Summer passing

I don't have any work between the end of June and the beginning of September. No pay either so it's not quite as good as it sounds. And with Maggie working mornings our options about getting out and about have been a little more restricted too.

This is one of the reasons that I've got through quite a lot of books over the summer. That and because I prefer short books. Reading ten books with 200 pages is only like reading a couple of big thick books. Anyway I get bored with one style, one set of vocabulary and the same basic theme. Generally I've read books in Spanish - partly to try and improve my language but also so that  I have a bit more local culture under my belt. After all you don't need to have read every Kate Atkinson or Stieg Larsson to be able to have a conversation about their style. Talking about what you have read is a common enough conversation so the more points of reference I have the greater the possibility of maintaining that dialogue. The only fly in the ointment is that my memory is terrible so I often deny all knowledge of a book until the other person starts to describe something I read only a month ago.

Anyway one of the other pastimes is taking part in the WordReference forum. WordReference is an online bilingual dictionary but there is, amongst others, a Spanish/English forum to talk about word use, phraseology and what not. I realise it doesn't sound that riveting but I find it entertaining enough. Although my written (and spoken) Spanish leave something to be desired my understanding of written Spanish is pretty good and my grasp of English is still excellent. It's surprising though how much of the English that people are trying to understand is remarkably byzantine.

Something new today though. Somebody using the name Zameda picked me at random to give them a hand in putting subtitles on an MTV interview with Amy Winehouse. "Why not?" I said. I watched the video and understood it perfectly. Then I tried to answer Zanema's specific questions given as time periods on the soundtrack. It was amazing how many times I had to listen to correctly transcribe - "Stuff like that you don't, you don't, you know, even cross your fingers or get your hopes up; do you know what I mean? just, just err, you know; if it comes through it comes through, if not I won't have got my hopes up."

Back to work next week I suppose though with a gentle lead in. I don't think students will be queing at the door to get back to their English studies. Still time for a few more photos, a bit more reading and maybe another few posts on the forum though probably not enough time for the cleaning and gardening.

Choo choo

We've just had a bit of a holiday. You know the sort of thing where you drive hundreds of kilometres, 1617 in fact, stay in lots of hotels, wander from bar to bar and church to museum and put on weight in lots of restaurants. We were in Lerida, in Cataluña, and we wandered around the Valle de Arán up in the Pyrenees and we even spent fifteen minutes in France. On the way home, with the garbox on the Mini sounding like it was going to fall apart, we stopped off to see the place where the Ebro, the river with the second greatest volume of water after the Duero and the second longest after the Tajo, flows into the sea.

We were there principally to go on the Tren dels Llacs, the Train of the Lakes, but we didn't.

It went like this. I'd read somewhere about this train. It sounded a bit like the Settle Carlisle line. A line with lots of bridges and tunnels to cross difficult terrain for a train. There were pictures of old diesel locomotives, apparently often referred to as ye - yés, pulling old carriages. The dates when the historic train ran were few and far between but the 22 August was one of them. Maggie took the time off work and I rang to reserve the tickets. The special train was full but ordinary service trains run along the line every day so I bought the tickets from RENFE, the state railway, on one of the standard diesel multiple units and we had the basis for a holiday.

I presumed it was a train with history, you know the sort of thing, the train that hauled saltpetre or iron ore or something  but it seems to always have been a passenger train from the very limited information on the website. In fact the first part joining Lerida to Balaguer was opened in 1924 and it was extended to Pobla de Segur in 1951. It must have gone out of service for a while because there was a re-opening in 2007. Anyway when you are on it the 41 tunnels and the 31 bridges are just part of the route. The scenery was nice - running alongside rivers all the way with lots of green lakes and orangey brown cliffs but I can't say I was overawed.

It's one ticked off the list though. Caminito del Rey next.

Noise and more noise

Maggie and I have a slight difference of opinion about aircon in cars. It's fine, I don't really mind it but I always find it a bit odd. The jet of cold air supercools wherever it is directed whilst the sun, streaming in through the glass, cooks other body parts. I prefer the windows open. It's not as cool, granted, and it's not always the best option but, generally, I prefer the feeling of space and being able to breathe. Usually, of course, when we travel together we have the aircon on.

I must have been feeling uppity because, a few days ago, the windows were open. As we went along at maybe 80k the sound of the cicadas in the countryside was as plain as the hotel neighbours groaning through the wall. Cicadas are pretty loud and insistent for small beasts.

I didn't understand the idea behind a few. My father, exasperated by my questioning and my inability to grasp the abstract concept, told me that a few was 13. I still sometimes think of a few as being 13.

I heard a small boy being given similar sort of information; the sort that sticks with you for the rest of your life. The boy had said something about the noise from the grillos. Grillos are crickets. "No!" corrected his mother - at least I'm supposing it was his mother - "Cicadas (cigarras) sing by day, grillos sing at night."

I don't think I knew that either. I wonder if there's an overlap? And when do the grasshoppers (saltamontes) get their turn?

I went to make a cup of tea a moment or two ago. The noise from our summer garden was as it should be. The cigarras were singing.

Have a listen

Souls in danger

It was a  Bank Holiday weekend (of sorts). You could tell this because the day off, the Saturday, was overcast and cool. We went to Valencia or, to be precise, we stayed in Alfafar. We behaved as tourists should. We went on a boat ride on l'Albufera, the freshwater lagoon, with just a dash of salty sea water, surrounded by lots of rice paddies, to the south of Valencia city. We dutifully ate rice cooked in a paella for lunch. We even tried to find the beach.

I'd not booked a room until a couple of days ago so our late choice of hotels, so close to the coast, was a bit limited. I basically took what was left. As the electronic wizadry guided us past IKEA, past Media Markt and past the MN4 shopping centre it dawned that the hotel was in the middle of some gigantic retail zone. So instead of passing our evening wandering the streets of an ancient city centre we strolled the corridors and courtyards of a shopping mall. In fact we went to the flicks, Operación U.N.C.L.E. - passable enough.

No whisky to be had amongst the various food franchises around the shopping centre when we came out so we decided on the hotel bar. As we walked pat Burger King we realised that the tailback for the "drive thru" service was the cause of the traffic snarl up. Inside a queue to be served was so long that it was doubled back on itself. All the tables and chairs we could see through the big glass windows were full, the terrace was heaving with people, there was a lot of noise and everywhere was covered in that usual Burger King detritus of paper cups, torn sachets and crushed chips. The customers were old and young, gangs of friends, families and couples,  - it looked like a Burger King advert; it was so all embracing and so exuberant.

Food is a common and popular topic of conversation here. Spanish people after visiting the UK often comment sadly on British food. I have had conversations with Spaniards about how to tell good ham from poor ham just by looking at it.

But in that Burger King at 11pm I glimpsed the Spanish future. Just like us. Meals served from packets. The family meal, eaten together, gone. Individual food for each person at different times. Waiting for the microwave to ping. Offal served only to pets. Grandma's recipes forgotten. The kids have already started to have obesity problems.

"It's good living here," said Maggie, as we passed through the hotel lobby, "We can get one of those McMuffin things for breakfast". "I like the way they make the eggs the right shape so they fit".

Phone boxes

The other day, when I would have gone to Valencia on the train if I hadn't left my phone on the kitchen table loaded with the train tickets, I did a bit of a tour around Alicante as compensation. In Fontanars de Alforins I saw a phone box and I thought I'd phone Maggie to tell her what I was up to. I didn't know her number (it's on the memory of my mobile, why bother to learn it?) but I do know the house number. The instructions on the public phone looked very complex and, when I tried to push a 1€ coin into the slot it didn't seem to want to go in, so I gave up.

I read an article today that says there are twelve phone boxes in the Plaza del Sol in the very centre of Madrid. On the day the journalist checked just one of them had been used and, at that, just three times. The remaining public phones throughout Spain are due to be phased out from December 2016 unless the Government does an about face.

The article said there are 25,820 phone booths left in Spain. In 2000 there were over 100,000. Not a single one of them now covers their maintenance costs which is why Telefónica, the old state monopoly telephone company which maintains the network, is keen to see the back of them. They are currently obliged to provide one public phone per 3,000 people in large and medium sized communities and at least one in villages of less than 1,000 inhabitants.

I was talking about this to Maggie. "We have one in the village don't we?" I asked. "Where?" she countered. "In the square." But we checked and there isn't one. Maybe it was by the social centre. Anyway it isn't there now if it ever was.

I don't suppose it's surprising in a country with 45 million inhabitants and 50 million mobile phones that phone boxes are a thing of the past. They didn't really last long. Although there was a token operated phone in Retiro Park in Madrid in 1928 it wasn't till 1966 that Franco's regime began installing coin operated booths the length and breadth of the country. I used to use them to phone home when I was on holiday. One model had a coin shute where the peseta coins rolled down a gentle slope into the coin mechanism where they were eaten up by the remarkably expensive international phone calls. Most of them didn't bother with providing a connection anyway - they were simply happy to swallow the coins.

It's strange though how things, once so commonplace, think red phone boxes, think Doctor Who, can disappear almost unnoticed.

Fira i festes

Every year, in Pinoso, we have fiestas the first days of August - a mixture of events, a funfair, stalls, parades, taunting young bullocks and temporary discos. It goes on for eight or nine days.

Last night was the official opening of the 2015 edition. There is a new councillor in charge of the organisation after the elections back in May. It's still the same party in power but the councillor with the responsibility for the fiestas has changed from Eli to César. The programme, the remarkably glossy, 90 plus page long programme was very late out, just two days before kick off and that caused a bit of grumbling.

When we first got to Pinoso the pregonero or pregonera, the person who makes a speech and then officially opens the fiestas, used to deliver their opening address from the balcony of the Town Hall. It's the usual routine for the majority of the small towns and villages acrosss Spain. It's the obvious thing to do. Flanked by the mayor, appropriate councillors the carnival queens and their ladies in waiting bedecked in traditional dress.

When the Socialists were elected the format changed drastically. It's quite possible that I have misremembered some of the detail but only the detail; they moved the area for the principal participants from the balcony to the square in front of the town hall. There was a stage but it was only enough to raise the great and good high enough so they could be seen - more dais than stage. There was a big TV screen and the town press office made a promotional video about the fiestas and another which was used to introduce the Pregonero/a before they made their speech. Much more was made of the personalities of the carnival queens and their court - each one walked into the square to stirring music through a corridor of past carnival queens, members of the fiestas committee and other notable locals. When the speeches were over the whole lot trooped off to church for a quick service before turning on the festival lights supported by the town band or maybe other musicians. Firework display next and then off to the municipal garden to see the folk dancing always with invited dancers alongside the home grown talent.

That moving the event to street level, the use of things and people the town already had - like the TV production facilities - seemed symbolic to me. There were other things that first socialist time which were much more community based - working on the idea of participation rather than presentation - or at least based on the Ernie Rutherford principal of we have no money so now we'll have to think. There were lots of other things that first year which were cheap and cheerful like classic cars and vermouth sessions or where the free option disappeared be that the entrance fees for the "pop" concerts or the replacement of the free beer and paella with a paella competition and bring your own picnic.

Whiilst they have been in power one of the noticeable things about the first term of the administration was its prettying up of the town. New or remodelled gardens and play areas, a new cultural centre, a new museum, the renovation of at least one typical town house, development of a town walk, improvements to streets and roads and more. Their critics say that's all they have done. I like most of the changes. Anyway one of the projects was to make the car park alongside the Town Hall much smarter with fountains, a clock, lots of local marble and a big mural on the side of adjoining buildings. Last night, for the opening, the venue was that car park with a high, maybe two metre high, stage as the focus of attention.

The carnival queens were introduced but they walked to the stage without the corridor of people. They were joined on stage by César, the Mayor and the Pregón. There were two big screens this time and the Pregón wore a microphone headset so he could move around as he spoke. Church, lights and then another innovation with the firework display launched from the rooves of a couple of buildings that flanked the car park. The folk dancing was on the same stage rather than in the garden.

It was all very good, I liked it but I wondered too if it were a reflection of what's happening in Spain. For that first administration things looked bad. The Town Hall was in debt, income had fallen and the result was a, probably, less flashy but, for me, much more rooted event. There's a sense that things are improving, that money is starting to flow again. That two metre high stage changed the townsfolk from participants to audience.

We shall see how it all pans out. Oh, and the title is Valenciano for Fair and Fiesta

Vile bodies

People tell me they are never swayed by advertising. Not me; I see an ad for something that looks useful and I'm there. That spray to stop the water stains on the glass shower screen, for instance, is great.

I saw an advert for some stuff to stop fungus growing on your toe nails. I hadn't realised that I had fungussy feet till I saw the advert. Gross. I just thought it was, well something else. So adverts are informative too. My feet and hands tingle a lot, it's not exactly painful but it's not nice either. The last time I asked a doctor about it he or she (I forget which) told me it wasn't anything that showed up on tests, none of those normal but nasty things like diabetes. Their expert advice was that I put it down to getting older, grin and bear it. Last night on the telly I saw an advert where some people were grimacing as they twiddled their feet or shook their hands. The advert described circulation problems being eased by their medication. It looked like me.

I went to the chemist today and asked for the circulation stuff by name and, whilst I was there, something for the fungus and a box of aspirin. The forty three euros price was a bit of a shock but not exactly a surprise. Prescription drugs are charged at different rates depending on your circumstances. Don't quote me on this but I think that the very rich have to pay 60% of the cost, normal level workers either 40% or 50% and pensioners 10%. Some people are exempt of all charges. The prices for these prescription drugs always seem reasonable to me, I remember some antibiotics were about 3€ so the full price must be around 7.50€. Mind you I don't need stuff every week nor have I ever needed anything exotic. On the other hand over the counter stuff, the throat sweets, the cold remedies, the antiseptic creams and the like are exactly the opposite. "What!?" - "Eleven euros for some crushed paracetomol with a lemon flavour?" That's why the price didn't surprise me.

Like I say I don't go to pharmacies very often. Thankfully I go to the doctor's even less. There is a free health service here just as in the UK, at least it's free for me because I pay my social security and so I'm covered. British pensioners are covered by the health system too through EU legislation. There is a registration process, which I hear is pretty lengthy, but, in the end, it allows the UK to pay the Spanish Government for any treatment given to UK pensioners without the individuals having to pay. Lots and lots of Spaniards believe that older Britons come to Spain specifically to take advantage of the healthcare system and no number of official statistics will ever persuade them otherwise. There are lots of people who aren't entitled to free healthcare and there are lots of contradictory reports about the right to healtcare and to emergency treatment because rules keep changing about either excluding or including non legal residents, about including or excluding the long term unemployed etcetera. Often in these news reports there is no link made between health care rights and payment. I suspect, though I don't know, that although nobody will be left to bleed to death that doesn't mean there won't be a big bill afterwards.

Just to round off, neither everyday dentistry nor eyecare are included in the free system. I'm talking about fillings or a crown and getting yourself some nice new specs, not about cataract operations or jaw rebuilds. Opticians are just as bandit like as in the UK. I was quoted 936€ for a pair of specs and ended up paying about 500€. Dentistry seems pretty inexpensive to me. There is a lot of competition which keeps costs down so that a decent crown costs around 180€ and a filling is in the 30-40€ bracket.

I'm sure that pretty soon, as the months and years roll by, I'll become much more au fait with Spanish healthcare.

Microclimates

I've written a diary every day for the last forty six years. For several years now I've put a little footnote to describe the weather - hot and sunny, wet and grey - and, alongside, the maximum and minimum temperatures. I bought a thermometer for the process but, when I lived in La Unión, there was nowhere I could site the thermometer in the shade so I started to use the data from the Spanish equivalent of the Met Office.

The weather, here as everywhere, is a talking point. It's been hot for the past two or three weeks generally in the mid to high thirties. Some parts of Spain have been over forty on occasional days. People often exagerate the weather. They tell me that it was 53ºC in their patio or somesuch so I try to slip into the conversation, gently of course - well, the highest temperature ever recorded in Spain before today has been 47.2ºC in Murcia and, according to the local weather station it only got to 38ºC (or whatever).

But local variations are very noticeable. Spain is the second highest country in Europe and there are mountains all over the place. They affect the microclimate to a remarkable degree. Driving from home in Culebrón to Pinoso just five kilometres away the temperature can rise a couple of degrees whereas Rodriguillo, on the other side of Pinoso towards Fortuna, is often a couple of degrees cooler than Culebrón. Humidity is another startling varaible.

Last year, I think it was last year, hail destroyed rooves, furniture, cars and whatnot in Paredón, another of the villages that encircle Pinoso. In Ubeda, on the same day, the same hail storm but with less intensity smashed the windscreen of a friend's car and put hundreds of little dents into their neighbours car. Just 3km up the road, in Culebrón we got heavy rain but no hail.

Yesterday it rained heavily for the second time this week in Culebrón. When it was over we had large pools all over the garden and I had to mop up in the back bedroom where I'd left a door ajar. I have proof that it rained, I was on the phone to my sister and I made her listen to the noise as the big drops collided with the tin roof.

This morning, when I checked yesterday's temperatures (High 33.6ºC, Low 21.8ºC) I  noticed that the rainfall recorded in Pinoso, where the official weather station is, was zero. In fact none of the weather stations in Valencia, in all three provinces, recorded any rainfall whatsoever.

So was Culebrón the only place it rained yesterday?

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything

I mentioned on Facebook the other day that whilst we were surreptitiously guzzling more than our fair share of the "wine of honour" after the religious procession in the village I was propositioned by the president of the "Third Age Association". He thought I should become a member.

Now I'm not big on joining in but I thought, at 8€ a year, it can't do any harm. An opportunity to get to know a few people, to practice a bit of Spanish, to become a bit more involved in the community.

So I went along today ready to hand over my money and join up.

The sales pitch involved dominoes, bingo, short hikes, special masses, crowning of the Third Age Carnival Queen, a bit of ballroom dancing, regular exercise classes, presentation of the trophies for the winners of the table games events, a gachamiga making competition and so on just for the near future. I didn't think he made enough of the upcoming performance of Maria Jesús and her accordion. She's the woman whose big hit was the Spanish version of the Tweety Song. I noted that no event passed without including food. Carnival Queen crowned and off to El Timón, walk up a hill and a picnic, presentations and a buffet, no reason at all and a vermouth session. Do you know they have over 700 members, or about 10% of the town population?

All I need are a couple of photos, identity documentation and a copy of my health card (!) Maggie can join too despite her tender years. She gets in thanks to my vintage. Unfortunately the admin person is on holiday at the moment and wont be back for a couple of weeks so we'll have to wait.

What I can't understand is why I'm hesitating.

From books to fiestas

I read something, in an electronic newspaper, yesterday that said that our President, Mariano Rajoy, isn't a big reader. It went on to say that the only complete newspaper he has left on his desk, alongside the daily news roundup written by his staff, is a sports newspaper called Marca. I'm not sure whether it's true or not but he doesn't strike me as any sort of intellectual or even a deep thinker so it may well be true.

It would certainly be in line with the last survey of the Sociological Investigation Centre - Centro de investigaciones sociológicas - which reports that 34% of Spaniards have not read a book in the last twelve months, that 10% read only one book in the last year and that just 7% read more than a book a month. Maybe this explains why many children are unsure of the name of the capital city of Spain.

Talking of books my pal Carlos, writing under the pen name of Carlos Dosel, has just self published a book on Amazon - police story with a Nazi war criminal slaughtering Jews saved from Hungary by a Spanish diplomat. And, as that's a plug for Carlos, I should mention Miguel who writes a blog about The Six Kingdoms and has had a print book published La llamada de los Nurkan. So, even if Spaniards don't read much I happen to have bumped into at least two who write.

There certainly wouldn't have been much reading going on in the village this weekend. It was the weekend of our local fiesta dedicated to Saint James with Saint Joseph tagging along. There is a religious element to the fiesta because the local priest leads a mass from the village chapel before the Saints, in effigy, are paraded around the streets of the village. Jaime is carried by the men and José by the women.  Otherwise it's all very non religious but very community. Someone I see regularly at the Wednesday morning session at Eduardo's commented on the number of people who were only ever seen in the village at fiesta time.

We had the meal on Friday evening. Catered event with metal cutlery, crockery and waiters followed by a duo with an electronic keyboard and songs from the seventies and eighties. I hear they, unlike us, went on till five in the morning. The next morning there was an organised water pistol fight and a session with drinking chocolate and toña (a sort of sweetened breadcake). A bit later, at lunchtime, there was a gacahamiga competition. Gachamiga is a food made from nothing - garlic, flour, water, oil and salt cooked into a sort of thick pancake. The procession was that evening followed by some buffet food and wine. Into Sunday the village was heaving with people taking part in the 5km or so walking and running race. There were over three hundred participants the event being rounded off with food of course. Into the afternoon there was some sort of children's entertainer - you know the sort of thing, bouncy castle and organiser with a floppy hat, baggy trousers and balloon sausage dogs. There was a bit of five a side footie going on at the same time. We got called over because there was a surprise and unscheduled vermouth session and I suppose they knew we would be attracted by the offer of alcohol. We were.

We'd left the village to go and have a very unsatisfactory meal in Aspe where we'd met one of Maggie's pals from Qatar. The after effects of that meal meant that we didn't go to the cena de sobaquillo and, in a way, that was there because we'd suggested it. What we actually suggested was a bring food to share meal but one of the neighbours shouted that down. She said that we foreigners always turned up with an inconsequential and inedible cake whilst the locals took proper food. A cena de sobaquillo is a sort of communal picnic. We'd stocked up with stuff to take but, in the end, we stayed home.

Good fiesta this time though. I tend to be a bit surly and uncommunicative when faced with people. I can hide either behind the camera or the alcohol but Maggie seems to be on a bit of a roll at the moment. Her teaching sessions, and simply being here all the time, means that she knows far more people and she is neither surly nor uncommunicative. She was running from person to person chatting away so I ended up talking to people almost by default.

A week before the Fiestas

I could have driven home. I'm sure. After all I'm typing so I must be have some control of my faculties. But I didn't. It never crossed my mind. Till now. I left the car and walked past the ermita, up past Eduardo's, past the goat farm and the barking dogs and came home. I didn't see a single car. It isn't far, maybe 500 metres.

Tonight was the vecino's meal, the neighbourhood association. The chicken from Maribel's wasn't bad but, for the first time ever, I didn't have to to fall down drunk instead of talking. Not that I didn't drink but I didn't end up dead drunk, just drunk. What's more important, to me at least, is that I kept talking. I made hundreds of errors, I couldn't remember half the expressions I was looking for but I went around and I kept talking. Language we talked about, of course, but music, films, food, travel - normal sort ot things - Belgian beer and Tossa de Mar, stag nights and Gibraltar.

I was still there at 3am, talking. It was normal. Tables in the open air, a warm night, strings of incandescent bulbs hanging from the trees. All as usual except that I kept talking. I didn't retire into drink.

It's all Maggie's doing. She's the one who has forged the links with the locals by teaching them or their children English, by having a bilingual chinwag every week. She wasn't there so they made do with me as a substitute. They took care of me. The annual vecinos meal. Splendid. Best ever.