned and it took us a long time to find an open bar never mind a turrón seller.

I suppose we'll just have to be satisfied with getting our turrón from the local supermarket like every other year.

Getting a taste

Sometime back in the summer Maggie heard about a winery and restaurant very close to the town of Yecla and, consequently, close to us. Now this is Maggie's idea of the perfect trip out. So we went to get lunch. For some reason, I now forget, it was closed. Elephant like this little excursion has been lurking in the back of Maggie's mind. Today was the day to act.

Smart sort of place. The bodega is a big, low looking, modern building surrounded by vineyards. The restaurant is upstairs. Enormous windows with a view to the hills beyond, clean modern look, lots of wood, good sized tables, crisp white linen. The sort of restaurant where they don't leave the wine or bread on the table.

The menu was full of the Spanish equivalents of all those compotes, drizzles and terrines - lots of things that sounded dead interesting. We couldn't decide. So we took the easy way out and went for the "menú degustación." Basically these menus are an opportunity to taste a range of things from the restaurant's range but in reduced portions. I think it was four starters, two mains and a couple of puddings, two bottles of wine plus water, bread and coffee. At 35€ not exactly cheap but rather nice with all that over the left shoulder service and what not. Some things weren't detailed on the menu, "Were those flowers that we just ate?" "No sir, they were artichokes frozen so that they could be cut into wafer thin slices and then deep fried." Crikey.

It's only the second time that we've tried one of these tasting menus and both times the restaurants have been real winners. So, the next time you're in our neck of the woods I'd suggest you give them a go.