Would I lie? The knife stall. |
Officially the fair and fiesta aren't yet underway. The official opening, the pregon, a sort of opening speech, will happen on Monday evening. But, weekends are weekends, and last night the stalls and fairground rides were in full swing.
The town's equivalent of running with the bulls, a sort of chase and be chased by a small terrified bullock around some waste ground, took place for the first time this year, or at least I understand it did, fortunately for both my boredom and cruel stupidity tolerance thresholds I wasn't there. Later the new Carnival Queens and their entourages were crowned in a ceremony that seemed to last for an eternity. As we strolled around the stalls and fairground rides the crowds seemed pretty sparse to me. We could have chosen to sit at almost any of the food and drink establishments from the 5€ bargain specials to the upmarket shining crystal and linen napkin places.
So it wasn't the heart racing, non stop fun event we may have hoped for. There was an odd thing though. We started by the Town Hall. "Nice lights," said Maggie - "not as good as the lanterns but better than last year." We said hello to someone we knew. Later, as we bumped into the first of the stalls and the commentary started - aah, I see the pots and pans man is here, and the knife stall. We avoid the free samples at the "Mr Galicia" ham and cheese stall and consider, for at least the sixth year, whether we should buy a grilled corn cob, the white chocolate crepe was my first. We have comments about so many of the stalls and bars - not there, they overcharge at fiesta time, that bloke with the waffles always plays heavy metal - what a character, crikey that Peruvian man's hair is even longer than last year but he looks so much older, look the jewellery stall isn't here - I wonder if she died, she was knocking on a bit, no way! - the chips are always cold and expensive there.
We've strolled those stalls a lot over the past seven years; we're old hands. Gently re-assuring in a small town sort of way.