A Little Quince Summer and War Without the Shooting Breaks Out in Álora. (warning: may contain explicit images).
Membrillos (quinces)
Tomorrow will be the first day of October and it looks like we'll be having a 'veranillo de membrillo' (a little quince summer) again with temperatures touching 30 degrees C. It's also called 'el veranillo de San Miguel' in Spain because St. Michael the Archangel's Special Day is September 29th and not just because a lot of Spain's most famous beer is drunk during the hot weather.
A little of it goes a long way and we are often given a bowl of it by one of our lovely neighbours.
We had a quince bush in our garden in Birmingham a few years ago and made some wine from the fruit. It was drinkable.
The popular British breakfast conserve Marmalade used to be made from quinces before oranges were invented. 'Marmelada' is Portuguese for 'quince preparation'. Some well-intentioned people will tell you that the word 'marmalade' comes from the French 'Marie Malade' (sick Mary) along with some load of old cobblers about Queen Mary the something eating it when she was poorly. Honestly, the things they tell you in school!
Also, don't let anyone tell you they don't sell marmalade in Mercadona. It's with all the other mermeladas (jams) with an orange on the label.
Anyway, Indian or San Miguel, everybody here has had enough summer for one year except, of course, people on holiday. Our olives are shrivelling and the reservoirs are starting to look dangerously empty again.
Napoleon Bonaparte famously stated, 'England is a nation of shopkeepers' and if Álora is anything to go by, Spain is a nation of shop closers. Shops and bars here seem to be opening and closing faster than bedroom doors in a Whitehall farce (weren't they hilarious?). If you go away for a few weeks, as we do, you never know where anything is when you get back. The pescadería (fish shop) has just moved across the top square, our favourite frutería (greengrocer) has shut down and three more have opened down Calle Cervantes. The charity shop run by Cudeca (care of cancer patients) has closed down along with Lola Decoración next door (which had a vending machine selling sex toys and chewing gum).The two shops will be replaced by a Día % supermercado.
Unlike in England where high street businesses close down and are replaced by charity shops, the reverse is true here. Where are we going to take all our junk, buy paperbacks, DVDs and 'Sur in English' now? Supertodo which even opened on saints' days and sold everything from pan scrubs to panceta has closed its doors too....but the biggest shock of all is the demise of Comercial Rebollo- Alorá's only 'department store' 'por jubilación' (owing to retirement).
Where is anybody going to buy televisions, mattresses, computers, washing machines, furniture, hair driers, mobile phones etc. now? On the internet, of course. I can't think whose retirement has triggered this bombshell. Sra.Rebollo lived in the flats opposite on Calle Veracuz and used to go across the road now and then to sit in the shop and do a bit of knitting but she must have retired years ago and all the staff there were quite young. There must be another reason. The shop was always busy and operated a curious retail arrangement by which all the staff sat behind a big L-shaped desk full of catalogues and you were invited to sit down, when a chair became available, and state your business.
There's a rumour going round that they've been bought out by Selfridges or MacDonald's. My theory is that the heir to the Rebollo fortune, Miguel Angél Rebollo, poet, economist and disciple of the Iberian 19th. century philosopher Chivas Regal, who was rarely seen before mid afternoon and hardly ever went in his shop, has decided to extend his studies and develop his role as resident 'philosopher/economist' in Bar Chismo which will be very demanding. Come to think of it I haven't seen him around for ages. Man in Álora will investigate.
........and apparently it wasn't Napoleon who coined the phrase 'nation of shopkeepers' after all, but Adam Smith, another philosopher/economist whose Institute is largely responsible for the British Conservative Party.
Good news..... a new tienda de comestibles (grocery shop) is opening at the top of Calle Algarrobo.
On the wall outside Bar Alegría, just above the poster announcing the opening of the new Tienda de Comestibles there has appeared an announcement of the annual football match between the Ayuntamiento (the town council) and the Guardia Civil (the national paramilitary police force some times know as 'La Benemérita' which has its cuartel (barracks) on the outskirts of town on the road to El Chorro).
The match is held to celebrate 'El Día de la Virgen del Pilar' (The day of the Virgin of the Pillar) who is the patrona of the Guardía Civil and so it´s only fair that they should win the game, especially as they carry loaded guns. This year the Festival of Pilar is on October 12th. so all the shops will be shut, except for the Moroccan and Chinese Bazaars.
The idea of a footy match between town hall personel and the 'Civiles' brings to mind a (this time accurate) quotation from George Orwell's essay 'The Sporting Spirit (1945)
'Sport is war without the shooting'.
In Andalucía the the role of the Guardia Civil during and after the Spanish Civil War lends this 'annual event' a touch of irony.
When the war kicked off in 1936 with a rebellion against the Spanish Government led by a group of Army generals the majority of Guardia Civil contingents stayed loyal to the republican Government.
In Andalucía they already had a history of brutal repression of dissent, particularly in rural areas, which means pretty well everywhere. They weren't popular.
When the 'Nationalistas' captured Andalucía early in the war many towns and villages had town councils made up largely of republicans. The Guardia Civil, and the local 'Falangists' (fascists) would often put a team together to take on the local 'ayuntamiento team'.
After the whistle was blown the game usually kicked off with the Guardia rounding up the mayor and corporation and shooting them. Game over. They never lost a match. They had all the guns after all.
This happened not far away from here in Mijas. The mayor there, Manuel Cortéz avoided arrest and summary execution by hiding for 30 years in his own house. ('The Life of Manuel Cortés' by Ronald Fraser, Verso 1972)
And he lived to tell the tale. The 'Civiles' regularly searched the house but never found him.
These days it's more of a 'friendly' game and I shall be reporting on it in the next Man in Álora blog.
The day after the footy match Álora will put on its 15th. annual Día de las Sopas Perotas (It's NOT soup).
Mmmmm. Save some for me.
Pie news.
One of my readers in Liverpool, England clearly shares my affection and afición for pies to such a degree that he is producing 'images' which take the pie from its humble status as a 'hand-held gourmet savoury food item' to an art form. It's easy to see the influence of Magritte in the above image which uses a controversial juxtaposition of two quite distinct images of pies; one a Holland's classic meat pie and the other a rustic cheese and onion pie. The incipient grin detectable on the 'face' of the the C&O also references a classic Klee image and brashly symbolises the fusion between humanity and earth.
If you send in more of these I am happy to introduce a new feature which we'll call:
'Pie Pictures'
See you on Saturday in Álora. Don't forget your spoon.
Juanito Sánchez 30th.September 2018.
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