lifestyle – Page 25 – don't confuse the narrator

olive gathering

I wondered what was going on on the plot of land next door: I could hear cracks and thuds and see a long wooden cane moving about.

It turns out they are harvesting the olives and the pole is being used to beat the trees to make the ripe fruit fall.

I know it’s totally non-pc, but I am reminded of the saying about “a dog, a woman and a walnut tree”. I don’t suppose anyone dares say that anymore.

Apparently they’ve decided it’s not good to beat olive trees, either. This list of harvesting methods describes “el vareo” as “un método no aconsejable ya que daña al olivo” – it’s not advisable as it damages the tree. The advantage of the method, though, is that it is quick and simple and a lot of fruit is retrieved.

la matanza

Today I came across the Asociación Cultural “Tradición Arenense” , and discovered that at least one of the “cultural traditions” of the town of Arenas de San Pedro sounds quite bloody.

This weekend, according to a poster I saw in a bar window, they are celebrating “la matanza, dios mediante, en la plaza de las víctimas.” They could hardly have chosen a better venue, could they?

Presumably dios mediante doesn’t mean that God will be officiating at the upcoming slaughter; it must be the local equivalent of d.v. – deo volente – God willing. Personally, I’d always hoped the Spanish phrase might be con dios al volante – “with God at the steering wheel.”

big kids

Nine years old and 81.5 kilos in weight. That’s nearly 13 stone for those of us who still think in “old money”, and it’s the weight reached by a child con obesidad mórbida in the north of Spain.

It seems the authorities have been aware of problems since 2004 and the parents haven’t been obeying the legal conditions that had been laid down. So, recently, a judge ordered the child to be ingresado en un centro de menores where diet and exercise routines would, presumably, be strictly adhered to.
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moving experiences II

Books play a large part in my life.

When the bulk of my possessions arrived in Spain, some fifteen years ago, there were fifteen boxes of books. I’d already acquired a lot in the time I’d been living here, and, since then, the collection has expanded still further.

Now, many of these need to be moved.

We’ve decided that the easiest way to transport them – at least the yards and yards of cheap paperbacks – is to tie them into piles, as it’s a lot easier to hold onto strings than to carry boxes.

The poor things look most uncomfortable, though, Continue reading “moving experiences II”

some corner of a foreign hospital research lab

Having worked hard in the garden on Saturday, not realising just how strong the sun was, I was probably fortunate only to feel slightly under the weather yesterday. Sunstroke can be fatal, of course, and is perhaps more likely to be so for those of us who were brought up in colder, wetter, and altogether greyer, northern climes.

So I was interested to read this story about the Brits in Alicante who have worked out what to do if (when?) they die here. Apparently many of the 350,000 who are resident there are donating their bodies to science.
Continue reading “some corner of a foreign hospital research lab”