It's fiesta time again!

Saturday, 9th August and we go down to the peña with 14 others to clear the weeds and generally make the place habitable in preparation for the fiesta activities which will take place there. Breakfast for everyone of sausage and fried eggs follows.

Saturday, 16th August and we go with 6 others from our peña into Alcañiz to buy food and drink for the festivities.

Monday, 18th August and we have the first meal, cooked by Rosi below, which is the traditional hearty dish of rice, potatoes, bits of bone with some meat on and of course caracoles. Because the summer weather has been so poor in the UK, snails are abundant and on a TV programme people were asking how to get rid of them. It's simple - eat them!

Click left on any photo for the full size view.

Tuesday, 19th August and it's the customary small bonfires to cook the sausages which are then eaten in chunks of bread. Everyone is there, young and old and some of the more organised elderly people have taken their tables and chairs and are making it a true picnic.


This year, there is a live band and they add to the carnival atmosphere.


They are wearing their orange polo shirts which just happen to be exactly the same colour as the t-shirt of our peña so we blend in with them.


Later in the proceedings, a couple of characters run around and chase the children.


By this time people are dancing to the music and having a great time. In the UK gangs of youngsters hide their identity by wearing hoodies - here, they have their name on the back of their peña t-shirt.


Wednesday, 20th August. It's that time of year when San Ramón gets carried around the village towards the end of the midday mass.





We follow virtually every street in the village, thank goodness it's small and then back to the church via the Plaza Mayor.


This year we have a proper group of singers in the church to lead the service and they finish off with a spot of dancing.


Once the service is over, those who dressed in traditional costume gather for a photo shoot.


As the young girls explained, the costumes look good but are more suited to the colder months.


Lola daringly shows her authentic hosiery.


In the evening, we had a display by a group of 10 dancers. Click the "play" button to see them in action.



The dancing took place on the school yard in front of the school building. The school no longer operates as a school as there are insufficient children in the village. You may have noticed in the videos the people going in and out of the doorway - they were preparing a chocolate drink with a toasted breadstick for everyone after the entertainment, at least 250 people.

That evening there was live music by a pop group in the Plaza Mayor from 21.00 - 23.00 and from 1.00 to the early hours. The entire population of the village is there, dancing. They might as well because the music is so loud they couldn't sleep through it!

During the break, Lola cooked pork escalopes in a delicious sauce, here assisted by Eva with Rosi in the background.

Friday, 22nd August. This evening the weather was against us and the pop music group booked to perform were unable to. At least people in the village would be able to choose at what time they went to bed. For part of the downpour it was as if the village was surrounded by thunderstorms with lightning going off in every direction. However, that did not dampen our spirits and prevent us enjoying another meal at the peña.


We all managed to get undercover while we ate apart from Pablo and Manolo who were sitting at the more exposed end of the table.

Sunday, 24th August. This morning we have been cleaning the peña and stacking all the sofas and chairs so they will be ready for next year. Next weekend, there is to be another peña meal on Saturday and then on Sunday, the official saints day for San Ramón, another mass in the church followed by a meal for the whole village in the Plaza Mayor...and then everyone goes back to their homes in the cities and the village returns to its normal tranquil state.

What's at the bottom of this garden?

Sunday, 10th August and we are invited to celebrate Floyd's birthday with Jordi and Emelia at Marc and Andrea's house which is down by the river and used to be the original olive mill.

Click on any picture to see it full size.

Over the years Marc and Andrea have done a lot of restoration on the mill but it is a huge project as can be seen from the photo above.

First we had Andrea's tapas on the terrace.

For the main course Margaret had taken a whole cooked salmon.

As the meal progressed and it drew darker, we realised we were not the only ones eating al fresco.


Yes, it's a civet and although we only saw one, there is likely to be a breeding pair. Not everyone has a pair of these at the bottom of their garden!

My 60th!

Saturday, 2nd August, (the day before my birthday), and 24 of us celebrated my 60th with a superb meal followed by some entertainment.

Floyd was the photographer for this occasion - click on the image for a larger view.

We had the fountain working which is on the new terraza where the swimming pool was, (more on this feature later when the jacuzzi is finally installed).

Our friends brought a dish of food, either starters, salad or postre and we provided the drinks and fish and meat.


Beatriz and Miguel also brought their 4 week old son, Martin.


After the meal, we had "entertainment" in the form of a rendition on the keyboard by myself...


...and another by Floyd. Enjoyable stuff!

Lunch with the campers!

This is the 3rd year we have been invited by Rosi and Pablo to join them and their friends for Sunday lunch down by the river where they are camping. Their friends, another 3 families, come from Rosi's village of Valdealgorfa which is 15 kms from here, and set up their tents in exactly the same place around about the same time each year for a long weekend. This has nothing to do with the "credit crunch", it's just the traditional summer holiday.

Click left on any photo to see it full size.

Send me your captions for the photo above! I shall publish them at a later date if they are any good.

The children had been playing in the river but returned in good time for lunch. This time it was a paella con pollo, cerdo y caracoles, (chicken, pork and snails.) All local produce, especially the snails which had been caught the previous day.


Margaret lent a hand preparing the cucumber while the snails simmered.


This was indeed "throw another prawn on the barbi" and they were absolutely delicious along with olives, crab and pickled onions on sticks and sepia, (cuttlefish), as appetisers. Sepia is a fantastic food - no gristle, no waste, easy to cook, it tastes great, especially with a garlic and olive oil dressing, and it just melts in your mouth. It's very low fat too, (apart from the dressing!)


Now that's what I call a paella. Note the cocktail stick for getting the snails out of their shells. Delicious!

The village trip to Expo

Saturday 12th July and a coach load of us from the village set off at 7:00 am and after a coffee stop arrived in Zaragoza at the Expo around 10:00 am. After passing through security our first visit was to the Torre del Agua, Tower of Water, which dominates the skyline.

Click left on any photo to see it full size.

As the theme for Expo is "water", not only is the building shaped like a drop of water, (on it's side), but it has a large "splash" sculpture in the middle of it as seen in the photo below. As if we didn't have enough walking to do in the course of the day, we walked to the top of the building and then down again, 22 floors, which involved walking around the perimeter for each floor.


To see the inside of the Torre del Agua, play the video.

We ate our sandwiches for lunch just outside the Palacio de Congreso, which was a very large administration building.


To see Margaret with Floyd and Jordi outside the Palacio de Congreso, press "play"

A parade, headed by a large wooden serpent with dancers on it's "back", stilt walkers, etc, went past a couple of times...



Another interesting building was El Faro, the lighthouse, although it didn't have a light on the top, just a revolving sail contraption.



Inside El Faro there were many water cans and entertainment.


The whole area had been created with the theme of water in mind and of course one of the favourite features were waterfalls which where just about everywhere you looked.



The area had also been designed to give plenty of shade as you were walking around and to keep it cool, mist was being sprayed into the air.



Around mid afternoon the sky began to look threatening and we were to be in for another demonstration involving water - a torrential downpour.




If you look hard enough, you can see the rain on the floor.

Despite all the water we didn't get too wet as we stood in queues waiting to get into the presentations and the exhibits of over 100 countries who had provided a display in their separate areas. We didn't get to see all of them! Notably the UK and USA were not represented.

Each country had it's own interpretation of the "water" theme. To see Japan's, we had to join a queue for an hour in order to join a second queue for about ¾ hour to see their cartoon presentation which was projected onto 3 walls and lasted for 15 minutes. The French pavilion had a much shorter queue and offered water tasting of their various bottled waters. Malta took this opportunity to advertise the island for tourists. Oman had built a model showing water treatment and desalination plants. South Africa showed a 7 minute movie telling us how to take care of water and not waste such a precious resource. Inside the Pakistan area they concentrated on selling products made in the country from carpets, hats, jewellery and carved furniture, they seemed to have missed the point about the water theme!

If you want to find out more about Expo in Zaragoza, then click left on the heading at the top of this entry that says "The village trip to Expo" and you will then be linked to the official website.

We all met back for the coach at 22:00 and got back to the village by midnight after a thoroughly interesting day out.

¡San Juan!

Although it was John the Baptist's "official day" on Tuesday 24th, it was celebrated here on Saturday in order to enable people to get to the village for the celebration from the cities. There was the customary service in the ermita de San Juan, (opposite our house), at midday during which Margaret read a short prayer, in Spanish, along with 5 other congregants.

Click left on any picture to see it full size.

After the service it was back to our house with friends from the peña we belong to for a meal in the bodega...

...and it was my favourite dish of paella.

In the evening the "group" arrived and we had dancing in the street in front of our house - not quite Glastonbury but it was a perfect evening and there were free drinks, Cava and soft drinks, and cakes and pastries being served. Can you spot Margaret in this photo?


The "group" used electricity from our house and positioned themselves just in front of the heap of pebbles which hadn't found their way onto the garden around the trees yet - more on that topic soon. Watch this space!


As the sun got lower in the west, the ermita became a lovely golden colour. (Margaret is on the right hand edge of this photo.)


After the dancing it was back to our bodega for ham, carved here by Pablo, and bread with tomatoes rubbed on along with cheeses, olives and crisps as well as plenty to drink until the early hours.

Well at least they seem to be enjoying it!

It's quiet here, but...

It's quiet here, (apart from during the summer when everyone visits,) but this last weekend we have had a wedding on the Saturday, and on Sunday, a baptism, a funeral and a recital by 3 local "brass bands". The wedding and baptism were both held in the ermita directly opposite our house which is only used normally about twice during the year.

Click left on any picture for the full size view.

The tradition with the wedding party is for everyone, including the bride and groom, to walk up from the village to the ermita which is a steady incline on a rather uneven rough road - not easy in high heels so I am told. It's rather like Christ's last outing to be crucified only all the bride has to carry here is a bunch of roses.



On Sunday evening we had "brass bands" from 3 local villages to play in the Plaza Mayor.


The young flautist above is Lilian, the 11 year old son of our good friends Georges and Annie who are French and live in the village.

There was a most appreciative audience of a few hundred and the young musicians gave the performance all they'd got which made the 3 conductors feel deservedly proud. Lilian is in the centre of this photo too!