Is It Really that Time Already?
The application period for admission into state schools is now open here in Asturias. It’s a snappy 10 days, 10th-20th April, so there’s no time to hang about if, like me, you’re planning to pack your little darling off to school here for the first time come September. The Spanish government currently offers each child […]
Modesta
My next door neighbour is called Modesta. She is 89 years old and she lives alone in her little house in our tiny hamlet perched atop a hillside in Asturias, Northern Spain. She doesn’t drive and she has never travelled on a train nor seen a plane. She has never visited Madrid, nor even Covadonga […]
La Matanza – A Living Tradition
Last weekend saw the celebration of ‘la matanza’ in our village. Celebration may sound like an odd term for the butchering of a pig, even to meat-eaters’ ears, but if so that says rather a lot about our privileged, pre-packaged lives and the distance we generally keep between us and the reality of the provenance […]
The Things Kids Say (And Husbands Don’t)
So, it’s Sunday morning and owing to a (yet to be proved right) rubbish weather forecast we are actually heading down to town from our hill-top hovel rustic cottage rather than out to the mountains for our usual weekend climbing. In honour of the occasion (and just in case I bump into anyone I know) […]
Odd Socks and Semiotics*
We were in the car on the way to nursery when I noticed that Jack was wearing odd socks. Oops. The Spanish authorities probably take children into care for less. Already, he is the only child in nursery who doesn’t wear a ‘mandilón’ – a sort of old-fashioned, long-sleeved, collared pinafore worn to protect the […]
Rules of the Road
So, yesterday, I was driving in town and as I approached a Stop sign two Trafico cars (Spanish traffic police, as you’ve probably guessed already) drove past me. Cue accelerated heart rate and butterflies in my stomach. (I’m the same walking through Customs. I blame my Irish Catholic upbringing – it’s made me so good […]
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous
After spending much of yesterday salivating over the prospects of some highbrow intellectual stimulation courtesy of the NY TimesTalks this weekend at the Centro Niemeyer, 10pm saw me installed on the sofa ready to relish some ‘telebasura’ (trash tv to non-Spanish speakers). Telecinco’s Acorralados premiered last night and I have to say that I was excited to […]
