Actually, I should say, my neighbour HAS a saint - or rather a picture depicting a saint - one whose name I am unable to tell you but who may, or may not be connected to the saint of the day. Living in a very Catholic part of a Catholic country, we are treated to the celebration of a great number of Saint's Days. Today it is the day of San José - St. Joseph - the husband of Mary and, a little ironically, also the day that Spain (and Portugal and Italy) celebrates Father's Day.
Here in Alcala la Real, a Saint's Day is a good one to get the bands out on the streets - it is the purpose that practice is done every week, after all! We had intended going out this evening to listen and see the bands marching around the town.
But we didn't need to.
Unbeknown to us, the couple who live just across the street from us have been harbouring a saint in their front room for the past 11 months. Chosen by lottery from over 600 people in the town, the couple took responsibility for maintaining a picture surrounded by a huge, heavy and ornate silver frame.
This takes up the greater part of their living room and they have kept it polished and decorated with fresh flowers since last April. Any member of the public who wants access to pray can have it and are welcomed into the house for the purpose. And because this saint is here, so all the bands of the town come around to play to it.
Which is why we didn't have to go anywhere to hear them.
So far, five different bands have marched either up the road or down the road and stopped outside our kitchen.
It's been both beautiful and bizarre. And quite loud.
At one point, I pan upwards - and was surprised not to find La Mota all lit up as usual. Caught out!
With my little eye, two planets beginning with 'V' and 'J'.
Yes, just to the left of our (note the possessive) wonderful castle, La Mota, amazingly clear in the night sky are the planets Venus and Jupiter. I read today that the skies are cloudy over the UK but I wanted to share this fantastic sight with you. I don't know if other folk across the world (who pass by my blog) have as good a view or can take a better photo - I just pointed and clicked - but I have been in awe these past few evenings to think we can see these two celestial orbs in our skies.
I've just been reading my favourite blogs, this being Saturday morning and a day when we have no plans to go whizzing off to the coast or the sierra or to view houses anywhere. Just over half the family are up and so there are still some in bed - blog-reading is my indulgence and I do it with one of my wonderful cups of freshly-made coffee that I really can't manage without.
One of my favourite blogger is Perpetua, who writes Perpetually in Transit, and who this morning has written about the view she has from one of her windows. It's a lovely view of a very handsome tree and is taken from her bathroom window.
It made me think about the views from the bathroom windows I had in my life and I can honestly say that none of them have been particularly good. It is not usually the view that is important in a bathroom. Having looked at rather a lot of houses this year, I can honestly say the view from the bathroom has not been a key concern - though it might be in future!
Where we are currently living, we don't have a 'view' at all. The house was extended from it's original size at some point and an extra bedroom put where there used to be a roof terrace - the new roof terrace has a stunning view, which is greatly appreciated! This has meant that the bathroom is an internal room and whilst it would once have opened onto a small terrace it now it opens onto a storage place from where some iron steps lead up to the roof terrace. We have filled this storage area with all the empty cardboard boxes that we know we will need again once we find 'our' house and buy it.
It is, to put it mildly, a bit of an eyesore - not a view at all.
However, following on from Perpetua's post and the comments she has received about bathrooms with views, I think it would be fun to post photos from our bathroom windows. What's your's like? Is it better than this?
Living in Jaen, the olive producing capital of Spain, we were delighted recently to make the acquaintance of an real life olive oil producer. Delighted, not just to increase our knowledge of the process, but because he is a really lovely man, with an equally lovely wife and two extremely lovely children! All of these things really add to the quality of life in Alcala la Real - increasing, as it does, our involvement with the families and community here.
So it was with pleasure and anticipation that we welcomed Paco and his daughter, Paloma, to our house on Monday evening. Whilst Romy and Paloma went off to play together, Paco went into our kitchen to prepare an evening of olive oil tasting for FR and I.
This is Paco unloading his wares - by the time we started, everything was beautifully lined up in neat rows, with a plate of apple slices ready to help clean our palates in between tastings.
15 little blue glasses, blue so that as a taster, we couldn't form a judgment on the colour of the oil we were trying; and six identical, dark green bottles of olive oil. What we had to establish was - was it Extra Virgin Olive Oil... or not.
As a little indicator of how important the nose is in the process of tasting, Paco asked us to pinch ours whilst we tried a little powder he presented us. With noses well and truly closed, the best we could do was to describe the texture of what we had in our mouths - grains of sugar - but once we let our noses free, the flavour of cinnamon was intense. It certainly proved the point - try it!
Then we moved on to the testing.
Paco explained that for an oil to pass the taste test as Extra Virgin, it primarily had to be free of a range of negative aspects rather than full of positive ones. The negatives included the smell or taste of earth or humidity; a vinegar smell, or any taint of decay or rancidity, however faint.
And for the smell to come through, the oil had to be warmed - which, with my notoriously cold hands, took quite a while!
Then take a good sniff of the warmed vapours and form an immediate impression - an absence of the negative scents indicate an extra virgin olive oil.
Simple as that! Extra Virgin has no negative smell - though it may have positive qualities that hit you such as a fruitiness or even a grassiness, though it would seem that only the fruitiness counts as a positive scent.
There are three positive qualities - in addition to fruitness, there is also amarga or bitterness, indicating young fruit or an early pressing of the olives - and picante or spiciness of the oil. Again, the more mature, the less 'aggressive' is the spiciness. After smelling the oil, next comes the tasting - done very much as with wine - rolling the oil over the various parts of the tongue to establish what flavours are contained in it.
I found that I could sense the flavours on these specific areas of the tongue - the fruitiness hitting the front of my tongue first and the bitterness at the back. The picancy was more of an aftereffect - with some of the oils leaving a real spicy taste in the mouth - even making FR cough
Ruy captured my tester moments here.
Note the serious expression as I let the flavour flood my senses!
I didn't think I would like 'drinking' oil - it's not a concept that appeals to many people, but it was actually very pleasant.
I detected three non-extra virgin olive oils out of the six we were presented and found it quite easy to do. FR was less convinced and found it more difficult to identify the negative aspects - but then he does smoke, which obviously impairs his palate - and his sense of smell is less keen as a man.
I recorded my opinions on one of the 'official' score sheets that Paco gave me - and whilst I was apparently a little over generous on the qualities of the first one we tasted, which should have come out fairly neutral - I think I did reasonably well in my judgements.
My favourite one actually left the palate feeling really clean - again, not a quality you might expect from drinking oil!
Read more about Paco's business here and do let me know if you would like to buy some of this delicious greeny-golden liquid that I am beginning to get a real taste for.
I might just earn a little commission.
A strange thing happened to me this week. I nipped onto one of my favourite blogs, Knitsofacto, where there is always so much to enjoy in the form of words, pictures and lovely ideas. On this particualar day, the post was about "wool, flax, cotton, steel" and the most beautiful little bit of embroidery I've ever seen. (Do come back again, won't you?) And as I was looking at it, the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck began to stand on end and I felt tears pricking my eyes and a lump coming to my throat.
And thanks to Annie on Knitsofacto, I have finally been able to name the thing I've always known I had but didn't know what it was called. It is, as you may have guessed from the title of this post - my 'P' Spot. Annie - your beautiful piece of embroidery on that wonderful material and the immaculate photograph you published was......PERFECT. You hit my 'perfect' spot!
I've always had a tendency to moments of strong emotion, mainly when listening to music. So many pieces set me a tingle all over - too many to mention all of them - though I did mention a few in an earlier blog, where I called my reaction a 'frisson'.
This same rush of a sensation - a physical sensation - I remember feeling from a very early age. It can be brought on by any number of things...( and yes, I think I'm very lucky!)
At one of my primary schools, I sat next to a girl, who had the strange name of Jane Graves, who was, as I remember, rather prim and unfriendly but who had the most perfect handwriting - I would sit and watch her making letters and words with absolute fascination. It may be that she would have been friendly to me if I hadn't watched her writing so obsessively. Jane's writing made me tingle.
By happy coincidence, as I reached secondary school, my best friend was an excellent artist - indeed, she now makes the most amazing works of art in the form of cakes - check her cakes at Scattercake - and I was able to take my penmanship-worship to a higher stage. Just to see her pick up a pen, pencil or brush set me off - she held her instrument of work in a way that was just right. Touched the 'P' spot for me every time.
Other things that have, in their time, been judged as perfect according to my in-built system include the sight of Torvill and Dean skating the Paso Doble at the 1984 Olympics. As I was neither very patriotic nor into ice dancing, I can only assume they too hit my 'P' spot as I found myself in tears every time I saw them in this particular performance - and checking it out on YouTube, it still has the same effect!
Looking out across the Sierra Nevada does it to me too - you may have noticed how I love these mountains from previous posts - they are perfect. The film, 'A Room with a View' is positively stuffed with little 'P' spots ('p') for me - the images of Florence and Tuscany and Kent, the sound of Kiri Te Kanawa's beautiful singing and the immaculate timing of many of the lines - particularly Daniel Defoe's cringeworthy Cecil! I adore watching the film and it never fails to deliver the expected quota of tingles.
And of course, music. From Mozart's Requiem, which, in it's entirety probably has the most 'P' spot hits for me; to the third of Richard Strauss's 'Four Last Songs'; to the amazing chord progression that David Willcocks puts in the last verse of 'Oh, Come All Ye Faithful' (chords leading up to 'Word of the Father'...) - I have a whole catalogue of pieces, tunes, chords and moments that sum up what the word 'perfection' means to me. Most of them are, like the Willcocks piece, just a short series of chord progressions or a change of key or a particularly well-hit note.
Here are just a very few moments in no particular order any more would be pure indulgence: I hope you enjoy them too.
'Beim Schlafengeh' - from 'Four Last Songs' by Richard Strauss, sung by Gundula Janowitz
'Cello Suite No.1' by J.S. Bach, played by Yo Yo Ma (don't listen beyond the music!)
'Caruso (Te voglio bene assai)' by Lucio Dalla, sung by Pavarotti (and basically anything this man sings sets me off but this is just amazing.)
'Misereri' by Gregori Allegri, sung by the University of Nottingham Music Society with a divine solo soprano
And I think you might listen to this too 'Perfect Day' with Lou Reed and co. Listen out for Heather Small at 1'34 and 3'15, Courtney Pine at 2'40 and Tom Jones at 3'26 and think of me! (Beware, there are some awful noises at the very beginning...)
Hope there are a few 'P' spotters out there. Do share - let's set the world wide web a-tremble.
This is a holiday weekend. El día de Andalucía is 28th February and in honour of this occasion, school children have not only the Tuesday off but Monday too - described as a 'bridge' day as it bridges the gap between the weekend and the actual holiday. The day commemorates the date when Andalucia gained the status of an autonomous region over thirty years ago and is one of the rare civil holidays - as opposed to the many religious-based holidays.
As the actual day is a holiday from school, most Andalucian school children are treated to a special celebration on the Friday before - a delicious concoction of bread, olive oil and chocolate - yes...chocolate and olive oil is a wonderful combination and I will be working on some special chocolatey ideas as soon as I get back into production!
Romy has come home full of information about the specialities of each province in Andalucia, which I repeat here without checking her facts - Jaén is known for it´s olives; Almería for ceramics and pottery; Granada for it´s mountains, Málaga for it´s seafood; Sevilla for it´s oranges; Cadíz for it´s grapes, Huelva for copper...and she couldn´t remember what Córdoba´s speciality was but let´s say historical sites are a bit of speciality - as, according to UNESCO, Cordoba has the most historical heritages in the world (OK, that was in 1984 but surely nowhere can gain historical sites..?)
And, as it's a holiday from school, we thought we'd go to the beach for the day. Although the weather has been bright and sunny here in Alcala la Real, it's been chilly out of the sun, so we weren't sure quite how it would be on the coast and went with many layers of clothing on.
We needn't have worried - it was lovely, reaching 23 degrees C in the afternoon on the promenade. There was quite a breeze on the beach though and sea itself was far too cold to do more than test it with one toe but we really enjoyed our first picnic on the beach of the year.
This is the beach at La Herradura - a perfect place to visit at this time of year - small and friendly with excellent ice cream. Horribly busy in the summer months though.
With the spirit of holiday upon us, when we got home last night, FR prepared some pork ribs in a rich, paprika adobado which this afternoon, we took, together with a few bits and pieces up to a nearby hill to eat cooked over the brasas of a real fire. The place we went is a piece of land just 2kms away from home where the views are spectacular and which is owned by the friend of a friend who gave us free rein to go there and have a barbecue whenever we wanted. It has to be one of the most perfect places on earth - or at least this part of Jaen!
Wild iris out in flower
One of the many atalayas - or watch towers - in the area
Not clearly visible today due to heat haze but through that gap is the wonderful Sierra Nevada
Almond trees just coming into blossom
Filling the air with honeyed scent - gorgeous
FR put his boyscout skills to the test by building a barbecue - none of this portable stuff for us! The children and I went foraging for wood to fuel the fire.
And within an hour or so, we were munching on the most delicious spare ribs ever cooked, delicately flavoured with rosemary and thyme.
A glorious sight!
Now we're back home, watching a Superman film in a kind of relaxed and tired torpor - a good kind - but I think we might stay at home tomorrow...
On Saturday, we got up too late, were too disorganised and too lazy to go to the beach.
So we went to Sierra Elvira instead. It's only half an hour's drive away, in the direction Granada.
As you turn off the main road to the sierra, you pass an intriguing sign to the Thermal Baths or 'Aguas Termales'.
They're currently closed, but we peered through the gates and saw quantities of steam rising from where the pool must be.
(I do wonder why the baths don't open until 18th June. The waters have medicinal qualities (allegedly and I believe it) and stay at a constant 30 degrees.
I'm sure there must be more like me who really fancy the idea of being submerged in warm water in the the sun - in February!)
Anyway, they were closed....another day we will go but I was very tempted to climb the gates!
We continued up the hill and left the road and most of the civilised world behind us, entering a pine forest between the trees of which were strewn lots of small stones and boulders - and grass! The children were delighted and Darwin was so excited that he jumped out of the car window. (We were going very slowly and I knew he wanted to go, so I let him - all under control, don't worry!)
And we found a clearing where we parked up and had our picnic and then, whilst FR read his book, I wandered off and Mateo and Ruy set to and built fortresses, trading with an ambulant stick vendor, whilst Darwin ran in more circles than you would imagine possible.
Beginnings of a wall
Another bit of wall
In the end, the boys joined forces and built up a single wall between two trees. Then they found a skull which was manoevered onto a stick and set atop the castle walls.
Skull castle
Darwin chewed pinecones to his heart's content
Everyone thought it would be a good idea to make a fire.
So two sticks were prepared
And much friction was applied
Lots and lots
But in the end, there wasn't even any smoke and we all admitted defeat. The sun was so warm we didn't need a fire anyway.
Why can I never capture all three of my children at once? Oh well, here's a nice one of two of them.
And we eventually returned home, feeling like we'd spent a day in the sun having a great adventure.
Later that evening, I called in to one of our neighbours and told them where we'd been. They asked if we'd noticed whether the rocks were warm underfoot - apparently, the whole area is supposed to be a dormant volcano and the local myth is that you can feel earth tremors most days. I can't say I noticed either hot rocks or unexpected movements but the steaming baths indicate that the subterranea is pretty close. There are underground caverns as well as the baths and many people come to investigate them but so far, the volcano remains a myth.
