The nights are drawing in. The clocks went back two weeks ago and here in sunny Álora we're still an hour ahead of The UK, Britain, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and The British Isles. They never seem to catch up...even after BREXIT... (Don't talk to ME about BREXIT!!).
My hermana y cuñado (sister and brother-in-law) arrived here the day they went back (that doesn't sound right, even though her visits are usually 'visitas relampagos' (lightning visits)) but, as it turned out, she had put her watch back two hours and they arrived a week before they left.
According to The Greenwich Meridian, Spain should be on the same time as Great Britain and Northern Ireland and not an hour ahead. Not many people know this, but General Franco, who ruled Spain from 1938 to 1975, was such a chum of Adolf Hitler and an admirer of all things German, that he ordered all the Spanish clocks to be on the same time as Berlin, which is in Germany, an hour ahead of GMT, and nobody can be bothered to change the Spanish clocks back, except once a year.
'Stop calling me so late at night, dummkopf!'
Mrs. Sánchez
never changes the time on her watch unless the battery runs out, which
it did a few weeks ago. They were able to change the battery at a local
jeweller's for a couple of euros, which was a surprise to me. They change batteries but don't change watch straps...you have to go to the barber's for that.
For a small town (13.500 habitantes) there´s been a lot going on here since we arrived and everyone is trying to get back to behaving normally. The 'Día de las Sopas Perotas' kick-started a whirl of social events. Two years, starved of the processions of Semana Santa, has left the Áloreños hungry for a whiff of incense, the sound of drums, a marching band and candles.
Here´s the first one that has been just up our street since April 2019.
It's good old 'Santo Cristo Crucificado de los Estudiantes' who usually gets an airing on Good Friday.
Más vale tarde que nunca' (Better late than never). They´ve had one a week since then.
'It's Easter, Jaime, but not as we know it'.
Málaga went the whole hog last week and had a near-total re-run of the Semana Santa processions... 16 of them in one night. They put on a free coach from Álora. It was full.
I hope they know what they´re doing...not much social distancing going on there.😮
During October, Spain had been recording low numbers of cases of Covid 19 (as low as 40 cases per 100,000), but the numbers are creeping up again, and are up to 80 per 100,000 again.
Mrs. Sánchez and I, being of a certain age, were offered a booster jab in Birmingham a few weeks ago, so we decided to dash back there for one (each), just in case it becomes part of the ´Covid Passport' requirements. (OPERATION BOOSTER).(*see stop press, below). Also, cases have been rising over there rapidly and we want to be ´fully vaccinated' when we return at the end of November. We got a 'flu jab here in Álora at the local health centre first. Then we booked flights and set about arranging a lateral flow test for when we arrived, printed off our vaccination certificates and battled with the UK 'Locator Form'.
Luckily for us there are now lots of Facebook groups that are helping fellow Brits to avoid falling foul of all the post- Brexit and Covid travel regulations.They have names like ´Non-resident Spanish home-owners', '180 days in Spain', 'Brexpats in Spain' etc.
Nobody wants to get turned back at the airport for not filling out a form properly, do they? You would not believe the anxiety that is expressed on these sites! Air travel was unpleasant enough before Covid and Brexit but it´s a whole new world of pain and suffering now. I´m amazed that anybody wants to travel at all.
´Can I take my corned beef sandwiches on the plane?'
'What if they don't stamp my passport?'
'Will my cat need a Covid jab?'
'What if my husband dies on the plane?'
and so on....
It's a good job there's Deborah Darling of Non resident Spanish Homeowners.
Deborah knows EVERYTHING., and it's her REAL name too!
The next section of this exciting edition of 'Man in Álora' is not recommended for people with weak bladders or submechanophobia . It's all about fountains.
On the same day as Sopas Perotas, Álora's new fountain was unveiled. The work has been going on for about twenty-two years, and so a large expectant crowd gathered outside the barber´s shop of Paco y Pepe (Pepe has retired), where the new fountain has been built. At a given signal,our alcalde (mayor) Francisco Martinez Subires, accompanied by his 14 trusted concejales (councillors), gave a little speech and turned on the water. What joy!
Three days later, a team of técnicos (specialists) moved in to prune the two palm trees, which involved heavy machinery to move the stone blocks.
Within a week, when I passed the new Fuente d'Arriba ('The Fountain Above), water was pouring over the road and now it´s not working at all. I spoke to the técnico who was in the big 'reservoir'. 'Not enough sealant', he declared.
Here´s a picture taken a long time ago. It shows the old 'fuente' in the centre of Álora at the bottom of Calle Santa Ana where in the olden days, before 'corporation pop', people, usually nearly always women, would go to fill up their cánteros (big ceramic water containers) or garrafas (big glass bottles in a cane basket). It looks like jolly hard work. It´s no wonder the blokes got out of doing it!
It's in the same place as the new one.
The old 'Fuente Arriba'
The water in the old fuente came from a natural spring and it flowed from the spouts 24 hours a day without a grifo (tap) and the water was free, too. There were numerous spring water fuentes around Álora before 'mains' water was available. The ones you see around town now have taps and supply 'purified' town water, still free, though.
As far as I know, the only remaining one spouting spring water is La Fuente de Pedro Sánchez (no relation) which is tucked away at the foot of Monte Hacho opposite the Los Conejitos restaurant.
La Fuente de la Higuera, outside the La Higuera Restaurant on the Ardales road was declared no potable (undrinkable) a few years ago. It used to be very popular indeed.
La Fuente Romano up on the Canca, opposite the ruins of the Roman Villa, dried up mysteriously a few years ago. We used to use it a lot. The water suddenly dried up after at least 2000 years of use. This happened at about the same time a massive fruit plantation appeared close by. Well, well.
La Fuente Romana before the water 'disappeared'.
These two fuentes were very popular with country people. I used to have to drive up the La Fuente de La Higuera at the crack of dawn to avoid the crowds. The Roman Fountain was less popular. The drain got blocked up and water filled up the enclosure. The threat to life and the unsightly layer of discarded plastic bottles floating on the surface put a lot people off. Also, giant frogs lived there.
Many non-Spaniards tend to think of a fountain as an ornamental structure, like the much maligned ones now in the Plaza de la Fuente Arriba (Top Square), but a fuente, or fountain was the name for all these 'springs'. A 'fontenero' is a plumber.
Many ex-pats, and many Perotes, too, will tell you how much they miss the ´Fountain with the Lions' which was the one before the present duo.
La Fuente de los Leones
Manolo of El Cafe-Bar Madrugón in the 'Top Square' will tell you he can remember at least five fountains in the plaza, which is not bad going when you consider that until the 1950's there was no plaza there at all!
Until 1936 the whole of the bottom part of the Plaza, up as far as Cafe-Bar Madrugón was occupied by a convent, which got burned to the ground by Republicans at the beginning of Spain's Guerra Civil (Civil War) 1936-38.
The present plaza - it's a triangle, not a square, was originally raised several feet above ground level. It had steps up to it and there was no fountain, ornamental or otherwise.
THEN
NOW
Bar News
We were very sad to learn that Cafetería Azahar, opposite Calle Carmona and hosted by Candelaria, had closed its doors. We have have spent many many happy hours there over the years - at first when Candelaria's husband Antonio Santiago was alive and it served the best tapas in Álora, and later on when Candelaria bravely continued to run it, but only opening in the mornings.
The good news is that four new bars have opened since we were here a year ago.
Hemispherium has opened in Calle Carmona, where two previous bars were, and where the estate agents Calderón used to fleece gullible followers of 'A Place in the Sun ' in the 'wild west days' of the early 2000s, when I once counted 15 estate agents in Álora. There are two, now.
Hemispherium continues the trend set by Casa Abilio and El Taller, serving modern versions of traditional Andaluz grub. It's a bit pricey, though.
La Taverna de Álora, which has replaced a long succession of bars in a prime spot on Calle Cervantes appears to be cashing in on the success of El Caminito del Rey and ´'Good luck' to them.
The food is very good and the staff are friendly, cheerful and efficient. I´ve tried twice, without success, to get through their massive bowl of 'patatas bravas'.
La Peña Flamenca (The Flamenco Club) has moved from its hideaway in Callejón Pepe Rosas , or under Bar Bernabe, to the old Correos (Post Office) Bar which has had more changes of ownership than any bar in Álora that I know of and has never been any good since Lars shut up shop over ten years ago. Poker-faced Lars first opened it as a bar-restaurant serving Spanish-Swedish fusion food nearly twenty years ago.
Correos - when it was the Post Office.
La Posada has opened again. This time it's being run by the lovely Rosa, who's mum lives opposite us. It's down the hill to the left of Bar Alegría, on Calle Rosales (which isn't called that now but I'm not going up Algarrobo just to find the 'new' name) In the Good Old Days before the 2008 Crash, Rosa had three bars around the town. Who can remember the Moroccan one, on Calle Cervantes run by Rosa's even lovelier daughter, Fatima?
Good luck Rosa!
Pie News
There's not usually much Pies News when we're in Álora.
Regular readers of this venereal organ may remember that I tried to introduce British pies to Álora with no success. They never seemed to have caught on in Spain. Mrs. Sánchez will tell you that a proper pie is made with hot-water pastry and is 'raised'. In Lancashire they are called 'stand pies.' The Spanish 'empanadas' or empadadillas(small empanadas) are shaped like a pasty and so not, technically, a pie at all.
A Proper Pie (Greenhalgh's from Bolton)
Imagine my surprise on returning to Álora after a long absence to see this!!!
Slap bang in centre of town a shop has opened which sells all kinds of British food. It appears that ex-pats here in Andalucía, the region of Spain which has always been known as the most ´Spanish' of all, can not do without such typical British favourites as Brown Sauce, Yorkshire Tea, Werther's Originals, Patak's cook-in Sauces and pies.
Tom, originally from Cumbria, which used to be part of Lancashire, or vice-versa, stocks a dazzling nostalgic array of colourful and appetizing tins and jars.
'What sort have pies have you got, then? I enquired with more than a little disbelief in my tone.
'All kinds'. replied Tom as he opened the lid of a vast chest freezer waist-deep on frozen savoury pastries.
And he has got 'all kinds' too. All of them are 'Jumbo' but I checked the long list of ingredients and none of them contained any elephant meat. The 'Jumbo Steak and Kidney' and the 'Jumbo Mince and Onion' particularly caught my eye.
I resisted the temptation to stock up with a few. - our freezer in Birmingham has a compartment dedicated to that queen of pie brands, 'Hollands' of Baxenden. But the truth is I don't want to eat Meat Pies in Spain, any more than I want to eat paella or gambas pil pil in Birmingham....'When in Rome...'
'I bet you haven't got any Hollands',
'I bet I have! ' exclaimed a grinning Tom, jubilantly.
and, after boldly plunging most of his bare arm into the icy depths of the 'pie chest', he produced a packet of Holland's Cheese and Onion Pies like a rabbit out of a hat.
I think I can detect a gradual invasion of a pie-eating culture here in Andalucía, albeit still at the 'pasty' stage, in which Cornwall has been stuck for centuries.
This shop opened in Málaga just a few months ago.
'They're pies, Jim, but not as we know them'.
And finally....a big welcome to Mr.and Mrs. C*nt who have moved into Calle Zapata, just above the steps up from Calle Atrás.
Hasta luego.
Juanito Sánchez 17th. November 2021.
* STOP PRESS........
Brexit 'The UK is NOT corrupt' Boris Johnson has just said that the third jab will be essential for foreign travel, soon.
I shouldn't worry, he'll probably have changed his mind again by the time you read this.
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