Solstice

First of all, let me apologise for the lack of photos in this post. It seems my camera has turned into a vampire as it sucks all the life out of the batteries before I can get a single photo taken, and spending €26 on new rechargables has not helped the situation. And this just when I wanted to entertain you all with pictures of the mulled wine, the grand lighting and our roaring bonfire. Although, to be honest, ones of me after one too many mugs of wine were never going to be posted anyway. I wonder if it's too late to convert and ask Santa for a new one?!

It's always wonderful to arrive home to the smell of mulled wine, especially when there's a warming chilli 'sin carne' awaiting too. So, defying the rest of El Entrego who all seemed to be determined that I should have a Feliz Navidad (I really should learn how to say 'Winter Solstice' in Spanish so I can wish everyone a happy one in reply), we scoffed our dinner and, mugs of spiced wine in hand, went outside to enjoy the evening. The night was clear, the moon almost full and the stars winked cheekily at us in the crisp air.

Bonfire lit, we spread out an old blanket and enjoyed the warmth and spendour of the fire, which I imagine could be seen all the way down in the town. We were soon joined by all three cats who took great delight in having an audience for their clowning around the kale plants before deciding that the stange glowing object wasn't a threat and coming to sit on the blanket with us. Eventually they got bored and went in, but we stayed out until gone midnight, sitting, watching, contemplating, and supping beer once the wine had run out.

We made it to bed at about 1.30 this morning with the plan of planting our peas today and preparing the bed for garlic. However, the weather has turned and it's been raining since mid-morning. Instead I'm planning on lazing next to the fire with a good book.

Fiesta, fiesta and a tale of sleepless nights

There was a fiesta in Lantero last weekend. It ran from Friday to Monday night. This year we knew what to expect. I imagine most Brits would say something along the lines of 'ooh a proper Spanish fiesta, how exciting' if we mentioned that the village halfway up our mountain hosted it's own annual knees-up. We, however, know better. Fiestas around here, if you live in our house and want a decent night's kip, are noisy, irritating and intrusive.

Now before any of you proclaim me a party-pooper, or an aguafiestas as they say around here, I feel I must point out that the musical mainstay of the fiestas in this particular part of the world is the techno disco. Imagine lying in bed at five am listening to the steady pum, pum, pum of the turned-up-all-the-way base punctuated by the evil DJ's ramblings. It's not pleasant. There was a new addition to the Monday night finale too that really took the biscuit, (somebody with dreams of grandeur had obviously been studying Olympic Games closing ceremonies), and that was a stream of fireworks at six in the morning, just to make sure that anybody who hadn't been woken up by the six hours of vile music would, with a start, be made aware of the end of the fiesta by numerous resounding BANGS.


We did give the fiesta a go the first year we were here, and the results were fairly disastrous. At discovering that a warm 25cl bottle of beer was priced at €1.50 we opted for the cheap red wine at €2 a bottle (which should've been warning enough in itself). Duncan arrived at half time and by 2 am, with plenty of Scots encouragement, Matt, with a little help from me, had gotten through three bottles. This was followed by a rum and coke (we're talking Spanish measures here, of course) that Duncan had insisted on purchasing for him, despite the best efforts of Susana and myself to explain that more alcohol really wasn't needed. We arrived home at 4 am after I'd taken two hours to drag Matt up the hill (" keep your knees straight, that's it. Now, one foot after the other. No, no, no, knees straight!") whereupon he promptly threw up and then passed out in bed. After that we decided it was best not to go again.
Anyway, after the four nights of fiesta in Lantero we had two nights break before the four day, four night El Entrego fiesta got going. It started yesterday and I managed to get to sleep before the heavy music started. Despite my cunning plan of an early night, I was awoken at 4.30am by Matt coming back from the trip to the loo. The conversation went something like this:

A sleepy me: Wah, uh, what's happening?

Matt: I couldn't sleep, the music's too loud.

me: What music?

PAUSE

me: Oh.



And then I was kept awake until 6am until the music stopped.

For tonight I have been even more cunning - this is our bedroom window:








I knew that old foam matress would come in handy one day.

A photo of a picture of a photo

I've been saving this for a special post all of it's own. This was my excellent birthday present from my very good friend Sue. I'm very pleased that I can now say I have a Dobson original hanging in my hall.



The painting is Ms D's adaptation of a photo I took on the Ruta de Brañagallones in the Parque Natural de Redes that we did together on one of Sue's previous visits.

Birthday cards

It always take a while for post to reach us here, but I think I've just about received all my birthday cards, and here they are:

Does anyone notice an emerging theme? In fact, almost all of them contained either cats, cake, flowers/the countryside or tennis. I think my friends know me very well.

Birthday weekend

I had a full, but happy birthday weekend. I managed to escape from work at 6.30 on Friday to meet my Mum, Keith, her partner, and Matt and we went straight to the house my mum has in a hamlet near here for the weekend.

We had a tasty dinner of home grown broad beans and new potatoes, with a herb omelette made with fresh, free-range eggs from our neighbour, washed down with some very quaffable red wine that they'd brought from France.

Saturday morning we went up the Peña Mayor, and it was cloudy, again. I keep saying that the next time I do it, it'll be with clear skies but I haven't made it yet. We only did part of the walk as the meadows were covered with 'viscious' horned cows - my mum has a slight bovine-taurine phobia since she was chased by a bull years ago - so we turned back once the cows became too numerous, mum looking over her shoulder just to make sure we weren't being followed by the beasts. To be fair, there were so many cow bells ringing it did sound as though we were carefully being stalked and surrounded. The effect was heightened by the birds circling low, overhead - I think they were of the same type we saw last time, eagles or possibly vultures we think; we've been speaking to people in the know and you get griffon and Egyptian vultures in the area, as well as golden, short-toed and booted eagles.


Horse and foal on the Peña Mayor - the meadows were full of horses and their young.



A nosy calf - this my mother could handle - no horns yet!



One cow too many - this was when we had to turn back.

Anyway, we eventually made our escape down the mountain, unharmed, you'll be pleased to know, and completed our Saturday with a piggy lunch at the local bar near the house, where Keith was invited to join in with the locals chess game - he politely declined saying to us he'd never known a game of chess to be so loud - and we went back to the house for a relaxing afternoon on the terrace.


The hamlet taken on our way back from lunch.


We awoke on the Sunday to bright sun - perfect for the Peña Mayor if only we hadn't already been up there the day before. So we decided to go to the beach and spent the afternoon at Vega. I had been looking forward to a doze in the sun but we spent it jumping waves, walking along the beach and finding unusual stones - the geology of the area is quite interesting, even for someone like me who normally takes little interest in that sort of thing - and there are all types of rocks and stones on the beach in as many colours as you can imagine with lots of blue-green coppery shades mixed with deep red sandstone and seams of white marble in jet-black rock.

When we finally made it back home after dropping mum and Keith off at her house for their last night we were too tired to do much celebrating. We poshed up a simple pasta dinner with a bottle of something sparkling, then watched James and the Giant Peach on DVD before going to bed.


A birthday tipple.


I'd left the boxes of books in the kitchen to be dealt with on Monday morning and I've just about got them all squeezed into the office now. Unpacking them was great, I kept discovering books I'd forgotten about and would squeal or "ooh" and "ahh" with glee whenever I came across one. I now also have a good stock of new books from Amazon that should keep me going for a fair while too.




Elbi investigating my books - she had to be removed when the nibbling started.

Happy Birthday Mum!

My mum is 60 today, so happy birthday mum, have a lovely day! Deciding on a present was difficult, but my sister came up with idea of getting our photos taken professionally - her together with my niece in the UK, and me here. Great idea I thought and off I went to a photographer in a town up the valley. He was very friendly, but I absolutely hate having my photo taken, especially in a situation like that - just me, star of the show, in the limelight, ugh. I'm completely incapable of posing for the camera - it always seems so unnatural - and spent an excruciating 60 minutes trying to find a pose that would produce a photo good enough to send. The good news is that I did manage it - eventually, the photographer got me talking about my cats and I started to relax (yes, I know, I'm turning into a mad old cat lady before my time) and my mum loved the photo; it even produced some tears so it must've been good. However, I should've warned her not to expect another one on her 70th! I don't intend to go through that again, I shall have to start thinking now about an alternative gift. Any ideas?

Overindulgence

Early yesterday evening we went halfway down the hill to an espicha in the village of Lantero. Espichas are mini-fiestas to celebrate the opening of a new barrel of cider. They take place in Asturias from mid-March to the end of April. Cider is a big deal here, it's the drink of choice for most Asturians. Many people make their own and apple orchards are a common sight. Cider pouring is an art. Because the cider is flat you're supposed to hold the glass in one hand down by your knees and then pour in an inch or so of cider from above head height to give it a bit of fizz. They even have organised competitions to see who can do it best and they're taken very seriously: winning one can add immensely to your social stature. There's a drinking etiquette which states that you're to knock back the cider in one go (so as not to let it get flat again) and all Asturians follow this to the letter. And, you share a glass and pass it round making it very easy to get through a bottle in this way. It's also used a lot in cooking here. We make a rather tasty butter bean and vegetable stew (with chorizo for non-veggies) It's cooked gently for about an hour in the cider, either in the oven or on the hob, and then we add lots of fresh parsley before serving. It's very good with mash or on it's own.

So, along we went yesterday with the idea of having a bottle or two, the odd tapa and then making our way back up the hill for a relaxing evening at home. All was going to plan, we'd quaffed one bottle and were well on our way to finishing the second. Tapas had been consumed, we were feeling rather mellow and were comtemplating ambling back home. Then, Matt received a text from some friends, Duncan and Susana, down in the town 'we're off for a drink if you want to join us'. "Why not?" said Matt "we hardly ever go out" and, having finished the last of the cider, we walked the rest of the way down the hill.

Now, I know from experiences as a teenager (yes, in plural - it took me a while to learn) that mixing beer and cider is not very clever, especially with just a pincho de tortilla - a small bread roll filled with a slice of Spanish omelette - in my belly to soak it all up. However, with a bottle of cider buzzing around inside me it didn't seem so important when we got to the bar. Besides, as it wasn't a sidreria - a bar specialising in cider, so more of the same was not an option, beer it was. And very happily I drunk it too. Also, I must point out here that Duncan (as you can probably tell from the name) is a Scot who, conforming to national stereotypes, does like his drink and sets a fast pace too. You can usually tell how much he's been drinking by how quickly he's talking - the more beer imbued, the faster the speech, and with a strong Glaswegian accent it's taken us some practice to understand what's he's saying once he's had a few. We eagerly, and noisily I imagine, talked the night away, in the process moving from the bar to Duncan And Susana's flat where they kindly made us pizza and salad. This was when Duncan had the idea to open a bottle of red wine. Details were hazy by this point so I'm not quite sure how much went down my throat - not as much as down Matt's it looks like (he's still suffering in bed at 3.15 pm) - and when I looked at my watch, well stone me, it'd suddenly reached 2 am.
Fortunately I wasn't so drunk that I forgot to sensibly put a glass of water by my bed once we'd taken a taxi home. I think it's more the mixture rather than quantities, and lack of food (very rare for me) that have caused this particular hangover. What's making it worse it that we have to go and find some firewood before the day is out. According to the weather forecast it's going to snow tomorrow, and Tuesday, and Wednesday. Yes. Snow. It's rather hard to believe at the moment, it's a gorgeous spring day with an incredibly
blue sky and not a cloud in sight. There's blossom on the trees and our jasmine is flowering. However, we have been caught out before - most notably in January 2005 when we were due to go and apply for our Spanish residency papers and it snowed heavily the night before. Matt, not wanting to miss the appointment that we'd waited two months for, and seeing the main road was clear, tried to drive us down the hill. Instead we ended up in the ditch having made it no further than the second corner, and had to wait a week for the snow to melt so the tow truck could come and lift the car out - so we've learnt not to be complacent.

Despite the snow causing us more work, effort and problems. It's always astoundingly beautiful here when it falls. The second appointment we made for the residency card application also fell on a day when it snowed - just typical. Not wishing to miss it for a second time, we got up early, put on our boots and gloves and battled through the snow down the hill to the train station. Nobody else was about at that hour and everything was covered with a pristine white blanket that glistened in the sun. It was like being a some kind of magical fairyland, our own personal Narnia, and I cursed myself for not having thought to take my camera out with me. The last time is snowed here was in early February. It made my simple trips to work and back much more difficult than usual. Although walking halfway up the hill from my abandoned car each day for a week made me much fitter, and I always arrived home very ready for my dinner. It was also lovely to see the lights of El Entrego beneath me, glinting in the snow as I walked. Even so, despite all this loveliness I find I'm wishing that they've got it all wrong and tomorrow will be just another spring day, although glancing out of the window I see the clouds arriving, here we go again.