Life in Cartagena

I've thought of a wizard wheeze to keep the number of posts up. It was Cruces de mayo over the weekend. May Crosses - shrines I suppose dominated by a cross and with an Andalucian theme. Obviously this is blog material even down to the brightly coloured photos . The trouble is I've done it before. We also went to a sort of Mediaeval re-enactment up in the Castillo de la Concepción but that smacks a bit too much of the "dear diary" sort of blog. One problem for your average ethno-sociological commentator is the unflinching cyclicity of Spanish life.The same things keep coming around. I've complained before about the posters for circuses and other shows which say "in the usual place" The fact is that, as a circus operator, you can save a bundle of advertising costs by printing just the one size fits all poster. The circus will be in the same place as it was last year and the year before that and so on. It's only the occasional outsider who wil...

In my formative years those French went in for that kissing each other thing. Britons on the other hand, shook hands. I know; we were all repressed. I am aware that nowadays if we don't hug our kids, high five at the least pretext or perform a mutual back massage on everyone we meet there is a real risk to our self esteem and general mental well being. Personally I don't really care if someone I hardly know wants to slap me on the back or give me a bear hug. Well apart from thinking that it's hypocritical tosh that is. It's a bit like "I love you" at the end of a phone call. Fair enough, nice sentiment and especially when said with feeling. But as a sort of Christmas cracker motto substitute for goodbye? I don't like the hugging though for a very practical reason. I have no idea how I am supposed to do it. As vague acquaintances move into my personal space in their attempt to hug, kiss or exchange bodily fluids with me I usually end up treading on th...

My father used to complain that having a bath was like soaking in a tub of soiled water. His heavy water use compromise was a soak in the tub to relax and then shower to clean up. In our house we still wash up by hand. At school there was a poster explaining how it should be done properly. Fill the bowl with very hot water then wash by turn first the glassware, then the crockery and finally the pots and pans. Cutlery can be added at any stage. By the time you get onto scrubbing the pans the floating grease and food is quite noticeable. Afterwards air drying or tea towels were both acceptable. The Spanish system has, traditionally, been to swill the debris from the plates under running water then to use a soapy cloth/scourer on the stubborn stains again under running water. Generally they go for air drying rather than tea towels with lots of kitchens having neat drying racks hidden in what look like kitchen cupboards. We were talking today, in one of my classes, about using les...