Life in Cartagena

Lots of Spanish men have grey hair and quite a few are as tall as I am. My clothes come from Spanish shops and I have my hair cut here. Nonetheless people recognise me as a foreigner long before I speak. I too play the game of recognising Brits in the street. I'm often right though I'm far from infallible - sometimes they're Dutch, German or Belgians but mostly, when I get it wrong, they are Spaniards. Last night we went out to get a couple of drinks and eat something at one of the Cruces de Mayo bars. As is so often the case at fiesta type events we had to buy tickets first and then hand the tickets over at the bar in return for the food and drink. I suppose it centralises the cash handling, increases security and also leads to a slight over-expenditure on the part of the customers - just to be sure. We joined the scrum at the bar. For once I wasn't too worried about shouting my order through the din. At the bar, there were price lists everywhere...

The first time was in Santa Pola as I remember. We were new to Spain and I was in a shop that sold fishing tackle. I spent two or three euros. There were three of us. Despite turning up mob handed and the meaness of our purchase the shopkeeper pressed us to take a little something and to have a wee dram. At Christmas it's not at all unusual for a shop, an office or even a bar to have a tray full of seasonal delicacies like turrón, mantecadós and polvorónes on offer for customers. Sometimes the offer runs to liquers or spirits. A touch of seasonal cheer. I was in the dentist the other day. Lots of glistening packets. "Sugar free I suppose," I said, innocently. "Sweets wouldn't be sweets without sugar" said the receptionist. Spain, still refreshingly unreformed and unrepentant.

I was talking with some students about Spanish wedding traditions. Amongst other things they told me that it's usual for the photographer to take the bride and groom off to some local beauty spot to take a couple of romantic snaps. This morning I'd stopped by the little cove of Cala Cortina on my way back from a bit of in house teaching for a crafty fag. An old Peugeot drew up and a bloke got out who seemed to be having trouble with the waistband and flies of his trousers. Next was a plumpish young woman dressed in her finery. It took a while for the bride to emerge from the back of the car. She complained about the comfort of the stockings she was apparently wearing beneath her meringue like wedding dress. Her husband wore a very creased long tailed two tone beige suit. The trouser trouble bloke was the photographer. He carefully arranged the Happy Couple in front of the handrail just beside the litter bin with the sea in the background. The groom was scratching his balls...

You may have noticed that I live in Spain. Most Spaniards who are studying English firmly believe that a longish stay in the UK will turn them into fluent English speakers. I'm not so sure. At home Maggie and I speak to each other in English and we live an English sort of life. At work my job is to talk in English. At home. on TV, the majority of series, dramas and films are American and they are broadcast in their original language version as well as the dubbed Spanish versions. We watch in English. At work I must be doing something either wrong or right as they keep upping my hours. My contract was originally just 15 hours per week but from next Monday I will be teaching 34 hours. This doesn't leave me a lot of time for those little adventures that took us out to Spain - going to the pictures, roaming the area, doing the exhibitions and what not. Most weekends we retire to Culebrón which is great in the relaxing sense but a disaster as regards our Hispanicisation .  Al...

I bought a roscón this afternoon. After all the Three Kings will be delivering Christmas presents all over Spain tonight and it seemed churlish not to join in by chomping my way through one of these large, doughnut shaped cakes that are part of the traditional fare for the celebration. The Three Kings were on the news - arriving by boat in Cartagena, Barcelona and Alicante, by helicopter in Ceuta, on the AVE train in Albacete, cruising in stretch limos and riding elephants and camels in Cantabria. I was at work till eight and the parade of the Kings through Cartagena began at six but, on the off chance, I joined the throng of last minute Christmas shoppers and the people milling around simply because that's what you do before and after the parade. It was hard walking, fighting the prams and strolling, chatting, snack eating pedestrians but down near the port it was obvious that the crowd was still awaiting the arrival of their Majesties the Magician Kings. I watched the parad...

Romerías are religious, Christian, processions that involve taking a graven image from one spot to another. I'd seen a romería advertised in La Palma just outside Cartagena for the two "sainted doctors" San Cosme and San Damián who were going on a little trip from La Palma to the chapel at Los Vidales. These two Christian brothers trained in Syria and  practised medicine in Sicily and became famous for their kindness to people who were too poor to pay for medical treatment. Come the persecution of Christians their high profile made them easy targets and they were eventually decapitated for their faith.

Tapas, as I'm sure you know, are little snacks. They used to come as freebies when you ordered a drink in a Spanish bar and sometimes they still do but it's more normal nowadays to simply order a tapa along with your drink and stump up for it at bill time. Tapas routes have become relatively common. A number of bars agree to provide a snack and a drink at a fixed price and the organisers find some little gimmick to hold it all together. On Thursday there was a chap in front of me in the supermarket queue wearing a short skirt, a long cloak, a plumed brass helmet and carrying a sword. Normally I'd find this a little odd except that this week there have been people all over Cartagena in togas, funny headgear, furry boots and breastplates. Cartagena was once the principal city on the Spanish peninsula for the North African state of Carthage. The struggle between Carthage and Rome is the theme for one of the biggest festivals here - Carthaginenses y Romanos. Parades, battles...

Today was a local holiday in the region so we chose to pass some of our day watching a procession of horses and carriages in La Aljorra. I generally try to keep clear of the fore and aft of horses. One end has a tendency to smash jaws. The other, I'm sure, like camels, goes for the occasional disembowelling. As I mingled with the crowd taking snaps I was very aware of being too close to the dangerous parts of horses. There were horses everywhere, more than you could shake a stick at, of every shape, size and colour. Yet again I found myself wondering why there was so much Andalucian influence in a Murcian event. Flat hats, fancy hair styles, flouncy frocks and high grey striped trousers in every direction. Maggie tells me that it's because there was a lot of immigration of Andalucians into Murcia. I reckon it's because the Murcianos like to dress up and Andaluces do it with a certain panache.

I'm obese. No, I exaggerate. I was last time I weighed myself but today I've crossed the threshold; I'm overweight. This is because Maggie decided to join all of Spain in "operation bikini" - shedding those extra kilos ready for the summer. She signed up to an online diet club that provides her with menus and some sort of personal cheerleader to keep her spirits up when the lettuce and low fat dressing become too much. The website is an UK based one. I do most of the shopping and most of the cooking when we're in Cartagena. Wandering the supermarket shelves in search of this or that product I've realised that the reduced calorie/low fat market is really underdeveloped here. It's not nonexistent but low fat spreads, cottage cheese and what not are not an easy buy. Perhaps Spaniards have never been taken in by the high fat foods that are marketed as reduced fat yet still contain far more calories than something more traditional. Better a big salad, d...

Apparently the locals, Cartageneros, have a local word for the apple. In all of Spain it's manzana but round here it's pero. Pero just happens to be the Spanish word for "but" as well. So let's say you've built yourself a nice May Cross. The neighbours come out to have a look. "Yes, very nice, but...." So now, on the display around each cross there is a pair of scissors stuck into an apple, into a pero. That'll cut out any buts! "Yes, very nice"