Life in Ciudad Rodrigo

Maggie and I were just talking on the phone. She was telling me about the San Sebastian celebrations in Ciudad Rodrigo today and whilst we nattered she laughed about the storks sitting on the convent wall just opposite her flat. The pictures a bit grainy but you can see the convent, the sheep and the storks so it does the job.

A bit late I know but Maggie showed me this picture of her, and some of her charges at her school in Ciudad Rodrigo, as they prepared for Hallowe'en. Lovely eh?

Maggie went out for one of her walks with Luisa tonight. Talking about the cold weather Maggie said how I hadn't been using the log burning stove back in Culebrón but how we were intending to use it over Christmas. Luisa instantly offered Maggie "quality" firewood from Castilla y Leon, not like the olive and almond rubbish we have in Alicante. When Maggie drives from Ciudad Rodrigo to Alicante next week she will have a few kilos of good quality wood in the back of her car!

"You don't get me I'm part of the Union till the day I die!" As I remember it the early Seventies song about Union power sung by the Strawbs was not very complimentary. I suppose it was the time of Red Robbo after all. Nonetheless, the idea of workers banding together to give a collective strength seems both reasonable and necessary to me given the potential for abuse of workers by their bosses. Maggie works as a teacher, but she is classed as something less, akin to a teaching assistant, because teachers in Spain have to undergo competitive examinations and other EU qualifications do not seem to be transferable. Maggie puts up with it because something is better than nothing. Today a couple of Union reps turned up at her school to talk to Maggie and her co-worker about their role and responsibilities within the school. It seems that they think the situation is unfair and they intend to take up their case. Maggie is not, currently, a member of their Union. Proactive o...

On Friday night Maggie went out with her aerobics class for the end of term meal, on to a bar later for a couple of drinks and a bit of a bop. Touch of the hangovers later. Yesterday evening, having assured me that she was on for a quiet night in, she rang to say that the people from the towel shop had invited her out to the local cinema. Today she went to get some Christmas cards from a charity fair and bumped into a Spanish woman, serving on the stall, who had married a Brit and spent 27 years in the UK. When he died she returned to Spain so, as a direct result of shopping for a few cards, Maggie ended up going to the woman's home for a cup of tea. Whilst she was out the mother in law of one of her landlords phoned to see if she fancied a walk. Those people in Ciudad Rodrigo seem like a sociable lot.

Maggie sent me a text yesterday evening urging me to watch an early evening magazine programme on TVE1 because there was an item on it about Ciudad Rodrigo. Apparently a bullock had escaped from the slaughter house and gone to have a look around the shops in the town centre. This surprised most of the other shoppers but at least it gave them something to talk about. There was no news of the fate of the bullock.

When Maggie rang this afternoon she said that she had received a call from the Adult Ed. Centre where she is registered to a pottery class. The way Maggie told it she said that the man on the phone had said that they had had a draw and that she'd been pulled out of the hat for a table - then she hesitated, I seriously thought she'd won a table, but it turned out to be an electoral table. Basically she had been selected as a student representative by lottery. She declined