Last weekend, the pueblo celebrated the fiestas of the local Virgin. (Not the summer fiestas – those were at the end of August, and not the fiestas for the patron saint – that’s next month: the Spanish are always happy to take days off work and chase bulls through the streets or set off firecrackers.)
Continue reading “on holiday”
Tag: holidays
royal oak day
A message in my inbox tells me:
It’s the 29th of May, Royal Oak Day:
if you don’t give us a holiday, we’ll all run away !
Strange how even the most ardent socialists are willing to consider becoming monarchists when there’s a holiday involved.
Still, I’ve talked in the past about the complications of political labelling as well as about the difficulties in talking about oaks and acorns in Spanish. So, since I seem already to have dealt with the obvious follow ons, and it isn’t actually a holiday, perhaps I’d better get on with some work!
Easter gifts
It’s Easter and I’ve realised that I don’t remember any of the Easter eggs I was given as a child, though I’m fairly sure there must have been some and I’m sure I was quite excited about them at the time.
Later on, I may have been given chocolates, flowers or other gifts by friends and lovers; no doubt they put a dutiful amount of thought into the choosing and the giving.
Perhaps I even gave presents to other people. If I did, though, I don’t remember.
In fact, from all the Easter gifts given and received during more than fifty years, I only remember one – the book in the picture.
The dedication inside shows just how long ago I was given it:
Half a century from now, how many people will reach for their e-reader and bring up a digital file that will have the power to connect them to the past in the way this book connects me?
paschal moon
With nicotine-stained fingers, she pushes aside
the net curtains of the clouds and stoops
to look through your bedroom window.
abridged
I knew that la crisis had forced lifestyle changes on everyone in Spain, but I’m shocked to find it has apparently made inroads into a tradition that lies at the very heart of the Spanish psyche: el puente.
Tomorrow is San José, which is a fiesta for some comunidades. Usually, such holidays are celebrated on the actual day on which they fall, which means that when there’s a Tuesday or a Thursday fiesta lots of workers take the intervening day and make a four-day weekend of it.
Continue reading “abridged”
don't confuse the narrator 