casasierra

Snow in Juviles

2012-01-17T13:24:00.000-08:00

Despite good snow higher up in the Sierra Nevada where the ski resort is, there hasn't been much white stuff at our altitude so far this winter. Yesterday, though, the snow came down to meet us.

Thanks to Abi for sending me the shot. We won't get a chance to visit our house till Easter, although we've got guests from Yorkshire arriving in a couple of weeks, who may be in time for some snow.

Under the hammer

2011-12-08T07:37:00.000-08:00

I've just started to use a feature on Pure Holiday Homes called Bidango. It's like eBay for accommodation - I offer a specified week in our house to the highest bidder, and there's a reserve, a closing date and a buy-it-now price. I'm just experimenting with a couple of weeks to see if there's any interest, but I suspect we're too cheap. Under this system, you could 'win' a £300 week for £200 or something, which hardly seems worth the uncertainty. (Whereas if I could get a three-grand-a-night Bond villain's lair for forty quid, I'd get quite excited by the prospect even if it was located somewhere I didn't want to go.) Mind you, on eBay people regularly pay more for useless old tat than they would for nice new stuff from John Lewis - something to do with the psychology of bidding - so it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Anyway, if you're reading my blog, I'll discount the price just for asking - at least outside of main holiday periods. We've got about five weeks booked for 2012 at this stage - which isn't bad, as I don't think we had anything before Christmas last year - but we could do with more. NB: I'm putting in an extra single bed, so from about March it'll sleep six.

The best snow in Europe just now..?

2011-11-26T07:57:00.000-08:00

Well, that might be pushing it, but while the Alps are suffering with a lack of the white stuff, our own Sierra Nevada opened this weekend with more piste (40kms) than ever before at this time of year. The season's been getting steadily longer and better since we've been coming to the Alpujarra - about eight years - during which global warming has wreaked havoc with the ski industry hundreds of miles north. Here, where you can see Africa on a clear day, no operator is going to give you a guarantee of great snow, but it's getting more dependable every year. Here's a shot from local paper Ideal, showing the first skiers to venture out this year. (They're not going to win awards for photography at Ideal, I'm afraid.) Our house is not for a single-minded skiing holiday, as it's an hour's drive to the slopes, but for a mixed trip which combines winter sports with, say, walking, visiting the Alhambra and a day on the beach, it would be perfect.

This is one of the few places in the world where you really can ski in the morning and swim (comfortably) in the sea in the afternoon of the same day. If you're at our place, you're about half way between the two, as well as close to Granada and surrounded by great scenery in every direction.

Welcome Huelvans

2011-11-17T03:22:00.000-08:00

We won't be in our lovely house in Juviles for Christmas this year, as we're going to Mexico instead. (I know it sounds extravagant, but it will be the first long-haul we've done since we embarked on restoring the house back in 2006. And we booked it months ago, when I was getting loads of work...) So we're delighted to have accepted a booking from a family from Huelva, who are arriving Christmas eve (Nochebuena) and staying till after New Year's Eve (Nochevieja). I just hope they have some idea of just how cold it can be between the Noches at an altitude of 1,250m.

Huelva is the Andalucian province - the capital city has the same name - that butts onto Portugal, in the far West of the community. It's quite a long way for our guests to come, despite being still in the same general region - probably a six hour drive or more. An interesting city little visited by foreign tourists, Huelva was heavily influenced by the British industrialists of the Rio Tinto mining concern in the late 19th century. Amongst other achievement, the Brits founded the first football club in Spain here - Recreativo de Huelva is still the oldest professional team in the country - and built a remarkable garden suburb reminiscent of Port Sunlight or Letchworth. Here's a shot of a typical street in Barrio Reina Victoria - or Queen Victoria District - it's only the Spanish street lights that give it away. What was home-from-home for British mining engineers in the 1890s is now a predictably gentrified corner of a modern Spanish city.

Meat is murder. Tasty, tasty murder.

2011-11-08T04:51:00.000-08:00

I'm linking here to a blog entry about being a vegetarian in Andalusia. There's no disguising the fact that it's tough. I eat meat, and love it, but even I find the ubiquity of pig flesh round these parts a bit much at times. There's no problem if you're self-catering in a lovely property like ours, with a nice big fridge, excellent cooking facilities and some decent chef's knives (not something you can bet on in the average holiday rental). The availability of wonderful fruit and veg, delicious fresh eggs and an excellent variety of pulses, nuts and dairy make meat-free cooking easier even than in Northern Europe. The problems start when you eat out, and for most visitors, eating out is a major element of a holiday.

The problem is that barring a few classic dishes like pisto (something like ratatouille) and pimientos de padrón (fried baby peppers, above), Spaniards assume that the addition of a little meat or fish is necessarily an improvement to anything, for everyone. So although soups, tortillas and salads may look harmless and veggie-friendly on paper, there's always a high likelihood that some ham or tuna will be strewn over the top, or some meat-and-bone-based stock will have made its way in at an early stage of preparation. It doesn't even always help if you say you don't eat meat: "no como carne" means "I don't eat meat", but to an Andalusian it kind of means "I don't want a rare steak right this moment". They won't think you mean ham, or black pudding, or pork fat.

Then there are tapas, without which a visit to Spain would be unthinkable to many, including those who reject animal flesh. In most provinces of the country, you pay for and specify what you want when you get tapas. Not in these parts. Here in Granada they're free with your drink, and you get what you're given. It might be snails, it could be cod, but the chances are it'll be something that used to be part of a pig.

All is not lost, though, meat-dodgers. Every bar will have some cheese, olives, eggs. And they'll be happy to give you a tapa without meat. I suggest you learn how to say you'd like a cheese or egg tapa - la tapilla ¿puede ser de queso? should do it - and remember that you have to specify it as you order your beer or wine. Otherwise it'll be too late, and it'll be black pudding.

Pure dead brilliant?

2011-11-08T03:11:00.000-08:00

Just renewed our listing on PURE Holiday Homes' website. The house has been there for a year and we haven't had so much as a single enquiry from it, but they dropped the price to about £30 in a desperate attempt to get us to stay on. The site looks great and I think it's potentially useful, but like all the rest it's aimed squarely at mainstream resort-style holiday homes rather than places like ours - a proper house in a real community. There's no means on the site to search for the Alpujarra or Granada, for example. Just 'Rural Andalucia'... which hardly narrows it down.

Anybody know of a website for people who are looking for a genuine unspoilt rural experience, rather than a kiddy-on resort holiday? Let me know.

Looks like we'll miss the figs this year

2011-10-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

I'm extremely disappointed. We have to call off a planned visit to Juviles for a week from October 15th, which is the half-term holiday in Glasgow, and this means we're unlikely to get there again until Easter next year. This is a wonderful season in the Alpujarra. This time last year we enjoyed some fantastic walks, saw lots of interesting wildlife and, amongst other pleasures, ate lots of free figs and chestnuts.

So, our house is unexpectedly available to rent. As it's short notice, we'd accept a reasonable offer for rent. Get in touch if you fancy it. Oh, and as the English half-term is coming up soon, together with a few Spanish puentes, now's the time to book for later in the month too.

All the tweets you can handle

2011-08-22T00:41:00.000-07:00

The Alpujarra and the Sierra Nevada are amongst the richest areas in Europe for birdlife. I'm certainly no expert, but there are loads of species which seem to be pretty common here compared to anywhere else, including the black redstart (that's one above), crested lark, golden oriole, griffon vulture, Bonnelli's eagle, hoopoe, bee-eater, rock bunting, alpine accentor and dozens more, including a wide variety of owls, which I tend to hear rather than see. The photograph above is from this fantastic website from Birdwatch Alpujarras, a specialist company based in Lanjarón. The site promotes their services to visiting ornithologists, but is also of great interest to the casual visitor who sees an unfamiliar bird round these parts and wonders what it might be, or who wants to know what to look out for on a walk. Personally, I just love the abundance and proximity of even fairly common birds in and around our village. The resident swallows, for example, raise several broods in a year, so we'll often see ten or more scruffy little fledglings lined up on the telephone wire immediately outside our window, screaming to be fed. The adults' complex call starts with a melodious trill, then morphs into a rattling metallic cackle - it reminds me of the sound the old dial-up modems used to make - and in summer, with the windows open, it makes owning an alarm clock entirely unnecessary. Here's a shot of a little one taken through the slats of our bedroom window blind - hence the odd diffused light.

Stein squeezes us in

2011-08-15T03:05:00.001-07:00

I'm hardly a fan, but Rick Stein's series on Spanish food has at least taken in some beautiful locations and great dishes. Last night in Extremadura he helped himself to some guy's migas in a shed on an allotment in Trujillo, and was treated to ajo blanco by the Duchess of somewhere or other in a stunning aristocratic dehesa - a hunting estate complete with stags, wild boar and cork-oaks. Then crossing into Andalusia and arriving in Seville, he claimed to have accidentally stumbled upon El Rinconcillo - the oldest and most famous tapas bar in the city, a fixture in every guide book and travel article on Seville ever printed, and in my limited experience (I've only been once), very disappointing. To be fair it's not Stein or his cooking that annoys me, but the tired and desperate efforts to make the whole thing more engaging by having him drive an old camper van (alone but for a crew of maybe thirty people), having him 'help' with the saffron harvest or whatever, mugging to camera at every opportunity and mispronouncing everything. And all with the most appalling background music. For contrast, check out The Good Cook with Simon Hopkinson on BBC1 at the moment.
No novelty form of transport, no pretending to be best friends with the fishmonger, no groups of implausibly attractive friends round for brunch. Just Simon Hopkinson making five great dishes per episode; simple, honest and brilliant.

Anyway, just when you thought it was over, Stein found ten minutes to visit Chris and Anne Stewart of Driving Over Lemons fame, down our way in the Alpujarra Granadina. The Stewarts live on a cortijo in the river valley at (I think) Barranco de la Sangre, not far from Orgiva. They served Stein some not-very-good-looking tabbouleh (which isn't Spanish, let alone Alpujarran) and a kind of wild boar tagine which probably tasted great, but which looked terrible on the telly. Stein drove a LandRover along a dirt track (the camper van wasn't up to it), but other than that, and the Stewart's terrace, you didn't see anything of what's probably the most beautiful region in Southern Spain. He kept going on about how remote and difficult it was to get to - so after making the effort, you'd think they'd have shot a bit more footage.

The only time I've bumped into Chris Stewart, he didn't have a parrot on his head. It was in the Pizzeria in Capileira, a restaurant which despite its name does much more than pizza, including fabulous boar and extraordinary wild asparagus with scrambled egg. I'd recommend it highly - along with the rest of the eating places in that pretty, busy little village.

So many tapas, so little time

2011-08-10T04:57:00.000-07:00

We stopped in the beautiful, atmospheric little town of Alhama de Granada while coming home from the Alpujarra at the end of last week, and what a pleasure that was. Built above a spectacular gorge, it's the site of natural hot springs which give the town its name -'Alhama' coming from the same root as 'Hammam' (what we'd call a Turkish bath). It wasn't the Moors who started the bathing though; the Romans, who loved a good scrub, developed the place as a thermal spa well before the Muslims got there, and pre-Roman populations had already settled centuries before, presumably attracted by all that free hot water. The air temperature was already about 32 C last Friday, though, so we didn't see the attraction of warming up further. Must go back in winter.

About 40 minutes from Granada city (and an hour and a half from our place), Alhama is the main town in the southern part of the Poniente region, not far from the border with Malaga. With about 6,000 residents it's hardly a metropolis, but it has a big-city, dressed-up feel to it of a weekend evening - at least in comparison to the Alpujarra, which we'd just left behind us. It's an odd mix of seeming affluence (lots of beautifully kept and restored buildings, well-dressed locals, smart cars on the street) and picturesque decay (many elegant old houses and churches are abandoned and falling down, as are the beautiful flour mills in the gorge below).

Alhama has one of the best tapas circuits I've personally encountered - and that's saying something. As in the rest of Granada, your tapa comes free with a glass of beer or wine, and sometimes with a soft drink. Unlike most other places in the province, they'll often give you a choice when you order. Reportedly 38 bars are to be found here, and over two nights we managed ten or twelve , most of them around the central Plaza de la Constitución. I can remember salmorejo (thick gazpacho), aubergine fritters with honey, huge prawns served both hot and cold, fillets of sea bass on skewers, pinchitos (of course), excellent hot miniature roscas (like filled bagles), mackerel on toast, black pudding (of course), chorizo, cheeses, pisto (like ratatouille), ham, miniature omelettes and, most satisfying of all, a pile of shredded hot roast pork on some lovely fresh bread, with olives and pickled garlic on the side. Each of these was served free with a drink costing between one and two euros. Most impressive was the consistency - while none of the bars was quite up to the standard of the very best in Granada (such as Cunini or Las Castañas) - there wasn't a single duffer either. Even the perfunctory slice of cheese on bread was, well, good cheese on fresh bread.

The bars were busy with locals out grazing each evening (Granadans often skip a proper dinner, for obvious reasons), but the town was unaccountably devoid of foreign visitors. It's only an hour or so from Malaga and the surrounding resorts, and would make a great stop on a circuit of the big cities, so I don't know why. But it's one of the delights of Spain that you can find these exquisite little places - others I can think of are Priego or Osuna in Andalusia, Caceres, Vic and Tudela elsewhere, but there are hundreds - and if you're lucky you can turn up for a night's stay and have them almost to yourself. If these towns were in Italy they'd be packed with hoards of tourists being herded from church to ruin to palazzo and shown what to take photographs of by multi-lingual tour guides. None of that in Spain.

We stayed at Casa Sonrisa, an aristocratic old house converted into a slightly eccentric, antique-filled hotel. Sixty euros a night for the two of us, including breakfast. Deserves to be much busier.

43 degrees in Malaga

2011-08-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

I've never understood why Malaga city isn't better known to Northern Europeans. Millions of us fly into its massive airport every year, but we all seem to head a few miles west to the province's overdeveloped resorts, or maybe drive off in hire cars to somewhere perceived as more interesting, like ummm... the Alpujarra. Yet Malaga has masses of charm. Where Seville is authentically gritty and Granada is all about the romance of history, Malaga is a big, blowsy strumpet of a place packed with elegant 19th and early 20th century buildings, fantastic bars, good shopping and excellent city beaches. Young Malagueños and Malagueñas are a good-looking body-conscious lot, given to posing around the pedestrianised streets of an evening and giving the place a distinctly party feel. As the birthplace of the 20th century's most significant artist, Malaga has a great museum dedicated to Picasso's works (the best stuff may be in Paris, Madrid and New York, but he was so prolific that there always seems to be enough to fill another Picasso Museum when someone feels like opening one. Why should his home town miss out?) There's also the great man's birthplace, and the brand new Carmen Thyssen Museum - I've not had a chance to visit yet, but I believe it has an impressive collection of mostly modern Spanish art including Miró and Tapíes as well as, yes, Picasso again.

Anyway, we called in to the city yesterday for a great lunch of gazpacho and pescaito frito - mixed fried fish in the lightest imaginable batter. It's more like Japanese tempura than cod from the chippy, which is just as well as the temperature in the city centre was 43 degrees - 109 if, like me, you prefer to think of high temperatures in Fahrenheit.

They're adept at decorating the streets in Malaga, and their ingenuity stretches to lovely cooling canopies over the main drag, Larios, and some of the neighbouring calles and plazas. Even in the shade, though, it was v. hot.

If you're planning to visit our place in Juviles, you might like to know that with the fast-improving coastal motorway you can get from Malaga airport to our door in about 2 hours and 15 minutes. (OK, that's my best time so far, but it is feasible.) I would, however, recommend a night out in Malaga on the way to or from our place. The sophisticated urbanity of this great city is quite a contrast to the bucolic charms or our tiny village, and a quick fix of glamour is well worth a slight detour.

Chicken in almond sauce

2011-07-17T05:52:00.000-07:00

I was asked for a typical Alpujarran recipe for a website the other day. Now the ultimate local dish is probably the plato Alpujarreño, which is great, but it's not unlike a British breakfast and sounds less impressive than it really is. Then there's migas, a kind of grainy semolina porridge which comes out rather like uneven couscous - again it's one of those hearty local dishes that doesn't really travel that well. So I made up a user-friendly recipe for chicken in almond sauce instead - I'm not sure if it's precisely authentic, but with great handfuls of almonds and garlic, lashings of olive oil and wine, plus pimentón and cumin, it should be close enough; and the results were delicious. This almond sauce is also great with meatballs - albóndigas - and of course with pork for carne en salsa.Ingredients to serve at least four people:

1 chicken, jointed, skin on, or a mixture of thighs and drumsticks sufficient to provide two or three pieces per person.
100 grams raw almonds, preferably with the skins still on.
300 mls white wine
Chicken stock or water, as necessary
1 head of garlic, cut in half horizontally
1 onion, peeled but kept whole
2 large tomatoes
2 or 3 slices from a baguette or similar white loaf, preferably slightly stale
Olive oil
Flour
A good pinch of saffron threads
1 tsp ground cummin
1 tsp of hot and 2 tsp mild smoked paprika (or adjust to your taste)
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper

1. Brown the chicken on all sides in a non-stick pan, in batches, adding more olive oil when necessary. Transfer to a flame-proof casserole dish.

2. Add the wine and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer, add the 'bottom' half of the un-peeled garlic (it should stay in one piece), the tomatoes, bay leaves, paprika, cummin and saffron. Add stock or water to just cover and simmer for half an hour to 40 minutes, with the lid on.

3. In the same oil you used to fry the chicken, brown the almonds, making sure they don't burn. Peel the 'top' half of the garlic and add the peeled half-cloves to the pan, frying until just golden. Fry the slices of bread until golden. Put the browned almonds, garlic and bread into a pestle and mortar (or a food processor) and pound (or blend) to a thick paste.

4. When the chicken is just cooked, use a slotted spoon to lift the tomatoes and onion from the casserole and add these to the almond mixture. Lift out the half-head of garlic, squeeze the cloves from the skin and add these. Continue to pound or blend until you have a thick sauce.

5. Return the sauce to the chicken and its juices in the casserole dish, stir to blend in, and cook for another 10 minutes or so. Add a little water or stock if the sauce is becoming too thick. Check for seasoning and, if you have it, sprinkle a little chopped parsley over the top.

Serve with fried or roast potatoes. Good with the rough local rosé known as costa, or manzanilla sherry, which has a great affinity with almonds.

Great walks in Sierra Nevada

2011-04-11T03:41:00.000-07:00

I just found this really helpful site that has detailed descriptions of walks in the Alpujarra and the wider area of the Sierra Nevada Parque Natural.

Alpujarra from the sky

2011-04-08T04:50:00.000-07:00

Just found this clip of Andalucia es de Cine on Youtube - the show is a travelogue filler which appears on Spanish telly at odd times of the day and night. This particular clip is aerial photography of our area - the eastern Granadan Alpujarra. Shot during almond-blossom time.

See the footage here.

That amazing voice-over! Three packs of Ducados a day for several decades.

All day breakfast

2011-04-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

Sam and Dave, the British first couple not the soul duo, had plato alpurrajeño when in the Albaicín the other day. This hearty dish is not unlike a good British breakfast. It consists of at least black pudding (morcilla), fried eggs, and potatoes stewed in oil with green peppers (papas a lo pobre). In addition, there will be chorizo, lomo (fresh pork loin) or ham, or a combination of one, two or all three.

You know when you've had a plato alpurrajeño, and I can't imagine SamCam would be indulging on a regular basis, although Dave might make it a weekly ritual, perhaps shared with the fluent hispanohablante Clegg. César, the owner of a restaurant near us, does one that's baked in the oven, but then César is originally from the Basque country, so what would he know? No, for an authentically alpujarran experience, the constituent elements of the plato must be fried in plenty of extra virgin olive oil, like everything else round here. Sadly though, the idea that alpurrajeños have been sitting down to this traditional dish for hundreds of years is unlikely to be true. It was apparently invented - like the Ploughman's Lunch in the UK - in the seventies, as an easy-to-make money-spinner for bars and restaurants. But if you've been working hard in the fields all morning- or perhaps assembling flat-pack furniture for you holiday house - the plato Alpurrajeño is just about perfect, especially with some rough red wine and a siesta afterwards.

Steady, Cam.

2011-04-07T11:56:00.000-07:00

DavCam and SamCam on holiday in Granada this week. Ideal wrote this sweet article saying that although SamCam's birthday is really during Semana Santa (18th, apparently), they'd come early for a bit of peace. I like how it assumes that British people would know to avoid Semana Santa, but doesn't acknowledge that we've got a referendum on. Anyway, they had plato alpujarreño in a restaurant in the Albaicin.

Ryanair at it again

2011-01-25T14:11:00.000-08:00

So Ryanair take huge subsidies from provincial government and local business associations to run relatively successful Granada-London and Granada-Madrid services, cancel them without any consultation, then hold the city to ransom, demanding an even bigger bung to reinstate the flights. If I didn't loathe Ryanair already, this would swing it.
Si sabes castellano, puedes leer el artículo aquí.

First booking for 2011

2010-12-06T06:48:00.000-08:00

I'm delighted to welcome our first booking of 2011, with a couple from Australia taking our house for a month, from late April to the end of May. A great time to visit, with the wild flowers at their best and still some of the almond blossom about, usually warm although it can be a bit changeable. I'm sure they'll have a great time. That still leaves 11 months availability, including almost all of the English, Scottish and Spanish school holidays, but hopefully the calendar will start to fill up over Christmas. Talking of which, we have guests in from 16th-22nd, then we're there ourselves from Christmas Eve till Ne'er Day.

Jay for Juviles

2010-10-29T01:47:00.000-07:00

A rather less fearsome example of local wildlife now. The arrendajo or gayo - jay in English - is common in the Alpujarra, and particularly visible in Autumn, when pairs of the birds fly around the forests, collecting acorns to bury as a food source through the winter. Apparently they forget half their hiding places, and thus inadvertently 'plant' thousands of trees.

A wolf in the Alpujarra

2010-10-26T05:44:00.000-07:00

Arachnophobes look away now. Here's a prime example of local Alpujarra wildlife - a female wolf spider with hundreds of tiny baby wolf spiders on her back. We found her on a walk above Portugos last week, sunning herself and her offspring in beautiful October sunshine. She's about the size of a mouse, and I thought the covering was just hair or something until I enlarged the shot and had a proper look. A little reassurance if you're thinking of visiting the area and are less keen on invertebrates than I am; wolf spiders won't bite unless cornered, they don't come into the house, and this is the first time I've seen one in about six years of regular visits to the area.

Juviles finally on map shock.

2010-08-11T02:01:00.001-07:00

Thanks again to Ken in Australia, who informs me our village is finally on Google Maps Street View. Beautiful winter sunshine, a little snow on the ground. It's early in the morning I think; there's nobody around apart from a couple in overcoats at the bus stop, who must be waiting for the 5.30 am to Granada. Even Google couldn't get a vehicle up our street, Calle Altillo, so you can't see our house. It's up the hill above the main drag, with breathtaking views, and it's still available to rent for most of the Autumn and Winter.
I was going to write "where next, Timbuctu?" but I checked and yes, Timbuctu already is on Street View.

You say tomato, I say tomate

2010-08-06T05:42:00.000-07:00

Got an email from Australia today asking how you pronounce the name of our village, Juviles. A good question, and one I've not yet addressed on this blog. So here goes. As a rough approximation for English speakers, it's
hoo-BEE-lez
although as the locals tend to ignore the letter 's', it's often
hoo-BEE-lay
Anyway, it's not Jew-viles, Dew-villas or Jubblies. Nor is it, as at least one locally-resident English-speaker has it, Hoo-billies. Although I quite like Hoo-billies. Makes me think of the Beverly Hoo-billies....
I've no idea what Juviles means, if anything. The names of most villages here have an Arabic or Latin route that relates to the landscape, or the function or rank of the settlement. All I can find online is that Juviles is probably "pre-Arab". If anyone knows the derivation, I'd love to hear it.

Literary fame again

2010-06-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

Juviles' starring role in La Mano de Fatima, the hugely successful historical novel by Ildefonso Falcones, continues to raise our village's literary profile. What with novel-clutching tourists on coach tours poking around the streets to see where all the moorish women were murdered, it's getting like Bronte Country, only with more ham. An English translation is promised for next year, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone is optioning movie rights. I've only managed the first dozen chapters (at 1,000 pages of dense Spanish it's a fairly daunting tome) and it strikes me as being somewhat overwritten, but the story of sectarian slaughter during the muslim rebellion of 1568 is fascinating. Falcones visited the village earlier this year (they named a street after him) and there are photos and a fairly amusing video on the ayuntamiento website. Here's the man himself signing copies of the novel for the eager bookworms of the high Alpujarra. This was probably before the obligatory tour of the ham factory.

Vegetarians look away now

2010-06-13T06:11:00.000-07:00

A couple of posts ago I wrote about the Christmas pig slaughter in the village. Quite apart from providing masses of delicious pork products, the matanza is an important social event, drawing dozens of people together to work, eat and party as the pig meets his doom and the sausages take shape. Here, courtesy of the town hall website, is a series of 93 pictures of a matanza held on the 1st and 2nd January this year. Along with fairly gruesome shots of pigs' innards spilling out of carcasses and old women up to their elbows in blood while they make black pudding, there are lots of images conveying the infectious, convivial atmosphere. In this one below, I think we see the vet (who is legally required to attend the slaughter) doing an analysis with his microscope. Surrounded by kids, and plied with wine. I love rural Spain!

Check my stratus

2010-05-05T04:01:00.000-07:00

Annie bought me a fascinating little book recently, called The Cloud Collector's Handbook. I started my collection with these lovely stratus clouds seen from the roof terrace of our house. It looks like someone in Cástaras has left a dry ice machine running after a heavy metal gig.

The rain in Spain falls mainly in the Alpujarra

2010-04-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

It's hardly stopped raining since Christmas in the Alpujarra. Here, where drought and forest fires are more often the cause for worry than the occasional drop of precipitation, reservoirs are overflowing, rivers are bursting their banks and roads and bridges have been washed away. Here's a link to Chris Stewart's Guardian article about it. We're off there at the weekend, and I'm hoping the past few days of dry weather bodes well for a nice week ahead. At least with all that rain, the place will be beautifully green and should stay that way all summer - for which we still have plenty of availability for rental.

Bonbon el perro

2010-01-03T08:45:00.000-08:00

You don't need a dog in the Alpujarra, as you can always borrow one - it's a bit like that scheme with free bikes in Paris. We went for a walk in the hills above Juviles the other day and this little sweetie joined us. He was thrilled to accompany us on a circular route that took in the rocky gorse-lined path that leads to the pantaneta, then rejoins the careterra to return into the village by the cemetery. It's a lovely forty minutes or so, perfect for a miserable day when you want to get out, but you don't want to stray too far away from your fire in case you get soaked. Anyway, Bonbon (as we named him, after the dog in that Argentine movie) clearly knew this circuit, and was not prepared to have us deviate from it. When at one point we considered going back the way we came, he got quite cross with us, barking and herding us in the "right" direction.

Matanza

2010-01-02T06:45:00.001-08:00

You know where your meat comes from in the Alpujarra. Disappointingly, however, although this pig was killed immediately outside our front door, we didn't see a sausage.

In the week before Christmas, many families kill their one or two pigs to provide some fresh pork - and more importantly, a lot of sausages and ham for curing. It's quite a social occasion, with friends and extended family pitching in for what is a day or two of very hard work. The pig is killed with a slit to the throat, witnessed by a vet (they're busy at this time of year), then the hairs are burned off with blowtorches and the body is cleaned before butchering. They use everything but the squeek, and the day's killing, cleaning and sausage-making is accompanied by plenty of booze and a big stew of offal. I took the picture early on during the day, when they were still burning hair off the recently deceased pig, and scrubbing its little piggy skin. I was expecting a gift of a few black puddings to appologise for the mess, but no chance.

Recognition for Juviles' pivotal role in literature, at last.

2009-11-13T03:44:00.000-08:00

The new street that's just been built in Juviles - below the mirador and the ham factory - has been named after author Ildefonso Falcones in gratitude for his referencing the village in his historical novel La Mano de Fatima. I'm not sure how much of the book is set in Juviles - I'll find out when Amazon delivers my copy - but I suspect it's just a passing reference. My list of literary connections for the Alpujarra gets longer every day; to Chris Stewart and Gerald Brenann we can now add Tariq Ali, Falcones, Lorca, Alarcon, Joan Lingard and, at a push, Alexei Sayle.

Anyway, above is a mano de Fatima in it's original Moorish incarnation, as a good luck talisman to ward off the evil eye. And below is another, in the more prosaic form of a door knocker - these you see all over Andalucia.

More raptor fun

2009-09-26T06:46:00.000-07:00

The Alpujarra may be one of the best places in Europe to see birds of prey, but South West Scotland isn't far behind. In two days we saw about a dozen buzzards and two sparrowhawks (one of them was dead, but you can't have everything). Quite amazing though, was the red kite feeding station at Bellymack hill farm near Laurieston. I would estimate there were at least fifty birds there yesterday; the farmer says they sometimes get more than seventy, which is probably the entire population for Galloway. Feeding is at 2pm, and a few hungry birds are soaring over the feeding site by 1.30, with numbers steadily increasing until the bucketfuls of chicken bits are strewn over the grass and the feeding starts. It's a take-away arrangement - each bird will swoop down, grab a piece of meat in its talons, and fly off to eat and digest it in some nearby trees, perhaps coming back for more after half an hour or so. They take the food while on the wing, and hardly touch the ground itself, if at all. There's a fascinating moment at the beginning of the feast, when the birds are all circling above the site but not eating. Nobody wants to go first - but then appetite gets the better of manners, and the first bird swoops. Then suddenly they're all at it, like fat women at a wedding buffet. Here's a picture - unfortunately it just looks like dots in the sky, but that's my inadequate camera, I'm afraid. The colouring on the birds is fabulous, although of course you can't tell from this shot. One thing you can notice is the distinctive 'v' shape of the tail feathers.

Eagles in the Alpujarra

2009-09-15T11:55:00.000-07:00

Our latest guests just emailed me, having had a great fortnight at our house in Juviles. They were delighted to see a pair of bonelli's eagles while out walking. These birds are endangered and very rare globally, but one of the few places in Europe that still maintains a decent population is the Alpujarra. They love forested mountain country.

I think I saw one once from our terrace, but I'm no expert and from below, a bonelli looks a lot like a common buzzard to me. That too is a magnificent bird and a joy to behold, but pretty common, in the Alpujarra and over vast tracts of Europe and Asia. As you can see from these pictures the bonneli, above, flies right to left, while the buzzard flies left to right.

New website

2009-08-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

I've just built a new permanent website for the house at www.greenspain.me, using the excellent and very easy iweb software on my Mac. (The above shot - a view from our terrace at dawn - is on the site, along with many others.) "Greenspain" is perhaps a cheeky address, as the term is usually applied to the rainy parts of the country up in Cantabria and Galicia, not down here in the Alpujarra. Literally though, we are green in Granada - not only does the snow from the Sierra Nevada keep things growing all year round, but the whole area is relatively unspoiled environmentally. Anyway, it replaces the scruffy site at the difficult-to-remember-and-spell casasierra.co.uk that I've just allowed to fade into the ether.

Spanish is easier than English

2009-08-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

...and that's official. A recent study has found that as Spanish has a more direct and transparent relationship between phoneme and written word, Spanish kids learn to read and write earlier and make fewer errors than English-speaking children. The study attracted a budget of three-quarters of a million euros for researchers in Granada, which suggests they're pretty good at arithmetic, too.

Lemons and Lennon

2009-08-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

An article from Andalusian English-language paper the Olive Press here about Driving over Lemons author Chris Stewart and his wife, and their attempts at reducing the carbon footprint of their Alpujarran farm and home. Stewart has managed to squeeze three books out of his experiences near Orgiva, and while they're not Gerald Brennan, they're evocative and enjoyable. I added a comment on another article in the Olive Press, this time about John Lennon in Almería, rashly suggesting that the dead ex Beatle wasn't, in fact, god. And I'm still getting hate mail. I could have published offensive cartoons of the prophet to less opprobrium.

Radioactivity

2009-08-06T05:51:00.001-07:00

I was live on Spanish radio this morning, would you believe. Not RNE or SER, but the ambitiously-named Talk Radio Europe, a station for guiri expats somewhere down Malaga way. My old friend Jeremy Hitchin interviewed me about the economic crisis and its effect on advertising for his breakfast show. Having recently been made redundant from a job in that very industry, I felt suitably qualified to voice an opinion. Thanks to the miracles of technology, I was sitting in Glasgow, Jeremy was in a studio in Edinburgh and the show was produced and aired somewhere on the costa, from where a number of opinionated and quite possibly drunk retired expats phone in each day for a good old rant. The station is great fun for a while (the playlist makes Smooth FM sound challenging) and Jeremy, at least, is brilliant. Here's a picture of the poptastic geezer himself. If you ever want a cost-effective comic impressionist voice-over, he's your man. Hear the station on http://www.talkradioeurope.com.

Happy 2009 and a half...

2009-08-02T07:21:00.000-07:00

It's New Year again in Berchules, the neighbouring village to our own, where they've been celebrating Noche Vieja on the first weekend of August for the past 15 years. The midsummer Hogmanay thing regularly draws about ten thousand people to this village of perhaps nine hundred residents, and the resulting night-long revelry includes the uvas de la suerte, various silly performances (in the shot above, it's three queens corresponding to the three kings at Christmas), lots of noise and plenty of alcohol. This year the fiesta was somewhat subdued due to the wildfire which has been raging below the village - it's apparently still smouldering away, although it's now under control. Here's a shot of the hillside provided by our friends Carol and Stan; the fire got very close to homes and hundreds were evacuated.

Royal Turkey

2009-07-19T07:16:00.000-07:00

It sounds like a two-word review of Prince Edward's excruciatingly awful 80s production of It's a Knockout starring members of his own family, but 'royal turkey' is in fact the literal translation of the Spanish term for peacock, pavo real. Now someone's keeping a pair in Juviles, and the bird's distinctive cry - so redolent of life in India during the time of the Raj - is now heard across our sleepy little Andalusian village at regular intervals. Hopefully this is a temporary arrangement only, and I say 'hopefully' not because I object to the high-pitched call, but because the poor things are in a cage hardly big enough for a pair of chickens. The cock has to position himself carefully right in the middle of his enclosure and stand at a forty-five degree angle to the sides if he is to open his tail without injury. This means the hen is just inches away from her mate's magnificence, and already a captive audience, which rather defeats the object.Generally speaking, nobody in Juviles would keep any living thing they didn't intend to eat (apart from dogs, that is, and many of those are used to hunt, herd or guard things that you can eat). So my guess is that the semana cultural this year will see a reconstruction of an historic roman or moorish banquet, with the unfortunate royal turkey as the centrepiece. I wonder if peacock tastes more like swan, or golden eagle? And this being Juviles, will they try to fry it?

The holiday within a holiday

2009-07-15T05:25:00.001-07:00

Much as we love the rustic simplicity of the Alpujarra, we've developed a habit of taking a few days away in town while we're there. It's always an interesting contrast, as while the Andulcian cities are buzzing with sophistication and glamour, Juviles is mostly just buzzing with wasps. We've already done Seville, Cordoba and Jaen, and we've often spent the evening in Granada, Almeria or Malaga on our way to the airport, so we tried Cádiz for a change, and it was fabulous.
An extraordinary place, the original old town of Cádiz is built at the end of a causeway and largely encircled by ancient walls and bastions. You're never more than a few hundred metres from the sea, and the effect is a little like being on a ship. It's supposed to be the oldest continually inhabited city in Europe (thanks to the Phoenecians) and remains one of the most densely populated (thanks to the city walls). The food is great, everything is quite cheap, the people are extraordinarily friendly and helpful (they don't see that many tourists) and the local dialect is clear and easy to follow. I recommend it highly.

Back in Scotland

2009-07-15T05:16:00.000-07:00

Where did that fortnight go? Juviles and Spain in general were blisteringly hot, although as there was a lot of rain over the first half of the year the landscape is still beautifully green. We had a fairly lazy two weeks, although I did manage to fix a few things, oil the woodwork, and touch up some paint. The house is now all ready for our next guests, who arrive from Barcelona on August 2nd. Still some weeks available late July, then late September, early October, and then the main October school half-term.

We're off to Spain....

2009-06-25T06:04:00.000-07:00

...and will be in our place in Juviles from 28th June until 11th July. We may be able to pick up email but I can't guarantee it, although you can always call us on one of my mobiles - both will be with us.
+44 (0)7713 261172
+34 697914136
We've just taken a booking for September, and there isn't much availability in between, although the October half-term for London schools (w/c 26th) is still free, as are a few weeks here and there.

Here's a picture of one of Tino's cats, sneaking around on our roof terrace. He'll be waiting for us when we get there on Sunday, no doubt. The cat, that is, not Tino.

Another five-star review

2009-06-07T02:57:00.000-07:00

The latest visitors to our place, a family from Yorkshire, were well impressed. (They also managed to break a door handle and go home with two of my books, but you can't have everything.) This is their review:

"This property provides excellent value for money. The view from the roof terrace was every bit as good as described. It was spotlessly clean and well cared for, with nice new facilities. There was hot water whenever needed and very efficient showers. We were very well supported before our visit - the owner providing careful instructions for picking up keys and directions from the airport. The house has a good selection of local guides and maps and the housebook of guidance and instructions is excellent. Telephone numbers for help were available though we did not need them. This would be a very good base for a holiday at any time of year."

I hope all these people are going back to Yorkshire, Denmark, Barcelona etc. and telling all their friends, as I can't help thinking word of mouth will get us more business than this blog.

Rush hour, Juviles

2009-06-02T06:20:00.000-07:00

We're off to Juviles in about three weeks and while I'm thinking about it, I thought I'd post a shot of our neighbour's horse in the main street, taken last summer. Our latest guests left at the weekend and we've just taken a booking for the first two weeks in August from a Barcelona couple. They are bringing one set of aged parents, who are originally from the Alpujarra, and they'll be there for the highlight of the social calendar in our village, the glittering Semana Cultural and fiesta. July 12th - 31st is still available.

"The best holiday we've had in Spain!"

2009-05-19T03:27:00.000-07:00

Our most recent guests left the house last week and were kind enough to give us a great review on the Villarenters site. Here's what they said:

"Property was fitted out to a very high standard and very well equipped with a terrace giving splendid views. A very quiet village with flocks of sheep and goats herded down the main street. Some of the best walking in Las Alpujarras with an excellent supply of walking guides both in English and Spanish and plenty of books for a rainy, or lazy, day. Good restaurants both in Berchules and Trevelez about 20mins away. Best holiday we have had in Spain!"

The next lot arrive on Sunday. We still have availability for much of June, the second half of July and the first three weeks in August.

Pony fun

2009-05-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

OK, so we met this fellow at home in Scotland, not in the Alpujarra, but he's reminiscent of the funny little ponies that sometimes run down our Spanish street like equine fugitives. This one was singularly unimpressed when he realised we didn't have any apples on us.

How many points from the Danish jury?

2009-05-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

A comment from our latest guests:

Min kone og jeg plus vores 4 måneder gamle søn havde en skøn tid i La Golondrina. Huset har alt hvad man skal bruge og mere til. Udsigten er utrolig smuk og de lokale er særdeles venlige.

Seems they liked it, then.

(Probably) No Swine Flu in Granada

2009-04-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

Cancelled your holiday in Cancun because of Swine Flu? You wouldn't have liked it anyway, it's horrible. Why not try the lovely village of Juviles in the Alpujarra instead? Our house is still available for most weeks during the summer and as of the minute, there are no suspected cases of the disease in our province. Anyway, if pigs get ill in the Alpujarra, it's nothing to worry about. You see when they die, they're cured.

Obama's Bo, the First Pup

2009-04-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

I trailed the arrival of Bo, the Obama's Portuguese Water Dog, on this blog a couple of weeks ago, so in another shameless attempt to draw a bit of random traffic, I'm putting a picture of him here. Looks like an energetic little thing. To quote my sister-in-law, an experienced veterinarian, the President would do well to "get a Halti". NB: there are lots of cute dogs in Juviles, where our house remains available for most of June, the second half of July and all but the last week in August.

Birdlife chez Corot

2009-04-18T08:31:00.000-07:00

While our Danish guests have been staying in our house in Juviles, we've been enjoying a week in Ville D'Avray, an affluent little town on the edge of Paris, in the home of some people with whom we swapped a week's accommodation. They were at our place in October, and now we've collected on the deal, so to speak. It's in a very beautiful setting, teeming with birdlife, like this thing - which is either a coot or a moorhen, I can never remember which is which - swimming around on Corot's pond. The proto-impressionist came out here from Paris to paint in the fresh air, and now there's a very upmarket restaurant here named after him. It's phenomenally expensive, so we didn't eat there. Perhaps we'll come back when the pound is worth something. In fact our trip to France has served to emphasise what an incredible bargain our part of Spain continues to offer, particularly as our beautiful three- bedroom house can be rented from £200 per week.

May is fairly busy for bookings, but currently most of June and July is still free. House swaps considered (NYC, anybody?)

The mystery of Semana Santa

2009-04-10T03:35:00.000-07:00

Although I haven't yet lived full-time in Spain, I reckon I understand the country, language and culture reasonably well, for a guiri. But I don't get the Andalusian Semana Santa tradition of processions by cofradías of penitientes. Each Andalusian city has dozens of cofradías - brotherhoods or societies - each with its home church. During Holy Week they bring out a sculpture of Jesus or some such and process it around a set route. The sculpture and the supporting platform is incredibly heavy, and big, tough guys hide inside sweating and suffering, and anonymous hooded figures looking like the Ku Klux Klan accompany it. It's the same every year.

So far, so Catholic and odd. But the really strange part is the coverage. Acres of newsprint and hours of TV are devoted to in-depth analysis of every last detail. Pundits debate the relative merits of different cofradías and compare the current season's performance with previous years - and they go back decades. The weather, the turn-out, the intricate time-tabling of many different processions in the same streets are debated endlessly. Ideal, the Granada newspaper, today has an ecstatic report of the Holy Thursday processions reaching a "zenith...an apotheosis". But there's never much in the way of overtly religious matter in the coverage - it's all about spectacle, precision, skill and endurance. And being atheist and passionately anti-clerical - which is true of a surprisingly high proportion of post-Franco Spaniards - is no bar to taking Semana Santa processions very, very seriously indeed.

To me it combines aspects of sport, art, ritual and tradition in a way that's a little like bullfighting. Then it adds in the extreme parochial competition of, say, Sienna's Palio horse races, or English village cricket matches. There are echoes of the Inquisition's oppression; taking part was once a way of showing you weren't a muslim or a Jew, while the headgear meant that nobody would know if you kind of looked a bit Jewish or Arab. There's a strong element of Catholic (and maybe Fascist or Nationalist, I don't pretend to understand) triumphalism which has survived the evolution of Spanish society into one of the most secular and enlightened in Europe. And the gypsies get their very own cofradía. Baffling.

At last someone wants Easter...

2009-04-03T07:29:00.001-07:00

A couple from Copenhagen (and their little baby) have confirmed for our house for a week from good Friday, so Easter is taken. Plenty of availability for summer - most of June, latter part of July and first three weeks of August still free.

Spring is in the air?

2009-04-01T04:11:00.001-07:00

What with the clocks going forward at the weekend and the nocturnal antics of five energetic fox cubs in and around our garden, it's beginning to feel like Spring in Glasgow. Fortunately the same can now be said of Juviles - despite a surprising wintry reprise a week or so ago, they're now getting highs of 16 Celsius (60f) plus. Happily the forecast for Paris, where we're going for a week from Easter Sunday, is equally pleasant. Yesterday we had an enquiry for the house for that week - the potential customer hasn't got back to us yet so it remains available, but hopefully they'll confirm soon.

Funny weather we're getting

2009-03-24T12:38:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago it looked very much like Spring, both in the Alpujarra and here in Scotland. There's still a little bit of winter left in Southern Spain yet, with snow highly possible this coming weekend in Juvíles, with the cota de nieve at 1200m and over, although it won't stick. Unlike the top of Ben Lawers in Tayside, where I was braving the elements last Saturday (see right). Still, I'm sure the sun will be shining in the Alpujarra at Easter time in a couple of weeks, where THERE IS STILL AVAILABILITY TO RENT OUR PLACE DURING THE SCHOOL HOLIDAYS.

Portuguese Water Dog

2009-03-02T02:58:00.000-08:00

The Spanish media showed grudging approval for Obama's choice of an Iberian breed for First Dog last week; Portugal is just next door after all. Adorable though this fish-herding canine may be - it's described by Sabine Durrant in this Guardian article as giving "every impression of being a person zipped up in a dog suit" - round our bit of Andalusia they prefer an altogether more elegant creature called the Podenco Ibicenco (below). Thought to be traceable back to the Pharaoh hounds of ancient Egypt, the Podenco was probably brought from North Africa to Malta and then on to Ibiza and Andalusia by the Arabs. (If true, this is interesting in itself, as modern Muslims aren't generally keen on dogs at all.) If there's anything better than a Podenco at hunting rabbits, it's the lynx, which is both nearly extinct and highly unlikely to let you take the rabbit off it when it's made a kill. Podencos coincidentally are said to be the most cat-like of dogs and have an impressive ability to leap into the air to get a good view of their quarry, then to pounce and grab the little blighters by the neck. Go rabbit-hunting with a Podenco, and you can leave your rifle at home. There are a few of them in our village, including one particularly handsome devil, solid sand in colour, who came into our house once while helping to deliver a fridge (long story). He then disappeared, and his owner Antonio practically accused us of kidnapping him. But after an extensive search of our back bedroom, he was found in the village square with his nose up another dog's bottom. The Podenco that is, not Antonio.

Get to know Antonio's Podenco, Vraclaw the Czech family's part long-haired daschund and part something else, our gentle old mongrel friend Luna and any number of fearsomely professional sheepdogs - not to mention cats, goats, sheep, chickens, horses, birds and lizards. Simply book a week or two at our beautiful Juviles village house. Sleeps five from only £200/€250 a week, and STILL AVAILBLE FOR EASTER.

Anyway, is it just me, or is there a serious inconsistency in publicly declaring that you're going to take a dog from a rescue centre, and then specifying that it has to be one of the rarest and most expensive breeds in the world? Maybe the logic is that the Obamas say they want a Portuguese Water Dog, thousands of thick Americans still suffering from Obamamania go out and order PWD puppies for themselves, realise they can't look after them what with not having any fish to herd, and give them to the Washington DC equivalent of Battersea Dogs' Home. Obama's little girls then get to take their pick from hundreds of pups, they get a PWD for free and they do their bit to help out the poor abandoned doggies. Aww!

Spanish women

2009-02-25T11:47:00.000-08:00

Following on from my last post, I've been looking for examples of the classic old lady helmet-hair and box-shaped top to put on the blog. Unfortunately when you type "old-style Spanish women" into Google Images, you get something like this (top left). I couldn't find a really good example of the Alpujarran lacquer carapace. The nearest I could get was this below, complete with a crutch or two for good measure; you get the idea.

Great headlines of our time

2009-02-23T03:19:00.000-08:00

A headline worthy of The Onion today at Trevor apSimon's freshly redesigned, BCN-based Kalebeul site. It's Spanish woman academic dresses according to stereotype. In the post, Trevor quotes Manhattan Dreaming thus:

"Our eminent Andalucian visitor had obviously just come straight from a “Let’s See Who Can Look Most Typically Spanish Whilst Abroad” contest. She had that frizzy tobacco-coloured long hair that shoots off at 45 degrees making a cone out of her head; a black woolly blouse, a grey box-pleated miniskirt and black tights. I couldn’t see her shoes, but looking under the table to see what lecturers are wearing isn’t a course of action likely to further my academic career. The one thing she lacked was the gold-chained Dolce and Gabbana handbag that seems de rigeur for Spanish girls domiciled here. Our progress through the [subject under discussion] was somewhat laboured, and as I drifted in and out I was trying to recall the formula for the volume of a conic section so that I could at least leave the lecture having practiced a bit of maths and with an estimate of the total volume of her hair."

I see what he (she?) means with the black and grey clothing, but I can't say I'm familiar with the conical hair. Down our way there seem to be three styles; loose and straight with sunglasses perched on top for sexy young things, long, greying and Alice-banded for conservative professional ladies, and the ultimate Andalusian helmet-hair for older rural matrons, this latter being a brittle carapace created with industrial quantities of lacquer and available in tints of blue, burgundy and pink. I'll try and find an example of the helmet and post it here - perhaps accompanied by the classic square-shouldered cornflake-packet blouse.

Did the earth move for you?

2009-02-19T04:30:00.000-08:00

I can't say I was aware that Granada was in an earthquake zone when we decided to buy property here, but over the past year there have been at least four significant (if not particularly dramatic) tremors in the area. Another one is reported here - it occurred yesterday and was centred in Atarfe on the Vega - the other side of the province from us, on the road to Cordoba. Last Autumn we suffered a mysterious broken plumbing joint (and subsequent minor flood) which coincided with one of the little earthquakes, and while we can't know whether the events were connected, I wonder. These tremors are still sufficiently rare to make the front page in Andalucia, even without damage. In Mexico they're a daily threat and I remember seeing signs like this one in public buildings.

Anyway, our plumbing was fixed and the floodwater cleaned up by our wonderful friends from Nieles, and the house is spick, span and awaiting your visit. There's still 20% off full weeks if you book before the end of March, and Easter is still free.

Spring comes early in the Alpujarra

2009-02-09T08:06:00.000-08:00

Last week Juviles was effectively cut off from the world by snowfall and temperatures were well below freezing. The forecast for this week is bright sunshine every day, with temperatures up to 15c (which is almost 6o Fahrenheit). It'll get gradually warmer week by week now, and by the end of February the almond trees - the most representative flora in the region- will be in blossom, and the swallows should be back from Africa a month or so later. We're still offering a 20% discount if you book before the end of March - whenever in the year you choose to visit - and Easter is still available.

A wash-out

2009-02-03T02:27:00.000-08:00

The news from the Alpujarra today is that an ancient bridge over a gully on the A4127 has been washed away by torrential rain. (That's the road that runs up the hill from Cadiar to the junction by the mirador, where you turn right for Mecina and left for Berchules.) This has isolated our village (and its neighbours) from the main local population centre and means that kids from Juviles going to school in Cadi are faced with an 85 km trip (well, according to the paper. I think you can get there on a rough wee road via Nieles or Castaras, which would be more like 10k.) Engineers are visiting the site today but current opinion is that the old bridge is beyond repair, and a brand new one will be required. Locals say there hasn't been any signifcant water in that gully since 1973.

So that's why they call it the Sierra Nevada...

2009-02-02T03:56:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here in Glasgow watching snow fall outside the office window (see right) and idly wondering how it is in our part of Spain. Well, a whole lot worse is the answer. I've just checked the weather forecast for Juviles, and it's thick snow every day for the next week. Already the Cadiar - Mecina Bomberon road is closed, while chains are required on the 4132 going the other way, and the 4130 to Torvizcon is badly affected. So Juviles is effectively cut off, or will be soon. Altogether there are fourteen major roads closed in Granada province, and they've had to close the ski resort in the Sierra Nevada because there's too much snow. Article in Spanish here. We have no guests in the house at the moment, which is perhaps a shame as getting snowed-in (providing there's enough firewood, food and wine in the house to keep you going) would be rather exciting.

Benvenuti i bolognesi!

2009-01-29T05:17:00.000-08:00

Ryanair might be a shower of agressive, money-grabbing, geographically-challenged chancers, but they do have their uses. At the end of March they're introducing low cost flights between Granada and Bologna. You'll be able to travel between two of Europe's most beautiful university cities from about €20 each way. (Plus of course the hidden extra charges for checking in, bringing a suitcase, breathing etc.) More to the point, some of the most sophisticated people in Italy will easily be able to reach our lovely house and rent it for less than €300 a week, or 625,000 lire in old money. For once the two airports are even relatively close to the cities which bear their names - less than 15k in each case. I only wish I had reason/opportunity/time to flit between two of my favourite places on a regular basis.

Ross offends abuela shock

2009-01-26T12:13:00.000-08:00

The local press in Granada is doing its dinger today because Jonathan Ross, recently back in his BBC job after the Andrew Sachs affair, has been insulting old ladies in Conchar. Ross was doing a phone interview with a British resident of the town, who joked that he was building a wall to keep out the supposedly randy eighty-year old lady who lives next door. The presenter suggested that the Brit "give her one last good seeing-to before she goes to the grave". (I'm translating from Spanish that's been translated from Estuary English, but I think that's fairly accurate.) The lady in question has Alzheimer's, and her son is livid.

More snow hits Granada

2009-01-26T12:06:00.001-08:00

The province got some really heavy snowfall this weekend, with many roads in chaos. This shot is from Castril, in the North East of Granada (and a fair bit lower down than our place). Ideal reports today that transport is getting back to normal again.

Beautiful women on bikes

2009-01-26T11:49:00.000-08:00

This has nothing to do with the Alpujarra, but I'm interested in cycling at the moment and discovered a site called Copenhagen Cycle Chic. It's run by a guy who just loves taking pictures of girls on bikes, especially if they're wearing fashionable outfits. Blogger Mikael lives in a city full of beautiful women and bicycles, so he's in the right place. As he says, it's "bike advocacy in high heels with a streetwise twist from the world's cycling capital." I love the way the site is charming, sophisticated and very slightly pervy at the same time.

Save 20% on a booking at our house

2009-01-26T11:42:00.000-08:00

I haven't had an enquiry on the house for a few weeks so I'm trying a discount ad on villarenters. If you prefer to book directly I'll extend the same terms, which are that if you book any full week or weeks for 2009 before the end of March, I'll give you 20% off. Prices now start at £200 per week (less 20%, of course, so that's £160) during February and March, rising to £350 (£300 with the discount) for the English school holidays. I'm putting the prices up soon - so that there's some relationship between pound and euro prices - so it won't ever get this cheap again.

San Anton, patron saint of pet food

2009-01-20T11:51:00.000-08:00

The British cling to the belief that they're the most animal-friendly people in Europe, but I don't think they can compete with the Spaniards. It may be true that bulls and donkeys are slaughtered on a regular basis throughout the country, but when it comes to their mascotas, the Spanish are as soft-hearted as anyone else. Today is San Anton's day, when religious pet owners in Spain take their dogs, cats, hamsters and canaries to church to have them blessed and sprinkled with holy water. In a secular alternative, Ideal in Granada gets people to send in pictures of their pets for posting on the paper's website. Here's just one of several dozen.

The Alpujarra on BBC4

2009-01-20T02:51:00.000-08:00

Rageh Omaar, the BBC journalist usually seen wearing a flak jacket in a war zone, was in Granada and the Alpujarra on BBC4 last night in the final episode of his mini-series “An Islamic History of Europe”. It seemed a pretty superficial exploration of a vast and infinitely rich subject to me - apart from anything else, how can you do a whole history of Muslim influence in Europe without mentioning the Ottoman Empire? - but he did get to sit on Chris Stewart’s terrace drinking mint tea, and that's not far from our house and so worthy of mention on this blog. The cheerful evocation of ancient battle at the Moros y Cristianos enactment in Velez de Benaudalla was fun. Apparently nobody wants to dress up as a Christian because the Moors have better swords, and the town enacts two battles with contrasting outcomes during the day of the fiesta, so that everyone gets to win at least once.

Here's a picture of the Moros Y Cristianos from our own village:

Cultural evolution/confusion at work

2009-01-18T06:17:00.000-08:00

This is quite an interesting phenomenon. The funny little exterior decoration on the left represents the Magi from the traditional nativity story; the "we three kings from Orient are" (as a kid I wondered where Orientare was, but that's another story). They were climbing into every other window in Spain this Christmas, though I've never seen them in previous years. The Chinese-run emporia that sell all kinds of cheap junk were full of them.

The fascinating bit is that Spain is in the grip of a generational battle between the Kings, who traditionally bring presents for good children on January 6th, and the recent US import and Coca Cola spokesperson Santa Claus, who is meant to bring gifts during the small hours of 25th December. Retailers and the ad industry naturally want the Spanish nation to embrace both and give twice as many gifts, but hard-pressed families may have to make a choice and go for one or the other. Last year the balcony adornment of choice was Santa climbing up a rope-ladder. This year the Spaniards, with the help of the Chinese tat-vendors, have amalgamated traditions so that we get the Kings climbing Santa-style, rather than turning up on camels. (If you were a wise old king from Orientare, would you suffer the gross indignity of climbing a rope-ladder to break into someone's flat, with passers-by looking up your cassock? No, neither would I.) It'll be interesting to see if this one sticks - the Christmas story changed forever by cheap decorations.

Home again

2009-01-03T08:18:00.000-08:00

We got back to Scotland on the first day of 2009, after getting up at 6am to drive down to Malaga airport. The roads have improved so much that the journey now takes only about two hours and ten minutes - it was at least three hours not so long ago. Juviles and the Alpujarra in general were spectacularly pretty in the brilliant winter sunshine. We missed the heavy snow - a quitanieves was through the village's main street twice the week before we got there - although it was pretty damn cold. Above is a shot of the sun coming up over the Contraviesa, taken from our terrace. Not a bad view to go with your early morning coffee.

If you'd like to book for 2009...

2008-12-16T07:52:00.000-08:00

...please get in touch as soon as possible. We already have a couple of bookings for May. Easter weekend and the weeks either side are still available. We'll be in Juviles from 20th December to 1st January, so if you need us, call my Spanish number (+34) 697914136.

More non-native species fun in Granada province

2008-12-12T04:38:00.000-08:00

A pair of Guardia Civil were called to a motorway service station at Loja (in the West of Granada, past the airport) to “arrest” a Coati last weekend. This racoon-like omnivore is native to South American forests, but this one, presumably an abandoned pet, was found rummaging in bins for food. The elite law enforcement professionals managed to lure the Coati into a cage using bits of bread, then “detained” him in a police cell while they phoned around zoos to see if anyone wanted him, but nobody did. (I’d have had him, but they didn’t call me.) It calls to mind the old joke about the Guardia who finds a penguin one morning. “Take him to the zoo” says his commanding officer. Later that day the chief sees the Guardia walking down the high street, hand in hand with the penguin. “I told you to take that bird to the zoo” he says. “I did,” replies the junior officer. “We had a lovely time, and now we’re going to the pictures.”

The best of the Alpujarra

2008-12-08T05:28:00.000-08:00

El mejor de la Alpujarra is the title of a little trade fair currently taking place in Ugijar, with about 50 local producers showing off their wares. I love how Spanish journalists get their priorities right - of the products listed in this article, the non-edible items like blankets and pottery get the most perfunctory of mentions, then the writer gets on to food and drink and practically salivates the following list onto the page: embutidos, jamones, repostería morisca, mieles, vinos, aceites, quesos, licores, dulces, turrones y mermeladas. Then there's a bit about Servando Vargas (son of Servando Vargas I and father to Servando Vargas III), who makes cakes. But of course, it's not sufficiently enticing merely to be told that he specialises in sweet bakery products. Instead, we're treated to this mouthwatering rundown: rosquillas, soplillos, tortas de chicharrones y de aceite, cuajados, galletas caseras, bollos de miel, pan de bizcocho y de aceite, roscos de huevo, perrunas y otros artículos, como por ejemplo, licores de hiervas y de membrillo.

Holiday Rentals

2008-12-02T04:00:00.000-08:00

I've just put the house back on Holiday Rentals. The site claims to be the biggest and best advertising website for self-catering rentals in Europe, if not the world, and has links to international sites and translation into a number of languages as part of the service. We were on it before, but although we got lots of enquiries, they didn't translate into bookings, so I let it lapse. They sent us a high proportion of time-wasters (notably Americans who didn't seem to know that Spain is in Europe) and a gentleman who wanted me to send several thousand dollars to Nigeria, which he promised of course to repay several times over upon arrival in Juviles.

On the other hand Villarenters gave us only about four leads over the same period, but each resulted in a proper booking. HR charges a fee to advertise but no commission, while VR gives you a free listing and charges 10% of the booking, also handling credit card payment and a security deposit, which is handy. I decided to have another go with HR as they seem to do very well for another property we know just outside Juviles. That and the fact that I'm a sucker for special offers, and they gave us a discount for renewing the listing. So go on and prove me wrong and book our beautiful house through Holiday Rentals. I need a week's booking to pay for the ad.

If you operate a site - or you know of one - that our house should be on, please post a comment or email me with details. I'd be interested to read opinions from other property owners. También en español.

Hola, hola, hola...

2008-11-29T07:44:00.000-08:00

I just advertised our Spanish house on a website for Strathclyde Police, offering the boys in blue a discount of 10-20% depending on the season. It's only fair to extend the invitation to other police forces around Britain and indeed the world, so if you're a copper, you can save a little silver. However I wouldn't want anyone to think I was showing unfair favouritism towards the law - so if you can show proof of membership of a generally recognised trades union of thieves, rogues or ne'erdowells, I'll let you have the same deal.

Bees for tea, anyone?

2008-11-29T07:27:00.000-08:00

It's cold and miserable in Glasgow, snowy in the Alpujarra and the news is profoundly depressing this weekend. But as Shelley puts it, "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" We've taken a booking for May 2009, by which time some of these colourful little fellows should be back in our part of Spain. Bee-eaters, abejarucos, are regular visitors to the Alpujarra, albeit not in great numbers. I've only seen them once, but you never forget seeing birds as colourful as jockeys.

Live webcam...

2008-11-24T01:04:00.000-08:00

...of the ski-slopes at Sierra Nevada here. Keep refreshing your screen and you can have endless fun watching Spaniards falling over in the snow. This is only a few miles from our place as the crow flies, but the crow would have to ascend about 2,200 metres (as the ski lifts start at about 3,500m). Meanwhile, snow is forecast for everywhere above 600m this week, so Juviles should see a white out.

More happy clients

2008-11-22T07:02:00.000-08:00

Our latest visitors, Vicki and Paddy Salmon (from just outside Paris) loved their stay despite cold, wet weather. Paddy wrote "we thought the house terrific - you have great taste and imagination and have done it up so well. We only had one afternoon when we could sit out on the terrace, but what a view!" He sent me this watercolour of the view in question.The ridge in the mid-ground is the hill on which stand the remains of Juviles' moorish fortress. There's not a lot to see architecturally speaking, but it has great views back over the village and up towards the Sierra, or in the other direction, down into the valley where our local market town of Cadiar stands, about 300 metres lower down.

Paddy and Vicki own a beautiful holiday rental property in Normandy; take a look at it here.

It's all downhill from here

2008-11-11T01:34:00.000-08:00

The ski season at the Sierra Nevada (above our house) starts a fortnight earlier than last year, with 11 lifts and 27 kms of pistas opening on Saturday 15th November. Lift passes are on sale at a discounted rate if you're quick, and our house is available until 20th December, and then from 2nd January, for about £250 or €300 a week. Latest news from the ski station here.

New flights from Ryanair

2008-11-10T01:45:00.000-08:00

Economic and environmental concerns be damned! Ryanair has just started taking bookings on four new routes between the UK and Malaga, which is good for us, particularly as the new motorway is bringing the journey time to the Alpujarra down towards the 2 hour mark. And of course Malaga is a pleasure in its own right, despite the horrors of the Costa del Golf that starts just the wrong side of Ikea. The new flights go out of Prestwick (or Glasgow Prestwick to the optimistic), Edinburgh (one of Britain's more civilised airports), Stansted and Birmingham. Now if we could just get someone to fly to Almeria or Granada from Glasgow, we'd be away to the races.

Spain's hangover

2008-11-10T01:22:00.000-08:00

The jury is out on whether Spain will get through the economic crisis in a better or worse state than the rest of the world, but any downturn is going to feel like a disaster in comparison with the unprecedented boom of the past twenty years or so. At least they don't have to give all the EU money back, as they've already spent it on roads, railways and, probably, excellent shellfish. Interesting article from The Economist here. It's so beautifully written it makes me want to subscribe. And use words like fissiparous and autarky whenever possible.

The rain in Spain...

2008-11-07T08:12:00.001-08:00

...fell mostly on the Alpujarra last week, when our unfortunate guests from Paris were staying. The brilliant AE Met weather forecast site for Juviles has a great feature - it gives you a percentage of probablility of precipitation. Last week it was between 50 and 90% depending on the day, and this week it's between 0 and 5%. It also has max. and min. temperatures, wind speed and direction, UV index and provincial snowline level in altitude, which for most of the winter hovers about 1,600m but occasionally zooms down to us at 1,200m. By contrast, the best the BBC can do for Glasgow tomorrow is the rather unscientific safe bet of "heavy rain". I spoke to our guests though, and they loved the place despite the weather. Hopefully they'll go home and encourage all their Parisian pals to book our house for next summer, when of course it will be too hot to move.

Incidentally it's a myth that only the British talk about the weather. In my personal experience the Spaniards, the French and the Americans never shut up about it, and I understand it's a national obsession in Japan.

Early snow

2008-10-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

It looks like it might be a good ski season in the Sierra Nevada this year, as they've had a couple of major snow falls already and it's still only October. Traditionally they open the ski lifts on December 1st, but I think they may bring it forward if conditions allow. No snow in Juviles yet, although it looks like it's going to be pretty cold this week - while we have guests from Paris staying in the house, no doubt frantically searching for firewood as I type this. Or making their way to Tino's bar to keep warm, one or the other...

Not such an innocent corner of Spain, then...

2008-10-27T04:43:00.000-07:00

In my recent post about Lorca's remains I referred to the Alpujarra being practically oblivous to the civil war and the horrors of the Franco dictatorship. I picked that up from a number of literary sources and readily accepted it like many (including local PP supporters and ex-pats attracted to what they see as a bucolic paradise) who find benign ignorance the most acceptable explanation for the Alpujarra's absence from the written history of the period. It seems it doesn't stack up. As an article here in the Olive Press (in English) details, the Alpujarra is dotted with mass graves of people murdered by the Nationalists, including a burial site at the El Carrizal barranco between Lanjaron and Orgiva said to contain up to 4,000 corpses. If true, that would make it the biggest of the killing fields in Spain. Incidents of Guardia Civil murdering "Reds" in Torvizcon and Castaras are reported here too. For any English-speakers interested in Southern Spain, The Olive Press is worth a bookmark. Home page here.

Easy rider

2008-10-23T08:18:00.001-07:00

Most places, when huge gangs of guys on customised motorcyles roll into town, they lower the shutters, lock up their daughters and play dead. In Juviles they put a few kegs of beer in the church square and start frying eggs. Pictures and video of the 3rd annual bikers' rally on the town hall website here. Notice the lovely weather for late september.

Chocolate quail, anyone?

2008-10-23T03:51:00.000-07:00

The hotly contested title of best new tapa in Spain this year goes to Carlos Valenti of Madrid, who's just won the IV Concurso Pinchos with cordoniz con bizcocho de chocolate. That's quail with chocolate cake. The sponge incorporates the quail's liver for "a magical effect in the mouth". You won't get anything quite that sophisticated round our way, but then the tapas are free in the Alpujarra, and you get what you're given. Some memorable offerings in Juviles include Tino's omelette with ketchup, Susi's spicy snails and the old favourite, a baby morcilla (black pudding), served scalding hot and sitting on a small round of bread. Less successful were the boquerones (anchovies in vinegar) strewn over a plate of crisps that everyone seemed to think was a good idea a couple of years ago. The combination didn't do anything for either ingredient, and seems mercifully to have died out. Best tapa in the village would probably be Tino's chops cooked directly over the wood fire during the winter. I also have fond memories of a big plate of fried liver with chips at Susi's when we'd just unpacked the van in the dark after a five hour drive from Seville. There was nothing to eat in the house bar a packet of marzipan, and all the local restaurants were closed, so you can imagine how pleased we were when the plate of offal arrived in front of us, unbidden.

Looking for Lorca

2008-10-21T03:53:00.000-07:00

Conservative Granada was largely on the wrong side during the civil war and the subsequent dictatorship, but it did produce one of the left's great poster boys in poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. Murdered by Nationalists within the first days of the conflict and buried somewhere near the airport which now bears his name, he's the subject of a grisly bit of archaeology as crusading super-judge Baltazar Garzon has ordered the opening of several mass graves in order to find his bones. Here he is in Lanjaron in the twenties, taking the waters, naturally. According to Brennan and (ahem) Chris Stewart, the Alpujarrans mostly ignored the war and didn't really understand politics anyway. No change there, then.

More wildlife

2008-10-15T00:58:00.000-07:00

In Juvíles we're used to wildlife invading, what with swallows and geckos making their homes in the house itself, and any number of invertebrates calling in from time to time. It comes as more of a surprise in Scotland. Yesterday I entered the dining room to find a distressed robin flying around, and when I tried to help it out it managed to trap itself in between the sashes of the window - I'd been painting the frames. After a couple of failed attempts to free it, the bird played dead while I lifted it up and carried it out into the garden. Its tiny heart was beating like a drum, but it flew off in what looked like a perfectly healthy state. I didn't have the presence of mind to find the camera, so I had to get this shot online. (Although they live in the UK all year round they've become a symbol of winter, and it seems to be against the law to photograph robins without snow.)

You might see a European robin while staying at our place in Juvíles; the distribution goes all the way down to Mauritania. Other likely sightings depending on the season include hoopoes, black redstarts, bee eaters, Bonelli's eagle, vultures and not far away on the coast, flamingos. There are supposed to be naturalised parrots around, though I've never seen one. There are lots and lots of sparrows, too.

The credit crunch isn't so bad...

2008-10-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

...that your next holiday has to be in a caravan in North Wales. Why not visit a village where there never was any credit to be crunched in the first place, namely Juviles, Granada, Spain? Book a week in our beautiful house for approximately £300. With plenty of room for five, that's just sixty quid a head for comfort, tranquility and staggering natural beauty. A glass of beer or wine in a local bar is between 1 and 1.50 euros, and comes with a complimentary tapa, while a three course lunch with wine can still be had for less than €10. Alternatively you can cook yourself, using fabulous local produce in our fully-equipped kitchen. You can rent a car for about a hundred quid a week in Spain, and walking in the beautiful countryside costs nothing. Which means that if you can sort yourself out with a good flight deal, you can have a holiday at our place for less than it costs to stay at home.

We're currently taking bookings for most weeks up until the middle of December (we're booked for Christmas) and for all of next year, so visit our permanent site to check availability. The alternative could be too grim to contemplate...

"The Alpujarra is in tears..."

2008-10-03T06:53:00.000-07:00

A quote from today's Ideal, referring to the funeral in Cadiar of a young local woman who was murdered early this week by her partner. The couple were both serving in the military and the crime occurred in married quarters in Granada city. Uncomfortably, Cadiar is full to the gills with folk gathered for a fiesta, complete with all the usual bunting, flags, kids' entertainers and wine fountain. The sombre procession of military personnel carrying a coffin through the streets to the church must have been rather surreal amongst that lot. The paper says everyone in Cadiar knew Encarni - which didn't need saying, really, as everyone knows everyone in the Alpujarra. Story here, in Spanish.

Messages from the Alpujarra

2008-10-02T09:05:00.000-07:00

I just added the Alpujarra Messageboard to my list of links. It's a treasure trove of fatalistic posts by people who bought houses in El Golco three years ago and still haven't had their electricity or water connected. There are postings of a more general interest, too, including the odd restaurant recommendation, news of fiestas, puppies looking for good homes etc. It's run by the people behind Blue Sky Escapes estate agency, but there's certainly no hard sell and they recently closed for new business anyway. See the link in the column on the right or just go here.

Poor unfortunate wee foca

2008-09-26T05:12:00.000-07:00

Ideal Digital today reports on the entirely unexpected arrival of an injured seal - una foca in Spanish - on the beach at Motril. Makes a change from half-drowned illegal immigrants. The distressed creature has now been transferred to Malaga, where it's getting better, but nobody yet knows where it came from. Motril has a bit of previous regarding unexplained non-native species - read one of my posts about the town's famous social-housing python infestation here.

Late cancellation

2008-09-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

Our house WAS booked for the week from Saturday 11th October (half term in much of Scotland) but they've cancelled, and we can't go. So if you'd like it, you can have that week for a small consideration - make us an offer.

Welcome to Strathguadalfeo

2008-09-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

As if the Andalucian tendency to deep-fry everything wasn't sufficient welcome for visiting Scots, they've started making single malt whisky in Padul. That's just off the motorway between Granada and Motril, a stone's throw from the Alpujarra. I understand the malt, called Embrujo (which means "spell"), is made with carefully selected barley and the delicious spring water of the Sierra Nevada, which is a pretty good start. It's then matured - of course - in sherry casks, like many of our own classic malts, such as The Macallan. Embrujo launched with 40,000 bottles in June this year. I know this only from Pablo Amate's food blog here as I haven't yet had the chance to try it - I'll be looking for it at Christmas. For a less sophisticated Caledonian-Iberian synthesis, can I recommend the Possil equivalent of a tinto de verano? Mix equal quantities of Buckfast and Irn Bru. Drink quickly. Fight.

Still some half-term slots...

2008-09-15T00:49:00.000-07:00

...as long as you live somewhere eccentric or send the kids to private school. Week commencing 27th October, (half-term for London state schools) is now booked, as is w/c 13th (Glasgow and some parts of Scotland). You could still have our place from about Saturday the 18th to 26th, which would suit you if you're in Edinburgh or some Northern English counties.

Well, what would you put on an apron?

2008-09-07T12:56:00.000-07:00

In Britain, they sell novelty aprons with lingerie printed on them so that middle-aged men can project a hint of the risqué while they're ruining some sausages on the barbecue. Not in the Alpujarra. A specially customised apron around here carries the image of what really matters in life. Ham. To dispel any possible ambiguity as to the subject matter, the one on the left bears the word jamón in careful embroidery, above the picture of the cured hind leg of a pig. The one on the right curiously has the ham off centre, as if there was meant to be another image on the other side to balance it out, but the apron-maker just got fed up and stopped. I wonder what it would have been? A string of sausages, perhaps, or a couple of nice big black puddings?

Elsewhere in the impressive exhibition of work by the Juvíles library adult education group last month were these intriguing creatures, which might be cats. I'm not even going to attempt to think of something funny to say about them.

October half-term availability

2008-08-29T05:07:00.000-07:00

The English, Welsh and Scottish schools half-term holidays are fairly spread out this year, and we've currently got availability for the main English week and weeks either side. Currently the house is:

- Booked for w/c 13th (Glasgow and other perverse bits of Scotland)
- Free for w/c 20th (Edinburgh and most of the rest of Scotland)
- Free for w/c 24th (some rogue counties in Northern England and Wales)
- Free for week commencing 27th October (London and most of the rest of England)

Apologies to the Irish and the rest of the world, but I can't be finding everyone's holibags for them and presumably you've already got the dates red-lettered on your calendars anyway. As for the poor old Spanish, they don't get half-term.

So knock yourself out and book a restful week in a beautiful house in an authentic Andalucian hill village. The kids can practice Spanish with the villagers while you enjoy the breathtaking view from the terrace and indulge in a few glasses of the idiosyncratic local wine. Flights should still be cheap for most weeks if you book now.

Euro, Doh!

2008-08-27T00:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Jurdy at SpainExpat's forum site for bringing this to my attention. A shop keeper in Asturias found this skillfully re-modelled Euro in a bag of change. Nobody knows who morphed His Majesty into Homer, but one theory doing the rounds suggests it's the work of a shadowy republican group planning to flood the country with similar hand-manipulated currency. I doubt that, as it's a job that clearly took hours, if not days. And a Euro won't pay for a single caña of Duff beer these days.

Spain's Olympians return from Beijing

2008-08-25T04:41:00.000-07:00

I was sorry to see Spain losing out to the US for the gold in the basketball yesterday. The game ended in a very friendly mood, I noticed, with the players hugging and high-fiveing each other. This is perhaps not surprising, as most of the Spanish players (presumably classed as Olympian amateurs for the Games) play for million-dollar salaries in North America and knock about with their adversaries on a regular basis. Away from the basketball court, Spain did less well than expected, and remarkably less well than the UK. We British won loads of medals, which is hardly in the spirit of the thing and certainly not to be encouraged in the future.

Anyway, here is an exclusive pic of "Team Esp" on their return from China. Or it might be some more of the fancy dress from the Juviles fiesta earlier this month.

While we're on the subject, why do we have to say "Beijing" when Spanish speakers can still get away with calling it "Pekin"? Shouldn't they be referring to the Chinese capital as "Veillin" or something like that, just to be fair?

Semana Cultural

2008-08-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

We got back from Juviles last weekend after a week of wilting in the heat and enjoying the highlights of the Fiesta and the preceding Semana Cultural or cultural week. Highlights included old men eating fritters. Or not really eating fritters, so much as sitting back and admiring them.

Although a lot of the "events" were comically underwhelming and eccentric, it was brilliant. Juviles, with only 200 people, has a smaller population than many blocks of flats, and for the village to hold dozens of little events plus at least two whole night-long parties (I say "at least" because we left for Malaga before it was over) was really quite something. There were activities specifically for little kids, old folks and what I tend to think of as normal people, i.e. of my age, but most events had something for everyone. The Fiesta last Friday in particular was an extraordinary mix, with everything from a bouncy castle and kids' fancy dress to dancers in schoolgirl outfits that would make the hot sixth-formers in St. Trinian's look positively frumpy.

Best fancy dress by far was a little girl of about six dressed as a traditional Spanish abuela or grandma. Grey hair, black dress, pinny, walking stick, and the killer detail, pop socks with one rolled up and one down. This is not a great shot (from the ayuntamiento here), but this is her with some pals: She won the "most convincing abuela" competition, with the ladies below coming second and third. They were furious, as you might imagine, and the atmosphere on the winners' podium was sour.

Coming soon to this blog, the ropey "Medieval Market", several bands, and the adult education group's handicraft exhibition. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the sexy dancing girls, but I somehow forgot where my camera was when they were on.

A Level Results Out Today!

2008-08-14T03:44:00.000-07:00

No pictures of unusually pretty 18 year-old girls jumping in the air with results in their hands here I'm afraid, although if you're looking for those, you'll find them everywhere else in the media today. Just thought I'd try to grab your attention and ask you if you'd like to rent a lovely house in rural Spain during late August and/or September? A great place to relax for a few days before Freshers' Week/Gap Year. See the permanent site here.