While the village fiestas pass off peacefully, full of drunken horseplay, but free of debauched violence, I wonder what would happen to Salamanca if Ryanair came to Matacan… Read the rest of this entry »
While the British seemed insatiable in their need for salacious gossip about their Royals, the Spanish seem uncharacteristically subdued and controlled. But perhaps this is changing… Read the rest of this entry »
I took advantage of the fiesta on Wednesday and took my children to the sierra. I’m a navigation retard and took the stupidest route. In the meantime my children kindly but firmly informed me that if I allowed my hands to dance on the steering wheel, that we would surely crash. Then they told me I was driving too fast. I have always joked that in Britain I felt like the worst driver in the world but in Spain I felt at home. But last week it finally dawned on me that the situation here was changing rapidly. I was sent a photo through the post of the back of my van, and a kind letter which informed me I had been driving 143 km/h, liable to a fine of 100 euros. I was incredulous. It would have been a reasonable accusation if I had been driving on an ordinary road, through a village, but this was on the dual carriageway from Valladolid. Read the rest of this entry »
2000 immigrants have arrived over the last year, most noticeably from Rumania and Bulgaria. Meanwhile, we have the shocking news that poor old Bejar, once a thriving centre of woollen mills finds itself with 2000 - 25% - of its living spaces empty. And the voracious construction around Salamanca remains unabated. Location Location , they say, but until some bright spark actually decides to bring flights into Matacan from the UK, the city and province will always remain a backwater. Read the rest of this entry »
Summer’s peaked at last and in Spain you have a choice: either you join the rest of the European hordes on the package deals to the coast, or you simply go back to your village. It’s a social phenomenon that is probably more evident here than in any other place on the continent: for a couple of months what was once a ghost town, with a handful of farm labourers propping up a lifeless bar, is revived and populations that had dwindled to a handful are temporarily multiplied. Read the rest of this entry »
