Spanish views from a small town

The rain has made a comeback today, at an inopportune moment. After last week's sun and moderate temperatures, many were hoping it would last until at least the beginning of this week. In many places there have already been celebrations for a month, but those celebrations culminate this week on Shrove Tuesday. Carnival is here. Carnival is ancient, and has roots that tap into pagan spring rituals of fertility. It celebrates a time when the old is destroyed to make room for the new. The habit of eating all the bu tchered meat from the previous fall, along with all the animal fats saved for cooking, is typically attributed to the onset of Lent and its dietary restrictions. But the original purpose of pi gging out around this time of year, lies in that , long before industrial cold was developed, it was meteoro logical cold that preserved the food. W ith the warming temperatures, the preservation came to nil, and the food would rot if left uneate n much longer . Another ritual wa...

Free speech is guaranteed under the 1978 Constitution in Spain. However, completely free speech can sometimes be a thorn to those in power. Hence, the conservative Partido Popular passed a law a few years ago to limit certain extremes. The libel laws were also reinforced. What was once easily said and brushed off in public now has to limit itself to the private sphere, which does not include social media.  A rapper from Mallorca has recently been condemned to three and a half years in prison for singing and uploading a song to the internet where he criticizes the monarchy. In the song, which is of a mediocre quality and never would have been given publicity outside his circle if it weren't for the courtroom, he does mention he can't wait for when he can enter Marivent (the royal family's summer palace in Mallorca) with a Kalashnikov. He does not, however, at any moment actually threaten the former king (the one mentioned in the song) nor any of the royal family in so man...

The traffic police in Spain, Tráfico , a division of the Guardia Civil , are not well loved. There are different groups on Facebook and Whatsapp where members call the attention of other members and tell them where a a patrol or speed trap might be set up. Sometimes humor is involved. The cops have been called smurfs, lettuces (because the uniform is green), and photographers.  Sometimes, though, even the cops are surprised by what they find on the roads. And, yes, most of it is fineable because the civilians involved are actually breaking a traffic law. Yet, situations can get very strange.  Some time ago, there was the news of a driver in the Basque country who had packed his car with bales of straw. The car was a moving bale on the road. He wasn't the only one who took advantage of a spacious car. In 2014 in Jonquera, in Catalunya, right on the border with France, the driver of a Renault Espace was stopped because the car was obviously overloaded. The reason was tha...

There is a hill behind our house that reaches an awkward height at the wrong place. That particular high spot means that when the rising sun is hitting the opposite mountains at nine thirty in the deeps of winter, we remain in its shadow until an hour later. Accustomed as I once was to an eight thirty winter sunrise, I am not fully awake until well into the morning.  But now the sun has been moving back to a better position in regards to the hill. Now, it peeks over a lower side at around nine in the morning, regaling us with its warmth and light much earlier. We are in the middle of February. While it can be a cruel month, it's also telling us that the wilds and darkness of late autumn and winter are almost over. Not that this winter has been especially dark nor wild, because until late January it hasn't really rained and stormed as it usually does. Yet, it has been cold, and the days too short.  One sure sign that the end of winter is near are the mimosas. Native to Aust...

I remember, when I was a child, Massachusetts still had its Blue Laws on the books. Sundays were days to stay home, maybe go for a drive, but that was it. The only places open w ere the local Korean market and Dunkin' Donuts, and only in the morning. There, we could buy the Sunday paper and a hearty breakfast. Everything else was shuttered up. Sometime in the 1980's, the Blue Laws were sent into history. Any store that wanted could open between 12 and 6 PM. From doing only Sunday drives down to Quincy and Canton, and other occasional points further south of Boston, we changed to driving down to Dedham Mall and spending Sunday afternoons there. Much later, I sometimes w ould go downtown when my parents didn't feel like going out.  My family worked during the week and did its banking and shopping on Saturday mornings. While we strolled through the mall on Sunday afternoons, we would sometimes buy something, so metimes just check ou t novelties, sometimes buy somethi ng ...

Thirty-nine years ago earlier this week the Blizzard of '78 whitened out New England. I can still remember seeing only white out the windows, and how afterwards, snow came up to a man's waist (unless it was a snow drift in which he just disappeared). I remember not going to school the morning of the sixth because my mother didn't relish the thought of having to fight through another snowstorm. We had had one about a week earlier, and my mother tried to take me to school, but, when we got to the point where we could see it, there was no one there, and we turned back. On February 6th, she thought my missing one day of school was no big deal, just in case. My father, however, went to work, and was stranded there until after the storm.  Because, that morning everyone set off for work or school as usual. Meteorologists didn't have the tools they have now, and couldn't know the storm system would slow down and deliver the storm of the century to New England. By mid-afte...

A meme on Facebook caught my eye t hi s past Sunday and I had to share it. It goes, "O final, tiña razón Rajoy cando decía  que cando chovese iamos aforrar en luz. Xa levamos dous días sen ela." Roughly translated, it means, "In the end, Rajoy was right when he said we would save on electricity when it rained. We've been without it for two days." It all refers back to about a week and a half ago. They were the coldest days of the winter, and the deregulated electricity market raised prices to maximums of over €100 per megawatt. That translated into harsh price increases in most people's electric bill. A medium ho usehold's bill was expected to go up by ten to twenty euros. Then there is the fixed part of the bill, which includes the kilowatts contracted (The more things you can plug in simultaneously, the more you pay. We have the smallest possible, 2.2 kw, and can't turn on the microwave and the hair dryer at the same time.), having th...

This morning I woke up around eight o'clock and listened to the wind. My husband was already awake and asked if I had heard it during the night. I hadn't, because after a couple of sleepless nights, this was my turn to be a log. But, apparently, it was windy, to put it mildly. High winds had been forecast because a series of fronts are passing by these days, with gusts of up to 138 kph at Fisterra.  But the thunder in the distance worried me more. As lightning and thunder began to synchronize, I got up and went downstairs to unplug things. I unplugged everything except the fridge, which I would have had to move. Computer, television, heater, coffee pot (can't live without coffee), microwave, they all came off the grid. Then, I went back to bed, and watched the light show. It seems that every year, a house in our surrounding parishes and towns gets hit by lightning, and has everything that is plugged in go into an apocalyptic shock. I don't remember that happening in...