...and small houses

...and then we went home to enjoy our newly decorated and furnished sitting room. Thanks to this blog, you can enjoy it too!

Tall ships.......

We went to Cadiz yesterday morning with Rob and Lynn (see them with Mike in the photograph on the left) to see the Tall Ships leave for the next stage of the 50th Anniversary Tall Ships Race. Apparently (I discovered later, by consulting the website) this marks the anniversary of the first and much smaller race in 1956, which was meant to mark the end of sailing ships but, in fact, led to a renewed interest in them and their use as a means of encouraging personal development and team building, especially for young people.




Cadiz is a spectacular setting for all of this, given that most of the old town was built at the time of sailing ships, though, as you can see here they look pretty impressive against the buildings of the new town too. This is the prow (?) of the Italian ship, Amerigo Vespucci, which seems to have won lots of prizes and whose crew certainly provided for me the most spectacular demonstration of the morning when they all climbed onto the rigging to release the sails ready for the journey. You can just about see them here on the left.

We watched some of the ships being tugged out of their moorings and heading off to sea.....

Not all sunshine and sangria

For sometime now I have been thinking that I should write a more serious entry in this blog from time to time, just to show that a) I can and b) the Spanish sunshine has not turned my brain too much and c) we are not obsessed with food. The 18th July is the 70th anniversay of the start of the Spanish Civil War, so this seems as good a time as any.

To tell the truth, I would not have realised the date had I not been reading The Times Online over the weekend. They had a piece about a commemorative event organised in London by the British contingent of the International Brigade, volunteers who came to Spain to fight on the Republican side against the Nationalist rebels, soon to be led to victory by General Franco. Apparently, this is an annual event, but this year, for the first time, a representative of the Spanish Government will be present.

So what? Not so newsworthy, you might think. After all, the event has been taking place in London, not Madrid, all these years. The point is that, up until recently, official silence in Spain was the norm in relation to anything to do with the Civil War and the Francoist repression that continued until the General died peacefully in his bed in 1975. Most of the serious histories of the period have been written by British historians like Anthony Beevor and Hugh Thomas, rather than by Spaniards. It wasn't until 2000 that the first victims were dug up from a roadside grave, and then only due to the persistence of a young journalist who wanted to find out what had happened to his grandfather. Since then 500 bodies have been recovered, although they reckon there are more than 300,000 more killed by the Nationalists, as well as 50,000 by the Republicans-although they, of course, have their memorial in the Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) near Madrid.

Now things seem to be changing quite rapidly. The international best-selling book 'Soldiers of Salamis' by Javier Cercas (a huge success in Spain, a country which doesn't have a tradition of reading books), which desribes an incident of unusual humanity in what was a bloody conflict, has contributed to an awakening of awareness . The Spanish Prime Minister, Zapatero, whose grandfather was shot by nationalists, has declared 2006 "The Year of Historical Memory" and has pledged to recover and open up archives. Meanwhile, various grassroots organisations have been set up to discover and excavate the sites of these roadside graves. I have noticed too, that there have been various articles in the Spanish press recently, all of them ( those that I have read) very careful to avoid hyperbole. And the Spanish Ambassador attends a memorial event for the International Brigade in London.

It will be interesting to see what Tuesday brings. But isn't it extraordinary, and a real measure of the fear of re-opening old wounds, that this extroverted nation should have held its collective tongue for so long?

There are more...

....photos, that is.

These were taken on a trip to the beach near Rob and Lyn's house.

Like all good outings, it included a nice meal.After which Mike, Naomi and I walked the whole sweep of the bay home and Rob and Lyn fell asleep on the beach.

Que vida!

Simple pleasures

Occasionally we have a conversation about what we might miss out here. Apart from all of you, of course, it seems to come down to the occasional balti, Bio yoghurt with a layer of prune (they sell other sorts but not this one) and sun dried tomatoes. Although we found some of these in Granada, it's a long way to go, even for something that has always been a kitchen basic.

I would have said my favourite tea as well but Naomi brought me 240 (yes, two hundred and forty) Yorkshire Tea bags. What a girl! What a gift!

It is not that the Spanish don't drink tea but they drink it differently, without milk and the concept of boiling water has not caught on. So, if you ask for tea in a cafe you will probably get a cup of hottish water with a tea bag on the side. Be careful if you want milk. One of our friends once asked for tea with cold milk. She was brought a glass of cold milk and a tea bag on the side. Best to ask for un poco de leche fria en una jarra or a little cold milk in a jug. On the other hand, the Spanish do excellent coffee, paella, fish cooked in salt, tortilla, manzanilla...... And our little supermercado now stocks our breakfast Bran Flakes, specially for us. You could say that neither us, nor our friends, have much to complain about, as these selection of Naomi's photos show.

They were taken when we were all visiting our chums Rob and Lyn . Gracias, Naomi y hasta la proxima.

We were entertaining......

......but not very! As you can see from this photo Naomi came to visit but fell asleep in our hammock.

I bought this five years ago for Mike's birthday and we have tried various ways to put it up in the garden here. This year we found some wonderful hooks at the ferretaria, however, and now, thanks to a little help from our friend Rob, it fits between two of the pine trees in the back garden. Just the place for a late afternoon nap.

PS. This one is for you, Martin