¡Save our Cabezo de la Sal!

Escombreras in Cartagena

Salt in Torrevieja

When we got back to Culebrón on Friday there was a flyer in our letterbox; it started: "Our Cabezo de la Sal it is wanted to be filled with Brent Crude!!! it is intended to be transported from Cartagena harbour through a more-than 110km-km-long pipe to store it in the salt wells!!!"


Cabezo de la Sal  is one of the local hills, well if 893 metres or 2,902 feet  high is a hill it is - that's some 624 feet shorter than Snowdon.

I read, and wrote, about this last February but the whole project has come up again as a result of the recent election campaigns. Cabezo de la Sal is a mountain loaded with 500 million tons of salt of which about 120 million tons can be extracted with current technology.

The salt is mined by digging a borehole and then forcing high pressure water down the hole to dissolve the rock salt. The resultant brine is sent, by pipeline, to the salt lagoons at Torrevieja where it is mixed with the sea water so that when the water is evaporated off the yield of salt is much higher.

The wells go down between 600 and 1200 metres before the process is stopped, the borehole is sealed and the miners move on to drill another hole about 150 metres away. The end result is a mountain peppered with subterranean caverns.

Apparently EU legislation requires that each country should have a strategic reserve of crude oil which will last for 92 days "To cover any eventuality in the international market." Spain's current Strategic Reserve is in a lot of oil tanks in the Escombreras Valley in Cartagena. The plan is to bring the crude ashore at the tanker terminal there, build a 110km pipeline and pump up to two million cubic metres of the black gold into the disused caverns in our mountain.

The opponents say that there is a high risk of oil spills, that inhaling the vapour from crude causes cancer, that Pinoso is in an area of high seismic activity for Europe, that Pinoso could become a terrorist target, that land will have to be compulsorily purchased, that there is the chance that Pinoso might have to be evacuated if there were a disaster and that the mountain could become a restricted area.

The proponents say that there is no risk of fire with oil stored more than 500 metres underground because there is no oxygen, that there is no chance of pollution of aquifers or of escape of the crude because the remaining salt is plastic at that depth so naturally self sealing, that only in Hollywood films are mountains split apart by earthquakes, that they love the natural environment as much as any environmentalist, that and will use the best technology to build the pipeline, that the visual effect of the installations will be minimal and that Spain needs safe, cost efficient, effective storage and that this is it.

Personally I'm a bit ambivalent about the whole thing. The corporate response is glib and the Platform for el Cabezo Free From Petroleum's objections range from the reasonable to the bizarre.

The Black Hand Gang

I don't know about you but black is not a shade I associate with clean.

Years of "Omo washes whiter than white" brainwashing I suppose.

I bought the bar of soap in the photo last weekend and I was a little surprised when I opened the box this morning. It has a strange scent too, not really unpleasant but somehow not quite soap like.

Swearing like troopers

Following the elections of 22 May today was the day for the new council to start its term of office in Pinoso. I went to the Town Hall to watch the noontime ceremony.

The thirteen councillors were all there. First of all they swore an oath to be nice councillors. Some chose to place their hand on a thick gold and green book as they said their piece while others chose a thinner black book. I asked two people in the crowd what the books were but they didn't know. I presume one was a bible and the other a non religious legal text but I'm probably wrong.

The five candidates for mayor, those are the people who headed up the electoral lists for their respective parties, where then asked whether they wished to maintain their nominations to be mayor. Two backed down (the ones who have done a deal with the victorious PSOE party) so there were just three nominees in the vote amongst the thirteen councillors. It all went to plan, three votes for the chap who was mayor until today, two for the man who was deputy mayor until today and eight votes from the PSOE, PSD, BLOC alliance for Lázaro Azorín who is now our new mayor.

Bit more swearing, the handing over of the symbolic staff of office and then a speech from Lázaro.

That was enough fun for me for one day and I came home. Fair sized crowd though.

Catholic tastes

Yesterday it was rock bands (do they still call them that?) and today it was a brass quartet in the wine cellars of one local wineries; Bodegas Carchelo over in Jumilla.

Bit of a tour of the bodega, then a never-ending glass of wine whilst we listened to the quartet - who were seated amongst the wine barrels - doing their stuff. To be honest the verb listen probably isn't the right one as the audience was noticeably quieter during the breaks between tunes than they were whilst the quartet were playing. Concert over it was upstairs for a buffet of local delicacies with two more wines to try and then a gentle drive home.

PS I hardly touched enough wine to taste it. Ni una gotita al volante.

No staying power

There has been lots of press speculation about the King recently. A while ago he had some surgery. The doctors said they had removed a benign tumour but the cancer rumours persisted. The Palace said he was fine except that his hip and knee were a bit dodgy. Not unusual for a 73 year old, otherwise it was just the ailments of old age - "los achaques."  I thought that was an excellent word. It was a word I understood exactly.


Working on the principle that you're never too old to rock we went to see four bands last night. The event was called Ciclo Pop. One of Maggie's ex colleagues is the lead singer for a band called Aardvark Asteroid and the rest of the line up included Fuzzy White Casters, Arizona Baby and Sexy Sadie. Obviously we were keen to support James and his band but I'd wanted to see Arizona Baby for quite a while as well. Two birds with one stone. Even better the venue was only an hour or so from home.

It was a good venue, right in the middle of San Vicente del Raspeig, and the 11€ price tag was excellent for four bands. Nonetheless the crowd was pretty thin - two or three hundred people  maybe. The gig was late starting but we were perfectly fit as we watched James and the other Aardvarks and we were still well in the game for Arizona Baby. By then though the achaques were catching up. We older people have to empty our bladders reasonably frequently. We don't like those little cabin toilets. After 12 hours or so our contact lens had become unbearable. In my case too my mouth is a bit sore and I've had a mild if persistent stomach ache for the last three or four weeks too. The numbness that I get in my hands and feet was exacerbated by the chilly evening. Basically by 1.30am I was knackered and we still had to get home. So we bailed out and came home around 2am. We never saw Sexy Sadie.

Don Juan Carlos had his knee operation a couple of days ago. I'm sure if he'd been at Ciclo Pop he would have stayed the course.

A fiesty little chap

I've mentioned before that Eduardo the cat likes to present us with little gifts. Sometimes they are still alive - that's why we had a blackbird in the living room a couple of weeks ago and sometimes all that remains are a few organs - kidneys and livers seem not to be his taste.

This evening I popped outside for a smoke and there was Eddie doing a dance around this little chap. Tiny little snake; no idea what brand but, apparently unharmed. I shooed Edu inside, took a few snaps then scooped the snake up on a fly swat and released him in a bit of undergrowth.

By the way, Culebrón, means big snake in Spanish as well as a soap opera so the village wasn't named for this tiny example.

Everybody knows

José Pozo Madrid, a poet from the town of Tomelloso in Castilla la Mancha, won this year's  "Maxi Banegas" poetry competition organised by Pinoso Town Hall. We were at the local theatre last night to see him get his prize.

The format of the evening was a recital of some arias from various operas and zarzuelas (a sort of Spanish light opera) performed by a tenor and soprano with piano accompaniment. The programme was six or seven songs, the prizegiving and then a few more songs. I'm pretty sure that at least one, if not both, of the performers were the same people we saw at an event called Lírica a couple of years ago. It was an enjoyable evening.

I wondered who Maxi Banegas was. I know that the local library is named in his or her honour (Maxi isn't a name I know so it doesn't necessarily suggest either male or female to me) but I had this vague notion that she was a teacher at the local school who gained some local fame as a poet. So I went in search of the information on Google. I found the rules for the competition and lots of references to the event but, about the person, hardly a word. The best I got was that the event began in 1997 to honour one of the most loved and important poets of Pinoso, Doña Maxi Banegas (proof that she was a woman at least.) Neither Fnac nor Casa del Libro have any of her work for sale. Absolutely zilch.

Just another example of something that "everybody knows." Just to check that I wasn't being a bit jingoistic about this I Googled a couple of British poets I know the names of and there was plenty of info. But maybe that's unfair (I only know famous names) so I tried William Cowper an 18th Century poet who lived in Huntingdon, you know, the bloke who wrote the hymn "There is a fountain, filled with blood." Plenty of info.

The event finished in time for us to see the Barça - Man. U game.


El Certamen Nacional de poesía de “Maxi Banegas” se creó en el año 1997 para homenajear a una de las poetisas más querida e importante de Pinoso, Dña. Maxi Banegas.

Spontaneous combustion

During the week our mate Geoff sent me a message asking if I knew why our grey plastic compost bin was melted and smouldering. He was in Culebrón and we were in Cartagena. I didn't.

All I could presume was that the rotting vegetable matter had heated up inside the composter and produced some flamable gas. Hey bingo!, spontaneous combustion.

There wasn't much left to look at when we got back. It must have produced a good deal of heat though as there is damage to the nearby fig, apple and plum trees.

Well there's a surprise

Not the usual sort of entry. All over Spain the PSOE, the Labour Party equivalent, has been badly mauled. The political map of Spain has turned blue, the colour of the conservative PP.

But not in Pinoso, well not at the most local level anyway. The PSOE seems to have gone from 2 to 5 seats and the local UCL seems to have had a bad day. I say seems to because the national news media that I've checked for the results has some mistakes that I'm aware of and so I've had to do a bit of interpretation.

There were 5,299 potential voters in Pinoso of which 212 were not Spanish (a lot of those being Brits.) Turnout was just over 80% with 4.4% spoiled papers and 1.4% said that they were unhappy to vote for any of the candidates offered by handing in a blank vote.

Party	Councillors 2011	Votes 2011	Councillors 2007	Votes 2007
PSOE	5	1291	2	779
PP	3	1030	5	1355
PSD	2	691	1	507
UCL	2	689	4	1045
BLOC	1	477	1	354

Polling Stations

I'm not sure and I can't find the details on the Internet but I'm more or less certain that every polling station notice I've ever seen in the UK has had the same print style - a heavy sans serif font. When we went to vote in Pinoso this morning I don't think there was any sort of notice ouside the polling station.

We were only allowed to vote in the local, town hall, elections. We EU residents are disenfranchised at provincial level.

Voting day is Sunday, not Thursday as in the UK. Ahh, yes, that's why we voted today!

Spanish polling stations open from 9am to 8pm. In the UK I think normal hours are 7am to 10pm.

In Spanish elections it is necessary to produce photographic proof of identity. In our case that meant our passport.

In Spain the candidates stroll back and forth between the various polling stations saying hello to people. At the table where your eligibility to vote is checked and where you deposit your ballot there are three polling station staff. There are lots of other people sitting at adjoining tables. I understand they are party sympathisers scrutinizing a fair vote. I thought that this was different to the UK where I have never seen any party sympathisers inside the station. Apparently though  UK candidates and agents can visit polling stations too so long as they don't try to canvass.

In the UK the vote is for a named individual by making a mark on a voting slip. In Spain, where there is a proportional representation system, each party puts forward sufficient candidates to cover all of the seats available within the given constituency. Depending on the percentage of the vote the party captures a corresponding number of their candidates are elected. The top of the list first, the second next and so on. Voters do not mark the paper in any way they simply select the list for their chosen party, pop it inside an envelope and then put the envelope in the ballot box.

I'm not sure they would have let me take the picture in a UK polling station either. Then again I've never thought to ask.

Ho ho ho

I mentioned that one of the local political parties "employs" a chap to help the Brit community. Today he sent around information about legislation that says we need to fit a limiting device to the electric supply. Apparently this limiting device was supposed to be installed by January 2010 with the power companies having an obligation to send a letter informing us of that responsibility. Obviously we haven't received the letter but I suppose it will be on its way soon.

I was vaguely aware of the legislation from some mumblings on the letters pages of the newspapers and from a conversation in a Spanish class but until the information today I hadn't checked the detail.

Lots of Spanish houses have really miserable power supplies by UK standards. Our house, for instance has a contracted supply of about 2.2kw which means that the circuit breakers should pop when we plug in the 3kw electric kettle. They don't because when we moved into the place we had it rewired and the sparks put in a board that would deal with about 5.5kw.

The main problem that we have is that the wire that brings power to the house is thin - it simply can't carry more power. The combination of the thin cable and bigger board means that we can run more than we are supposed to but that lights dim, kettles run slowly etc when we try draw more power than the cable can provide.

When we first moved in I tried to get the power company to upgrade the supply but the maximum we could have was 3.3kw. I talked to a Spanish electrician and his advice was to leave well alone. If we wanted a decent supply we would have to get the power company to beef up the supply and we were talking thousands of euros.

What's happening now is that the new device will limit us to the power we're contracted for. Try to draw more and the circuits breaker will pop. If we don't get the device fitted the bill will start to carry a penalty of around 15€ per month. We also probably need to get a certificate to say that our power supply is safe as the original certificate (which I've never seen) is obviously out of date because we had the wiring installation changed.

This could all get a bit sticky. Do as we should and we end up with stone age electricity. Do nothing and the fines will start to add up. Try to sort it out properly and it will certainly costs hundreds and maybe thousands.

Ho, hum.