The town motto of Arenas de San Pedro is siempre incendiada, y siempre fiel (“always aflame and always faithful”). The coat of arms is a picture of the castle in flames, surprisingly reminiscent of card sixteen – the Tower – in many tarot decks.
The fireworks at the Arenas fiestas are always set off from inside the castle, which provides a lovely backdrop and such wonderfully appropriate images as this:
(This time the pink hues are not due to problems with my camera.)
The main car park area by the river is given over to candyfloss and hotdog stands, the usual stalls selling tat, a bouncy castle or two and a few traditional funfair rides.
It’s all pretty run of the mill stuff. There are dodgem (bumper?) cars in two sizes, a couple of Torito Salvaje rides and a Canguro Loco. (I guess the first is a Spanish equivalent of a bucking bronco ride for kids, and the Krazy Kangaroo is a fairly standard kind of octopus ride.) Then, of course, there’s a carousel with painted horses and other fantasy creatures.
But one thing I don’t think you’ll see in the UK is the pony carousel. (The Spanish use the word pony to refer to shetland ponies.)
Continue reading “roundabout they go”
I’m not that surprised by names like Burt Bacharach and Jerry Lee Lewis: I sort of expect those guys to go on for ever. But George Benson, Kool and the Gang, Jeff Beck, James Taylor…
In August, I’ll be attending the Writers’ Summer School in Swanwick. There’s a ‘Retro Revival’ disco planned for the Tuesday night, and I’m pretty sure the music will overlap with what’s on in Madrid this summer.
Incidentally, for the Spanish readers among you, this ‘noticia’ about the Veranos logo might be amusing. (If your Spanish isn’t quite up to scratch, remember: don’t believe everything you read on the web.)
Half the people in the village this morning were carrying bunches of flowers and greenery, which reminds me that it must be Domingo de Ramos – Palm Sunday.
Ramo and rama are words I can never get straight. Checking today in the on-line Diccionario de la Real Academia, I see that rama is a branch emerging from the tunk or main stem of a plant. Ramo, on the other hand, is a secondary level branch that emerges from the rama madre, or, perhaps, a rama cortada del árbol. If branches change sex the further they get from the trunk or once they’ve been cut from the tree, no wonder I’m confused.
Continue reading “of branches and bunches”
I hadn’t really planned it that way, but one of the things that brings people to this blog is the subject of pigs being slaughtered. It surprised me the first time I noticed the search phrase on the blog stats, but there certainly are several mentions – and photos – of pigs (or boars) in various states. That’s probably because I’m based in Spain and there are pig products pretty much everywhere.
As may be apparent from most of the posts, I do my own photography. Much of it is done in public places, as was the picture which follows the break. (Don’t look if you are faint-hearted.)
Continue reading “pictures of pigs”
don't confuse the narrator 