Shpeekin' Inglis. (B2 or not B2.)

It's several weeks since I wrote a post and in that time, I haven't really read anyone else's blog or even thought about blogging. Blame Facebook! So many of my friends from blogworld are now Facebook friends too and when life is a bit hectic,then a quick scan of status posts makes me feel like I'm still in touch.

But here's a brief round up....

• Romy's performance, which wrote about in my last post. 
• Hot on the heels of this incredible production, we had end of term exams; 
• Ruy had archery competitions - where he walked off with one 3rd and two 1st prizes. 
• And my students at work had their English B2 exams.

And here's some detail, as much for me to remember it all by as for a blog post in its own right...

The exam preparation was quite time consuming for me as we did the Trinity syllabus, which is very interactive and requires a lot of extra input from the teacher! (At least, this teacher seemed to put in a lot of extra hours....there is always a lot to learn.)

B2 indicates the level of English that a foreign student has to reach in order to study at an English University. And I have been preparing a class of 10 people from the offices and research department in the factory where I am working. It's been very interesting, to say the least, teaching a group of adults who have different backgrounds, different experiences of learning English but who have close and friendly working relationships with each other. Our classes - held over the lunch break twice a week - have occasionally been utterly rowdy!

I know from teaching teenagers and younger children that I've always had a sneaky soft spot for the noisy, energetic individuals who liven up proceedings - or sometimes disrupt them - and who keep you on your toes. I could name several that I will never forget and I was delighted the other day to bump into one of them, who will be about 16 now, I think. When he saw me, instead of the usual polite greeting that I occasionally get from ex-students, he opened his arms wide and gave me a big hug and said how happy he was to see me! Made my day.

Teaching adults is different. But my B2 class has been very different! There's a great phrase that sums up how it's felt teaching this lively and disparate group of people - it's been like herding cats! We have had since mid-February to start the work, which is in two main parts - written and spoken, with the emphasis on communication. The written part took place at the end of May and a few people had problems with the timing...nothing we can do about that now! The spoken part consisted of preparing a portfolio of three writing tasks done in different styles - letter, report and creative - and which can be corrected as many times as needed before submission. The teacher can't directly correct but can indicate where mistakes have been made. The final results were, in my opinion, really well done and I was pleased with everyone's efforts. At the actual interview, students go in individually and converse with the examiner for about 12 minutes. They have around 4 minutes to talk about a subject or topic of their choice. My group had an incredibly wide range of topics - from a disastrous honeymoon to producing specialist plastic film products; from a childhood in France to a childhood in Transylvania; and from the guitar to business planning! In addition, they had to talk about their portfolio, including asking the examiner some questions and leading an interactive session to find out details of a strange or unusual situation that the examiner introduces.

The examiner was in for quite an afternoon!

The date for the interview was 25th June - which just happened to be my birthday - and my students were due in both before and after the lunch break. There were three - and I picked the three that might be most nervous - before lunch and they arrived all together and definitely nervous. The other six were after lunch. (One person chose not to enter the exam, but had been in our classes - if you wonder where the 10th had gone!) But I'd met the examiner beforehand - a very sweet, gentle and rather eccentric (at least so she appeared to the Spanish folk) retired FE teacher, who spoke slowly and calmly and very clearly - and so I was sure that my students wouldn't have a problem. And the first one emerged smiling broadly. Then my only dubious candidate went in - she'd been very busy and rather stressed for a few weeks previously and I felt her speaking had actually deteriorated, rather than improved and I was a bit concerned. However, she too emerged with a big smile and a huge sense of relief. She said she surprised herself with how fluent she had been! And the final morning candidate left the room, more than 12 minutes later, and punched the air with delight!!

I went with the examiner and my friend from the Academy for lunch in the park - a glorious spot in full view of the castle. The examiner was enchanted with the place and sweetly anxious to know how the candidates seemed to be when they left the exam. I told her that they seemed to have enjoyed their conversation and felt that it had gone well. (Maybe it would help in the results, maybe not!!)

And then they arrived....a group of my B2 students came to the park BEFORE their exam...and I could hear them clearly speaking in English, ordering a beer or four! Eeek!!!

As the examiner went back to prepare for the afternoon session, I scurried over to my group just in time for George to see my face and change his order to a non-alcoholic beer. They'd already had two.
Elena was the first of the afternoon interviews and she definitely was going to be a nervous candidate especially for the interactive session, which for her was a potential nightmare. She pushes herself hard and has put in an incredible amount of work in preparation and likes to know she has her facts clear. She has given us some unintentional laughs over the period as she's tried to be 'spontaneous' in the interactive practice.... However, after two beers, she seemed remarkably relaxed. Jolly even. And on the verge of ordering another beer! I had to drag her away and we had an hilarious twenty minutes waiting for her exam, where she never stopped talking with Toni in English. I only hoped the examiner wouldn't notice - although to me, it was quite obvious that Elena's usual somewhat formal demeanour had disappeared. Fortunately, she came out smiling, though complaining that it had gone far too quickly and that she had lots more she wanted to talk about - her topic was Equality for Women.

The next two were utterly sober and quiet and sensible. One came out not too happy but as he's from the Pays Basco and much less extroverted than the rest of the group, it was in keeping. He speaks very well but he isn't the most interactive of types - and when the examiner asked whether he wanted to ask her any questions (a cue to do so), he said, no thank you!

Whilst the other candidate was in, the remaining three from the park emerged....full of beans. Lots of beans. There has been a long standing joke about using the word 'subtle' during the classes, on account of the very direct approach of one person. He's worked very hard in softening his style of writing, which bordered on brutal, but still has a tendency to pronounce the word 'shuttle'. It was the ambition of the group to use the word at least once during their interview, so the three remaining candidates were practising. In whispers, so we didn't disturb the exam in progress. It was not reassuring, though it was very comical.

Eventually, all three had been in, done their bit and come out. Then they left to return to work. As the last one closed the door, the examiner emerged from her room. I swear she looked exhausted! And she said, 'Well they were a lively bunch, weren't they? Are they yours?' - and I SO wished those last three had still been around, then I could have said - 'THAT'S subtlety!'

The next morning, the students from the Academy had their exams and then Toni, Becky (the native English teacher at the Academy, who took over from me when I left) and I waited for the examiner to finish off and give us the feedback - and the results - from the interviews.  We were all on tenterhooks and most concerned that our students had done their best. (I was also worried that the examiner might come out and tell me I shouldn't allow my candidates to enter for their interviews in a state of inebriation.) But eventually, we had our minds put at rest. All my students passed - and a few of them passed really well indeed. Alberto - with his honeymoon story and great sense of humour - had impressed enough to get 3 As, which is fantastic.

I went back to the factory to share the news and there was much whooping and hugging and a great sense of relief. We had still to wait until late July for the results of the written exams, but as the spoken part amounts to 70% of the exam, most people feel they've made the grade. And they are also keen to continue onto the next level. I may have work for a bit longer yet.

Thank you if you've made it to the end of this quite personal ramble. I don't know who will have done, but if you are or have been a teacher, you'll understand the anxiety and concerns that you have when it's exam time. And at least I've only had 9 students!! I know that they are all pleased to have passed - one or two definitely thinking they could have done better and one or two feeling hugely relieved - but I suspect my own delight and relief almost matches theirs.


And now BREATHE! It's holiday time.

How do you blog...?

Blogging lends itself to such a range of different purposes. So many blogs are pure fun; some are abstract; others provide interest, education or entertainment about a specific subject. These blogs are usually quite impersonal. And whilst I enjoy a wide range of these and use them to provide me with valuable information - particularly on teaching - I much prefer the diary-type of blog; those reflective, celebratory, down-to-earth, common interest or simply engaging glimpses into another person's life, interests and inspirations. I feel now, with my little group of followers and the number of blogs I follow myself, that I have a network of people across the globe, who, if I met I would recognise in real life - from their tone of conversation, from their interests and from their willingness to share. It is my chosen assumption that individual blogs reflect individual people.


Lots of bloggers I read have agonised over whether to blog the negative in their lives. I'm sure these are the cup half-full type of people. Most of their daily life feels good but from time to time, as is normal, life deals a rotten blow or something out-of-the-blue upsets what is important and - because it is a more alien feeling or one that isn't helped by complaining about it - only rarely do these occasions find their way into the blog. Sometimes, people like this find it difficult to blog when the going is tough - it doesn't feel right; it doesn't actually help.





Others have no problem saying it as it is; telling us how it feels; expressing the bad as well as the good without feeling the need to apologise about it. If it doesn't help, it doesn't make things worse.








And some bloggers are prepared to grasp the nettle and blog a difficult subject or life-event even if it's is rather contrary to their usual tone and they often doing it in moving, engaging and life-enhancing sort of way. And I'm thinking in particular of two blogs I read when I say this. The first is Lunar's blog and the second is Annie's at artistica domestica. I'll leave you to read and discover for yourselves, if you don't already know, the immense courage they both show in the face of the things life has taken from them or thrown at them..

Being fascinated by how people react, work, think and behave, I did a bit of very quick research to see whether there is a link between  personality types (Myers Briggs - this is a place you can do a quick online test - try here for more information about Myers Briggs Personality Types proper) and blogging. There doesn't seem to be much as yet, so I can't say whether there is any correlation between certain types being more likely to blog or, whether certain types have particular blog focuses although anyone might make a guess that extrovert type (E) would have less of a problem in writing about their own lives and feeling types (F) would include ...well, their feelings. My own Myers Briggs type is ENFP, described by Myers Briggs as:

"Warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. See life as full of possibilities. Make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns they see. Want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. Spontaneous and flexible, often rely on their ability to improvise and their verbal fluency."

I would say this is me most of the time, most of my adult life and how others people often perceive me. It doesn't mean it's how I am all the time because I do suffer from mild depression sometimes and am currently just coming out of a bit of a hard time. And when I've been down, I often indulge in a little bit of reflection - which is useful because when I'm 'up', there's no time to look back - the future is far more interesting!

It struck me that my 'Month in the country' posts read and look absolutely idyllic though at the time, I was mostly miserable - feeling down and having no energy, not sleeping properly, getting a urine infection that went to my kidneys and being bitten all over by bastard mosquitoes. I also struggled at times with FR's mother, who was naturally anxious about her father and tired from all the care she had been giving him. This showed itself in her state of nervous tension, stress and an apparent need to control everything. It often meant that when I said I'd do something, she'd insist on doing it herself or when I did do something,  she would criticise what I'd done and how I'd done it, regardless of the thing itself - and usually this criticism would be about the smallest, most ridiculous thing, from how I cut the beans to how I hung the washing out. And it made me feel very guilty, hopeless and frustrated...and, I'm afraid to say, resulted in some childish behaviour on my part - I started doing it back. I would criticise - or more, pass comment on things that I didn't really care about one way or the other and not agree with the things she said. We didn't bicker and it wasn't all the time but on some days, we weren't our usual good friends. And we were both doing it to the others in the house as well...

I recognise now (having come home and reflected) that I my 'shadow' personality had come to the fore as I was not feeling too good - and, surprise, surprise, and ENFP will become critical of others, be pedantic about unimportant issues, do things to excess and take control of situations without due consideration. And weren't these the things I was complaining about in my mother-in-law...? And isn't it interesting that these traits are visible to the people who know me - mainly invisible to me - but are the things that most annoy me in other people. Very possibly, Amelia too is an ENFP!

To come back to the beginning, blogging and how we blog - or even why we blog. I found a website called Typealyzer which claims to analyse the 'type' of blog from the text used in the blog. And of course, I jumped at the chance. Not surprisingly, it came back with a type that was close to my personality type, but NOT my personality type - ESFP. This type was described as 'The Performer'. I can see the rationality of this assessment - we, sorry, I 'perform' when I write our  my blog and I suspect that many of the blogs I enjoy  will probably conform to this type.

How do you blog? Try it and see! (And do let me know!)

Putting the 'fun' in 'funeral'.

On the eve of our return to Alcala la Real, we received a phone call to say that FR's abuelo, Segundo, had died. Like all expected news that is not good, there was an element of shock involved, despite the knowledge that an ailing 96 year old cannot go on forever.

We secretly think that Segundo had hung on to see all the family together over the summer before he decided it was his time to go. And he thoughtfully saved us an additional journey and gave us what turned out to be a wonderful day together to remember for all time.

Amelia and her sisters arranged things the following day and the funeral took place in the beautiful little church in Valdepolo on Friday at 12 o'clock. The church was packed with family, friends and neighbours and was a simple, solemn occasion during which one of Segundo's 11 grandchildren, Adrian, read a short, touching piece that he had written in memory of his grandfather.

In the cemetery, he was put into the burial wall in his reserved spot, just above his wife, Segundina, and then bricked in - something I have never seen before. I had always assumed the little plaques on the walls in Spanish cemeteries held urns, not whole coffins...

After this very final act, Amelia, my mother-in-law, visibly relaxed. It has been an increasingly hard job for her as she has devoted a good third of the past two and a half years, feeding, cleaning and looking after her father all day every day - sharing the task in the end with Eloina and Ines - and travelling between her own home and the apartment in Leon to do this. And now, it was over and I suspect it will take her a little time to adjust to having her own life back.

Afterwards, we walked the short distance down to the house in Valdepolo, where we'd spent much of the past four weeks and which we have grown very fond of. It's not a big house and sometimes felt a bit cramped with just the five of us. With thirty-two of us, it was hilarious! Fortunately, there was nothing but sunshine and we set to, putting tables and chairs into the garden. Ruz, another grand-daughter, was an absolute star and stood over the inadequate stove making chicken, steak, soup and tortillas for us all, with a little help from others who put together some excellent salads - but all credit to Ruz (pronounced 'Ruth') - who told me she reads this blog, which made my day!

And had what turned out to be the very best day of our holiday - full of fun, laughter, chatter and family. Segundo would, I am sure, be very proud of the family he left behind and which I am happy to be part of.

Chefs at work

Let the feasting commence

An excellent spread

There was not much left, either

Family 

Allegory on the Nile

I received an email from a dear friend this morning. Last time we exchanged notes, both she and her husband were suffering healthwise. He was having an operation for prostate cancer and my friend had a suspected collapsed lung and was waiting to see a specialist.

I was naturally quite worried and concerned. I have never met anyone quite like Susan and am very fond of her. She was my boss's secretary and joined our workplace just before I returned to work after my first maternity leave. She is perhaps the most dotty person ever - full of fun, helpful to a fault, kind and considerate - and... well, dotty.

As cuts were made and secretaries were shared instead of doled out one per manager, all the secretaries were pooled together and I'm sure that Susan's dotty presence and her droll sense of humour were much appreciated. She never forgot a birthday, always found just the appropriate gift (and I have been the recipient many a time, most notably, my wonderful mug) brought flowers from her garden to brighten up the office and generally made work a jolly place to be most of the time.

What has all this got to do with allegories on the Nile? Well, Susan was a Mrs. Malaprop if ever one walked this earth - so much so, that the other secretaries kept a book in which they wrote many of the little 'pearls of misrule' that fell from her lips. How I wish I could get my hands on that book now! It deserves publishing, so funny it was. 'Susan's Antidotes', we'd call it, of course.

As it is, without access to that book, I can only clearly remember one of these gems - her describing a phone call she'd taken from one of my staff -

"X has called in sick. Again. He said he's pulled his Hercules tendon - I don't know what that is but he said he did it in bed, so I didn't like to ask."

True to form, her note to me about her husband said he was 'having the operation to remove the prostrate'. Her email this morning reported on his recovery - which is great news - and went on to reassure me that she too is getting better and her specialist thinks it is nothing worse than 'chronicle bronchitis'.

There is always the possibility that her idiosyncratic speech was carefully planned to amuse. There were times when I was sure it must be. If there's anyone out there reading who can remember any more from that little book, please do share!

What are your favourites?

Soy una iglesia

I've had a lovely week switching between Spanish and English classes. I've just started back at the Academia, where I do a few hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and have also this week taken on some adult Spanish learners - by which I mean, of course, adult Spaniards who want to learn English and not 'adults who want to learn Spanish'.

In English, I think the hardest thing is to teach pronunciation as there are so many different ways to pronounce certain letters - think of English vowels and how there are always two ways to say each one, then add the various combinations that give the diphthongs, then add the 'magic e' to the end of words like mad, war, sit, rod... and so on. Compared to the five basic vowel sounds in Spanish, English has either an rich abundance or a minefield of different sounds. And that's just the start.

And if you can successfully get the pronunciation right, how on earth can one explain English spelling and how words that look different but sound the same or worse, look the same but sound different? (For example, homophones such as 'mail' and 'male' or homonyms such as 'wound' (oo) and 'wound' (ow))

This week, in one class of beginners (children), we were doing parts of the body. Most of them could remember 'ear' so I thought it would help memories to link the word 'hear' with 'ear'. Firstly we had to practice making the sound for 'h' as it is silent in Spanish. (It's spelt 'hache', pronounced 'atchay', so to spell it out, you have to say 'hache con (with) hache' otherwise how can anyone know that there is an 'h' at the beginning of the word?) The linking seemed like a good idea for my beginners but in the next class, one up from beginners, we were reading 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' - and, oh dear (like 'ear'), everyone pronounced 'bear' to rhyme with 'ear' (so 'beer'!) ...so then we had to go through words that looked like 'ear' but sounded like 'air' (not like 'are' though, unless the word started with a consonant, such as 'bare' or 'care' or 'share') - and of course, it is always possible that you'll confuse them (and yourself) by trying to find a logical reason why bear is NOT pronounced like ear.

Local accents can play a part too. The last English person to teach the children at the Academia was from Liverpool, but to be honest, there's no detectable Scouse twang in the sounds they make - I'm a bit disappointed about that, it would have been rather nice - but the vowels sounds are definitely northern, like my own, so no 'barths' or 'parths' in this part of Spain. However, the local Spanish people tend to miss the final 's' off their own words, so numbers such as 'dos' and 'tres' (2 and 3), come out as 'doh' and treh' and no one ever says 'buenos dias' - no, just 'bueno' - nada mas. The 's' can disappear from mid-word too - 'hasta luego' becomes ' a'ta luego' (silent 'h', don't forget) and so on. It's highly contagious and I find myself dropping 's's all over the place when I speak. Hard final consonants such as 'd', 'g' and 't' are alien to the Spanish - so imagine trying to pronounce 'dogs' - some of the best attempts still sound rather like 'doh..' or 'dohs' if they remember the 's'.I think I already mentioned the pleasure I get in asking the children to say 'crisps' and 'wasps' - and the tongue-twister, "She sells seashells on the seashore!"

In my Spanish conversation classes, a common complaint is that the locals don't seem to understand even the simplest of sentences when it's spoken by an English person. A carefully prepared and delivered sentence can be met with a '¿qué?' - and to be fair, the words might have been Spanish on paper but uttered aloud, using English pronunciation and stresses, the words do not sound Spanish enough for them to be recognised by other than the most sympathetic and understanding of ears. Embarrassment is sometimes a restricting factor. People simply feel silly trying to roll their 'rrs' or making the necessary lisping and throat-clearing sounds that are part of the Spanish alphabet.

And speaking of embarrassment - there are lots of words that are the same or almost the same in both languages - those that share a common, latin root, for example. Knowing some of these is really helpful to learners but even more important ones to learn are those that look the same or seem the same - but are not at all the same. Take 'embarrassed' - the Spanish word that fools the English is 'embarazada' - and most people feel confident that this would be a fairly safe guess. Potentially embarrassing for a woman to make the mistake but downright bizarre if the man does - it means 'pregnant' in Spanish. Though I like the idea that there might be a connection somewhere...

Very difficult for the English learner is the 'gender issue' - nothing to do with feminism - but the need to understand that all nouns are either masculine or feminine and that any adjective used to describe it must also take the masculine or feminine form as appropriate. And you'll just have to believe me that there are lots of words that mean something very different it you get the gender wrong - not just male or female things. One of my class confessed that for some number of weeks, she had visited her local butcher to buy a chicken, always asking for a large one because the small ones were very small - and wondered why the butcher and other customers always smirked and muttered when she spoke - until one day she was taken aside by a little old lady who explained her dreadful error. She had mixed up the gender of the chicken - which is masculine and therefore 'un pollo', with the feminine (???) version, which is a slang reference to the male member. She now buys her chickens prepacked at the supermarket.

A really difficult one that I understand in principle, but which I often get wrong in practice is the Spanish equivalent of the verb 'to be' - there are two, which is the problem - SER and ESTAR. Basically, the former is used to describe a permanent state whilst the latter is usually for a temporary state - though it's not quite that simple- it never is. Both are irregular verbs and both need to be learned as they are commonly used. And it does seem, in both languages and possibly in languages the world over, the more common a verb, the more it veers away from the regular. The English verb 'to be' has eight forms (am, are, is, was, were, being, been and be), compared to the usual four of most regular verbs (- 'to talk', for example, has only talk, talks, talking and talked.)


It's one thing to get SER and ESTAR mixed up but getting the language a little bit wrong can also lead to the utterances of a strange sort. You may have heard of the man who mistook his wife for a hat* but I once got confused with a church. Yes, the title of this piece is one of my own mistakes, made many years ago. I wanted to tell someone I was an Englishwoman - and knew enough to use 'soy' - from the verb SER - as my being English and a woman were both permanent enough to qualify for that verb - but I did confuse 'inglesa' (English woman) for 'iglesia' (Church). And in my few months of experience in teaching Spanish to English women, I've met several more churches. Are there any more out there, I wonder?

* 'The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat'  - a book by Oliver Sachs, the neurologist who wrote about the case histories of some of his patients - fascinating stuff.

Spanish conversation

I'm very excited because next week I going to start giving Spanish conversation classes!
They will be held at the local English Centre - Conexions - a centre that has grown up following the production of a lovely magazine called 'Olive Country Life' and which now boasts a very useful and inviting space including a cafe, a shop, a library, a computer centre and internet access. In addition, there is space for people to meet, chat, hold sewing and other interest sessions. What Diane, who runs the centre, told me is that people want to learn to speak Spanish but get put off by more formal teaching where they are expected to learn verbs and write things down. So we put up a poster and I've been delighted by the number of responses we've had thus far.

My Spanish is quite good (though I struggle to remember to use the subjunctive and still can get my '-a' and '-o' endings muddled) and as Cesar's parents speak no Enlgish English, I have been conversing in Spanish for many years.
I love talking to people, I love to help and to teach and so I can't think of anything better than to put these things into practice together! My experience at work - where I often delivered both impromptu and planned training sessions - will stand me in very good stead here. I am really looking forward to our first class on Tuesday.

Because of this forthcoming event, I have been listening more carefully to conversations going on in the street and around. I had to laugh yesterday at the local supermarket at the exchange between the checkout girl and a customer.  The lady in front on me, having loaded up her shopping and paid, was studying her receipt carefully. I'll translate what I heard:-

Lady: You've charged me for two lots of yogurt
Checkout girl: You must have bought two lots of yogurt
Lady: Listen, sweetheart, if I bought two where are they? I don't remember buying two.
Checkout girl: Well, they'll be in your bag.
Lady:  Where?
Checkout girl:  In one of the bags - I don't know, I didn't pack them.
Lady: Well, I don't think I bought two.
Checkout girl: You'll have to look.
Lady: I'm not going to empty all my bags out again. Don't you know if I bought two?
Checkout girl: I can't remember everything people buy!
Lady: No, but don't you know if I bought two?

During this time, the girl had checked out my items and told me how much I owed, taken my money and given me my change and so I felt obliged to leave without hearing the final outcome of the discussion. I wonder whether the yogurts were discovered or not? Did the checkout girl know really? How long would it take to convince the lady one way or the other?

I'll never know. However, at least if our conversation classes feel a little repetitive or inane to start with, I won't worry too much.

WbtA - part 3. Chocolate bliss in Pampaneira

As we were driving between Orgiva and Pitres, we passed one of the more famous villages in the Alpujarras - often described as the prettiest - one of a three that overlook the Porqueira Gorge along with Bubion and Capileira, which are higher up the mountain still.

Clearly it had a more touristy feel to it than Orgiva and Pitres, with shops displaying the locally- made rugs and terracotta, along with t-shirts and Spanish bulls, but in a gentle way. We had promised the children an ice-cream in Orgiva but were met with looks of credulity there - heavens, it was only February! Far too early in the season to be stocking ice-cream! No one had any at all, not even the little supermarket. However, Romy was not going to give up so easily and made a thorough search of the shops when we arrived in Pitres - and finding them all closed only increased her desire to eat ice-cream. She was very hopeful when she saw more encouraging signs in Pampaneira.

Look at the pavement!!

The village was so beautifully clean, with gorgeous pavements. Have you ever stopped to look at pavements? In Huddersfield, they were made from lovely local sandstone and dotted by globs of chewing gum, dropped over the years and trodden flat, almost impossible to remove and now almost impossible to distinguish from their original resting place.
Here in Alcalá la Real, the pavements are tiled in red and white square patterns and are impossibly slippy when it rains - as it is doing just now.

In Pampaneira, the pavements have little shallow channels running down the middle. Bear in mind all the streets were on a steep incline and that above us were the might, snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains, obviously the channels were for the water that must come through the village as the snow starts to melt.

Get ready to jump out of the way of the water, Romy!

As well as finding ice-cream here, we also found the most amazing chocolate shop. The children tried to steer me away from it, thinking I would be upset that someone else had done exactly the thing I wanted to do. But my curiousity was greater than my envy.

A glimpse of something wonderful going on!

I went in - or rather down, because it was below street level - and before long, was chatting to one of the people who worked there, telling him all about my own love of chocolate making.
 










He invited me into the workshop to have a closer look at everything and it was all I could do to stop myself rolling up my sleeves and getting stuck in! (I did ask if I could work there but they had enough people already...)

And the smell was delicious. And all those lovely bars of different flavoured chocolate, all stacked up on shelves - that was when the envy hit a bit, I confess. Ah well, it was food for thought.

Whatever else Pampaneira has to offer, for me, it was one of the most lovely chocolate shops I have ever had the pleasure to visit - not for its sophisticated creations because there were few of those, but for its attention to flavour and quality and its willingness to let the passers by see how it was done.

WbtA - part 2. Orgiva and Pitres

We stopped for a picnic near Orgiva and some little birds were singing so joyfully but so elusively that we had to scan around quite a while to find them. To my northern ears, they sounded like skylarks - which sing on the wing - so I'd spent a long time looking to the skies to try and find them- but then I finally spotted them in a tree. Any ideas what they are?


We love picnics. This time, we had one of my tortillas de patata, chorizo, cheese, yogurts and lots of lovely fresh bread, all of which went down pretty well.




Then, the children went exploring.



Mateo started pretty near to base having turned over a stone and found a wealth of living creatures to investigate.

And then later I noticed all three of them deeply engrossed in some other fine detail of ant hill, millipede or insecty thing.

We love pine forests!









However the call of a coffee after lunch was too strong for us to stay too long and so we pottered back into Orgiva.

Recently made more popular by Chris Stewart's book, 'Driving over Lemons' - which I enjoyed reading - Orgiva nestles in the lower hills of the Alpujarras, though by the time you arrive there, you feel as though you've already trekked up and round some pretty impressive mountains - and if you have no idea as to what else there is out there, it's a real find in itself.

Some describe it as 'scruffy' or 'quirky'; 'alternative' and 'new-age' comes up time and again too. We did see quite a lot of young folk in dreadlocks and/or dungarees - familiar to us and most of them English. (I don't mean I actually knew any of them but they looked familiar and I could understand what they were saying). And there was a wide range of other people about too - old and young Spaniards; people in cars with licence plates from Germany, France, Holland, the UK and Italy; old folks chatting in the street; friends sitting in the bars; women unloading bags from cars - the usual bustling Saturday street life in a village that felt to be alive and full of good will. 



The streets are narrow and the buildings quite tall - difficult to photograph from any angle but the church, with its two towers stands out as a landmark. I thought it was untypical of Spanish churches until I looked again at the church here in Alcala and I can see the same spire with its blue slate tiles and white dotted trim - this could be typically Andalucian then. I will investigate further!



And then round a corner in one of the side streets, we found a little mosaic fountain - not pushing up much water, but rather sweet nonetheless. And yes, I know, it's a pretty bad picture, carelessly snapped, doesn't quite capture the scene at all. I apologise.

And these two just wanted to be captured anyhow before they tumbled off their perches.













The coffee was absolutely delicious. If you look carefully at the trees outside the church, you can see they are full of oranges.
I like that.

We liked Orgiva.
And from there, we headed into the Alpujarras for real - with some of the images shown in part 1 of being wowed. What a drive, what views, what wonderful scents of almond and cherry blossom, what amazing villages built on sheer mountainsides, what sky, what perfect blue sky!

And then, well over 1000 meters up into that sky, we came to Pitres to see a house there.

 This is the main square and a market is held here every Friday. Pitres is the 'central' point for a number of Alpujarra villages collectively known as 'La Taha' and it has schools at primary and secondary level - a crucial selling point! Although the house we saw was not what we were looking for, the couple who showed it to us (not the owners) were absolutely charming and full of information about the place. It has a strong musical tradition and an active choir, a music school and is often visited by orchestras who perform 'music in the mountains' in the open air. It also has a few more conveniences such as shops and a local town hall as well in comparison with some of the other villages around. 

It was all rather lovely.

Yes, we were wowed by the Alpujarras. And keeping eyes and ears open to find out more about it.
(There's a part three to follow!)

Wowed by the Alpujarras - part 1

It's silly really. About 18 months ago, when we went on holiday, I bought Chris Stewart's book 'Driving over Lemons' and really enjoyed reading it, though not without considerable envy even then. And that was before I knew we were going to live in Spain ourselves and that writing a book about it would have been my dream!
 
When I went to England for a week back in October, I bought his second book, 'A Parrot in the Pepper Tree' and enjoyed that too. And I realised a very strange thing this weekend. I had been avoiding going to the area described in these two books - even though I knew somewhere deep down that it was exactly where we were looking for - simply because I had read them. I didn't want to go there because of what I'd read in a book.

And oh, how I am kicking myself now! This weekend, we decided to go and look at a property in Orgiva (which I find very difficult to pronounce correctly...try it, with the emphasis on OR/heeba - I always want to say Or HEE ba. It's not 'Orgy' anything, so don't try that.) The journey south of Granada is always stunning - and we turned off at one of the most beautiful areas with the Lecrin Valley and Beznar to the right of us and the route across the Alpujarras to the left.




We drove along the winding mountain road, past Lanjaron, as famous here in Spain for its bottled water as Evian is in France, to Orgiva, which boast the title of 'Gateway to the Alpujarras' - and it's certainly a wonderful entrance to what is to come.

We met Eva, the agent in the centre just outside the impressive church. The town was full of people who clearly came from many places other than Spain - lot of new-age looking folks too. It had a very friendly feel and Cesar and I instinctively liked the place.

View from the land

The property, a couple of kilometres outside Orgiva, wasn't what we were hoping for though the land it had was absolutely stunning. We got the chance to talk to the neighbours and the children explored the various plants and wildlife (and a bit of 'dead' too as they found a sheep's skull in the grass!) and so it felt like a positive experience and we weren't too disappointed.





We decided to have our picnic in the area under pine trees, where the birds were singing their little hearts out and the views were gorgeous. Then we went back into Orgiva and drank a very good coffee in one of the bars on the main street - again, a sense of being laidback and relaxed was prevalent in the surroundings.

We had another appointment at a village called Pitres, further east along the Alpujarras and so we set off on what was one of the most wonderful journeys I've ever been on.

Leaving Orgiva, we climbed quickly and steeply up a good road, but one where there were a few scary moments - particularly when we came face-to-face with a big bus - and we were the ones at the 'drop off the edge of the cliff' side!

We didn't, of course, but Ruy will remember the moment forever as he has a strong sense of the dramatic!












We kept stopping to take in the views, smell the air - full of cherry blossom - or to buy oranges.

The road continued to wind past little villages and to climb up and up and up...

This view looks across the valley - see the little road clinging to the mountainside - we'd just travelled along there.






We drove past the picturesque town of Pampaneira, with even more colour added to the place by the sale of brightly coloured rugs - I was very tempted and we stopped off on our way back from Pitres when I discovered a most wonderful chocolate shop... but more of that later.

Eventually, we arrived at Pitres, which at 1,297m above sea level had a chilly nip in the air, but oh my, what air it was to breathe! We met a lovely lady called Imma, who had offered to show us the property that belonged to someone she knew and her husband, Pedro, joined us. Again, the house wasn't what we were looking for but we stayed chatting to this lovely couple for about half an hour - maybe more - and they told us all about the village and the community and it all sounded so perfect! We exchanged email addresses and Imma promised to see if there was anything else for sale in the village and then let me know. I would love to keep in touch with them - and we certainly want to go back to Pitres again! Who knows..

I cannot possibly do justice to this area in photographs. This is only part one because there is so much more to say and describe and I will do that in my next posts. I just have to say again that it is a most 'wow' place and one we all really want to go back to again as soon as possible....though, poor Ruy, who suffers a little from travel sickness, will need some pills to get him there and back again!

Pisto!

No.. nothing rude here.

Pisto Manchego is a Spanish recipe and we ate it today because it's one of my favourites. I don't want to cause arguments between neighbouring countries - I don't know which came first - the Spanish Pisto or the French Ratatouille. They are very similar and probably evolved at roughly the same time.

Before I met FR, I was a total Francophile - I loved the country, I loved the language, I loved the food - heavens, I even loved the people. (When we met, I knew just two words in Spanish, left over from a year's study in the sixth form where Caroline and I were Mr. Twistleton's only pupils but I drove him mad as I couldn't learn vocabulary - I could remember the first letter of a word I was supposed to have learned but not the rest - Caroline usually finished it off for me. But for some reason, I have always remembered 'mantequilla' and 'zapato'* - but never managed to get them both into one sentence... ooh, apart from just now - does that count?

Major digression - where was I? Ah yes, in France. So for me, ratatouille came first. I make a good one and I remember making one for FR once, early on in our relationship and being  furious totally appalled a bit put out that he offered to 'improve' it (so that he could eat it!) He cut potatoes into little chunks, fried them, added them to my ratatouille then broke an egg into it and stirred it round til it cooked into curdled little strands. I wasn't impressed - especially as he then proceeded to instruct me as to how small to cut up the courgette and pepper and to leave out the aubergine next time. (As I write and the memory comes flooding back, I am wondering on exactly what basis our relationship continued after this....)
He's just looked over my shoulder to see why I am laughing and now we're both laughing, so perhaps that's why.

It's one of those posts...sorry! It's been one of those days! But more of that another time... back to the pisto/ratatouille - pistotouille? rasto? Well, anyway, last August, Amelia brought heaps of tomatoes and peppers and courgettes back from Leon one weekend and said I must make pisto. I remember having a lovely morning de-skinning the tomatoes and making a wonderful base for the pisto, then chopping the rest of the vegetables - the onions, the courgettes, the red and green peppers (no aubergine) into the right size - then cooking the whole lot much longer than I should would  have done for a ratatouille - more of a sauce, shall we say - before adding some fried potatoes. Just before serving, taking it off the heat and taking care to keep stirring, I added an egg which didn't clump but thickened the sauce beautifully. And discovered that over time I have come to prefer pisto to ratatouille.

I haven't photographed the one I made today - I didn't think about it - but I found this post on a now forgotten blog which says all there is to say about the two dishes and says it very eloquently - just in case you wanted to know. And there was also this picture which shows the difference between the two to perfection.

I think you can see which is which, though I think the pisto would look better in the terracotta dish.
   


*(Butter and shoe for non-Spanish speakers.)

To Mojacar and back

Mouthwatering lemons from the tree!

We had property to view! It was going to take us 3 hours to drive to see it so a visit to the seaside was a necessary inclusion in the journey. Looking on the map and reading up what guides had to say, Mojacar was the obvious beach location to head for.
As well as the property, we wanted the chance to see the countryside on the far east of Granada province moving across the border into Almeria. A rather nice looking road (on the map, it looked nice...it meandered a bit, it had mountains to the south of it, there was green around it and little villages dotted either side... it looked nice - as an avid map-gazer I know what I mean -) which I persuaded Cesar we should take rather than the autovia. Now we have no GPS, I am back to official map reader and navigator again - hurray!!
This was roughly our route if you like that sort of thing:

I say roughly because I checked it out on ViaMichelin then decided that we wouldn't do steps 1-4 as suggested, which took us on the now familiar road towards Granada - instead, we cut across country eastwards to the motorway (A44-E902), south to the next junction, then took the little orange road towards step 5. It was better, I think.
Views along the way would have been stunning - of the Sierra Nevada - except it was very misty and damp and we couldn't see much at all.
Not until we got to Guadix (5) when the clouds disappeared and we got a good view of this gorgeous town - all red stone against the snowy backdrop - and I had a pang of remorse that we didn't pursue this as our base...until Cesar reminded me that there were no school places for the children and no places to rent at the time we were looking...ah, that was why!

We felt 'at home' between steps 5 and 6 as this is where we spent our wonderful week in the cave at Bacor Oliver. We waved at Mount Jabalcon and at the house that we didn't buy - 'Cortijo Zorro' - well, at the land that is visible from the motorway.

For the first one third, the road from 6 (Baza) to 10 (Albox) (- I guess 7, 8 and 9 are somewhere behind 10) was absolutely gorgeous! We loved it and saw lots of villages that we want to explore in the future. From then on, we were increasingly less impressed and then we hit Albox and from there to 12 and the motorway that leads down to Almeria, we didn't like. We continued on to a little place high up in the mountains to view the house that in the pictures looked perfect but which in reality was totally unsuitable, However, it had some fantastic land to explore and the owners were a remarkable old English couple who were most entertaining. We had a very pleasant visit - politely making it clear that their house wasn't what we were looking for; I would hate to have raised their hopes of a sale unnecessarily.




Although we could see the sea from the mountain, we were told it would take us around 40 minutes to get there and we were ravenously hungry for our picnic, so we stopped in a strange but wonderful spot to eat.












 
We were overlooking a quarry, with the sea just visible, surrounded by herbs - thyme, rosemary, sage and lavender - and the smell was totally sense-tingling!

After we'd eaten, we gathered a few fallen fruits from nearby trees and which also gave off a scent that was almost 100 times stronger than we were used to - the lemons in particular were sensational! Scoffing mandarin oranges, we headed off for the coast and found a deserted beach in the currently empty seaside town of Garrucha, just north of Mojacar, where the Mediterranean was producing gently crashing waves.

As the sun began to sink behind the mountains, we headed off to see what Mojacar was like. I had imagined it - not sure why - to be a moorish red stone town so was surprised to see a totally white hill village - gobsmackingly white, gobsmackingly hilly! This is a photograph taken from the www.kasbah.es because I didn't manage to take a photograph myself as we arrived - too gobsmacked!

Inside, Mateo and I pondered at what point a hill becomes a village? Although from a distance, the hill was the most obvious feature, once we were 'inside' we were obviously in a village...







Mateo thought this was what Lindworm Castle must have been like. (Lindworm Castle is a place in 'The City of Dreaming Books' by Walter Moer - if you like odd, you will like this!)

This image is from the book - illustrated by the author - and I see what he means but perhaps Mojacar wasn't quite so 'pointy'...

View from the top of the village











Comparing this to Salobreña, where we went a couple of weeks ago, I was struck by how much more of a tourist area this part of Spain seemed. This was Saturday, it was a beautiful sunny day and there was hardly anyone around. In Salobreña, families were out and about, the bars were full and people were clearly living in the area. In and around Garrucha and Mojacar, the few people we saw were English (of the retired type) or French and Dutch in big motorhomes parked up near the sea. There were very few Spanish families out walking and many of the bars and shops were closed up - not just for Saturday afternoon - presumably until the tourists arrive in their droves. This is quite rare - Spanish people like walking about and do it a lot!

The journey gave us a lot of food for thought as we drove back - into the sunset as it happens - and at risk of appearing too self-satisfied, have to admit we had yet another really lovely day here in Southern Spain.