La Vida Alcalaína

Spain's royal family, or at least King Juan Carlos, is not having a good time at the moment. Last summer, the King's frequent hospital trips for various replacement body parts over the last couple of years led to him snapping at the press over their supposed obsession with his health: "What you like to do is kill me and have me in a coffin every day. This is what you do in the press." The comments were captured on camera and became an instant You-tube hit. Then Iñaki Urdangarin, husband of the King’s youngest daughter Cristina, came under investigation for embezzlement . The former handball player stands accused of diverting money from his charitable institution to tax havens in Belise and the UK, and has been excluded from any official royal duties. Just before Christmas JC appeared on TV sporting a shiner on his left eye and a plaster on his nose. Apparently he " walked into a door ". Last week the King's 13-year-old grandson, Froilan, sh...

Nightingale ( Ruiseñor in Spanish) There can be few nicer ways to be woken up (at my age, anyway) than by the song of a nightingale.  One has stationed himself in the giant eucalyptus behind our house, a resting place on his long voyage from Africa to his breeding ground in Northern Europe.  He starts trilling around daybreak and carries on through the day - he's at it right now. It makes a change from the sparrows that sit on the window railings, chirping the same note over and over again (each year they nest in our electricity junction box, right outside the front door). I haven't heard my nightingale at night though; according to Wikipedia, only unpaired males sing at night, in order to attract a mate. Listen to his song here The ruiseñor will be on his way soon, but Alcalá is a birder's paradise all year round.  An ornithologist friend who has a house here writes in his blog,  Birding Cadiz Province :   [Alcalá de los Gazules] has a good popula...

It's April, and it's raining. The phrase En abril aguas mil, which is the Spanish equivalent of "April showers bring May flowers", comes from a poem by Antonio Machado: Son de abril las aguas mil.fe Semana Santa, and in Spain it always rains at Easter .  The Almighty must have a strange sense of humour, waiting till the faithful have gathered en masse (pardon the pun) to carry out their strange rituals in the streets, then pulling the plug and allowing the heavens to open. Scenes in Sevilla yesterday, where four of the processions for Domingo de Ramos (Palm Sunday) had to be cancelled : I don't know whether Alcalá's Palm Sunday procession was rained off because I don't intend to leave the house till the skies are clear again, but there are four more processions due this week and the forecast isn't good ... Tuesday 3 April, 8 pm, starting at the church of San Jorge on the Plaza Alta: Procession of the V enerable y Ducal Hermandad d...