Thank you Google

What a fascinating program Google maps is. Now that they have incorporated street views into it, you can have a close look at the houses where you used to live. It does take a bit of work to get the exact location and the orientation correct but once you are there, the detail is incredible.

On the left is the house where Pam lived when she was in her late teens/early twenties. At the time her father was based at Crewe Fire Station and this was their house in Weston just outside the town.

On the right is the house in Gildersome where I lived before emigrating to Canada. Ours was the middle house which at that time belonged to the West Riding Constabulary. 

Making lives richer

Yesterday we went on a trip with the ladies from the other adult classes and members of the progressive ladies group. Our destination was the house of the lady in the blue top carrying the plant.

It turns out she has written a book about life in Spain when she was young – a fascinating tale of how things were very different than they are today.

The lady had invited us all to her casa which sits just below the Sierra de Orihuela. As you can see we did not go empty handed; the plant was a present for her from the people of Bigastro.

After a short discourse about how the lady came to write the book and a brief history of her life in this area, the tables were laid with plate after plate of the most delicious food which was washed down with chilled cider.

One of the ladies from the adult classes then paid tribute to her teachers by explaining that before - she could neither read nor write, she couldn’t even use the telephone because the numbers were incomprehensible. Now, as she went on to say, her life was so much richer because she could read the books that her grandchildren brought home.

Without their hands, these two would have difficulty talking.

We would like to thank the Ayuntamiento and the Progressive Ladies for organising the trip and the lady whose house we visited for making us so welcome.

A bleak future

Premier Jose Luis Zapatero told a stunned nation that public sector pay will be reduced by 5pc this year and frozen in 2011. "We must make an extraordinary effort," he said.

Pension rises will be shelved. The country’s €2,500 baby bonus will be cancelled. Aid to the regions will be slashed and infrastructure projects will be put on ice. Mr Zapatero’s own monthly pay will fall 15pc to €6,515.

Mr Zapatero - who long prided himself on being an "anthropological optimist" - plans to cut the deficit from 11.2pc to 6pc of GDP this year, with further cuts next year. The fresh move is to placate bond vigilantes and to calm German fears that eurozone discipline is breaking. He has already raised income taxes and lifted IBI (VAT) from 16pc to 18pc.

Javier Perez de Azpillaga from Goldman Sachs says Spain has climbed rapidly up the technology ladder. Its exports have grown faster than those of Italy or France. It has a low public debt of 53pc of GDP, but a "highly leveraged" private sector. Real estate companies have debts of €445bn, or 45pc of GDP. "Banks may not be able to recoup large parts of these loans. These losses will have to be recognized eventually, bringing down many institutions and forcing the government to recapitalize them," he said.

The `Cajas’ -- public sector banks -- have assets of €1.3 trillion and account for most mortgage debt. Many are struggling. The saving grace is that the two giants, Santander and BBVA, have global portfolios and are in "excellent shape".

Caixa Catalunya said the stock of unsold homes in Spain reached 926.000 at the end of last year, equivalent to 6.5m in the US. It expects the market to touch bottom this year with real falls of 20pc to 25pc from the peak. Spanish households have been able to draw on a very high savings rate of 17.9pc to absorb the shock.

Realistically, we all knew that Mr Zapetero would have to deliver a bitter pill and he has. Whether it will work and more to the point whether it will trigger social unrest in the form of a general strike remains to be seen. We have become so used to pay rises and year on year house prices increases but those days are over – the debt just can’t go on. If the whole world was allowed to go into debt, who would be left to finance it?

The second of the forums

Bigastro is ready to welcome the second of the forums aimed at revitalising the construction industry in the Vega Baja. On this occasion the main theme will be how tourism could be the way forward for the region. The meeting will also look at how  the current stock of houses could be bought and used as council owned homes. 

For the main topic, two experts in the field; the vice dean of Tourism of the Faculty of Philosophy and Liberal Arts at the University of Alicante and Sergio Campanella who is a consultant for the European Union will address the audience.

Their theme will be cultural tourism as opposed to the normal model of holiday tourism or the model of tourism generated by landmark buildings. It works for cities like Orihuela  which attracts many tourist at Easter, during the fiesta for Moors and Christians and for the Medieval Fair so why not for other towns in the area. The cultural events already exist, they just need some careful marketing.

They will look at the Italian “bed and breakfast” model. I don’t know about Italy but anybody who has toured Britain will know that is a more affordable alternative to a hotel. All you need is a spare room in you house and you’re in business. Pam and I have stayed in some very good B&Bs in our time.

Finally there will be a discussion about the alternatives to the traditional hotel as a lodging for tourists. I guess that involves the B&B model again.

Celebrating 500 years

This Thursday at 7:30pm, celebrations for the fifth jubilee of the Cathedral in Orihuela begin. With the permission of the Pope, the celebrations are set to continue until the 13th May next year.

During the jubilee year, there will be guided tours of the cathedral, conferences, a photographic competition, organ concerts etc all under the banner, ux Fidei”. Commemorative books will be published along with DVDs and Cds. Most significantly, the Cathedral will celebrate Mozarabic mass* for the first time in the Orihuela-Alicante Diocese.

You can find out more about the celebrations by clicking on this link. Please note that if you want to visit the cathedral on a guided tour can use the website to make a booking:-

• Visits to the Cathedral last between 35-40 minutes.

• To make a booking choose one of the available slots, indicate the number of people and your language of choice (Castilian or English).

• The maximum number permitted in a group is 60.

• You can visit the tower of the Cathedral; Fridays evenings and Saturday mornings.

• If you want to modify your booking; telephone +34 965 304 828 or send an email to sede@bienesculturalesdoa.es NB This email address if protected against Spam bots. So you need to activate Javascript to use it.

• If you can’t make your visit contact reservations at 965 304 828 to allow other groups to take your place.

• During your visit please respect the zones of restricted access. Follow the guide and remember that the Cathedral is a work place.

For a virtual tour click on this link.

* Mozorabic is an early Romance dialects spoken in the parts of the Iberian Peninsula under Moorish power and heavily influenced by Arabic. I would therefore be surprised if many of the congregation will understand it any more than they do Latin mass. No matter, it will be a unique occasion.

“Those who can, should, those who cannot, we will always help.”

That is a great sound bite from the 52nd British Prime Minister, a promise that we all hope he can keep.

After all the behind closed door discussions and the political wrangling that has gone on since the election on Thursday, at last we know what is going to happen. There is to be a Conservative/Lib. Dem. coalition for the next five years; Mr Cameron will be Prime Minister and Mr Clegg his deputy. This will be the first full coalition government since 1945. In the meantime, Gordon Brown resigned as leader of the Labour Party with immediate effect and has suggested that he will also stand down as MP – presumably at the next election.

So Britain now has the youngest PM since Lord Liverpool in 1812: David Cameron is a few months younger than Tony Blair was when he took office in 1997. To be honest, it is not a job I would relish because you just know it will not be smooth sailing for the new government. Crisis will occur, promises will be broken and they will have Labour watching their backs all the time.

A long way to go

I found this interesting comment on the financial situation that Spain finds itself in.

Well it is now official - or at least as official as it is going to get: the Spanish economy sneaked back into growth by a short head during the first three months of this year. According to data published in the Bank of Spain's quarterly report on the Spanish economy, Spain's GDP grew by 0.1% in the first quarter. Interannually output was still down by 1.3%, but this is evidently a considerable improvement on the 4.2% annual drop registered in the second quarter of last year, and much better than the 3.1% fall seen in the last three months of 2009

So that's it. Spain is out of the woods, the worst is now over, and the Spanish economy can now get back to the agreeable business of growing, and putting people back to work? Or can it? We don't have all the details yet, but from the information the Bank of Spain does provide we already have a sufficient information base to start asking ourselves just how sustainable this quarter's numbers actually are. In the present case it is the how, just as much as the what, that matters.

Obviously, and as everyone by now surely knows only too well, what little growth Spain is able to eke out at this point takes place on the back of massive government deficit spending (estimated at 11.2% of GDP in 2009), but even this is only one part of the picture, since we need to ask ourselves, outside the government contribution, what is actually driving the growth at this point?

Here the bank of Spain is reasonably helpful, since they tell us that, on the demand side, the decline in domestic demand eased (on an interannual basis) to a 2.6% fall (from a 5% one in Q4 2009), while the positive contribution from net external demand weakened to 1.4 percentage points (from 2.2 percentage points in the three previous months).

The net external demand component is simply the difference between the rates of change in exports and imports. These are year on year numbers, but we can deduce what the situation must have been (more or less) on a quarter by quarter basis: domestic demand (which includes government consumption, as well as private consumption and investment) grew on the quarter, while the net trade contribution was negative, since while both exports and imports increased, imports increased more than exports, and as a result the trade deficit deteriorated, which is, of course, for a country with a heavily indebted external position, not good news at all.

The principal reforms that Spain currently needs have been made abundantly clear by both the IMF and the EU Commission, so now is the time to implement them. Only this week the IMF urged the Spanish government to be more vigorous in implementing its fiscal correction programme, so why not spell out line by line where the cuts will come? It is no longer sufficient, as Miguel-Anxo Murado so ironically puts it in the Guardian newspaper, to simply say time and time again "all repeat after me, ‘Spain is not Greece’". This is clear to all. What is worrying people is whether or not Spain could become another Greece in the future, and whether or not the country’s present leaders have the determination needed to take the steps to ensure it won’t. Confidence in Spain’s economy is at a low level, and confidence in Mr Zapatero’s ability to do what is needed is at an even lower one. If Spain’s Prime Minister finds he is no longer able to convince external observers that he can do the job which needs to be done, then in the interest of all Spaniards and all Europeans he should offer to stand down at the and of the European Presidency in July and pass the rudder over to someone who can.

Harsh words indeed but then Spain is in a harsh situation. The problems that the country faces are not going to go away of their own accord. It will take drastic steps to put the country on the road to full recovery.

4% of the total electricity supply for the province

Finally, the last part of the jigsaw is ready to be put in place. In order for the new desalination plant at Torrevieja to work it needs electricity and lots of it. 

The 220 Kilowatts of electricity will be supplied by Iberdrola via a high voltage cable from San Miguel de Salinas. The cost of installing this cable and substation is 7.3 million Euros. Once this is in place they can start tests on the desalination plant before it begins purification up to its 120 hm3 capacity. 

A taste of culture

As you well know, this year is the centenary of the birth of Miguel Hernandez. The infants from “La Paz” are not letting this important event pass by without some form of celebration. For their cultural week they are visiting the Auditorium in the afternoons to enact different stories about the poet along with some of his poems. Yesterday there were children in costume lining up to take their place in the Auditorium and perform. It will be the same again today and tomorrow.

Plenty of sun this week

Looks like we will get the Spring weather we expect this week.  Lots of lovely warm sunshine to ease the old joints. Perhaps a slight chance of some rain but nothing to bother about.

Note that it will be a little cooler towards the weekend but still very pleasant in the sun. Is it time to change the winter quilt on the bed though?

How sweet

“Especially for you – mother” was the concert this weekend at the Auditorio Francisco Grau.

The Sociedad Unión Musical de Bigastro organised this in collaboration with the Concejalía de Cultura (Council of Culture) for all mothers in Bigastro.

All the fun of the fair

The May fair in Torrevieja closed yesterday but only after the horses and the carts paraded around the fair ground once more.

You will find more of my pictures from this colourful event in my Flickr album at http://www.flickr.com/photos/elwillo/

Set to spoil your view

Renewable sources of energy are set to be the future as supplies of fossil fuels dwindle and the impact on the environment of burning them becomes more of an issue.

That means that wind turbines, even though they are a blot on the landscape, are here to stay as a means of generating electricity. In Spain, 2,459MW of electricity was generated by the wind in 2009 – up from 1,609.11MW in 2008.

Out of the whole country, there are only five provinces in Spain that do not contribute to this form of supply including Alicante. It is true that Alicante has 14 installations on the drawing board but none are yet in production and there is no date set for them to start. By comparison, Castellón and Valencia have 29 wind farms producing almost 1,000MW and there are plans to add a further 440 turbines in the future.

It can only be a matter of time before the mountain ranges of the province are scarred with these monstrous towers ruining any photographs that you might care to take of them.

Relying on others

In order to secure a record fourth consecutive title in the Premier League, Manchester United need Chelsea to slip up against Wigan on their own ground. They also need to beat Stoke at Old Trafford. Now, it is on the cards that United will beat Stoke but for Chelsea to drop points against Wigan is almost beyond belief. Even so, the United faithful are relying on Wigan to pull something out of the bag.

By the same token the Conservative Party are relying upon the Liberal Democrats to enable them to form a government. In order to woo the minority party into working with them, the Tories are having to make more and more concessions. With less than a twentieth of the seats of the larger party, you could say that this is a bit like the “tail wagging the dog”. However, looking at the statistics: Conservatives 36.1% Labour 29% Lib. Dems. 23% and you can see where the third party are coming from.

My predictions:- Chelsea will be League Champions tonight and the Conservatives will get the coalition they need but there will be another election next year before they have to concede proportional representation.

Not great news

Pam and I have just received our P60s for last year. For the benefit of our Spanish readers, the P60 shows how much we earned during the last year and how much tax we paid. We need these forms to make our annual declaration to the Spanish tax authorities.

Because we have public service pensions, we pay our taxes in the UK and not in Spain unlike some of our British neighbours. Even still, we have to make a declaration each year to show we have done just that. The end result is usually a very small rebate from the Spanish authorities ( about 1Euro or less).

Along with the form P60, Pam and I also receive a newsletter from Teachers’ Pensions which notifies us of any changes to our pension for the following year and that is where the news gets bad. As with all public service pensions, the amount of increase in our pensions is governed by the Pensions Increase Act of 1971. The annual increase each year is determined by the Retail Prices Index for the preceding year.

As it happens, the rate of inflation in Britain for the year up to September 2009 was a negative figure so in reality our pensions should go down. Thankfully, the Pensions Increase Act does not allow for a decrease in public service pensions but it does mean that we will get no increase in our pensions this year.

The rate of inflation for Spain in 2009 was 4.13% but is thankfully –0.8 for 2010 so we should effectively be slightly better off this year even without an increase in our pensions. Somehow we don’t feel better off. Still, the thunderstorm last night was short lived, today the sky is blue and the sun is already warming the air so what have we to complain about?

I should have told them..

Last night, the daughter of our Spanish neighbours told Pamela that they had just discovered this blog. They are the ones I mentioned back in December 2007 in this post the family Robles Grau.

First of all welcome. Of course a lot of what you read will be familiar because you only live across the road. Before you go any further, I must point out that you will find quite a few articles about your next door neighbour, Aurelio in my blog!

Thank you for being such good neighbours again and I hope you enjoy what you read.

Thank you Google

	The last thing I want on my computer is malware so I was pleased when Google stopped me from visiting www.vegabajadigital.com (one of the pages I regularly visit for news).
	It wasn’t the fault of the site owners, it looks like someone else has hacked the site and installed the malware.

Bringing them up to speed

For those parents and teachers who are not yet Internet savvy, Bigastro has organised a Technology Evening for Wednesday 12th May in the Auditorium.

5:30pm A workshop about the use of social networks in collaboration with CONVEGA.

7:30pm A demonstration of the uses and advantages of the electronic whiteboard in the classroom.

All good stuff, I hope it all works on the night! I can remember several occasions where either the software or hardware let the presenter down. It happened to me several times in the classroom!

Another night of surprises

In the UK elections, there are still 67 seats left to be declared. As things stand, it looks like the Conservatives will have the most seats in the new Parliament but not enough to take control and thus form a Government. The landslide they were hoping for didn't happen which meant that many key marginal seats remained with Labour (the Socialist Party). There were a few big losers though including the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith.

The party which must be smarting most though are the Lib. Dems.who, so far, have faired no better than they did in the last election. The good news however, is that common sense prevailed ousting Nick Griffin of the BNP from his seat.

So who will rule the roost? The Conservatives would like to think it will be them but if Labour can form a pact with the Lib. Dems. they could still continue to govern.

The current prediction is as follows:

Conservatives: 306
Labour: 262
Liberal Democrats: 55
Others: 27

The polls are all finished

All the polling for the General Election in Britain is finished; the campaigns are over and the decision now lies with the ballot boxes.

All the polls seem to suggest that the Conservatives will win but by a slim margin over Labour with the Lib. Dems. trailing in third place. If the polls transmit into parliamentary seats then the Conservatives could end up with between 268 and 294 seats; the Labour party with between 248-274 and the Lib. Dems. with 77-82 seats.

There are apparently still a lot of undecided voters out there who could turn the whole thing “topsy turvey”. In particular, those who have said they will vote Lib. Dem may well decide to vote for one of the two main parties, as has happened before, leaving the third party with fewer seats than they hope for. Instead of voting for the party of their choice, people vote against the party they don’t want particularly in marginal seats.

There have been so many occasions when the polls have got it completely wrong, we shall have to wait and see.  As they say, tomorrow is another day.

Another day in court

You remember that the leader of the opposition party in Bigastro said that the work on Calle Purisima was a swindle. Aurelio Murcia  claimed that the money, which came from the Government under Plan E, had been used to pay council workers and was also used to pay for work on the roundabout on the CV-95 by the health centre. Murcia was prepared to take this matter to court to clarify the issue.

In a counter claim, the mayor, Raúl Valerio Medina,  is prepared to take Murcia to court for making a false denunciation and for damages to his honour.

As an outsider, you can’t help but feel it might be better if all the parties concerned stopped playing these games and got on with working towards improvements in the town. Surely there are papers and accounts which show one way or another just where the money for Plan E has been used. I don’t understand why it takes a day in court to prove whether one party or the other is telling the truth.

It seems to me that when you take issues like these to court, the only winners are the lawyers who make a pretty penny out of all the work involved.  

And so it goes on

The problems in Sector D-6 of Bigastro just go on and on. It seems that yet another proprietor of land in that sector has taken the ex-mayor, José Joaquín Moya to court and in this case, the current mayor, Raúl Valerio Medina and the town clerk appear as witnesses.

The complaint is based on the fact that the proprietor claims his rights were harmed when 1,500 square metres of rustic land became 600 square metres of urban land in the worst part of the zone. More to the point, the plan for his parcel of land was not validated by the Valencian Autonomous Government and he was not informed.

Is this really May?

It might have been cold here in Bigastro yesterday but al least it didn’t snow. However, the strong wind that blew all day made it feel colder than it actually was.

In other parts of Spain things were very different. Snow and strong winds meant that drivers in some areas had to get their snow chains out again just when they thought they would not be needed until next winter.

The Pyrenean region is still on yellow alert for snow and wind today according to the State Agency for Meteorology (Aemet). Aemet is predicting snow falls of up to 18 centimetres and wind gusts up to 90 kilometres per hour.

We came here because the cost of living was cheap, we got plenty of Euros to the pound and the weather was warm and sunny for most of the year. Out of those three, what have we got left? At least the people are kind and the fiestas are great!

The new Semana Santa museum in Torrevieja

The first stone of the new Semana Santa Museum was laid on Sunday, May 2nd. The ceremony followed Mass at the Corazon Church celebrated by members of the brotherhoods of Torrevieja’s 14 Cofradias, Major of Torrevieja, Pedro Hemandez Mateo  plus a number of other distinguished guests.

A time capsule, containing artefacts pertaining to the history of the Semana Santa in Torrevieja, including newspapers, magazines, medals and signed documents by the guests of honour, was placed under the stone, before it was sealed shut. 

The new Museum which is to be built on Avda de la Habaneras, beside the Law Courts - close to the Bus Station, will be six floor high with three subterranean levels. It will house all of the Pasos that are located in the present Museum, plus documents, photographs, meeting and training rooms.

The museum is being financed in two phases with money from the Plan Confianza. Phase one is an allocation of €1.990.558  and phase two, €3.651.441 making it the second most expensive buling to be constructed in Valencia under the plan. 

A rare sighting

Being the man behind the camera, it is very rare that I appear in a photograph but here I am.

This was obviously taken when we first arrived at the Fiesta de la Cruz and I was working out where to get the best photographs of the men preparing the paella.

PS The lady beside me is not my wife. I have no idea who she is because we were not introduced!

A feather in Bigastro’s cap

When the new San José de Calasanz primary school was built in Bigastro, the old buildings lay empty. Some adult classes, including our Spanish class, moved there and talk was that the local police would be stationed in one of the two buildings.

Now there is a further proposed use for one of the buildings which has been approved by the Conselleria de Educación. Following the recent meetings with those parties involved in construction, the building could become a centre for research and innovation for this sector of industry.

The idea has already been put to two of the construction groups, Procosta and Provia and to other groups involved in construction for their approval. Now all they need is some finance from the private sector to make the project work.

From one day to the next

Just when you thought the weather might be settling down, it changes. Yesterday was glorious and today started out good but looking at the forecast, the whole province is on yellow alert  for rain

I would hazard a guess that will come sooner rather than later because the wind has picked up, the sky has gone dark and I just heard a clap of thunder in the distance.

Tomorrow looks as if it is going to be better except for that damn wind again which will persist for a couple of days. 

The good news for those who don’t like the heat is that it is going to be a little cooler this week. That is no consolation for Pam and I because we like it hot. 

Not cool

When you are a teenage boy with raging hormones that you don’t understand, it is not cool to make a show of yourself when someone points a camera at you. 

The rest of the family of Juan Diaz were more than happy to strike a pose for me. If the daughter, Raquel had been there, she would have joined in but not the son who happens also to be called Juan – what else! 

All winners

Apart from the main cross, people in the Barrio de la Cruz, decorate their houses with smaller crosses. I went to look for them yesterday and took these pictures.

I probably missed some for which I apologise. If you had to pick a winner, which would you choose? I think they are all superb.

Había arroces

The main attraction at the Fiesta de la Cruz yesterday were the paellas expertly prepared by the chefs from the Barrio. Each one was slightly different so what you got depended where you were in the queue.

PS Just look who was jumping the queue again this year with his pan ready to collect a large ration of arroz – none other than the ex-mayor, José Joaquin Moya! That’s not a very socialist thing to do Mr Moya.

NB I'm not surprised that my friend Germán at the Ayuntamiento chose not to publish that photograph.

A beacon for the area

Speaking of crosses, the one you can see on the top of La Muela in Orihuela is a fascinating structure which can be seen from miles away during the daytime.

Now though you will also see it at night as in this photograph from Información.

A bit of history

A wooden cross was first erected on the site in 1411 and was replaced several times. The first iron cross was placed there on the 5th May 1910. That was removed during the civil war to be replaced by another wooden one. The present cross, which is fifteen metres high and eight metres across, was erected in May 1942.

To celebrate its 100th Anniversary, the cross has been illuminated with candles. Those have now be replaced with 100 metres of LED lights which were placed there by the local police association of "Virgen de Monserrate". In the past, they would have used mules to take the lights up to the cross; this time they made four trips with a helicopter to assemble the lights.

Members of the Association will guard the cross to prevent vandalism and then next Monday they will carry the cable back down the mountain on foot.

Very beautiful

If you haven’t been down already, you really should take the time to go and see the wonderful job they have made of dressing the Holy Cross.

As those of you who live here know, we had a thunderstorm yesterday afternoon, I just hope it didn't spoil the flowers because I’ve yet to explore the smaller crosses that people decorate their houses with.

Are headdresses acceptable in modern society?

In our Spanish class on Wednesday, our teacher opened a debate on whether it was right for governments to impose bans on ladies wearing Islamic headdresses. This was in light of Belgium's lower house of parliament intention to vote for a law that would ban women from wearing the full Islamic face veil in public. The result of Thursday's vote was almost unanimous with 134 MPs in support of the law and two abstentions. It is therefore likely that the ban in Belgium will become law in the near future.

Now of course there are several variations on the headdress theme most of which are far less concealing than the burka. For example, an Algerian lady in our class wears a hijab and has done so since she was married as a mark of respect to her husband.

The two forms of headdress that seem to cause controversy are the niqab and the burka. The arguments against these two forms of headdress are based on security which is understandable. To go further though and ban forms of headdress that do not conceal the identity of the wearer which is apparently what some organisations are trying to do seems to me unjustifiable. It’s a bit like telling a Yorkshire collier not to wear his cloth cap and let’s not forget the Queen of England who has worn head scarves for as long as anyone can remember.

To my mind we are passing through a phase of Islamaphobia brought about by world events that have taken place since 9/11 and possibly before.

	The word hijab comes from the Arabic for veil and is used to describe the headscarves worn by Muslim women. These scarves come in a myriad of styles and colours. The type most commonly worn in the West is a square scarf that covers the head and neck but leaves the face clear.
	The niqab is a veil for the face that leaves the area around the eyes clear. However, it may be worn with a separate eye veil. It is worn with an accompanying headscarf.
	The burka is the most concealing of all Islamic veils. It covers the entire face and body, leaving just a mesh screen to see through.
	The al-amira is a two-piece veil. It consists of a close fitting cap, usually made from cotton or polyester, and an accompanying tube-like scarf.
	The shayla is a long, rectangular scarf popular in the Gulf region. It is wrapped around the head and tucked or pinned in place at the shoulders.
	The khimar is a long, cape-like veil that hangs down to just above the waist. It covers the hair, neck and shoulders completely, but leaves the face clear.
	The chador, worn by many Iranian women when outside the house, is a full-body cloak. It is often accompanied by a smaller headscarf underneath.

Looks like it could be a good day

Just to remind you, today is the start of the the fiesta at the Barrio de la Cruz.

This morning at 10 there will be races for the children then at 1pm you can enjoy a tapas or two. Later on the floral crosses will be judged and tonight the area will light up to the sound of music.

It looks like the weather is set fair which is just as well. rain would ruin the day!

I must go down and get my photographs of the floral crosses before they start to wilt with the heat. The sunflowers are always the first to go.