La Vida Alcalaína

Several years ago when we were visiting Alcalá just after Christmas I went to the local shop to buy some flour.  "I´m sorry", explained Jacinta, "I can´t sell eggs or flour today.  It´s the day of the Holy Innocents."  Scratching my head at what appeared to be yet another bizarre Catholic custom I went home flourless. It wasn't until I returned to England and asked my Spanish teacher that I found out what this was all about.  El Día de los Santos Inocentes, 28 December, is Spain´s equivalent to April Fool´s Day.   As the long school holidays drag on, the gap between visits from Papa Noel on Christmas Eve and the Three Kings on 6 January is filled by the opportunity for children to play jokes, known as  inocentadas,  on their elders and betters - some of which involve eggs and flour.  Other less messy pranks include sticking a cutout paper figure or  monigote  on someone´s back without them knowing, or putting salt in the...

There must be a hundred cockerels in this town.  Early one morning I counted thirteen different cockadoodledoos, each one more distant than the last, as they sounded their unique territorial reveilles.  So there should be at least five hundred hens, scratching about in the huertos (little produce-gardens tucked in between buildings), or living on roof terraces, or even along the roadside. Other domestic fowl reside here too; we are occasionally held up while driving out of town by a half-dozen stately geese ambling across the road.  One house on the other side of town has turkeys roosting in the orange trees, and there are some strange-looking fat grey birds which may or may not be guinea-fowl, down near the waterworks. But when I popped out to get some eggs this morning, the first three shops I went in had none.  I was offered several excuses: The weather has been bad lately, they haven't been laying. Everybody is doing extra baking for the holidays. Th...

We had been looking forward to a day's birdwatching with Stephen Daly of Andalucian Guides for weeks, and the recent wet weather even compelled us to buy some wellies just in case.  But we need not have worried; the day dawned clear and bright, if nose-drippingly chilly. We met Stephen in Benalup where we piled into his  4x4 and set off along an old drover's trail, now part of the Corredor Verde Dos Bahias  hiking route from Los Barrios to the Bahia de Cadiz.  This took us into the area known as La Janda, once a vast inland lagoon but drained in the 1950s in order to grow crops (mainly rice).  Stephen was a mine of information; we learned that the work had been paid for by the Americans in a deal with Franco whereby the US established military bases at Rota and Morón de la Frontera, and the malaria-infested lagoon was drained and then drenched in DDT to kill off the mosquitos.  Fortunately the area still attracts huge numbers of migrating birds and th...

Walking up the Calle Real last night after enjoying a wonderful concert of classical music, I said to my friends "if Barcelona beat Real Madrid 3-0 now, it will be a perfect evening".  Well, they didn't of course, they beat them 5-0; perfection + 2.  But enough gloating for now. The concert featured the Orquestra Joven del Bicentenario , the Youth Orchestra for the Bicentenary (2012 sees the 200th anniversary of the signing of the first Spanish Constitution in Cádiz).  The orchestra was formed by Matthew Coman, a classical musician who lives in Alcalá and who also organises the classical music festival here every August.  Assisted by fellow members of the Soloists of London, Matthew has trained thirty musicians aged between 13 and 20, from all over the Province of Cadiz.  The aim is to have a high-quality orchestra to participate in the 2012 celebrations. The orchestra was led by award-winning violinist David Le Page, and the programme comprised...

You've probably noticed that the Spanish are rather keen on football.  And rather good at it; they are currently European and World champions.  I was never a football fan till I watched the Spanish national team in the European Cup finals in 2008, when it soon became evident that their style of play was as different from that of the depressingly predictable England side as - I'm struggling to find a comparison here - Marilyn Monroe from Paris Hilton?  The National Ballet from Strictly Come Makeatwitofyourself?  A fillet steak from a McDonalds burger?  You get the gist ... It is largely acknowledged that la Furia Roja (the Red Fury, as Spain's national team are known) owes its success to its ability to play as a team.  There are no superstars who are only on the field to score goals.  They play a clean game; they rarely dive to try and get penalties and they were near the bottom of the lists for the number of fouls committed and yellow cards show...

Yesterday we went on a trip organised by various agencies involved in the Parque Natural Alcornocales, with the aim of educating local people about the natural environment and activities in the park.   This included a walk in an area which is undergoing repoblación , i.e. the native trees and shrubs have been replanted following widespread clearance back in the 1960s.  The rainclouds kindly held off until about five minutes before the end of the walk! The start of "Sendero La Teja", on the old A381 just north of Los Barrios Explaining the principles of repopulation Gorse, pine and cork-oak November is the time of year for setas (a general term for edible wild mushrooms) Climbing up the firebreak Blooming Heather Baby pines rapidly turn into ... . .. full-grown pine trees! The Alcornocales is one of the few remaining habitats of the insectivorous plant Drosophyllum lusitanicum . L ook closely and you can see its lunch. Cattle nee...

WORKING ROUND THE OBSTACLES In 2002 Alcalá became one of the first towns in Andalucia to launch a programme of  Rehabilitación de Viviendas del Casco Histórico , the rehabilitation of dwellings in the historic part of town. The aim of the programme was to restore dwellings deemed unfit for habitation ( infravivienda ), thus providing quality housing for local people, creating work for local builders and  labourers, and generally improving the appearance and ambience of the old town.     Because of the way old Alcalá was built, with houses piled on top of and extending sideways into each other, working out the boundaries of individual dwellings created a bureaucratic nightmare for the project manager, Gabriel Almagro, and his team.  To complicate matters further, the Spanish law of succession states that on the owner's death a property is divided equally between his or her children and can't be sold without the consent of all parties...