The Day Trip

The odd things that happen in Spain. Yesterday we went to Almería to pick up two friends and to continue on to the Province’s other big city, El Ejido. Just along from our first destination is a feed store, so we stopped there for a few things, including happening on a clip to hold the dog safely in the car – the police being very keen on stopping you these days if your pet isn’t properly secured.

Next door at the stables, we transferred to Loli’s car, and four of us boarded along with two miniature ponies and a baby sheep that happened to be loitering nearby. The ponies jumped into the rear of the vehicle without much prompting. Noticing my surprise, Loli told me she once went to some children's pet-show with no less than eighteen critters in her buggy, including ponies, tortoises, chickens, rabbits and a slightly bilious coatimundi.

Today, we were off to a party for disabled children given by a physiotherapist called Beatriz, who with Loli and Barbara, makes up the senior members of Animo.

Loli’s vehicle has tinted rear windows, so our load of horseflesh was safe from the public eye, as long as our passengers didn’t neigh too loudly. Unfortunately, one of them was minded to produce ear-splitting whinnies through most of the trip, which included the part where we drove across the city of Almería.

I had the window down (to combat the smell – Dutch ponies can be stinky in confined quarters, especially after breakfast). We arrived at the lights at one point just as another shriek came from somewhere in the rear of the vehicle. A man in the car next to us looked up in horror. All he could see was Loli and me. ‘She’s had this cold for weeks’ I told him gamely ‘nothing seems to shift it’.

It was a good day with the children in El Ejido. We gave them rides on the ponies and told them stories about the sheep, a black and white male that stuck firmly beside Loli during the entire experience, as if his friend could somehow explain what the whole thing was about. A Wise King showed up towards the end of the afternoon and pulled presents out of a sack on the back of one of the ponies. Each child got a calendar decorated with his or her photo (I got one of me posing with our chicken, Maude). Barbara and Loli, co-writers of Manual Básico de la Hípica Terapéutica, both received hard-covered printer’s copies of their book.

Once again wedged into the car and lulled into drowsiness by another sustained chorus of bellows, we returned safely past any and all police check-points to the stables in Almería and, transferring to our vehicle, we continued home, the car full of tomatoes from El Ejido, some grain for our horses and a box of mixture for Maude.

A Stuffed Bull's Head

The age old problem of 'what to buy someone for Christmas' has just been answered. A stuffed bull's head. These are not just any old bulls, these ones come from the top farms, breeders and some of them even met their ends at the hands of a famous bullfighter! Imagine the jolly stories you can make up as you swirl your glass of wine and ripple your pencil-thin moustache.
When I was around nine or ten, I came to Spain for holidays with my parents. We went to Playa del Haro (as it was comfortably called in those days) and saw a thrilling bullfight in Gerona. I got a large raffia bull's head to crown my experience and it decorated my bedroom in England for the next few years.
I found this flyer at the Sicab horse fair in Seville last month and thought that it would interest those Gentle Readers who don't like raffia. So there you are, your very own genuine stuffed Bull's Head.

The Siege of Mojácar

It seems that this retablo, showing 'el asedio de Mojácar', is in Toledo. The wooden carving was made by Rodrigo Alemán (1470-1542) and the picture is part of a new collection of historical photographs held by the Ministerio de Cultura and the Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España. The 'search page' is here.
Mojácar was attacked in 1488 as part of the final surge against the Moor. The fortified town either gave in after an agreement between the alcaide and the Christian leader that they would all get along peacefully (the disneyesque version suggested by a plinth at the fuente) or the more historically accepted version is that the whole town was put to the sword and repopulated by 400 properly Christian Spaniards from Lorca.

A slightly neglected copy of the retablo, made in 2004, is affixed to the back of the Mojácar church.

All This?

All this for 37 cars? That's not someone who cares for Mojácar.

Banco de Sabadell

Full marks to the Banco de Sabadell. I know that they are merely after our savings, but it's not often that you see an acknowledgement towards the foreigners who are living here full-time rather than those who are enjoying a short holiday here (and yet seem worthy of the spending of millions of euros in their pursuit). Tourists, you see, have no reason to be loyal. They'll take their next holiday somewhere else.
As the bank manager knows, there is a huge amount of money being pumped into Spain by those foreign settlers. There would be a lot more if the politicians woke up.

The Nice Picture from Carboneras

There you are, leafing through the various catalogues, magazines, webpages and so on, in search of that vital holiday: as guaranteed by the State and your Employer both. Hard work for fifty weeks means a fortnight of some rest and relaxation to compensate. Where to go?
There are the tried and true holiday destinations, where you pretty much know what to expect, having perhaps been there before, or from hearing reports from your work-mates. There are farther away resorts, with new and cheaper offers: well, why not?
There are new places as well, perhaps more exciting, or adventurous... and won't those same work-mates be jealous when they hear about your discovery?
So, Carboneras. It's a small fishing port in Almería, just along from Mojácar. It has some good and cheap fish restaurants and a castle. There's an attractive bay and some famously wild nudist beaches. The tiny and pretty village of Aguamarga is just next door. Carboneras also has, as you can see from the picture, a splendidly odd sculpture cum farmhouse, built in the early sixties by a Belgian who ended up being eaten by a tiger in Bengal.
But here's the thing. The Carboneras Tourist Board has to work with what it's got, which in this case is the most polluting power station in Spain (according to the European Environment agency) which, by the way, was cropped from the above photograph. The massive plant, accompanied by another behemoth, the Holcim cement factory, are within scant metres of the above oddity - jus' saying. The town is also known for the Hotel Algarrobico, an unfinished 22 storey hotel where completion was put on hold several years ago by the Ministry of the Environment because it was built both too close to the sea and also in a national park, breaking two planning laws in the event. However, with politics, inertia and a whopping demolition bill, no one has actually got around to knocking it down.
Carboneras isn't a bad place, the food is good and the people seem nice, but is it really the best choice for a holiday? Perhaps not.

This Beats Garden Gnomes

So, what's this? A mansion in El Ejido, the Almería city famous for its farming under plastic and opulent wealth. The owner of this tasteful looking house, in a clear homage to the past, has seen fit to decorate his garden with a selection of mechanical hardware, including an old Moto Guzzi 98cc with a stick shift hanging from some chains, an antique 1950's Citroen stood on a plinth, and just inside the garden, to the right, an artillery piece. Is that a bit of a airplane disappearing around the corner? One day, I'd like to see inside the house!

Spanish Invention

You probably knew that the submarine is a Spanish invention. There is an early example raised on the port in Cartagena. Designed and built by a local engineer called Isaac Peral in Cadiz in 1887, it ran on electric current. The earliest Spanish submarine, however, was built by a Catalonian called Narcis Monturiol and ran manually. For (presumably) rather short distances. A later version ran on steam.
But Spain has invented many other useful gadgets (a friend of mine here in Mojácar lives comfortably off a garlic peeler he came up with a few years ago).
The Autogiro being one such (or so I read here). This was a variation on the helicopter, with stubby rear wings and a forward propeller. A large free-spinning propeller pointing upwards kept the thing (more or less) in the air. A British version called 'The Flying Bedstead' used to putter loudly over our garden when I was a child in Norfolk. The autogiro was developed by Juan de la Cierva in the nineteen twenties. Another useful invention, the arquebus, comes from Spain, although Wikipedia appears to disagree, suggesting Hungary instead. Better luck, perhaps, with the easy-to-assemble Molotov cocktail, which was first used by the Republicans during the Civil War before finding its way to the Finnish resistance to the Russian invasion of 1939.
More peaceful inventions include the famous Chupa Chup, the gob-stopper on a stick, introduced by Enric Bernat in 1958. I know that he sells a lot of them to the Chinese and Kojak used to swear by them when solving crimes. Chupa Chups are often used to wean one off another Spanish invention, The cigarette. This was manufactured originally by Seville beggars, who would roll odd bits of tobacco collected from the cigar makers into tubes made from rice paper. The first commercial cigarettes in a packet appeared in 1825 and where commercially named as 'Cigarrillos Superiores' in 1833. They didn't carry health warnings in those days.
The fregona is a fine Spanish invention. I've no idea what it's called in English, but it is a sponge on a stick used for washing floors. It comes from a airman called Manuel Jalón Corominas, introduced in 1956. Another, the pencil-sharpener, dates from 1945 from the workshop of Ignacio Urresti. Then, two partners called Juan Solozábal and Juan Olive came up with the stapler in around 1930.
Finally, according to the comments that follow the Spanish original (an article which promises more inventions in a second part), much of the above is erroneous.
Now they tell us!

The Underground Carpark

For those readers who haven't been up to Mojácar village recently - either because they live in California, Coventry or Kiev - or because they don't fancy a short drive up from the beach, here's how the famous dig is coming along. The picture comes from upstairs at the Town Hall's urbanismo building. The church is on the left and there's a narrow string of slightly worried shops and bars running along the top of the picture. Will it all be ready for Easter?

Quality Tourism

As the Mojácar Town Hall wonders how much to budget for the Madrid tourist Fair in January - the Fitur - I would like to suggest a few things which might be done to attract visitors (and package-tour trippers, for what they're worth to the local economy), all without breaking the bank.
A sign on the motorway exit to start with, similar (for example) to the one off Puerto Lumbreras (Ciudad de Alfarería) or the nifty models - rather mistreated these days - outside Nijar. According to a study made in a tourist destination in Cadiz somewhere, about 10% of the tourist traffic that arrived off the motorway was impulse-driven. How much would a sign cost?
Jacinto Alarcón, our old mayor, once recommended visitors 'to summer your winter in Mojácar'. The point is, the small and inadequate infrastructure in Mojácar is full during the summer and yet it is completely empty during the rest of the year when Mojácar, thanks to its extraordinary micro-climate, is extremely comfortable. That's a season to promote... and it would be directed to people willing to listen.
Make the pedestrian entrance to Mojácar near to where the cars are parked. Three hundred metres walk to the Plaza Nueva and another three hundred metres back...? Along a narrow road with a miserable pavement...? Put an elevator up to the back square and make it - now that we are building there anyway - into something attractive and vehicle free (dentro de lo que cabe).
Support up-market hotels, like the Parador, where the clients have money to spend, rather than run-down tripper hotels, whose agenda is to cut every corner, while encouraging their guests to stay within the walls.
Encourage foreign retirees to buy in Mojácar - they will be bringing in large sums of money and spending all year long. Stop treating those foreigners, now local residents in good faith, as pariahs: allow them a bowling green if they want one (no one here plays padel tennis). Perhaps celebrate 'International Day' like they do in the Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol instead of the just-mojaquero-days like the Romería and the Día de la Virgen. Mojácar's reputation could improve.
A silly thing perhaps, but maybe a street name to honour the foreigners who, between them, brought this town back from absolute poverty? We don't have any Calle Fritz Mooney, Plaza Paul Becket or Avenida Bill Napier. In fact, while there are Calles de Rumanía, Francia, Suecia, Dinamarca etc... there isn't one honouring Inglaterra or Reino Unido. We are 50% of the population you know.
The sign in the photograph is good, isn't it? It comes from Granada and doesn't have any mistakes in the English. It's as if... they asked someone to check the spelling.

Rosmari's Carpark III

Work has started to speed up a bit, some fifty days into the project. Soft 'fill' is being taken out of the upper side of the square. Already one unsuspected water pipe has burst. One can see the church with its protection and the metal chapa that surrounds the entire square. The best viewpoints being either from the upstairs of the Town Hall's urbanísmo department (above the Tourist Office) or from a handy stump outside the Vientos del Desierto restaurant. The leader of the Moros Viejos, the founding club from the 'Moors and Christians' festival held each June, has expressed his dismay in the speed of the obra to the mayoress, Rosmari Cano in a letter delivered recently.

Rosmari's Parking II

I was in the pueblo this evening for a look around and a drink. The two squares are now one, with our old house and the 'schoolmaster's house' demolished. As things stand, it's quite nice, although, with the high metal fence (to stop us seeing any rare artifact from the past two thousand years...?), the view is pretty limited. The church has a lona (a canvas cover) to protect it and rumours are about that the floor is already giving way. At La Sarten, the local foreigners are enjoying 'quiz night'. Some questions, however, remain best unanswered.

The Lavatory Bar

In the old days, before the passing of Franco, the bars closed at 1.00am. Most of them no doubt closed a lot earlier, right after the black and white football game on the telly ended, but the bars in the tourist towns at least, would remain open for the boozy foreigners until the bell went. By the late sixties, prices for a gin and tonic had crept up to fourteen pesetas, and a beer cost anything up to a duro – five pesetas. Our town lush, Old Antonio, would patrol the bars in Mojácar on the look out for a drink, looking more and more dishevelled after each invitación. ‘Rubio, dame un duro’, he’d whine.

The local bars were dressed in simple stone, marble, slate, tiles and plaster. There might be a calendar for decoration, the obligatory shelf of bottles, Green Fish gin and so on, perhaps a TV or a radio or a juke box – or with luck, all three. Noise was the keynote of a good bar, with the walls rebounding the sound and lifting it on high.

The few foreign bars would be decorated with paintings from local artists (who always attempted to drink for free) and would have the lights on low. Music came from a record player.

By 1.00am, those who wished to continue with the business of drinking would move to our solitary discothèque, run by Felipe, a Frenchman from Casablanca. Felipe would charge a little more for a cubata, the generic name for a mixed drink, but he had a disk jockey and a dance floor. At 2.00am, according to the rules, he’d close the door and pretend to be shut while we finished our drinks.

This could take some time, as the next legal establishment, the Fisherman’s Bar in nearby Garrucha, didn’t open until three.

In those days, the local Guardia Civil had to provide their own transport, which would generally be an old moped. They wouldn’t bother hiding behind a road-sign to catch the occasional drunk driver – they couldn’t stop you without ‘probable cause’ anyway. At best, they might be in the village watching the small car-park and helping drivers reverse safely out of their space and away down the hill.

The trip to Garrucha took about fifteen minutes and included a drive through the dust, ruts, or puddles, depending on the season, of the floor of the riverbed, the oddly named ‘Rio de Aguas’ that, in those days, more or less divided the two towns geographically.

Garrucha High Street was and remains, a narrow and ugly road that flows straight through the fishing village and away towards Vera and civilization to the north. In those times, it was a two-way street. Half way down it was the Bar Bichito, a bar with a special licence to open at 3.00am for the fishermen to have an early morning carajillo, a black coffee and brandy. This particular mixture always seemed like a good idea to the inebriates from Mojácar who would order a round as a song began to bubble up from within them.

Hitherto, the drinking had been reasonably quiet, with the music taking the strain, but in the Bichito, fetchingly designed in white tile throughout and known to the foreigners as ‘The Lavatory Bar’, there was no music and entertainment had to be found elsewhere. The bar made ordinary local bars of the times look positively attractive. The door was on the end and opened into a narrow bar which stretched along in a small 'el' shape parallel to the street. There were two small tables and a few chairs just inside the door, and, if feeling faint, one could always sit outside on the curb. Otherwise, we stood at the chest-high bar (or even higher for some of the vertically challenged local fishermen), blinded by the bright lights and namesake decor and watched, between songs, as Pedro man-handled his one-spout Italian coffee machine. The toilet facilities, a throne with a long drop, were through the back and doubled as a storage room for the beer and soft drinks.

The fishermen and the old municipal cop would look on in a friendly way as the small group of plastered Britons, French, Germans and Americans, depending on the draw, would start on their lengthy repertoire. A family favourite of ours was ‘I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now’ (an old song immortalised in the late sixties by the New Vaudeville Band) followed, perhaps, by the popular drunken bawl ‘I’ve Got Sixpence’ or perhaps ‘Bless Em All’. A cockney couple, Pat and Tony Farr, had taught us a number of songs, such as ‘I’m One of the Ruins that Cromwell Knocked Abaht a Bit’ or ‘I’m Henry the Eighth I Am’ and so on.

More carajillos as Pedro, face pitted with acne, would tell everyone to hsss, to be quiet. People are trying to sleep (apparently).

Things could only get worse as the Rugby Songs were unleashed. Rugby Songs are England’s answer to folk music and run along the lines of ‘My Little Sister Lily’ or ‘They Were Tattered, They Were Torn…’ with lots of lines ending in –uck and so on. Curiously, many of them are set to opera music, which gives the performers a chance to really crank out the key words with enthusiasm. At times, even the extranjeros can be loud.

The ride home was always uneventful I’m sorry to report. No accidents or arrests. But those were different times. Cheap, basic and fun.

Rosmari's Underground Parking (update)

Apart from the hive of activity that is Bartolo's nick-nack shop, the cigarette shop and the lotería (we never close), the village of Mojácar is dead this windy Sunday morning. Up by the Church, the Mayoress' plan for an underground car-park totters on, slowly. As the pictures show, nothing much has been accomplished so far, beyond removing the parked cars from the two upper squares and closing off the entire area with 'chapa'. One section of this stamped metal has ceded under the heavy wind, blocking off the narrow run into Liberio's house. Liberio the Carpenter is not amused. 'Will this crap be finished by Easter?' I ask him. 'Maybe the following one' he says.
LATER: apparently, on Monday 7th November, work started on the demolition of the two houses centred in the photos. The one on the left, originally built as two apartments, was our first home in Mojácar in 1966.

Welcome Home

One of our oldest residents decided in May to return to England. She had lived abroad since the fifties, first for many years in Tangiers, and later here in Mojácar. Her house is a beautiful home bathed in light and our friend is always full of cheer and warmth. Sometimes there were parties around her pool - a chance to catch up with some of the older residents who don't 'get out much'.
Family pressures obliged her to move to a nice country retreat near Brighton, and it was with a mixture of surprise and pleasure that I heard her voice on the phone a few days ago. 'I'm back', she said. 'No more England for me'.
It seems that she had missed her home and her friends and, despite being 93 years old, she is back here 'for good'. With so many people leaving - or wishing they could leave - it is great to see what must be our oldest resident back amongst us.
Another small garden party yesterday. Tapas, wine and some good laughs. I think that all of us present felt both pleased that she had returned, and in some way, we felt confident that we too will stay.

Horses

We went to see some horses yesterday, at a large lettuce farm between Cuevas and Pulpí. I know the owner from years back and he has - besides any number of thousands of hectares of lettuce - around a dozen Pura Raza Española horses and a donkey. Barbara, who has a blog about horses and riding therapy at Animo, rode a beautiful nine year old mare around the ring, bareback as usual.

A Day in Granada, with Friends

Barbara is now getting the Animo work with hippotherapy going again, and we now have a new therapy horse here in Mojácar (see Animo) . As a small part of this, we went to Granada yesterday to meet a Japanese friend who works in a similar field at the Tokyo University. Aki speaks some English, and his uncle, here on the left of the photo, speaks a bit of Spanish as part of his studies into Flamenco. So, as they had a spare day or two before returning to Madrid (and on to Vienna), the three of them (that's Student Nim in the middle) were able to spend some time with us - which, ineviatably, included a visit to the caves of the Sacromonte to see some real Flamenco.

AECC

A large group of people turned out today for a walk from Mojácar Pueblo down to the Hotel El Puntazo to support the Spanish cancer association. Among them was our mare Cuqui. You can meet her over at Animo.

The Mojácar Square

This is the square in the old part of Mojácar that is being made-over as an underground car-park. In the picture, taken last Thursday, the square is, for once, without any cars. It looks rather better than usual. Will it look like this (smarter and so on, but similarly spacey) after the work has finished... sometime next Spring?

One must hope for the best, while recognising that our ayuntamiento and its alcaldes have never managed to improve the pueblo in thirty years of attempts (atentados, a good mis-translation) . Much has been written elsewhere about this project (the estación de metro) which has the unqualified support of the local Partido Popular: members, supporters and honorary Romanian Glee-clubbers; with the horrified resistance from everyone else, including those who chose to live in Mojácar because of its beauty, magic and appeal.

Still, they had their chance in the local elections last May.

The house on the right of the picture, with a whimsical no-parking sign in front of it, was our old house, bought new off a very young Juan García in 1966 for the peseta equivalent of 540 euros: two apartments, upstairs and down. I stayed upstairs for the school holidays while my parents were there full-time. Downstairs, a Frenchman called Michel rented for 18 euros a month, which he could rarely afford, preferring to bring along a melon on the first of the month and then stay for dinner.

We eventually sold the place to Joan Noble (an artist type with hair died a fetching shade of blue) and she lived upstairs and rented out the downstairs to a succession of restaurants and bars. The town hall was the final buyer, buying it earlier this year for a fortune, so as to have clear title to knock it down (a figure not reflected in the latest budget for the final tally of the underground car-park).

Behind the now demolished block, is a flash of brickwork. This is the relic from the same Juan García's demolition, as mayor, of an old ruined house there which was built over a narrow street-tunnel - the famous Arco de Luciana, known in English as Lucinda's Arch. Lucy was a Mojácar girl who fell for a Christian prince who died in battle in 1488. She promptly threw herself to her death (or perhaps tripped over the entrance to the tunnel, built in around 1890). Never mind - it was pretty and attracted tourists with their cameras.

After Juan idly had it knocked down, a succession of mayors promised to replace it. Salvador, Carlos, Gabriel and Rosmari. None of them ever did - or ever will. Even - and here's a thought - by putting it somewhere else. Luciana wouldn't mind.

So, as work begins on the upper square, dooming the casco viejo to an eternity as a non-pedestrian village, the mayoress admits in a sparsely attended pleno (there were four of us), that she doesn't like the final plans for the square's embellishments either: stone sails to soar above the streets.

Food and Some Sex

At the risk of being thought a bit smutty - here's a picture of a poorly-named restaurant - or maybe 'snack-house' might be better - which adjoins onto our local knock-shop, the Hotel Argar on the outskirts (damn, I'm doing it again) of Vera.

The delightful name of this establishment, clearly readable on the photograph, means in Spanish of course 'Eat, Eat'.

But, what is on the fare this evening (after a strenuous session next door)? I don't know what you're having, but I'm winding up my meal with a brandy and, as a special treat, a piece of the tarta de la casa.