Life in Ciudad Rodrigo

That's it

2009-06-30T23:59:00.002+02:00

Done. Finished. I'm just about to disconnect the computer and that will be it. We managed to get everything in the cars, tomorrow morning we'll dope up Edu and then all we have to do is to drive across Spain. The Culebrón link below will be in use for the next few weeks before we move on to Cartagena in September. Click on the links below.

So this blog is dead. Ciudad Rodrigo is history. Culebrón for the summer and then Cartagena.

The story continues .......

In Limbo

2009-06-29T12:36:00.002+02:00

The Catholics may have done away with Limbo but it's definitely here in our house. There are boxes and bags in every room ready to load up into the cars for the epic journey back to Alicante but we've reached the point where to remove anything else would be counterproductive. I just wander from room to room thinking "No, I can't pack that yet."

It would be better if we could load stuff to the cars but to leave things in them longer than we need to would be asking for trouble. Breaking into motors is a national sport in Spain and it would be a stupid risk even in a town as crime free as Ciudad Rodrigo.

There's also a nagging doubt as to whether it will all fit. With careful packing even the smallest of cars has quite a lot carrying space but there does seem to be an awful lot of stuff.

One last time

2009-06-28T17:04:00.003+02:00

In Alicante we have Moros y Cristianos. In Salamanca it's Encierros a Caballo and on this, the last weekend in Salamanca, I thought I'd go and have a look at a village I don't remember having been to before (though that doesn't mean I haven't been there!) and watch what must be one of the most typical fiesta events in these here parts. The encierro where men with lances guide cattle into a ring.

Phone company

2009-06-26T09:10:00.006+02:00

The one time state, now private, telephone company here in Spain is called Telefonica. Its reputation is not good. People complain that the service is expensive and poor.

Generally our dealings with Telefonica have been fine though we had a lot of problems when we asked for the line in Culebrón to be temporarily suspended. Finally we had it disconnected.

Anyway, we need a phone and, living in the countryside in Culebrón, our only options are Telefonica or something that involves rebroadcast signals via little antenas. We plumped for Telefonica. I went in the shop here in Ciudad Rodrigo on Wednesday to order the line and broadband. The engineer from Pinoso rang me about five minutes ago, on Friday morning, to ask if he could call by at around five this afternoon to reconnect the phone. I had to put him off till we get back.

Missed something else

2009-06-26T00:47:00.005+02:00

This morning, as I cleaned my teeth, I heard hooves in the street. I didn't bother to rush out. I took my time, I put on my boots and strolled out to buy fags and a paper. There were signs of horses or mules or donkeys having passed down the street. When I came out of the fag shop I noticed a fair sized crowd by the Fat Tree but the fun was over, the crowd was drifting away and I didn't have my camera anyway.

I've just checked the town web site and it says that The Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Peña de Francia, having been blessed by a local chaplain, set out on a Romeria (a sort of pilgrimage) from the town today heading for one of the highest peaks in the area - the Peña de Francia. They won't get there till Sunday as it's some 50km from here.

Horns and sirens a go go

2009-06-21T12:06:00.007+02:00

We were quite sure there was something serious going on. It had to be very emergency vehicle in Ciudad Rodrigo. The horns and sirens pierced the Sunday morning calm.

But really it was just St. John the Baptist.

In Alicante they light bonfires in the street and have rock bands and exploding fireworks playing the same tune. In Ciudad Rodrigo there's an open day at the Fire Station - slide down the pole, turn on the naah naahs.

San Juan is a big festival on the 24 June. It's when Spaniards celebrate the longest day/shortest night thing. Triumph of light over darkness. Pagan symbolism.

But here, today, the symbolism was provided by Pegaso and Renault, Opel and Mercedes.

Time to stand and stare

2009-06-20T23:26:00.005+02:00

Life in Ciudad Rodrigo is full of incident.

Back in October I mentioned that two trains a day pass through town. One from Lisbon heading for Hendaya on the French border and another going the other way.

We walked down to see the French bound train this evening. There were people at the station. We thought they were travellers but not a bit of it. Just like us they were there to see the event.

La izada del pino por los quintos.

2009-06-19T22:27:00.007+02:00

The raising of the pine by those coming of age. Well more or less. Raising the pine certainly. Quintos were originally the group of young men who had reached the age when they would be conscripted into the army so I suppose it has that idea of a group of classmates, of those leaving school or something similar nowadays.

I'd seen the poster advertising the event as part of the fiesta in Peñaparda so I asked a Spanish pal what it meant. She described young men attempting to climb a greasy pole to retrieve a "Kewpie Doll."

What actually happened was that when we got there a long, trimmed pine tree was lying in the middle of the village street. All 433 inhabitants seemed to be there to watch. A young woman gave us a bottle of beer. Then a telescopic handler bumped the tree around till the base was close to a deep hole that they had dug in the street. With a lot of tugging and cursing the tree was manoeuvered into the hole and raised by a mixture of the handler and people pulling on ropes. The tree was wedged into place and then a bunch of people shinned up it.

It must have been backbreaking work before chainsaws and telescopic handlers.

We noticed that lots of young women were wearing their Quintos (modernised as Kintos) T-shirts but it was only the lads and one grey haired bloke who climbed the tree.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

2009-06-19T18:18:00.006+02:00

The days of this blog are numbered. At the end of the month we are back to Culebrón for the summer and just today the British Council have confirmed that Maggie will definitely be transferring to the José María de Lapuerta school in Cartagena, Murcia

I'd already set up Life in Cartagena, just in case.

The photo is one of the few that I have of Cartagena. So far as I can tell the last time we were there was in September 2006.

Thoughts turning to home

2009-06-19T02:44:00.016+02:00

With just a couple of weeks left here before we head back to Culebrón we've suddenly begun to realise all the things we still have to do - the restaurants we haven't been in, the local food we haven't eaten, the bars we haven't drunk in, the photos we don't have, the nearby villages still to visit and lots more.

One of the things that makes Ciudad Rodrigo Ciudad Rodrigo is its walls. They completely encircle the town. We walked them with our houseguests last weekend as part of our regular visitor itinerary. It was the first time we'd ever counted the gates.

The six gates are Puerta de la Colada, Puerta del Conde, Puerta del Sol, Puerta de Santiago, Puerta de Amayuelas and Puerta de Santa Cruz

On sounds

2009-06-17T11:57:00.003+02:00

When Spanish people are trying to learn English they have enormous difficulty with some sounds. For instance, the S at the beginning of a word is always ESS and the Y becomes a J sound something like the J in Jaw. Words that sound quite different to English speakers like "peach" and "pitch" or "cup" and "cap" sound exactly the same to most Spaniards.

On the coach to Santiago I tried to use the phrase "Like sheep to the slaughter" in Spanish. The Spanish word for sheep is "oveja" but the Spanish person I was speaking to heard "abeja" which means bee so she told me the equivalent in Spanish was "like bees to honey!" - it was an odd exchange. Or yesterday I used the word taco (used to mean a swearword) but the person I was speaking to heard "Tajo" and thought I was talking about the Spanish river.

Maggie was out for a retirement do meal yesterday. She was made welcome, as always, but slowly but surely the conversation got away from her as the background noise increased, as people relaxed into conversations that required prior cultural kowledge etc.

I don't consider my life to be at all stressful at the moment but our pal Sagrario who we use as an intercambio (half an hour of English, half an hour of Spanish over a couple of coffees) said I should relax more, that the language thing was stressing me out and she's right. As I watch the news I have no problem understanding the main point but lots of the detail escapes me. Even some of the adverts pass me by and it is unfuriating when the simplest phrase, something that I've used successfully hundreds of times, suddenly fails because I mispronounce something. It sounds OK to me but it confuses my audience. And I know the feeling. Someone once asked me where the ornirons were and it took me a long time to work out that she was after onions.

I feel quite at home in Spain, it's where I live but the language seems to be an unbeatable problem that makes every conversation a potential disaster, every phone call a trial and every little job so much more difficult.

Probably the largest collection in the World

2009-06-13T16:35:00.003+02:00

There are lots and lots of museums with a theme. In Ciudad Rodrigo we have a chamber pot museum. Commodes, chamber pots and bed pans. Talk about taking the piss!

Neighbours in town

2009-06-13T09:22:00.005+02:00

Our neighbours, Gerry and Gail, from Culebrón in Alicante drove across Spain yesterday to come and visit us.

All we've done so far is been into town and had a couple of beers. As we strolled around they were obviously impressed with the place.

It's easy to forget as we pop out to get some photocopying done, buy a packet of aspirin or get a beer just how pretty and how close knit this little town is. Lots and lots of the buildings are impressive - a palace on every second corner, the streets are little adventures - narrow cañons of granite or sandstone and, of course, we have the walls, the cathedral and the castle and the river.

It doesn't really take visitors to remind us what a lovely spot we happened to end up in but it's always nice when someone new to the place shows proper appreciation.

Form and function

2009-06-08T00:06:00.007+02:00

We stopped in at Candelario today. It's an impressive looking place lined with "Mediaeval" style houses. Because the village attracts a lot of tourists there are notices dotted here and there to explain key buildings and features.

Maggie had noticed some "half doors" in front of the main doors of several of the houses. We thought they may be to stop flood water but the notices explained that they were to allow the main door of each house to be left open to allow a breeze into the house whilst keeping animals from straying inside. They also acted as crushes to constrain pigs at slaughter time - pop one between the main door and this half door and it was easy enough to drive a dagger into the pig's head.

The next notice explained that the houses were typically built on three levels and without chimmneys. The pigs lived on the ground floor, the family on the first floor and the upper floor was used to hang the sausages and hams to cure - the smoke from the house fires vented through this attic to help cure the meat.

Notice three explained that the running water that rushes and gurgles in channels through nearly all the streets was used to wash away the blood and to clean the skins of the thousands of pigs that were slaughtered each year between November and February. From June till Autumn the water was used to irrigate the fields.

So, basically, this village was built around the needs of pig slaughtering - the style of the houses, the entrances and even the running water in the streets. There were plenty of ham and sausage shops too.

The nearest bar

2009-06-07T21:18:00.008+02:00

We were in the Gredos. It's a hilly bit. Everyone in Rohan trousers and bandanas. We'd just driven up a perfectly reasonable, but very minor, road for 14kms to a place signposted Plataforma de Gredos. I don't think we saw another car - maybe one - all the way. The scenery looked like the Scottish Highlands (well my version of them) down to lots of bright yellow bushes, a lot like gorse, but actually a type of broom. The granite was green with lichen. The air tasted clean. The brae burbled.

Suddenly there were lots of white lines on the road and a car park full of motors and even a coach. People were sitting in the open hatchbacks of their cars putting on boots and essential pieces of survival gear.

We strolled around. Surprise, surprise, 5,720ft above sea level at the end of this little road there was a bar. Well we are in Spain. Wherever there are more than 5 people there is a good chance of a bar.

I've believed there is always a bar, at the end of the road in Spain, for a long time. Goodness knows how long ago, when I was still slim and my bones didn't ache all the time, I was on holiday in Spain by myself. I'd been wandering around doing nothing in particular when I remembered that some friends, who had hired a villa near Mojacar in Almeria, had said that if I were close I should pop in. I was in Madrid, a mere 600kms away - close enough. So I got a train to Almeria and a bus to Mojacar except that I mistakenly got off at Mojacar Playa and had to walk the 5kms to the village proper. It was August so 5kms felt like quite a long way with my bag and the Spanish sun. If my bones were better then my Spanish was worse but I asked, in Mojacar village, how to get to the address I had for my friends. The policeman laughed and said I should get a bus. "Ah, there's a bus?" "Yes, every Thursday". It was Tuesday. "Are there taxis?" "Yes, we have two in the village - but Paco's on holiday and Juan's gone to Malaga." I set out to walk. I walked a long way. When I first told the story it was 20kms, when I told it recently it was 30kms. Anyway, after hours of slogging away in the hot sun I finally saw a group of houses in the distance. I rejoiced, where there are people there's a bar.

I stumbled into the bar; "Quiero una cerveza, por favor, una cerveza muy, muy grande, y muy fría," The woman behind the bar said "¿Qué? I tried again. The woman looked blank. "This is no time for f******* problems with my Spanish," I almost shouted. "There's no need to get rude!" said the woman behind the bar. She understood my order for a large cold beer perfectly in English and, as she explained, she'd only been in Spain for 22 years so she hadn't managed to pick up the lingo. But it was proof positive of the theory.

Two coaches:102 Spaniards and 2 Brits

2009-06-01T02:40:00.007+02:00

We got a leaflet through the door. For 49.90€ we could get a coach to Galicia, stay overnight in a hotel - full board, visit the Island of Toxa, go on a boat trip on the Ría out of O Grové and get a guided tour of Santiago de Compostela. The pick up point was about 100 metres from our door.

The catch? There was a presentation of the company's products. We expected them to be selling holidays but, instead, it was wildly overpriced cooker rings, irons, ironing boards, mattresses and vibrating exercise machines. We resisted.

It was excellent. I reckon we did about 1,100kms, the sun shone, the food was fine, the hotel was good, the company was lively, the trips included extras like food and drink and on the two 52 seater coaches just two places were taken by foreigners - us

Not a whimper

2009-05-27T22:53:00.002+02:00

In Spain you're either for Real Madrid or for Barça. In Valencia, in Alicante, there is an identification with the Catalans but here in Ciudad Rodrigo the majority are for Real. So although Barça beat Manchester United 2-0 in Rome a few minutes ago there are no cars going by full of flag waving fans. It's all quiet.

Any ideas?

2009-05-26T20:09:00.003+02:00

Why did this bunch of people just walk down our street singing and playing the drum, flutes and castanets?

They laughed, and stopped, when they saw my camera.

European voting

2009-05-26T14:57:00.006+02:00

We got our postal voting papers this morning. Two envelopes, one to the polling station the other in which to enclose the vote, a certificate to prove to the polling station that we are registered voters and about 40 slips with the list of candidates for each of the parties standing.

The Spanish system is that each party prepares a list of its candidates. They put their key candidate at the top of the list and so on down to something like their 49th choice. Dependant on what percentage, if any, of the vote they achieve then their candidates go forward as MEPs for Spain.

I haven't been through all the lists but there are some odd ones, The Falange - the old state Fascist party, the Communists, The National Front and The Greens are there as are all the separatist movements, the Feminist Alliance and the parties that will actually get most candidates elected - The Partido Popular ("Conservatives") and the Partido Socialista Obrero Español ("Labour").

Not quite as exciting as turning up and putting our envelopes in the ballot box but participation nonetheless.

More on Paul

2009-05-26T00:15:00.004+02:00

I wasn't there, just outside the Cathedral in Ciudad Rodrigo last Wednesday, to see Paul beheaded. But fortunately my spy was.

It looks so realistic. Can you believe that they were inviting anyone with their own pair of sandals to turn up to be in the crowd scene? The production values are right up there with the Stainland Amateur Players.

More information about filmaking in Ciudad Rodrigo from the post of 19 May.

Bookshops

2009-05-24T15:50:00.007+02:00

I've always liked bookshops. They have a nice sort of smell. Bookshops with a stationery section are even better - so many useful things and so colourful too.

In general though I avoid going into Spanish bookshops. They are a commonplace sort of shop but they are dangerous places best avoided.

The books are usually piled up, literally, with no order that I can ever discern. Sometimes there are thematic sections but their disposition in the shops seem to be quite random. In a bookshop yesterday I noticed that the children's section was next to accountancy. There was no subdivision of the section either - everything for children lumped in together - no alphabetisation, no division between literature and factual books, no age banding.

In Corte Inglés, the big department store, there is always a book section. I had a title in mind but I couldn't find it so I plucked up my courage and asked. The assistant took me from stand to stand searching for the book and in fact came up with two examples. It turned out that the books were arranged by publishers!

In fnac, which is by far and away the best organised bookshop I've been to in Spain, the assistant looked up the title we wanted on the computer system and then we headed off, with her, to get the book. We went to the section indicated in the catalogue, it wasn't there, she rechecked the computer, we went back to the section and indeed to two more sections before she found our book.

It's not this bizarre organisation that makes the shops difficult though. The main problem is that it is often impossible to browse the books because they are piled onto shelves behind the shop counter. You have to ask for whatever you want. This is fine if you want something specific but if you want to see what birding books they have and how much they are you find yourself in the tricky position of having to look through the books under the watchful eye of the shop person.

And to price. Often prices are marked on books but not always. Prices vary from publisher to publisher and it's easy to pay three times as much as you need to for a "classic" book unless you compare the various editions. And books are pretty expensive; there is legislation to stop discounting of books by more than 5% below the publisher's price so it's pretty common to pay 25€ for a paperback novel in the bestseller list. I picked up a book yesterday, it was unpriced, it was a collection of articles by a newspaper journalist but it was piled on top of some accountancy books. The book was reprinted in 2008, it's a soft cover book with 992 pages. It had no price so I asked. It cost 39.50€. I checked today, it's the same price on the Internet and, because of the rule about discounting, internet books actually cost more because of the postage and packing. I've heard that's the reason there is no Amazon.es

I presume there are well organised, modern bookshops in Spain but our paths seem destined never to cross.

An odd thing

2009-05-24T00:13:00.002+02:00

Gypsies are not held in very high regard in Spain.

I often hold the door for people or I wait for them to pass. My mother would withhold my pocket money if I didn't! It's what we older Brits do. Very seldom does anyone here in Spain nod or mouth a thank-you as a result. They are usually chatting to someone trailing in their wake so they do not register the open door or the clear passage. Doors regularly slam in my face or my passage is blocked because a Spanish person simply fails to notice me. It's not a big deal. It's how things works here but it is noticeable as a difference.

Today my car was blocked in. A man rushed to move his car and apologised. On the other side of the car, as I waited, I closed my car door to let a man get into his van, he thanked me.

Both men were Gypsies.

The War of Independence

2009-05-22T18:20:00.014+02:00

The King's Shropshire Light Infantry were here in town last month to lay a wreath at the tomb of Major General Robert Craufurd. He died, leading from the front, when Wellington's troops stormed Ciudad Rodrigo on 19 January 1812.

When Alan Crawford was here earlier this week we went to the Portuguese town of Almeida which, like Ciudad Rodrigo, has substantial fortifications. Almeida was besieged, and taken, by the French in 1810 as they chased the British back to Torres Vedras near Lisbon.

In Fuentes de Oñoro, we tried to buy bread, but in May 1811 nearly 4,000 troops died there as the French attempted to advance back into Portugal from their base in Ciudad Rodrigo. They had been back in Spain sprucing themselves up after taking a bit of a pasting flinging themselves against those defences at Torres Vedras.

These various jaunts made me realise that I didn't really know much about the Peninsular War, as we Brits call it, or the War of Independence as the Spanish call it. So here is my cut down version for anyone who is interested.

In 1808 Napoleon was master of Europe. Well most of it. A shortish, sea going chap with multiple disabilities called Nelson had rather upset the Little Corporal's ambitions to conquer Britain by obliterating the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar. Napoleon, peeved I suppose, tried to stop British goods from entering Europe but with the Portuguese ports still open that plan wasn't going well either. Taking advantage of a power struggle within the Spanish Royal Family Napoleon moved 100,000 French Troops into Spain on the pretext of invading Portugal. He used the leverage an army gives you to install his brother on the Spanish throne. The Spanish didn't like this much and they revolted.

The British had been biding their time but with a new Spanish ally and with commitments to the Portuguese they now sent Sir Arthur Wellesley to Portugal. After a couple of opening battles Wellesley dug in at Vimeiro Hill. The French attacked but the British infantry line held. It was the first time that the French tactics had failed. It was enough to persuade the French to evacuate Portugal as part of a controversial agreement that saw Wellesley have to return to England to clear his name. This left Sir John Moore in command of 30,000 British troops in Portugal.

When the Spanish army had an unexpected and remarkable victory over the French at Bailén Napoleon decided it was time to get involved personally. He brought 200,000 battle hardened veterans with him. Moore slipped over the border into Spain to engage Napoleon's army near Burgos. Moore bolted for La Coruña when the French turned to fight. He lost a lot of men on the way but the Royal Navy was there to pull them out when they reached the coast. Moore was killed in the evacuation. Napoleon left Spain.

Wellesley was now back in Portugal. He beat the French at Porto and headed for Spain where he joined up with Spanish troops. The French attacked the allied force at Talavera but the British-Portuguese-Spanish lines held. With French reinforcements on the way Wellesley decided to fall back. He hurried all the way to Lisbon where he dug in so deep at Torres Vedras that when the French finally got there, having smashed a couple of Spanish armies on the way, they couldn't get to him. Wellesley was doing well and was now Viscount Wellington of Talavera.

In 1811 the war ebbed and flowed but it was the French who were on the defensive now though Wellington did not advance into Spain until the beginning of 1812. His first target was Ciudad Rodrigo which he took in just two days. He moved on to Badajoz and took that too. In both towns the British troops went beserk for a few days in an orgy of killing, raping and looting.

Wellington's work was made easier because the French were having a lot of trouble with the Spanish who would not fight fair. They were shadowing French forces all over the country taking pot shots and then running away, poisoning water supplies and generally being a nuisance. It was a little war – guerrilla - in Spanish.

Wellington took Salamanca, then Madrid but he backtracked as the French massed a large army against him. Meanwhile things weren't going well for Napleon in Russia. As his broken army retreated old enemies rose against him. Napoleon couldn't spare extra troops for Spain.

By May 1813,Wellington was on the move and heading towards Burgos. When the French dug in near the Zadorra River they were soundly thrashed at the battle of Vitoria.

And that was more or less it. The victory at Vitoria rallied the anti Napoleon forces in the East. By July Wellington was at the Pyrenees, by October he was in France and in March 1814 Paris fell. In April Napoleon abdicated and the Penninsular War was over.

Ciudad Rodrigowood

2009-05-19T00:56:00.008+02:00

Ciudad Rodrigo is in the midst of a filming frenzy. There are more film makers here than bearded Brits with sensible headwear.

A film called Pablo de Tarso (Paul of Tarsus, the misogynist Biblical, burning bush chappie*) is being filmed around the town by a local film company throughout May. To add to the fun the state TV broadcaster, RTVE, sent a team to do a report about making that film a couple of weeks ago.

So this Monday Mr Crawford and I were in town to have a coffee in the main square. We came across a film crew outside one of the local bars. The people who were being filmed were dressed up as ramblers complete with boots, sticks and rucsacks. Knowledgeably I explained that the film being shot in the town was some sort of costume drama (I didn't know it was about Paul till I checked a local website) so all I could surmise was that the film must be using flashbacks along with the historical component to tell its story. You know the sort of thing - "Down here!, here's the shoemaker where Wellington had his first pair of boots made up," shouts the man in the Helly Hanson - cut to a picture of the Iron Duke, wearing wellis and staring manfully into the distance, astride a big white horse.

But, despite a lot of Googling, there is no reference in the Pablo de Tarso schedule to anything other than Roman scenes so I have no idea why or what the film crew were doing today other than yelling "Action" and "Cut" in strong Spanish accents.

*Bob Filby made a comment to say that he thought the burning bush was Moses not Paul and, after exhaustive research, well I asked Maggie, that should read "Paul of Tarsus, the misogynist Biblical, blinding light chappie."

Harassing and knocking down

2009-05-17T19:17:00.010+02:00

Acoso y derribo means exactly what the post title says. Two blokes with pointed lances riding on horses chase a cow down a field. Once the cow crosses a line, marked with flags, the two horseriders try to knock the cow over as many times as possible by sticking the lance into its haunches before it crosses another line a couple of hundred metres further on.

We, that's my friend Alan Crawford and I, went to an Acoso y Deribo event in Lumbrales. Whilst it wasn't exactly sickening it wasn't heartwarming either and I can't say that it particularly stirred my blood as a spectacle. Now, when we got a beer and a pinchito at the beer stall (I decided it would be a while before I had to drive today), that was definitely both heartwarming and exciting. Much more fun.

Righting a wrong

2009-05-17T08:42:00.005+02:00

In several of the blog entries I have made passing mention of tourist offices in the various towns we visit. Usually I complain that they are closed at exactly the times when there are likely to be visitors about - weekends, fiesta time, public holidays etc.

In Ciudad Rodrigo we have three tourist offices. Two are run by the Town Hall and one is run by the regional government of Castilla y Leon. As we went to the pictures last Sunday we passed the Castilla y Leon office at about 8.0pm and it was very definitely open.

They are now on summer opening hours. Good job.

San Isidro Labrador

2009-05-16T19:41:00.006+02:00

San Isidro is the Patron saint of fieldworkers. The day proper was yesterday but there are lots of events going on over this weekend to celebrate. I left the flu riddled Maggie for a little while to go and see the Enciero a Caballo (bringing in the bulls using horses) at the bizarrely named Águeda del Caudillo.

It's odd because Caudillo was the name chosen by Franco, like Führer or Il Duce, and most reminders of the days of the Dictator have been removed. Not here though, the main street is called Calle del Generalisimo.

As if to prove how rural it was the stands for spectators were farm and lorry trailers. I stood on the back of one of them and waited for the horses and bulls to go past. I never know what's going on and I never ask for fear of speaking but a little girl next to me asked her dad what was going to happen. He gave her the blandest of answers but she wanted details so he asked the person standing next to him what the routine was and that person didn't know either. I felt much less lost.

Most of it was quite boring really. The horse riders galloped down the main street, hung around a while and galloped back to a field where a few oxen were let loose. The horses chased the oxen around the field until they streamed up the street at a canter. Then they let go a couple of young fighting bulls which the horse riders chased around again. I only saw them successfully surround one of the fighting bulls and move it to the corral at the top of the main street. Actually that was quite good. It looked as though they had it right; the riders with their long lances formed a wall of horse flesh around the bull and moved it to the pen in a very organised looking way.

I had a look at the saddlery stall and the beer tent but, as I was driving, I couldn't have one and that seemed to be the sum of the things to look at. So I drove away. As I left the bulls were still running hither and thither in the field with horses, riders and bull runners doing likewise.

Blessed are the cheesemakers..

2009-05-10T18:00:00.005+02:00

And others in dairy produce. This has been Maggie's running quip since I reminded her that it was the 6th Annual International Cheese Festival at Hinjosa del Duero today a village only about 50kms from home.

And International it was. There were Spanish producers, one Swiss producer and lots of Portuguese. In fact despite spending a bundle of money on cheese and wine when we got home we seem only to have bought things produced in Portugal. Everyone was handing out free samples but the Portuguese always spotted our dodgy Spanish accents and broke into very passable English which probably made the difference. We felt honour bound to buy. That and the Portuguese cheese seemed to be a bit cheaper and more to our taste whether it was made from sheep, goat or cow's milk. Lots of the prize winning Spanish cheese we tried was very hard, dry and quite sharp whilst the Portuguese stuff tended to be softer and more savoury.

As well as the country produce (there were things like honey, olive oil and liqueurs) the organisers handed out free plates full of wild boar meat and there was a display of about 20 Classic Cars that had driven in from Salamanca. Remarkably the town museum also stayed open through lunchtime. Now if they'd put some labels on the exhibits in the museum they would have cracked it!

No serial killers in the Post Office

2009-05-10T00:09:00.005+02:00

I know that European Elections aren't considered very important - who cares about Strasbourg? But we have the right to vote here in Spain in those elections and it seemed wrong to let it slip by.

We're registered to vote in Culebrón, and as we won't be there on polling day, I popped by the Post Office and got the papers to ask for a postal vote. We went back today to prove our identity and send off the forms. It was pretty obvious that the chap behind the counter had never dealt with the forms before but it all seemed to go smoothly enough in the end.

Oh, and the ad on the telly here has a woman running by the polling booth, terrified, but still voting. A bloke weraring a mask and carrying an axe follows her in to the polling station. I presume it's the same ad in the UK.

Sevilla comes to Ciudad Rodrigo

2009-05-09T19:39:00.003+02:00

Well that was the tag line on the posters at least. Horses are definitely a big thing around here but I'm not sure about the dances, the Sevillanas. One of the dancers in the group, the blue and red dress, is the woman that both Maggie and I do an intercambio with - she gets the opportunity to speak a bit of English and we are supposed to do the same in Spanish.

One of the local riding schools was holding a little festival and they invited the city's dance groups to take part, hence the snap.

They were dead unlucky with the weather; we've had days and days of sun and heat but this afternoon it suddenly clouded over and started to spit. Those dancers must have been a bit cold and I had no excuse to drink a thirst quenching beer.

On football

2009-05-07T00:23:00.003+02:00

I was coming back from a class and I heard a roar from the bar close to our flat. Ah, Barcelona - Chelsea I thought. And it has been a nice warm day, mid to high twenties, Maggie is away on a course so a beer seemed in order.

Rafa, the barman, asked me if I was for Chelsea. I suddenly realised that being English tonight might be a bit of a handicap. I must have got the answer right. He gave me a beer on the house. My barber was sitting in the corner of the bar - "Chelsea or Barça?" I mumbled something about Liverpool and Manchester. "I'm for Chelsea" he said, "I'm a Madrid man." Bingo beer number two, well three actually as I'd actually bought one myself. A man came in, he was smoking a big cigar, he leaned on the bar next to me, "Barça are buggered aren't they?" he asked to anyone who would answer. I told him the scoreline. He muttered under his breath as the Barcelona fans shouted at the telly. "Let me get you a beer" he said.

Barça and Manchester United coming soon to a bar near me.

What a nice woman!

2009-05-06T01:46:00.004+02:00

I listen to a free podcast, a Spanish language podcast, produced by a woman called Mercedes León. The themes are pretty diverse - you might guess from some of the (translated) titles - Mum, I'm Gay; We're going to live together; Ecological underwear; On tapas and terraces, Chemical castration and Bloody holidays!

The podcasts are aimed at those of us trying to learn or improve our Spanish. They usually take the form of a conversation, with Mercedes taking all the roles, which she then dissects to explain grammatical points, stylistic use, everyday jargon and the like. Each podcast is nearly half an hour long and they are backed up with a free written transcript. The whole package must take hours to produce.

Anyway, the other day I sent her an email asking if she could weave a particular verb into one of the podcasts; it's a word I hear a lot but one that I can't get a handle on. Not only did I get a 200 word response within 24 hours but she took the time to point out an error in my Spanish - I'd asked if she could weave a word into a podcast and she said that Spanish speakers would not use the verb weave in that context.

What a nice woman.

Please send a gunboat

2009-05-05T14:47:00.003+02:00

It could have been David in Saudi Arabia or it could have been Mary in St Ives but someone told me, many years ago, that in the midst of some internal crisis in the country in which they were living a chap from the British Consulate had popped by their house and put a short note under the door advising them to fill their bath with water.

Being the good citizen that I am I registered with the Consulate when we moved to Spain. You never can tell when you'll need a gunboat after all. And today the director of Consular Services, Iberia sent me an email about Swine Flu full of useful information about how to blow my nose and wash my hands.

Nice to know that Her Britannic Majesty's Government is still looking out for us.

On museums

2009-05-03T10:53:00.007+02:00

Back from our travels and I was writing my diary. I was just about to echo the words I'd used in the last post about wandering around Extremadura and "the Splendid Roman Museum" or more accurately the Museo Nacional de Arte Romano. As I wrote I was thinking forward to how to describe the trip around the monastery at Guadalupe and my pen hovered. In some ways the Roman museum wasn't that good. The building was great, the display was uncluttered, the labelling was relatively informative but there was no context - nothing about the place that art took within Roman society, nothing about artists, nothing about technique, nothing about changing styles over the centuries, no interactive displays, no opportunity to try your hand at something. And the shop was a joke; shops are obviously about making profit for the museums but, alongside the T shirts are the books and DVDs that continue the work of the museum. Not in Mérida they didn't. Not in Spain they don't.

The Monastery tour was much more Spanish. A guide ushered a party of maybe 50 people into some space. She started talking before the last people at the back were in place. She was competing for the Fanny Craddock and Patrick Moore Speed Talking Award. Most explanations consisted of a date, a name and a fact. This crucifix was carved by Michelangelo in 1523. Christopher Columbus received a letter here from Isabel and Ferdinand in 1491 granting him permission to sail to the Indies. Sometimes the facts were interesting enough, did you know, for instance, that one of those illustrated books that monks used to spend their time colouring weighs in at around 70kgs which is why the books are fitted with wheels? But again, no context; nothing about the daily life of a monk, nothing about why they were colouring books or what place the books had within the monastery or a wider context. And why was Cristóbal Colón (that's Columbus to you and me) in Guadalupe anyway?

More than 30 years ago I did a tour around St Peter's in Rome. The story about Michelangelo's work there, on the dome, has stuck with me all this time. In Versailles, in a room a bit short of furniture, the guide made up for it by describing what the room would have contained and why it would have been like that given the social and political setting at the time. Someone who took me around Peterborough Cathedral told me about how the masons worked and left me with something to remind me of that story every time I search for their marks in the stone.

Just in writing this I've realised that, with one possible exception, I've never actually been to a good Spanish museum. Lots of them are fine but in most of them the owners don't really want to give away too much information. The possible exception, that I've come across so far, is the Palm Museum in Elche which has videos of men shinning up palm trees to explain what they did in each season, working models of irrigation systems and lots more in a similar vein. I hope, I'm sure, there are other good ones too. I just haven't found them yet.

A bit of a trip around Extremadura

2009-05-03T00:05:00.010+02:00

All of the famous Conquistadores, well the two I know the names of, Cortés and Pizarro, came from the region of Extremadura. The conventional wisdom is that it was such a desolate place that they were willing to do anything to get away. Even today it is one of the poorest regions of Spain but because it's the next region to the South of Ciudad Rodrigo and as we'd never been to the provincial Capital at Badajoz and because we had the "Bank Holiday" weekend we thought we should go and have a nosey.

Everyone had warned us about Badajoz but we had taken no heed. It was as boring as they said. Two hours and we'd had enough. We headed for Mérida, the town that makes its living from the Roman remains. We couldn't find a hotel. This weekend of fun and frolic was turning into a mini disaster. We decided that we may as well come back home. By now we'd driven for some 4½ hours and done over 400kms but we were cross enough to just turn around and head home in the middle of the night. Fortunately for us, about 30kms out of Mérida there was a truck stop café cum hotel and we stayed there in a slightly musty room. The next morning we went back to Mérida to see the splendid Roman Museum and then on to Guadalupe.

The little town of Guadalupe was rather nice. Full of tourists and trinket shops but then we were tourists happy to browse amongst the trinkets in the warm sun. Guadalupe is another of those places where a statue of the Virgin was found under miraculous conditions and where a Monastery was built up around the statue. This one was lucky enough to get Royal Patronage though and Our Lady of Guadalupe became a rallying cry for Spanish armies through the centuries. We joined the 4€ tour of the monastery but the Franciscan monk who was set to show us the statue made it very clear that seeing "Our Lady" had nothing whatsoever to do with the guided tour we'd just had and that if we weren't believers then we should push off pronto. He made the crowd recite something, that they all seemed to know, and then they filed past the statue kissing something that the priest held up for them. We were scared. Maggie had a story ready about her Methodist beliefs and I was frantically trying to put together a workable Spanish translation of the Second Commandment. We hung back and saw the statue from two or three metres away and made good our escape with the last of the believers.

Then we had a beer and we drove home. Just a bit over 850kms all together, there and back.

Riding along in my automobile

2009-05-02T23:19:00.003+02:00

Sometimes, I travelled from Stanground to Pondersbridge in Cambridgeshire. It didn't matter what time of day or night I made that run there were always vehicles on the road. It used to drive me bonkers. I could understand the non stop congestion on the A14, I could understand the 15 mile tailbacks on the M25 but on this tiny back road?

There are plenty of cars and traffic in the cities and towns of Spain but there are huge tracts of this country with hardly a vehicle. The picture was taken at around one in the afternoon on the A5, one of the key motorways that radiates out from Madrid.

It's like one of those adverts for cars on the telly - the thrill of the open road; it's all rather nice.

Watching the telly

2009-05-01T09:39:00.009+02:00

Last night Maggie and I watched the first episode of a new TV series called La Chica de Ayer. It was a repeat of the programme that we'd missed on Sunday. In this series a Chief Inspector of Police is knocked down by a car and wakes up in the past, in 1977. He finds his colleagues brutal, ill equipped and inefficient. I don't think he's that keen on his orange shirt and leather jacket either.

La Chica de Ayer took over the Sunday evening slot formerly held by a programme called Doctor Mateo. That's about a high flying Madrid surgeon who is scared of blood so he moves to a small and picturesque village on the Asturian coast as the new GP. The village hosts an assortment of "eccentric" characters, the doctor isn't outwardly friendly but we all know he is really and he is soon integrated into the life of the village.

Do they sound familiar? I've never seen Life on Mars but I did see the first few episodes of Doc Martin before I left the UK.

We have all those talent show competitions and variations on things like Strictly Come Dancing, Big Brother, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Come Dine With Me etc. and I knew about the franchising potential of those type of programmes but I wasn't really aware that there was a trade in the characters and plots of TV shows.

The funny thing is that whilst we were in Culebrón at Easter there was a feature length Doc Martin available through our satellite dish. Because we were enjoying Doctor Mateo so much on Spanish TV we settled down, brandy and wine ready, to chuckle along with the UK version. There was absolutely no doubt about it, we were disappointed, we like Doctor Mateo better!

Working girls

2009-04-30T12:18:00.009+02:00

A few years ago, long before we lived here, Maggie and I were driving through Andalucia desperately searching for a roadside hotel. It was growing dark. We'd driven hundreds of kilometres. We were getting desperate. Then we saw a bright neon sign that read "Club - Hotel". We'd often been surprised at the location of the Clubs in Spain, we presumed they were discos kept, thoughtfully, well out of the town centres so as not to bother the non clubbers. This hotel was one of those, miles from anywhere.

I went to see if they had any rooms and I was struck by the number of young women who were sitting outside the club door, I was equally struck by the shortness of their skirts. When a young woman wearing bright red hot pants and a red curly wig took me by the hand the penny dropped. I fled.

A while ago we were driving home from some do in Elche. It was a cool evening and as we drove up the dark lane, the one that connects the avenue by the train station to the northern ring road, just by the university there, Maggie commented on the young woman standing by the side of the road wearing diaphanous white trousers that showed off her underwear "Poor girl, she must be cold."

There are women standing by the roadside all over Spain; some set up garden chairs with large umbrellas so that they are more comfortable as they wait for trade in the hot sun. Others just wear thigh length boots.

On the outskirts of the majority of Spanish towns there is a Club, we have one in Ciudad Rodrigo. Most of the signs just say Club though others have names and flashing neon signs with pictures of cocktail glasses. The Spanish call them Puti Clubs, presumably a mix of the Spanish word for a prostitute, puta, and the name for a cute little cat, but used in the North American way. One of our pals said that he'd popped into the one just outside Santa Pola - purely for research. "Gorgeous girls" he said, "and they came over straight away and asked us to buy them a drink - they wanted Champagne, it cost me 60€ for a half bottle of cheap Cava."

The Clubs aren't new to Spain, they stayed open all through the Franco years and I know that many Spaniards consider that they are still a married couple because of the services offered by these Clubs. The husband popping out for a quick drink and a bit of a lie down seems to be nearly acceptable.

Apparently, as in the UK prostitution exists in a legal vacuum. Individual women, and I presume men, can advertise their trade openly and legally in newspapers, magazines etc. The police target the pimps because pimping is clearly illegal under Spanish law and because the vast majority of the pimps are involved in human trafficking; there are regular stories in the press about the disgusting way that women in poor counties are brought here, tricked into prostitution and kept in Spain against their will. The men who use prostitutes are not breaking any law in the majority of Spain though I think the Catalans have been talking about introducing, or may have even introduced, such a law. Brothels have been illegal since the 50s but their thinly disguised cousins, the Clubs, are left to trade without hindrance.

What I learned about Porto or Oporto if you're Spanish

2009-04-25T21:56:00.005+02:00

There isn't a legal, on street, parking place left in Porto and it is cheaper to bed down a person for the night than it is a car
Portuguese cities have cobbled streets in the old centres (suspected after a visit to Guarda, confirmed here)
There are lots and lots of abandoned and crumbling buildings in the heart of the city and lots of people appear to live in run down properties
Graffiti is a national pastime
On the road out to the beach there are lots of dead big houses with security cameras
Young British men out on a Stag do behave badly. As two young Brits fought each other a passing Spanish couple mumbled "¡Que bestia!" I suspect you don't need the translation. We didn't see any French or Germans or Portuguese or Spaniards drunk and brawling in the streets
The river, the Duero in Spain or Douro here, is splendid, it has big waves and the pleasure boats are dead picturesque. It's the same river that we sailed on near Ciudad Rodrigo and it was smashing there too. Logical conclusion that it is a quality river for the whole of its length
Riding around in rattling, squealing 1930s trams is a real pleasure
The Port Caves, the place where the port wine is stored, are well worth a visit; a very professional tour
The set menu in the "Music House" is great value and the building's not bad either
The free appetizers in Portuguese restaurants are not necessarily free
Coffee in Portuguese cafés is half the price of that in Spain
Every single person in Porto can speak English

A mug of tea and a Horlicks please

2009-04-25T21:36:00.003+02:00

It's a while since we've seen a proper Ocean. The Med's very nice, blue and stuff, but it doesn't really smell right and, most of the time, it only has piddly little waves. Today we had a bit of a drive over to Portugal and we stopped off at the nearest seaside town to Ciudad Rodrigo, like Hunstanton was when we were in Huntingdon. The town is called Vagueira and it seemed to have of lots of open, sandy, spaces, forlorn looking wooden huts and lots and lots of cafés. It had been quite sunny as we drove the breadth of Portugal but, as we approached the sea, the sky started to cloud over and it started to spit. It really was Hunstanton except there was no Horlicks to be had.

The Border

2009-04-25T21:26:00.004+02:00

The first time we popped over the border to Portugal from Ciudad Rodrigo there were no controls but there were still the old checkpoint booths. They've been gone for quite a while. Today I took a snap to prove it.

Students

2009-04-21T13:57:00.007+02:00

Normally my students of English are schoolchildren or professional people. Today I started a conversation class with a Naval Lieutenant and he told me that, as part of his training, he sailed all around South and North America in this sailing ship. Pretty eh? His regular ride nowadays doesn't have quite the same "yo ho ho" to it!

Best Restaurant List

2009-04-21T09:21:00.004+02:00

This was quite a big thing in the news today. Not much to do with Ciudad Rodrigo really but interesting in a country famed for the plainess of its cooking. And the French? Mind you in the long list of 100 it's 10 for the UK, 9 for the French and just 6 for the Spanish.

1 El Bulli, Spain

2 The Fat Duck, UK

3 Noma, Denmark

4 Mugaritz, Spain

5 El Celler de Can Roca, Spain

6 Per Se, USA

7 Bras, France

8 Arzak, Spain

9 Pierre Gagnaire, France

10 Alinea, USA

Welcoming back the prostitutes

2009-04-20T20:15:00.005+02:00

Shocking I know but today we celebrated the return of the prostitutes to the city of Salamanca. A tradition that seems to have spread to our own little town - we did it by going down to the river and having a picnic the main element of which was a local pie stuffed full of bits of pig. Actually we ate our hornazo in the kitchen but we were by the River Águeda in spirit and we did go to stare at the picnicers a little later in the afternoon to show solidarity.

Apparently, back in the 16th Century Philip II (the one who got his beard singed by Drake) decreed that the prostitutes from the town brothel in Salamanca should be shifted across the river Tormes for the whole of Lent to ensure that the menfolk remained chaste. The women were put under the care of a priest, un Padre, who became known as Padre Putas (Father Whores) - it's quite amusing in Spanish but it loses something in the translation I feel. The women were allowed back into the city on the second Monday after Easter Sunday and the students went to meet them as they were rowed back across the river with plenty of food and drink.

Randy students no longer have to wait for the Lunes de Aguas for sex and as most of the prostitution in Spain is now run by Eastern European and Latin American gangs I suspect the work routine of the prostitutes is pretty much unaffected by Lent. Nonetheless, the feasting still remains, at least symbolically.

The day is called Lunes de Aguas which only seems to translate as Monday of Waters and I can't find out why - maybe it's to do with crossing the water of the River Tormes.

Spanish names

2009-04-17T22:52:00.005+02:00

Spaniards have two surnames - the first surname comes from the father and the second surname is the first surname of the mother. So if Juan Martínez Escudero and Marta Villanueva Cortés have a child then she or he will be called Something Martínez Villanueva. On a day to day basis the first surname is the one used - the double barrelled version is used for Sunday best.

Now there are lots of variations on this basic theme. For instance it is possible to reverse the order of the surnames - in the above case to give Something Villanueva Martínez. Or it is possible to carry forward a compound surname - Something Martínez-Escudero Villanueva. There are many more possibilities.

At times this causes Maggie and me some difficulties. Lots of times telephone sales people want to talk to Señor John (from Christopher John Thompson) and it can be quite difficult using a Spanish Internet site as many of them ask for your first and second surname and absolutely refuse to let you leave the spaces blank or put in some non obtrusive character, such as a dash or underscore. I'm sure that plenty of organisations here must think I'm related to Malcolm X in some way - Christopher Thompson X

Someone had told me that there were restrctions on first names too - that they had to be "Biblical" but I was put right on this the other day. The law apparently says a child can only have one compound first name or two simple first names and that those names can't be diminuitives nor can they be family nicknames. They can't they be names that "aren't real" or make it difficult to identify a person or cause confusion in relation to the sex of the person.

So in Spain there are can't be anyone named after the whole of the 1976 cup winning Manchester City squad, it has to be William and Benjamin not Bill and Ben, no Lords, no Blankets nor Apples and no boys named Sue. Furthermore you can't decide to call all your sons George (unless all the earlier Georges have died) and it has to be a Spanish name not a translated variant - so Maria not Mary and José not Joseph.

I don't suppose this law avoids the Spanish equivalents of names like Nebuchednezzar and Ezekiel but at least it would stop children being saddled with those trendy names that become an embarassment to them as soon as they get to school. Then again all of those Beckies, Vickies, Toms and Bobs would be in trouble.

Forgetting myself

2009-04-17T18:03:00.003+02:00

I got the car serviced today. I went to the BMW dealer up in Salamanca. There was a little board in the service reception area, like the ones they have in hotels and conference centres, that had my name on it to welcome me to my 10am appointment. I suppose it's the little touches like that which make 3.7 litres of oil worth 115€.

Anyway I'd taken the camera. Who knows, car for service, maybe something for the blog? There wasn't, well there is now because this is it, but let's forget that for a moment. I thought as I strolled around the industrial area waiting for the car to be ready how it looked just like the industrial estates in the UK. Must be the same all over Europe I thought.

Over the Easter break we bumped into a Briton who was doing some work for our friends John and Claire. Somewhere in the converstion this chap said that he went to the UK very infrequently nowadays as he found he had very little in common with people living there. I supposed that he meant that UK news stories were not his and that his general everyday experiences didn't offer much common ground for conversations with Britons in the UK. I didn't actually believe him but I did discern a kernel of truth in what he said because I often feel the same thing myself. My culture is an English one but my recent experiences are wholly Spanish.

So, back to the industrial estate; as I drove away I realised that the one in Salamanca didn't look at all like the one in Huntingdon, or Cambridge or even the one at the bottom of the Ainleys in Elland. It does look like one in Crevillente and the ones in Elche and Alicante though.

Daylight robbery

2009-04-15T17:02:00.003+02:00

I asked my new bank to set up standing orders or direct debits to pay the various council taxes, rubbish collection fees and water rates for Culebrón. It didn't work of course and the money was taken out of the old bank account. The charges were scandalous.

The metered water rates for six months were 23.30€

The rubbish collection for the whole year was 36.10€

And my road tax licence on the Mini went out too - a shocking 39.19€

Odd actually, mentioning the car, it has just completed 20,000kms and needs a service. So I rang the local dealer (local in this case is 93kms away) to book the car in. The mania for identification in Spain reared its head - "What's the chassis number, the VIN, the registration, your Identification Number and your full address?" "I'll have to ring you back, I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition." And ring back I did. But the workshop was engaged. The dealer said they would ring back in a few moments but I've typed the whole of this blog entry whilst I've been waiting.

Lunch hour

2009-04-13T22:15:00.003+02:00

Over on Life in Culebrón I mentioned about our aerial fitter having to go off for lunch.

I keep hearing that Spanish people now eat sandwiches at their desk and that those who manage to get away from their workplace grab half an hour just like we Brits. Nonetheless, my experience is that the World stops in Spain at The Hour of Eating - la hora de comer - an hour that lasts two to three hours. Shops close, the streets, roads and beaches empty, bars and restaurants fill.

We were on the road today at 2pm, the time it all happens, but we didn't pull over till around 2.30. By the time we got there the car park, bar and restaurant of the service station were full of people eating. The smart ones had picnics and families gathered in the car park to chomp through their rolls wrapped in silver foil. Some people chose to eat close to other travellers whilst others spread themselves in secluded corners of the huge car park. People without pack-ups, like us, paid 4.40€ for a tortilla roll.

In Alicante

2009-04-08T11:04:00.001+02:00

It being Easter and all Maggie and I have travelled over to Alicante to have a look at the house in Culebrón and to say hello to some old chums. We will be without Internet for a few days but if I do get near a computer then entries will be on Life in Culebron.

What I learned about León, Astorga and Toro

2009-04-05T21:56:00.007+02:00

This weekend we went to León, another in the series "Provincial Capitals in Castilla y León."

The city is one of the marker points on the east/west portion of the pilgrim's route from France to Santiago de Compostela - the Camino de Santiago. We thought, as we were on the Camino, we may as well pop in to Astorga which is the northermost point of the route up from the south, the one kept open by the Knights Templar all those years ago. On the way home we stopped off at Toro so Maggie could sample the local wine. It was, according to a leaflet from the tourist office, the first Spanish wine to go to the New World as Columbus packed a few crates of the stuff onboard the Santa Maria (or maybe la Niña or la Pinta.)

So what did we find out?

Well, at least one hotel in León, that is otherwise extremely nice, has cornered the market in uncomfortable mattresses.
That every bar in León gives hefty portions of some form of snack with each and every drink - the downside is that drinks are something like 50 cents a go more expensive than in the fair city of Ciudad Rodrigo.
That the tourist office has no idea about Spanish practices at all - the office is open, without break, from 10am in the morning till 8pm in the evening all over the weekend; go on like that and they may have to talk to some tourists.
On Palm Sunday in León people wave laurel as well as palm fronds and those with an eye to the easy pickings in the town park wave wisteria!
Eating wafers - the sort of wafers you put around a person sized block of Walls vanilla ice cream in the UK - flavoured with honey, cinammon or honey and pine nuts is pretty popular in León on Palm Sunday.
Gaudí not only built Parc Güell, the Casa Milá, The Sagrada Familia and a couple of others in Barcelona. He designed at least one building in both Astorga and León.
Astorga produces chocolate; it has orange chocolate, green chocolate, white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate and chocolate with and without nuts. From our extensive research we can confirm that Astorga chocolate tastes like the economy stuff from Tesco or Carrefour but at the price of the tastefully displayed sweeties in those Belgian chocolate shops.
Toro, in the province of Zamora, is a nice little town, with lots of street cafés and a big church. The town also produces wine. The decent stuff is quite expensive but Maggie says it is worth the euros.

KKK time

2009-04-03T22:32:00.003+02:00

It's a poor snap but you can tell it's Easter again. The Klan are back on the streets or actually the Cofradía Jesús Nazareno to celebrate la procesión de la Dolorosa.

Homologised, homologated?

2009-04-02T13:41:00.008+02:00

Things in Spain, jobs of every sort, tend to take a little longer than you expect. Queues are a bit disorderly and tend to be slow moving. It's not always true of course and we have been surprised, from time to time, by short and simple procedures but, in general, slow, ponderous, beraucratic and excessive would be appropriate adjectives.

Anyway Maggie is employed by the Regional Government to work in a State School. Unfortunately, because she has lowly English qualifications she is employed on a lower grade than befits her experience and education.

The system here is that in order to be a Funcionario, that's what people are called who work in Government type jobs, you have to pass a competitive exam called Oposiciones. Once you've passed the exams and found a post you're set for life - guaranteed employment, good pensions, short working days etc. But the fact is that to get anywhere in Spain, jobwise, qualifications are a must. For quite ordinary and even for menial jobs it's qualifications that count. It must be very difficult to change careers as a paid employee.

So Maggie decided she'd have a crack at the Oposiciones. Before she can do the teaching exams she needs to have a degree and so she needs to get her degree, and her teaching qualifications, recognised. In order to do that the UK University has to provide a list of the "subjects" that her degree contained. That list has to be translated (by a State recognised translator) and then presented, along with a whole bunch of other paperwork to the appropriate authority in Madrid. They will then tell her whether the degree has equivalence. The whole process is called homolgation, homolgación, and Maggie has been having some difficulty getting her tongue around the word.

The Government department says it will take about 6 months to do the paperwork from the time that they receive it. The likelihood is that they will say that she is some subjects short and so she would then have to study those subjects here and get the appropriate Spanish qualifications. Then she re-submits. At that point she can start studying for the Oposiciones - oh, no, she can't - first she has to pass a competence test in Spanish even though the exams can, apparently, be done in English.

Maggie had worked most of this out from various websites and with talking to colleagues but she went to see her Union Rep. yesterday, in Salamanca, just to check and, because of what he said we also went to the University to see if they might be able to help. All a bit dead endish.

There were riots in Barcelona a few weeks back, with the Catalan Police Force going in heavy with big sticks, by students complaining about the upcoming Bolonia (Bologna) agreement. That's the one that will mean that qualifications are valid in each and every EU State. I'm not absolutely sure what the complaint is, seems like a good idea to me. Maybe they want to continue passing exams by rote learning which is still a keystone of a great deal of the education system here.

I suggested to Maggie that she simply waits till the Bolonia stuff is in force and then does a fast UK qualification. It will, almost certainly, be faster than waiting in the Spanish queue!

¡A COMER….FARINATO!

2009-03-28T11:48:00.005+01:00

The signature dish of Ciudad Rodrigo

I lifted this, wholesale, from one of the local websites. Strangely enough we had a set lunch in the place that features in the video yesterday.

When you visit Ciudad Rodrigo it's obligatory that you try the local favourite: fried eggs and farinato. Farinato is a sausage made with breadcrumbs, pork dripping and onion seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin, garlic, anise seeds and an anis brandy. It's eaten with fried eggs making sure you break the yolks and mix up the egg and sausage really well.

This dish is available in nearly all of the bars and restaurants of Ciudad Rodrigo either as a part of the main menu or as a little snack.

And now in the original:

El plato típico de Ciudad Rodrigo

En la visita a Ciudad Rodrigo, es obligado probar el plato típico: los huevos fritos con farinato. El farinato es un embutido elaborado con miga de pan, manteca de cerdo y cebolla, sazonados con sal, pimentón, comino, ajo, anís en grano y aguardiente. Se come con huevos fritos, rompiendo la yema y mezclando los dos elementos.

En la mayor parte de los bares y restaurantes de Ciudad Rodrigo se puede degustar este plato dentro de las cartas del menú o también como tapa o pincho.

An Unholy Alliance

2009-03-28T11:08:00.003+01:00

You may know, from previous posts that I'm not a big fan of the banks, nor am I a fan of insurance companies. It's a bit like those films where the bloke in bandages and the one with a bolt through his neck team up with that other one with the brylcreem and opera cloak. Bad news for we country folk with pitchforks and donkeys.

Anyway, I'd paid for the car insurance with the worm firm on a UK credit card. They got around to paying me the money back today. It took them fewer than 5 minutes to withdraw the cash but some 3 days to return it. In the process I lost nearly £20 in changing the money or about 7% of the total.

Once more unto the breach

2009-03-26T14:07:00.002+01:00

I feel really sorry for my bosses, Adel and Gusa, they have been remarkably fair and generous with me and they had put together a cracking little language school here in Ciudad Rodrigo but, in the end, there just weren't enough customers and they have decided to close from the end of this month.

What is terrible news for them is bad news for me too because, once again, I am out of work and without income. Some of my students have asked about continuing with me privately and I'm keen on that idea but, being the person I am, I instantly thought of all the difficulties.

Where could I put classes of up to eight people, certainly not in the spare bedroom at the flat. Then there are the materials, the text books and other resources including things like a whiteboard, tables and chairs - quite basic things.

Adel suggested that one way to get sufficient space would be to move to a bigger flat but as Maggie and I are a bit unsure about our plans after summer that seems a bit excessive. Nonetheless it was the first thing that set me to thinking about what I could do rather than what the problems were.

Text books are easy enough from a quick perusal of the Amazon website. Flipcharts and whiteboards and even tables and chairs seem reasonably priced. I wondered about renting a small shop or office but it would have to be very cheap for it to make economic sense and a quick tour of some properties this morning seems to rule that idea out. Another bright spark idea, to rent a room in a public building, seems to have come to naught. The people in the Casa de Cultura thought it was a totally ridiculous idea. I've not given up though and I asked one of Maggie's pals, who works for the Town Hall, to check if there may be somewhere rentable by the hour. Almost any reasonably comfortable space, where I could put up a flipchart and plug in a laptop, would do. And renting by the hour means no committment to monthly payments etc. Renting rooms for clubs, groups and classes is dead normal in the UK but it seems to be much less so here.

The legalities of running a cash in hand operation are something else of course, running without insurance may not be too smart and there's the added complication that I really do need to sign on the dole in order to maintain my State health cover. Problems, problems.

I have this horrible feeling that it was Margaret Thatcher who coined the phrase "Bring me solutions not problems" so I think I'll stick with good King Hal: "Time to stiffen up the sinews, summon the blood"

The worm turns

2009-03-25T13:24:00.002+01:00

In the post about insuring the car with the worm firm I said that the insurance was nearly sorted. It isn't anymore.

The cover with the new firm was due to start on Friday. They had sent me a policy and the usual gubbins through the post but the insurance was only third party. That was OK, it was what I was expecting because they had said that I could expect a call from a "perito", an insurance assessor, to check that the car was as I described. That being so the insurance could be upgraded to fully comprehensive.

I was a bit concerned, there are only two days to go before my old insurance lapses and, unless their expert came to see the car I was going to end up with it on the street with only the most basic insurance. So I phoned the worm firm to ask what was happening. After a lot of confused Spanish (on my side) I began to get a little angry. They were no longer going to send a perito to me, I had to take the car to them and the only place they have is in Salamanca, a round trip from here of about 170kms. It's times like this when I really wish I could shout in fluent Spanish. I did my best but all I could really do in the end was to tell them to cancel the policy, which I did. Now comes the fun of wondering whether the money will come back to my credit card without a struggle.

Fortunately, my old insurers, hadn't rung to chase me up for the premium so I was able to phone them and renew the insurance as though nothing had ever happened.

Spring

2009-03-22T18:01:00.002+01:00

The Spanish news programmes did the usual thing of announcing the exact moment when it became Spring (Friday 20th March at 12.44pm mainland Spanish time) and we proved them right by going to see the cherry blossom in the Sierra de Francia today.

Their logo is like a worm or a caterpillar

2009-03-21T10:17:00.005+01:00

Give or take a name change here and a branch closure there I've been with the same bank in the UK for 37 years. I'm sure that if I'd shopped around I could have found a much better bank but they've been fine. We've had our little disagreements but then again who wouldn't in all that time?

When I first insured a car in Spain it was the 30 year old MG. I had trouble finding insurance for it at all. Someone with another old car recommended an English speaking broker in Torrevieja and they insured the car quick as a flash. I've been with that broker ever since even through the change to a modern car. I've always checked their price against other insurers but they've been competitive so I've stuck with them despite some very poor customer service at one point.

They contacted me, the Mini insurance would be 477€ this year. I checked a few online quotes and one, with advertising that really annoys me (it's all lurid yellow and green and involves a sporting hero driving a Noddy car seated alongside a worm or a caterpillar), came in at 432€ for better cover. I kept telling myself it was only 40€, that it would be less disrruptive to stick with the old brokers etc. but the real reason was that I knew I could deal with my current people in English and the caterpillar folk would be Spanish.

Emboldened by my conversation with the friendly barman (see post below) I rang the Noddy advert people and I sorted the insurance. Well I nearly sorted it. They've taken some of the premium and sent me a cover note but they are going to send someone to check that the car exists and is as I describe it before they issue the full policy.

Who can tell, maybe those UK insurers that have a Bulldog that talks like Deryck Guyler would do the same?

Now I remember

2009-03-21T08:49:00.003+01:00

There is a papershop about four metres from our door but the next nearest commercial establishment is a bar, maybe 40 metres away - it's just next to the greengrocers cum butchers.

Anyway I've been in the bar a few times recently for a mid morning coffee. It is not a sophisticated bar, they don't get a lot of foreigners, so my order of Café Americano caused some consternation the first couple of times. Yesterday was maybe the fifth or sixth time I'd been there and the barman/owner said to me "You can't keep coming in here if we don't know your name, I'm Rafa, what's your name?" Sweet eh?

I went drinking in the Postillion in Paston for four years; they never knew my name, though they knew my drink, and it wasn't until I went in there with a girlfriend who had long blond hair that "I" was ever invited to a lock in.

On time, fatherhood and popcorn

2009-03-20T01:54:00.005+01:00

We had the day off today; Father's Day, San José, though, as Maggie reminded me, according to the official version, Joseph's links to fatherhood are pretty tenuous!

We drove down to Guarda, about 80km away, to have a nosey around the new shopping centre. When we'd had enough traipsing around shops we decided we'd go to the pictures.

It looked like any other multiplex in a shopping centre and the popcorn was, as usual, massively overpriced. Otherwise it was all a bit odd. We had quite some difficulty getting the tickets - language problems - and our watches showed that we were nearly fifty minutes late, though we still had to wait ten minutes for the performance to begin. Best of all, when the film began, it was in English with subtitles rather than being dubbed into Spanish which is what we usually get at the flicks nowadays.

We were in Portugal of course. Unlike the Spanish the Portuguese have never gone in for dubbing their films; no Lisbon accent for Colin Farrell, and they have faithfully sided with their old allies, the English, and stuck to GMT and Summer Time.

News of an old friend

2009-03-18T14:38:00.003+01:00

Until about this time last year I was the proud owner of a 1977 MGB GT. A combination of tin worm and poverty meant that I had to sell the car. The new owner is called Manuel and, over the year, I have heard bits of news to say that the car has been restored to its former glory.

Manuel phoned yesterday to say the car had failed its ITV, the annual roadworthiness test. Not because of a problem with the brakes, or the steering, or the lights or chassis. It failed because the chassis number plate is riveted to the bodywork and could, potentially, be removed and replaced. He wanted to know if the chassis number were anywhere else on the car.

It struck me as very Spanish that a roadworthy car failed the test for something so bureaucratic, especially considering it has passed the test with the same plate in the same place for four years on the trot here in Spain.

The photo is from a long time ago, in Huntingdon

Ávila

2009-03-15T13:53:00.005+01:00

I call these blogs "Life in ....." because I hope that they are more about the things that happen in the area I live and which involve me rather than being some log of my life. The line is a fine one I know and today I've decided to breach it just because we went to Ávila yesterday which is one of the Provincial Capitals of this region we live in called Castilla y Leon.

Ávila is famous for having a completely intact Mediaeval Wall built just after some Christian King kicked the Moors out of the town back in 1100 and something. They are pretty impressive.

Avoiding the slaughter

2009-03-15T13:12:00.004+01:00

Normally, if there is any sort of event going on we're there. Yesterday though it was the Feria de Botijeros. To be honest I'm not quite sure what a Botijero is but from a bit of dictionary surfing it seems to be the people who made and sold the earthenware jugs that were once used to store and cool water.

With a bit of reading between the lines I suspect that Botijeros represent a folk tradition, a cipher for the history of the area; basically the focus of the day was on local crafts and traditions. Fair enough. Unfortunately though the main event wasn't going to be somebody wearing a funny hat, a traditional dress or playing tiddly pom folk music (though they were all there), no the main event was going to be the slaughter of a pig. The traditional "matanza."

They were going to slaughter the pig and make all those traditional sausages and what not that they make from a pig. Now I am happy to eat bits of pig and I'm not even particularly squeamish about killing them. I can reconcile the idea that bacon doesn't start life in those vacuum packs and my imagination can see a link between a local delicacy that translates as "double chin" and a little cuddly piggy. I didn't really like the idea of being spattered with blood though. So we didn't go. But from checking out the local website it looks as though the pig slaughtering went to plan and that the actual death of the beast took place away from the public gaze. The cutting up of the carcass though was a public spectacle.

Bits from the website story include:

"Maximum attendance was at around 1.30pm when tit bits of pork products, fat seasoned potatos and blood were handed out - a typical lunch for the area."

The local councillor in charge of celebrations said, "We wanted to show how the slaughter of a pig is carried out, particularly for the very young. The key focus of the day is the slaughter but every year we get more and more stalls with traditional crafts, this year there are 21 stalls selling blankets, cheese, cakes, local liquor, some of the women are making lace, and there are examples of wood, leather and clay work"

My mum, and her little chums, used to sit on a wall in Yorkshire in the 1930s and watch pigs get slaughtered.

On official information and local practice

2009-03-13T09:08:00.002+01:00

A news item a few days ago - as an anti terrorist measure - all pre pay mobile phones have to be registered to an owner, those still unregistered in November will be cut off. When we bought our phones it was possible just to buy a phone without any paperwork.

I don't agree with this sort of Big Brother measure and it's a complete waste of time in any serious anti terrorist way but as my criminal and terrorist activities are strictly limited I didn't have much option but to do as I'm told.

The Official, Government PowerPoint display, lodged on all the mobile phone operator websites (Imagine that, what fathead decided that it was sensible to provide this sort of information in such a roundabout way?) said that it was possible to register a phone using a National Identity Card, a Passport or a Foreigners Identity Card.

I went to register my phone, I handed over the phone and my passport. The boss woman in the shop leaned over to the underling woman dealing with me and told her the phone couldn't be registered using a passport. I must have been in a bit of a mood because I rounded on her "and how do holidaymakers, or students here for a few months or any resident EU Citizen in Spain, who can get neither the National or Foreigner's Identity Card buy a phone then?"

They found the bit in the computer software that allowed them to enter my passport number. At that point I suggested they may like to use another document, one not mentioned on the PowerPoint display, the document I habitually use in Spain to link my UK identity with my Spanish one. It worked of course.

As regular as clockwork

2009-03-06T18:45:00.005+01:00

There have been lots of things going on since I got here and, particularly since the beginning of this year - Kings, San Sebastian, Las Águedas, San Blas, San Anton and, of course, Carnaval. Their organisation is second nature to all the locals. They don't need to be told that this and that happens on such and such a day at this or that place, it's simply their culture, a local tradition. To me, new to the the town, they have all been fascinating events to gawp at.

As I strolled home this evening I noticed this shop window display. A sign that it's First Communion time.

Spain isn't very Catholic anymore in the sense that far and away the majority of people aren't churchgoers or even believers but it is still incredibly Catholic in its celebrations. Government Ministers continue to be sworn in with their hand on a bible in front of a crucifix, the great majority of holidays and fiestas have some Church link and there is a story of an old communist and his daughter's First Communion. When a Fellow Traveller asked him why he was submitting his daughter to the ritualistic Church mumbo jumbo he answered "Because I'm Spanish!"

From what I've heard First Communion is now also the opportunity for an ostentatious show of wealth. The outfits, little admirals and miniature brides, are chosen with an enormous attention to detail and apparently 500€ is a pretty typical price for the girl's get up. I understand that arriving at a church in a hired limo is reasonably commonplace and the meal is a hugely costly affair - the more guests you can afford to sit down and the more splendid the menu the better for your social standing. The average cost last year was reported as 3,600€ but, bear in mind, if a poor family only spends 1,000€ on it's communion the richer family could spend 6,200€ and the average price would still hold.

There was a bit of a hiccough in this palaver last year when the Church decided that there should be changes to the teaching of the catechism. I've heard two stories, one that it was not thorough enough and so the classes were extended for another year and the other was that children had to be at least ten when they went through the ceremony. It could be that both are true and the differences are due to different practices in different dioceses. Either way this halted the flow of celebrants for a year and punched a big hole in the incomes of the people who sell the communion clothes, take the photographs and make the videos as well as the banqueting rooms that host the post event meals. It was not a popular decision. Just to give you some idea one of the places that advertises its catering services back in Alicante was able to seat 3,000 people - I presume they expect to host several events at once but even then it's a lot of chairs, a lot of cooking and a lot of waiters.

San Esteban Monastery

2009-03-01T10:57:00.013+01:00

One of the places we took my mum to see in Salamanca yesterday was the Dominican Monastery of San Esteban - Saint Stephen's. It was a lot like most churches and cathedrals - big stone pillars, plenty of marble, cloisters, huge wooden doors - lovely ceiling, where else are we going before lunch? - but somehow it was quite different.

It may have been that the monastery was much less dark and forbidding than most churches, maybe it was because it was simpler, though the altar in the main church would have to be the exception that proves the rule, or it may have been because there was a group of people dressed in their sports jackets and pullovers practising a Gregorian chant sitting in the farthest corner of the choir whilst we were there. Really though I think it was simpler than that; it was because there was information to say how different the place was.

The notices on the walls were droll, even ironic and amusing. There was a little room that had been used as a council chamber - so friars debated the course of action? and there were a few mentions of their support for Columbus and his journey to the New World but mainly, all around the cloisters, there were little sayings on the wall like: No state has the right to wage war only for territorial gain; Each person in all the World has similar and non negotiable rights - I forget the exact wording but they could have been on any one of those posters you get free with your subscription to the New Internationalist.

They made the case for the fact that Dominican friars, the Blackfriars, protected the indigineous peoples of South America against some of the worst excesses of the Conquistadores in the New World and generally they pushed their democratic organisation, their frugal lifestyle and their plain humanity. It would be nice to think it was all true. It was certainly a lovely place but I seem to remember that Torquemada, the first and most ferocious of the Spanish Inquisitors, the man who ordered countless tortures and was responsible for expelling the Jews from Spain, was a Dominican. Hey, ho.

And after the Lord Mayor's Parade came the dustcart

2009-02-25T14:23:00.005+01:00

Everywhere, on every street, outside every bar, in every public space people are tidying up, sweeping, mopping, hammering and carrying things away.

Lots of the bars that have been open for days on end from early morning till early the other sort of early morning are now firmly shuttered and I imagine that the staff are fast asleep exhausted after days with hardly any sleep. The shops are open again and the streets are much quieter with the tourists pointing their cameras at the Cathedral, Castle, Walls and other monumental buildings just like any other day. Everyday fare. It's all, very definitely, over.

Well, old friend, till next year

2009-02-24T19:14:00.011+01:00

Things seemed to be going smoothly, half a dozen fighting bulls and the same number of oxen had run into town without too much incident. Then the bulls had been let loose in the plaza, one by one, for the lads to have a go at the "capea" where they show their skill in either capework or simply in baiting and avoiding the bulls. The bulls were due to go out of the town but, in the cattle crush that leads the bulls from the holding pens to the main square, a frightened bull bolting from the square and heading for the safety of the pens collided with another charging out into the square. So far as we could tell one beast died instantly in the collision

We'd seen enough bulls by mid-day so we headed off to the mountains. By the time we got back to Ciudad Rodrigo the town was emptying. There were some car parking spaces available, the mass movement of people that has been the hallmark of the last few days had stopped and people were saying goodbye to old friends. The town is returning to normal.

Kidding myself

2009-02-23T16:11:00.004+01:00

Bulls running through the streets and young men taunting them are so normal here at the moment that it's easy pretend it's all OK.

We went out to watch the running this morning. A couple of bulls gave the lads in the Registro, the little plaza just outside the walls, a bit of a run for their money. It was all quite amusing in a sort of humiliating way. At one point a black bull put its horn underneath one of the guard rails and lifted it and the four or five people sitting on it about 10cm off the ground. Only later did I realise that the effort had pulled the horn clean out of its head and the horn was dangling, held on by bits of bloodied shreds of skin or tendons or something. Horrible.

Bad news

2009-02-22T18:12:00.003+01:00

I was going to pick my mum up from the airport and I heard about the Ciudad Rodrigo Carnaval on the national radio news. Apparently dozens of people had been injured when the bulls had done what we've seen them do several times over the last couple of days, turn around and head off in the opposite direction.

The news said that a 51 year old man had been transferred to Salamanca Hospital in critical condition and that with the mobile operating theatre and all the Intensive Care Units in the town completely overwhelmed the bullfight for this afternoon had been cancelled.

When I got back Maggie said she had heard that the Headteacher of the school she works in had been injured. A bit og Googling and it turns out that he's the man they have taken to Salamanca.

Running for their lives

2009-02-22T12:19:00.007+01:00

You think you have a good spot. The bulls come and an electric thrill passes through the crowd. Everywhere people are running, shouting, scrambling up fences. You see very little but you were definitely there; a part of what was going on.

Today the horses, or more strictly, the horsemen ride the bulls into town. They wield lances and gallop down the street penning the bulls in. They've been brought across open country and once the bulls are inside the fences, the agujas, the horsemen seem to relax. Certainly a number trotted gently back down the road, heading out of town just seconds before a cantankerous red fighting bull turned back for the countryside sending the crowd scurrying hither and thither.

Carnaval Saturday

2009-02-21T21:39:00.005+01:00

We went in to see the Carretones, I thought it was going to be calves running into town but instead it was pretend bulls on wheels. It made me laugh a lot. For the first real bull running of the day all we saw was a lot of people fleeing and glimpses of the bulls through the fences. One bull was being really awkward and kept coming and going, causing all sorts of commotion. He had us penned in for at least half an hour.

By devious routes we got to the place I work which has views over the main square. The same bull was now in the square being as awkward as ever. Several time the mansos, the meek bulls, were sent in to try and guide the big fellow out - that's what you have in the photo. Stubborn rather than brave I heard a Spaniard say.

Later, after eating our way through some traditional empanadas and hornazo, we went on a round of the bars. The town is just heaving with people and life. With my head beginning to pound just a bit we stood around waiting for the fancy dress parade. That was whilst the bulls that had come into town earlier became engaged in a nasty, fight to the death bull fight. Maggie had her Princess costume on but it didn't help. As we waited the slaughterhouse van came out of the main square. Stubborn or brave the fighting bulls end up the same way.

I should say in one of the earlier posts I said there were no real fight to the death bullfights but I was wrong. It turns out that there is ritual slaughter three times over the festival.

Let the games begin!

2009-02-20T19:54:00.005+01:00

The shops along the bull run are boarded up, the safety fences are in place, the sand is down in the main square and the stands are complete. This afternoon the bands marched into town, people showed off their "club" colours or fancy dress costumes for the first time, the bell that warns us when the bulls are loose was uncovered and we have even had the (non fighting) bulls run through the town. The mansos, as they are called look like oxen and they have damned big horns. Their job is to learn the route so they can guide the fighting bulls along the course over the next few days.

Actually, we had a bit of a do with the mansos. Normally they run into town, trot around the square a bit and then run back to their pens. Today they changed their minds half way home and turned back into town. We had just set off into the street when, all of a sudden, people were scurrying hither and thither and the town bell began ringing faster. I was slower than Maggie to get behind the fence and as the bulls came past again I was still on the wrong side of the guard rails.

There are lots of pictures here or on the Some of my snaps link in the sidebar

Banks II

2009-02-20T09:29:00.002+01:00

The plastic card from my new bank turned up yesterday. It had to be activated. I could do it in a bank machine, go into my branch or phone up. I had a slot of about 15 minutes between lessons at work so I thought I may as well ring. How tricky could the Spanish be in the process of activating a debit card?

It wasn't tricky but once we'd done what I wanted to do the telephone person started trying to sell me card insurance, I said I already have some, which I do. The sales pitch was delivered with too many first name references - especially for you Don Creestofer we're offering an introductory price of just.. - in that bored to death, reading the script at break neck speed manner that you get at the end of adverts for financial products.

Having said no to card insurance she warned me how dangerous it was not to be legally protected and went on to try and sell me a sort of legal insurance. I stopped listening, I was getting cross, the bank wasn't paying for this phone call, I was, or even worse, my employer was. I tried to stop her but she just kept going. I made the occasional noise down the phone and then she seemed to be telling me that I'd agreed to buy this product. I said, as clearly as I could "I don't want to buy anything, do you understand? I do not want to contract for anything, do you understand?" By now my boss was waving at me because the phone call had gone on for 20 minutes, my students were waiting for me and I was shouting down the phone at this salesperson. I got away but I suspect I'm about to have the headache of cancelling some scheme that she signed me up for.

Oh, and my credit card people dropped my credit limit without telling me or giving me a reason. Their Customer Services people told me that it had happened to thousands of customers, that it was nothing personal, that it was a decision of Financial Services and so they, Customer Sevices, couldn't tell me why. My email to Financial Services remains unanswered after their "we guarantee to reply within 48 hours" period.

The trouble with Spaniards and fiestas

2009-02-20T00:55:00.007+01:00

is that they've been there and done that.

There have been things going on all week related to the Carnaval de Toros, the event that officially runs from this Friday evening until next Tuesday. For instance, as an example, a group of blokes, dressed in cloaks and playing lutes passed beneath our window yesterday evening on their way home from some little ceremony. Not something we got a lot of in Huddersfield.

Maggie and I haven't been involved in anything Carnaval related so far this year so, when Maggie said that we were going to abandon the telly and go to see the official opening of the casetas (the temporary headquarters of the peñas- see blog of 12 Feb, A buzz in the air), I was about as enthusiastic as we old folk get.

It started well; Maggie bumped into someone whose brother was a member of a peña so we were invited into one of the casetas - we got free beer and snacklets. By the time we made our excuses and left all the peñas were giving away free food and drink. But we couldn't stay, we had to go and meet Maggie's girlie drinking pals.

Maggie and I were expecting to go back to the casetas. The focus of tonights action. Not a chance. Even though one of Maggie's pals kept shouting "Carnaval, Carnaval" and doing an "I'm just about to wee myself with excitement" dance we were destined to spend our evening in a couple of bars.

Maggie's friends have done the casetas thing 10 or 20 or maybe 30 times before. We haven't, but, because we were unable to muster the correct language or tone to put forward our preferences we tagged along like sheep. We went to a bar playing loud music. I'm old, I'm a bit hard of hearing when conditions are less than perfect, I was bored to tears. As the music ground on I pondered on how may times, over the years, I've obediently toddled along behind Spaniards showing me things and taking me places that I neither wanted to visit nor to see as what I considered to be the main event went ahead without me.

Biscuit buying

2009-02-18T13:22:00.004+01:00

Just over the road from us is the Claritas convent. The nuns live a contemplative life without luxuries but one of their hobbies seems to be baking. They sell the cakes and biscuits, presumably to make a bit of pocket money. Heaven knows whether the health inspectors get in to check that they are complying with the food handling regs.

I went to get my Carnaval biscuits - cut into the shapes of bulls and bells. I was rather expecting a rope pull bell but, in fact, the front gate was unlocked and once inside the grounds it was the brown door on the right, the one with the notice. Through the door was a stone flagged vestibule and a serving hatch. I wasn't the only customer, in fact the youngish and very pale nun was doing quite a brisk trade.

Two a penny

2009-02-18T13:17:00.005+01:00

They are such a common sight around the province. Big storks; they nest on top of churches, on walls, in trees - we even saw one nesting on top of a bus shelter. They make a very strange sound too, sort of like someone clearing pleghm from their throat at the same time as crunching their way through some very crunchy crisps.

They may be common but they are rather splendid and just a tad more impressive than sparrows as they wheel overhead.

Barceo

2009-02-15T21:22:00.004+01:00

I just couldn't miss this.

On the way to Fuentes de San Esteban from Ciudad Rodrigo is the the village of Barceo, surrounded by oak trees and parkland. This is their bus stop; carefully designed and skilfully implemented by the Regional Government to fit with the environment.

Sailing in International Waters

2009-02-15T20:24:00.008+01:00

My father maintained we Brits have a natural affinity with the water. We were in a pram dinghy at Lytham when he mentioned it. Today, Maggie and I went on a little boat ride along the River Duero near Corporario where it is ponded up behind the Aldeadávila dam. The Duero, for a good deal of its length, forms the border between Portugal and Spain so, as our guide pointed out, we were sailing in International waters.

The woman told us lots of other interesting things and as there were just four paying guests on the boat she was able to ensure that we were paying attention. We heard about the 5ºC increase in temperature from the hillside above to the river below, she told us several times that the cliffs on each side were over 300 metres high and the river some 130 metres deep, we had several tales of the goatherder and his numerous family whose flock graze the steep hillsides, about the border patrols to watch for coffee smuggling from Portugal to Spain in the old days, the Egyptian and Griffin vultures circling over Spain in the morning and Portugal in the afternoon, about the locals watching over the Golden Eagle nests, how the excess electric from the hydroelectric power plant is used to pump water back upstream when they have nothing better to do with it etc.

All in all a good afternoon out on a nice sunny day.

Banks

2009-02-13T11:21:00.003+01:00

There are two main types of banks in Spain, savings banks and ordinary banks. To be honest I don't know what the technical difference is but the most obvious difference to customers is that the savings banks tend to be regional.

The current account I've had since I got here is with a savings bank, one based in Murcia. Being in Ciudad Rodrigo, 700kms from Murcia, there aren't any branches close by and I have been paying 1.20€ to withdraw cash on my bank card from the associated network of cashpoints. There are three main networks of cashpoints and the last time I had to draw money from a machine that wasn't in the same network I was charged 6€.

They also charge you to put money into an account unless you are able to go into a branch of your own bank. As an example the other day I was charged 7€ to pay money into my savings bank account.

On top of these transaction charges there is also a maintenance charge on most accounts. The fee depends on how much your average balance has been over the year but usual charges are somewhere around 20€ pa. Oh, and they charge you an annual fee for the bank cards too. That cost me 40€ per card this year.

As a Brit used to free banking and free use of my UK bank cash card in a wide range of cashpoints these charges have always annoyed me. Even worse the banks don't give you notice of when they are about to take their charges from an account and if their charges take you into the red then they fine you for that too! As an aside lots of bills are taken against direct debits, things like phone, electric, water rates etc. Almost none of the companies that draw money from my account give me any notice when they intend to withdraw the cash. To add insult to injury the dates they take the money out are not consistent. It can be infuriating.

Someone told me that banks tend to be a bit cheaper than savings banks. The banks have branches nationwide so at least putting money in and taking money out becomes free so long as there is a branch close by. With this in mind I went and opened a new account. I checked the annual maintenance fee and when it was payable, I checked the annual fee for the bank card and they were both less than I pay to my savings bank. I was given a list of the other fees and commissions for bounced cheques, going overdrawn etc. All fair enough. I was happy. I would soon be able to close my savings bank account and let them know why.

With money in my new bank account I went on-line and started to pay off some of my accumulated debts. The site was nice and easy to use but my joy didn't last long. There is a charge of 2€ for each transfer by Internet. I could have cried.

A buzz in the air

2009-02-12T13:27:00.019+01:00

Carnaval, the festival leading up to the beginning of Lent, is a really big do in Ciudad Rodrigo. The main focus is the bull running, where bulls are released in the street so that lads, of all ages and sexes, can show how brave and skilful they are. But it's also a big do for lots of other reasons. It's a fiesta, a time for friends to visit, the opportunity for the youngsters to hang around the fun fair, the chance to stroll the stalls run by Gypsies and Peruvians, an opportunity to eat food in the street, to drink too much and generally to have a good time.

The Carnaval de Toros, begins on the 20th February and lasts through till Shrove Tuesday so preparations have been under way for a while. The rails that guide the bulls and steers into the town's main square were the first things to appear, then a few of the fairground attractions and food stalls began to park up. Yesterday workmen started to put up the wooden fences that will form the bull ring in the square and the shutters went up in the Plaza del Buen Alcalde to turn each of the arches into a temporary home for each of the official "peñas."

Peña just means a group really and lots of groups of friends rent a flat or a garage for their peña, so that they can have a place to drink, eat and meet closer to the main action. The longer established, official, ones have some sort of involvement in the running of the event and they all rent a space and, I think, build a part of the wooden stands, that make up the seating for the bull ring. On the two or three days that there are proper bull fights it costs money to get into the stands so the members of the peñas are able to recoup their investment by collecting the entrance fees to their chunk of the stands. I should say that the bull fights are actually called Capeas (from cape I suppose) and they differ from the big, professional fights in that there are none of the mounted picadores, no squads of expensively dressed bull fighters and, most importantly, the bulls walk away unhurt.

There are posters all over advertising this and that to do with Carnaval and there have been lots more people just idling around the town centre. Quite infectious really.

Rip roaring excitement

2009-02-06T15:33:00.006+01:00

I feel this is may be for completeness rather than because of its nail biting excitement, traditional roots or insight into Spanish life.

Today I bought a sandwich, a tortilla sandwich, plus a can of Casera Cola for 2.50€. That's the essence of the post.

But the odd thing is that at least three people had mentioned Operación Bocata - Operation Sarnie - to me during the week saying what a good thing it was. Something not to be missed. In reality it was just the WI selling cakes and tea except that there were no cakes, no tea and no WI. The rolls in this case were made by volunteers with ingredients donated by well wishers and the money raised will got to Manos Unidas - United Hands, an anti hunger charity.

I was there quite early so the crowds hadn't exactly built up hence the rather empty looking photo at the top.I noticed though, on one of the town websites, that it looked as though it got a bit busier later

Losing track

2009-02-05T19:08:00.005+01:00

I like to think that I usually have some idea of what's going on and why but today it took a fair bit of Googling to find out what was happening within metres of where I work.

I was teaching; the building I work in is on the main town square, and suddenly we could hear the sound of pipes and drums. I joined the youngsters at the window to see what was going on. Lots of women wearing traditional frocks accompanied by a drum and pipe band were crossing the square and heading for the Town Hall. I asked what they were up to and they told me it was just a "Charra" out for the fun of it. Trying to get a definition of a charra proved beyond their capability in both Spanish and English but we settled on a traditional music group. As a result of the Googling I'm not sure whether the word comes from Charro - the name given to the local landscape and hence all things traditional around here or whether it's from the name of one of the traditional instruments. In either case I thought that the young people's assertion that they were simply out for a lark was a bit unlikely.

My next group were adults. They told me that today was the day of the "Águedas". The local river is called the Agueda so I presumed some link. Apparently not, the name comes from a Saint Águeda, and the event takes place all over Castilla y Leon region. It's a day when women, symbolically, take over the control of local government and in the case of Ciudad Rodrigo the group I heard outside the window were on their way to collect the "stick", the symbol of Mayoral power in the town, from the elected Mayor.

There was more. One of the left wing political parties had issued a press statement to condemn the linking of "las Águedas" with any real power being exercised by women and went so far as to dub it a patriarchal plot but I also read that in Segovia the event was being used to protest violence against women!

On a much less polemic note as I walked home I noticed that all of the local bars and restaurants were full of women out for collective meals.

A Mirobrigense viewpoint

2009-02-03T17:08:00.003+01:00

Well, here I am teaching English, or more accurately between classes. In my last class, the one with a group of 12 year olds, I asked them a couple of settling in questions as always.

Keen to be topical I asked them about San Blas (see last post) and they were surprisingly disparaging. "All it is is an excuse to get drunk, it used to be something nice for all the family to do but now it's just a bunch of young people getting legless, most of them can't even walk home when it's finished and the Red Cross has to take a mobile unit there to look after them!"

Mirobrigense by the way means someone from Ciudad Rodrigo. It's based on the old Roman name for the town.

About to miss a treat

2009-02-02T23:49:00.005+01:00

On the 3rd February the good Christian folk of Ciudad Rodrigo go on a romeria, or procession, to the half derelict monastery in Sanjuanejo to get little coloured ribbons to tie around their necks.

The ribbons are blessed in the name of San Blas who, according to tradition, will protect the wearers from sore throats provided that they keep them on till Ash Wednesday when they should pop back to the monastery and recite The Lord's Prayer as they burn their temporary necklaces.

Not to be sceptical about the religious significance of this or anything but I think that the ending of the press release gives the game away; "The pilgrims usually give good account of themselves before the hearty open air picnic of local sausages."

And what will I be doing as ribbons and sausages are handed out? Teaching English to people who would much prefer to be eating sausage that's what!

Spare a thought for the Nuns' sheep

2009-01-26T09:43:00.005+01:00

It's hardly the motorway closing, chaos causing snow that has been so common in Northern Spain this winter but it is, definitely, snow on this Monday morning in Ciudad Rodrigo.

The picture is taken from our living room. The building is the Santa Clara Convent where, so far as I know, the nuns live a life without modern conveniences like electricity. One of their hobbies is ringing the convent bell. They sell biscuits and keep sheep too. The sheep go baaah-baaah which isn't a noise usually associated with an urban environment so that it rather took me aback the first time I heard it drifting through the flat.

The San Sebastian day concert

2009-01-20T22:11:00.007+01:00

I don't know if you have heard the singer Tom Waits (if you haven't you should) but his voice is so gravelly he sounds like he smokes 50 Woodbine a day. One time, when I saw him in concert, a young woman walked up to the stage and hurled a bunch of flowers at his feet: "Thank ya babe", he growled. And he didn't sound stupid.

Tonight a man yelled "Bravo!" and he didn't sound stupid either. The word exploded from his lips; if I'd been the performer on the receiving end of the acclaim I would have been overjoyed.

We were watching an amateur choir from the teacher training college at the University of Salamanca who had battled through the snow to get to Ciudad Rodrigo. They performed songs from a dozen or so zarzuelas. A Zarzuela is a type of music, a bit like light opera, where the spoken acting, songs and dances (often rooted in folk traditions) are used to move the story along.

We'd gone because we were off work for the town's patron saint's day and because the concert was free. I quite enjoyed it. It's unlikely I'll be downloading zarzuelas from iTunes tonight but then again I might risk a full performance sometime in the future. The theatre was comfy and warm too which was nice.

Build 'em cheap

2009-01-18T16:25:00.008+01:00

Franco liked to build dams. He had one build in the next province up from us, in Zamora, in a place called Ribadelago which he opened in 1956.

In 1959 it burst and killed 144 of the 549 inhabitants of the village in its shadow in a little under 15 minutes. They recovered just 28 of the bodies. The disaster wasn't exactly hushed up but it was certainly played down by the Government of the day. An Enquiry blamed the failiure on poor materials, poor construction and irresponsibility of the engineering team.

I noticed a small piece in the local paper that said some 500,000€ had been earmarked to improve the dam on the Agueda, the river that flows through Ciudad Rodrigo. If that one were to go it may cause us some problems. We drove up to have a look. It was built in 1931 and it looks sturdy enough.

A voyage around Saint Anthony

2009-01-17T12:47:00.005+01:00

They were letting off rockets today at one of our local churches because it is Saint Anthony's day - San Antón to us. When we went to take a peek there were hams and things hanging around the church door and lots of old chaps, wearing flat hats, having a natter.

I knew that there was going to be some sort of festival from a calendar of events that I'd seen in a tourist office publication but it's only as I was piecing this post together that it has clicked what's actually going on. Of course I can't find a timetable anywhere to go and see the denouement of the celebrations.

Saint Anthony is the Patron Saint for animals* and there are church services to bless pets and animals all over Spain. There are also special cakes in the bakers, called Panecillos del Santo, that are offered to San Antón so that he will keep the beasts healthy and safe from disease. Apparently the form of these pastries varies from town to town. The Ciudad Rodrigo ones are supposed to have crosses on them, like hot cross buns, but I'd noticed flat wafer shaped ones too.

Saint Anthony has a special link to the pig. This Saint lived in a bare, locked, cell for a while; part of the standard saintly training I suppose. He was tempted by the devil in the form of a pig. Having none of it he beat the pig to death and was rewarded by the fierce and violent pig being resurrected as a docile companion.

So, back to the church door. Today they hang up an "aguinaldo," - the giftlet - of Saint Anthony which is made up of products from the killing of pigs, the traditional matanza. These are raffled by tickets that have been on sale throughout the town for a while (though nobody told me.) Also the brotherhood of Saint Anthony will be handing out those traditional pastries as a part of the deal.

Something similar is going on in Alberca where a pig has been wandering the streets since June. People feed the pig their scraps and by now the original 20kg piglet has put on a bit of weight and tips the scales at around 150kg. He's been raffled too.

*Saint Anthony is also the Patron Saint of: amputees; animals; basket makers; basket weavers; brushmakers; Burgio, Sicily; butchers; Canas, Brazil; cemetery workers; domestic animals; eczema; epilepsy; epileptics; ergotism; erysipelas; gravediggers; graveyards; hermits; hogs; Hospitallers; lost items ; monks; Mook, Nederlands; pigs; relief from pestilence; shingles; skin diseases; skin rashes; swine; swineherds and against pestilence.

The walled city

2009-01-13T13:43:00.005+01:00

One of the distinctive things about Ciudad Rodrigo is that the city walls are still completely intact. Short of scaling the stonework the only way into the old town is through one of the many, just over car width, gateways. There are about 2kms of wall and I suppose that it's at least 8m high all of its length with many stretches being a good deal higher. Then there are twiddly bits like the castle and the various ramparts built to defend the main wall from cannon balls. Quite a lot of stonework.

These blokes have been working on the stretch of wall just near one of the gates, just repointing it I think, since some time before Christmas. They may have done as much as 200m in, say, the last six weeks. Spain calls it's current financial problems The Crisis and The Crisis has hit the building industry particularly hard but even my rudimentary arithmetic suggests that these chaps are going to have jobs long enough to weather even the longest economic crisis.

San Sebastian

2009-01-11T14:20:00.008+01:00

Saint Sebastian is the Patron Saint of Ciudad Rodrigo. He's the one from the Derek Jarman film with all those naked Roman soldiers having a bit of a laugh as they shoot him full of arrows. He is usually shown in paintings tied to a tree and looking like a pincushion. That's what the statue of him that normally lives in the Parish Church of Ciudad Rodrigo has him looking like too. Apparently though he didn't die from all the arrows, he was left for dead but he miraculously recovered. Unfortunately for him, full of Christian vim, he decided to harangue the Roman Emperor Diocletian as he passed by and the Emperor had him beaten to death and thrown into a cess pit.

According to tradition he died on 20 January so in preparation for the big do on that date a brass band, lots of people dressed in capes or wearing a medal (which I'm guessing marks their membership of the "brotherhood" of San Sebastian), some young people dressed in a sort of page boy get up and a bunch of councillors and dignitaries headed off from the Town Hall and went to get him from the Parish Church. Announced by rockets launched into the clear blue sky they then carried his statue up to the Cathedral where it will stay till they carry him back to the church on the 20th.

The Sunday papers

2009-01-11T13:41:00.004+01:00

Just as much of a ritual here as in the UK and very similar in that they have lots of sections, travel, finance etc and there's usually a magazine. It's also the big days for giveaways "Free with this Sunday's El Mundo - Secrets of the Universe in pictures." Maybe the only difference is that as the man of the house pops out to buy the paper his wife reminds him to call at the baker's and get the bread.

Farmacias

2009-01-10T16:23:00.009+01:00

When I was taking the picture of the temperature display outside one of the chemist's here in Ciudad Rodrigo for the post below I saw the usual notice to say which was the duty chemist today and it caused me to ponder on the differences between Spanish chemists and their Brit equivalent.

There are no multiple chemists in Spain, the phramacist must own and run their own business. If a place is large enough to have a pharmacy (and there's some legal stipulation about how big a town has to be to warrant a chemist and how many chemists there can be for such and such a population) then there is guaranteed 24hr a day cover. I suppose if there's just one farmacia in a small town then the pharmacist can expect a lot of interrupted nights! This licensing of chemists shops, as distinct from the licensing of the pharmacists themselves, has been getting more controversial recently as newly trained pharmacists are angry about the difficulty of opening their own business when so many operating licences are handed on in a "father to son" manner. This exclusivity also has an effect on the prices of medicines.

I understand that the training for pharmacists here is pretty thorough and that their qualifications are much more akin to those of a British GP than a British pharmacist. Certainly they seem to know their stuff and they usually seem kitted out to arrange for lots of the sort of tests that we would expect a doctor to provide.

The prescription drugs that they sell are pretty cheap by UK standards and, although you're not supposed to be able to get prescription drugs without a scrip that's not actually the case - usually they'll hand over anti biotics and what not without any fuss. If you have a scrip the drugs are 60% subsidised by the Social Security system. Whilst proper drugs are cheap the semi serious and flim flam stuff is exorbitantly priced. Medicines such as headache tabs, throat lozenges, haemorrhoid cream and cold and flu remedies aren't available in the local supermarket, newsagent or petrol station and can only be bought from a chemists. It can be a shock to the wallet.

Oh, and something else vaguely related. If I needed immediate medical treatment in the UK I would search out an emergency unit whilst the Spanish would go to an urgency unit (Spanish has both words - emergencias and urgencias.) I asked a Spanish pal why the distinction and he told me that only a medical professional could say for definite whether something was a medical emergency or not whereas anyone could decide that something was urgent.

Liar, liar, pants on fire

2009-01-10T15:55:00.008+01:00

It's bitter, it's perishing, it's icy, it's freezing, it's horrid - over the past week I've been able to use these as topical English expressions for the students I teach because it has indeed been bitter, perishing and icy here in Ciudad Rodrigo. The thermometer on the chemist's may read a toasty -1ºC but it has been minus a few degrees overnight and it really has felt excruciatingly cold.

But we've been getting off lightly. Temperatures in Soria yesterday were -9ºC and it was -6ºC in Salamanca capital. Not warm. Madrid Airport was closed for five hours because of the snow and the telly was full of stories of people trapped in cars for hours on end on the motorways in and out of Madrid. In fact most of Spain has had snow including normally mild places like Murcia and coastal Andalucia. There was even a light dusting in Culebrón according to some friends and the water pipes of our house there froze.

Now who was it who was explaining to me that the reason we Brits emigrate to Spain was all to do with the mild and sunny weather?

The villages

2009-01-06T17:10:00.011+01:00

Since we've been back in Ciudad Rodrigo Maggie and I have been comparing and contrasting the two places where we live. We've decided that neither area is better or worse than the other - they're just different.

On of the plus side, for Salamanca, must be some of the country villages. I really like the way that the older houses seem to be completely at one with their environment. Sometimes the built stone walls incorporate some crop out of rock - often groups of houses and buildings just grow up a hillside - it's as though the buildings are an extension of the natural rock. Mind you when I went looking for a photo to put here to prove my point I found that all the houses that looked like that were generally derelict.

And then, I must mention the efforts of someone to keep all the villages as twee as any tourist could want. There's a photo somewhere in one of the posts of a chap riding a donkey, today a bloke obligingly walked his sheep through the village almost as if it was what he did every day!

Again though, a postscript, as we walked back to the car a chap talked to us, well to Maggie really, "What are you up to, just having a stroll around? - there's nothing to look at here!" and I just had a look at an Internet forum for this village - Ahigal de los Aceiteros - and it's full of people complaining about the village dying and about the mayor being a nasty piece of work for having the stork's nest removed from the church. Reality and day trippers views I suppose.

So I added the tractor picture to show that there's romance in the new too.

40 Riders Club

2009-01-06T16:49:00.006+01:00

I'd read somewhere about an impressive length of disused railway line at a place called La Fregeneda so, today being a bank holiday, we drove up there to have a look.

We found the village OK and, on an information board at the entrance to the village, there was mention of the last 17km stretch of the line from La Fregeneda to the International Bridge on the Duero having 20 tunnels and 13 viaducts and a change in height of some 300 metres. We wandered about trying to find the line and a few kilometres up an unmade road we saw a couple of the viaducts in amongst the hills but we couln't find the track itself despite there, supposedly, being a disused station in the village.

Class 40 was a type of diesel locomotive used by British Rail and presumably by the companies that came after in the UK. I once met a group of lads, members of the 40 Riders Club, whose ambition was to ride a train, at least once, pulled by each of these locos.

¡Viva los Reyes Magos! ¡Viva!

2009-01-05T20:40:00.006+01:00

The Spanish military are incredibly good at the call and response "viva". The instantaneous swell of voices that snaps out the one word is impressive but the children in the main square of Ciudad Rodrigo this evening would give all but the crackest of crack regiments a good run for their money.

Tonight is the night that, traditionally, The Three Kings deliver Christmas presents to the youth of Spain. We went to see our local Cabalgata, the parade of the Kings that takes part in all but the tiniest of Spanish towns. As I type I can hear the live broadcast of the rather larger Madrid version on the telly. Our parade was small, the three Kings had a float each but, other than that, it seemed to consist of men dressed as ducks riding decorated lawn mowers and a sullen looking little girl with a tiara in a motorised pram. Both the Guardia and the Firefighters turned on the sirens to try to stoke up the atmosphere a bit.

But you could feel the excitement of the children in the air. Palpable. These blokes in their dodgy fancy dress really were, for the children, Kings bearing gifts from the Orient. So when the people on the loud speaker shouted "viva" the youngsters riding their fathers shoulders, the youngsters with their noses up against the barriers to see what was going on and the youngsters rootling around on the ground for the sweets thrown from the passing procession all barked back, as one "viva." Lets hope they've all behaved themselves throughout the year and get the gifts they asked for rather than the sweet coal reserved for the baddies.

I thought I'd share this

2008-12-24T23:42:00.003+01:00

We stopped for a coffee and a bocadillo en route from Ciudad Rodrigo to Culebrón. Good coffee, nice sandwich. The toilets though weren't so good.

There are still plenty of drop bogs in Spain, usually only in the Gents nowadays, but as the World's eigth richest country (or wherever it is this week) it always comes as a bit of a shock.

Contrasts

2008-12-24T23:37:00.003+01:00

We left Ciudad Rodrigo on Monday with thick frost on all the trees. The thermometer on the Mini said -4.5ºC. As we crossed the Guadarama and headed into Madrid the temperature was a pleasant and sunny 18ºC.

Times and seasons

2008-12-22T07:17:00.007+01:00

In the UK at 12.01pm it's afternoon. People are precise about it. In Spain afternoon arrives in a much less predictable manner - it becomes afternoon sometime around 2pm but I've been told that it's often driven by whether you have eaten or not. I have eaten so I say "Good afternoon" you haven't so you reply "Good morning".

In regard to the seasons though the Spanish are very precise. For days there have been little mentions on the news channels, as they hand over to the weather forecasters, that we're approaching the beginning of Winter - "Soon be winter yet temperatures set to rise!"

The credits for the weather bulletins on the State channel include a little caption that says what season we're in. I noticed, when I saw a weather forecast attached to the midday news, that it was still Autumn. I was surprised because I thought the 21st was Solstice and that we passed into Winter. My answer came on the 3pm news, the caption said Winter - "We passed into winter at just after 1pm today." said the weather chappie and he had some satellite pictures of the World and some nice snaps of the South Pole to show us how the solstice worked.

Off to Culebrón today so new posts will be there for a few days.