It's that time again. The days and nights are getting hotter, people are taking to the streets and squares and our neighbours greet us with a slow shake of the head and the words ¡Qué calor! (Oh the heat!). That means it's time for Mrs. Sánchez and I to pack up the car and head back to England for a bit. 'You're going back because of the heat' the locals say, 'I don't blame you.Uf! Qué calor!' We've given up trying to explain that's not the reason. We go back because as 'extranjeros' we can't stay in Spain for more than 6 months in a year, and not for more than three monthly periods. More than 6 months would make us de facto 'residents' and would mean a lot of shenanegins with taxes, problems with the car etc. and it is very very hot in July and August.
We couldn't leave without going to the Fiesta del Chorro. El Chorro has been catapulted to stardom recently with the opening of El Caminito del Rey which starts there. The population of 242 are a bit put out about all the coaches and cars which bring the foolhardy or brave to walk the caminito and park willy nilly, blocking front doors and pumping out exhaust fumes as they keep their air conditioning running. Also the road up to the lakes has been blocked for a month as someone failed to to notice that the roads are not wide enough for buses to pass as they shuttle the brave walkers back to their starting point and transport home . It's a bit of a cock up, really.
The Fiesta of El Chorro appears to be organised entirely by Pepe Rojas and his wife Maite (María Teresa). That's Pepe at the the far end of the bar Maite is on the far right, dishing out paella. (Mmmm). Pepe has been handing out programmes and sticking up posters all round town for the last two weeks so it's only fair to go. The paella had a big 18 on it to celebrate Pepe's birthday.
They don't call it 'paella' here, though, it's 'arroz' (rice) and very nice. One of the highlights of the El Chorro Fiesta is the 'Tiro con Honda' competition in which local shepherds and goatherds fire stones out of David and Goliath slingshots at a big metal target. Antonio,one of the main contenders explained to me how it worked.
Apparently you're not supposed to hit the goat/sheep but make the stone land to the side in order to steer the flock - that's unless they are up a tree, he said, in which case they get one where it hurts. I must stress that goats and sheep are not used in the competition and are only used for practice.
Pepe Rojas about to pour me a beer.
We went to look at our olives before we left and I'm pleased to say that the harvest looks promising this year. Last year was very poor but a couple of weeks of rain in February has done the trick.
Olives are incredibly hardy. We don't water them at all. They can stand extremely high temperatures and the biggest olive producing region in the world, Jaen Province (42 degrees Celsius predicted for tomorrow) can have temperatures as low as -10 degrees celsius in the winter. The trees can live for over a thousand years and even then be regenerated if there is any sign of life. There is a 600 year old tree in the centre of Álora.
Antonio, from the olive mill in Casarabonela where we get our olives pressed, is predicting a bg rise in olive oil prices next year because of the bacterial infection which has already destroyed thousands of trees near Lecce in the Puglia region of Italy. Xyella fastidiosa has been tagged 'olive leprosy' and is spread by insects like this one, the sap sucking meadow spittle bug. Antonio predicts that the disease will spread up through France and into Spain.
This week's quiz question. (Answers on a postcard to me, please with 10€ entrance fee to cover administration expenses)
What do these two have in common?
If anyone reading this, indeed, if anyone reads it at all and is learning Spanish they may be pleased to know that it is the easiest language to pronounce in the world. All you have to do is learn a couple of rules. If you're not interested in learning Spanish and you are reading this in Spain you should be ashamed of yourself and you'd better skip this next bit.
1. Spanish letters are nearly all like English ones.
2. 'e' is always pronounced 'ay' and never silent.
3. 'i' is pronounced 'ee'
4. 'h' is always silent
there are probably lots more like this, but my favourite is
THE RULE OF 'LLANO'
All Spanish words are stressed on the last syllable unless they end in a vowel or ´n' or ´s' when the stress is on the penultimate syllable.
Any exceptions have a 'tilde' (´) over the letter to be stressed.
I only just found out that my surname, Sánchez has that tilde over the 'a'. and that's why Álora doesn't rhyme with 'flora'. The Policía usually refuse to use theirs and the Farmacia doesn't need one. (except, bizarrely, one in Comillas).
You can have hours of fun with this rule . C...., who has been staying with us, has shown a particularly unhealthy interest in tildes (and also in the señorita who works in Tour River, incidentally). Although he knows hardly a word of Spanish he can pronounce it beautifully. So far, she of the the travel agency is unimpressed. It's not much of a basis for a relationship.
The voyage back to Plymouth from Santander was pretty uneventful except for us coming joint second in the Music Quiz. (we was robbed). We stopped at Sotopalacios for Burgos black puddings and breakfast as usual. They do a great tostada con aceite y tomate at the hotel bar but they still look down their noses at you when you ask for garlic. (Garlic and bread for breakfast?. No thank you). It's a southern thing.
We had a few hours to spare in Santander so we went to explore the town of Comillas up the coast to the west.
It's a great little place with good food, beaches, interesting old buildings and somewhere to park. Tommy had a good run on the freshly mown meadows and another up by the lighthouse in Santander where we spotted the good ship Pont Aven steaming into port.
El Capricho in Comillas, designed by Antoni Gaudí. (of Sagrada Familia fame- note the tilde on his name).
We left England on the day of the General Election. What happened? Who got in?
Juanito Sánchez June28th.2015
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