Girona

The city of Girona is only 35 minutes away from Figueres though parking your car in the city can take twice as long. There are no free parking places in Girona’s centre and all in all you are far better to let the train take the strain.

Parking at Figueres station is 1€ for the day. The trains are frequent and plentiful, and also clean and comfortable. If travelling to the airport at Girona you can expect to pay13€ for a direct bus but less than half that for the train and connecting bus. The short wait at the train station in Girona (the bus station is right outside) will give you the opportunity to sample the hot chocolate drink at the station bar. This is a chocolate drink so thick you could walk on it! It tastes as good as it looks.

If you are intent on sight seeing a day visit is more than enough for Girona. The old quarter around the Basilica is well served by helpful tourist information office staff that has a wealth of maps and advice to dispense. This is a stark contrast to the Figueres office where some of the staff are a little reticent in offering their services.

Shopping in Girona like many cities is slowly gravitating away from the old town to the rather lack lustre shopping malls on the edge of the city. The industrial areas around them look shabby and degraded and in need of a bulldozer.

Gonna get myself connected

Sometime soon WiFi could solve our Internet connection problems. Ah! Mañana the Spanish equivalent of never never land.

Life in a small village on the edge of a city sharpens your perspective on the divide between town and country dwelling. Those everyday things the norms of modern living are often denied you, utilities like gas, electricity and water supplies can not be taken for granted in rural Spain. The telephone too can remain out of reach. Read the forum pages of any expat web site and they are full of people trying to work around the problems they encounter obtaining a supply of any of those services.

Our own experiences in this area. We waited over eighteen months for someone to move an electric meter twenty yards the cable was already in place, and as usual everybody was waiting for somebody and nobody did it! Still, at least the meter has been moved it took less than half an hour to complete the task; and everybody, somebody and nobody had the good grace to be more than a little embarrassed over the fiasco.

It does get cold here, although according to the local people the winter lasts only three weeks. Heating your home with gas is almost laughable. A Romanian guy delivered my gas bottles; yes that’s right bottled gas in 2006. He could not believe that in this day and age cities like Figueres had no piped gas supply, back in Romania piped gas was the norm in even small towns. Here the pipes are going to be installed in 2007, here in Figueres that is, not in the villages of course not even sometime soon.

The telephone was an essential requirement for Carol, when we bought the house we asked specifically about the phone connection, the working phone was demonstrated for us. On purchase of the property we found that La Señora had taken not only the telephone but also the telephone line, a set of radiators and steps for the swimming pool.

Always intending to buy our own telephone apparatus the telephone equipment was not an immediate concern, the line however was. The village telephone installation was over subscribed and until the system was replaced there was no possibility of having a phone. We could see that our house was wired to the system but we could not be allocated a number. Still a brand new telephone system would surely mean up to date facilities whenever the work was completed.

After several months the work was completed on the new telephone exchange we could in theory obtain a number. Work on the house was continuing, (You can see the photographs of the stages we went through by following link to Spain Villa on this page) and it was at this stage we had the windows and doors replaced.

During the installation of one of those doors the telephone line was severed at the point it entered the house. The line had previously been inserted into a hole in the old wooden door frame and then glued into position, so when the frame was then removed the line was severed. The new fittings were aluminium this meant that the telephone cable would have to be fed through a 9" thick concrete wall, and then joined.

Telefonica’s new exchange is not so new after all. We can not have an ADSL line at the moment not even sometime soon. What was mid twentieth technology is still state of the art in much of rural Spain.

We had to pay for the installation as if it was new connection, Telefonica staff should wear masks! The connection was bodged by drilling through the corner of the masonry and the cable glued to the wall. This of course means that only the paintwork is holding it up.

On the edge of the village is a large factory which will supply paper products to the hotel and catering industry it is a business dependent upon fast communication with its clients and prospective customers. The factory will bring employment to the area and is a welcome development. They can not have their required internet connection.

The mayor has made unsuccessful representations to the telephone company about this absurd situation. The one remaining hope is WiFi (I say YFI they say wee fee)

The cluster of four small villages in our vicinity may one day become a WiFi zone. Ah! Mañana.

El Neng

Murton village on the A19 near Sunderland boasts a new shopping centre the Dalton Park retail outlet. And here I am in the centre car park just three days after returning to the U.K. for a short visit. I am looking at a car which displays an icon of what maybe the most famous Spaniard of all. More famous than Don Juan and Don Quixote even!
He is El Neng de Castefa.El Neng is a comic character on the Buenefuente television show which is essential viewing for me, whenever I am in Spain which is most of the time.Neng is one of many funny characters created by very talented people on the show. His appeal to world audience is phenomenal. Every refugee arriving by boat from Senegal knows at least two people in Spain Samuel Eto'o the Barcelona striker and El Neng de Castefa. Buenefuente brought them together. The rest is comic history!
In the first show Neng meets his hero Eto'o and asks him to give Neng’s famous salute when he next scores a goal for Barcelona. When Eto'o kept the promise it made the national news. The second clip picks up where the first finished even if your Spanish is poor you should understand what is happening. (Fading away after his dream had come true he is called by God; in true Neng style he refuses after all there is the Champions league to consider here.)
Two of the better sketches from the show have links to Youtube video clips given here.


Part 1

Part 2

True Grit!

It is 1155am on a warm autumn morning and I have just enough time to deliver my package to Eduardo in the city before the long siesta begins at 1 o’clock. Tomorrow I will be travelling and will not have enough time to meet with up with him.

Starting out on my short journey to Figueres I am immediately faced with a problem, a problem in the shape of my neighbour. Though I have tried to befriend him he seems to have taken an exception to me, and worse still he has even tried to stake a claim to my land.

Our paths cross on an increasingly regular basis and on each of those occasions he stands his ground, forcing me to change direction should I dare to pass him in the calle. Today is no exception, and once again the diminutive one eyed Mexican has fixed me in his gaze. He is the new guy in town; he is determined to make his mark and is certain that he will not allow me to get in his way. The higher ground he occupies gives him another advantage, too far along the camino, I can not go round him I can only face him or retreat.

The Mexican’s smaller stature only serves to emphasise his muscular frame. Even the lameness on his left side does not detract from his confident posture.

I need to pass him for there is no other way out of the pueblo. For what seems like an eternity we are locked in what is rather appropriately known as a Mexican stand-off. I check my watch, it is nearing High Noon.

Only when Margarita calls him away does the unrelenting gaze of his one good eye shift momentarily from me. That moment is enough! And I seize the opportunity, moving towards him purposefully. Margarita calls out to him once more. His one good eye focussed on me as he begrudgingly moved out of my path leaving only just enough room for me to pass.

When I look back I can see that he is heading for my land, maybe he is going to stake a claim!

Ay! Mi Chihuahua!

Temperature gauge

I now have a more reliable weather forcaster or rather team of forcasters. They are the Geckos who gather each evening around the exterior lights of the Villa. Once the lights are switched on the insects which make up their food supply will be attracted to the light souce and also to the geckos.

The Geckos which look like baby crocadiles, they come and go with the heat. I counted 7 last night and sure enough today the temperature touched 100 degrees!

What on earth is that?

Spanish market places are a delight. You will be amazed at the variety and quality of the local produce on offer. Wonderful fresh vegatables that somehow seem to miss the tourist menu. The numerous varieties of pulses and dried fruit on offer. On the butchers counter unfamiliar cuts of meat await you, nothing on the pig is wasted not even it´s whistle. Encounter strange and exotic seafood much of it walking around the display if not between your feet.

I suspect that many foreign visitors play the same guessing game of trying to name the creature.

Just remember if it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck; then the chinese probably have 40 recipes for it!