Rainy days ahead

Wednesday

Thursday

A very sad day

Antonio was a great friend to many. He taught most of the young people in the town whilst he was at the local primary school and he taught us Spanish.

We will miss him dearly and wish that he was still here.

Flesh on the bone please

We know there is at least one fibre optic cable in the Telefonica trunking because we saw it being laid. I recall seeing a cable being laid previously by a company called Bitel who have an office in Bigastro. Now there is a second cable put there by Vega Fibra.

The leaflets in our boxes set out the bare bones of the deal - symmetrical connection (unlike ADSL) of 300Mb for 24,90 or for speed demons 600Mb for 29,90. Both with free installation.

It seems you can add on a mobile contract as well and pay nothing until 2020.

 What we need to know though is a bit more about the deal, an explanation in English would be useful.

For example, can we dispense with the Telefonica connection and the line rental and just pay for an internet connection? Will Vega Fibra install just a cable modem or will they supply a wi-fi router? How long do we have to contract for?

Watch out for this

A summer classic is coming ! Rain of stars Perseidas or Tears of San Lorenzo . The best time to observe this will be during the early hours of Tuesday, August 13, especially from 5:00 h (just when the  Moon is hidden ) until dawn.

Fiesta Queens 2019

It was a fabulous night with some interesting changes from the traditions of the past including the Valencian Anthem at the end.

For your entertainment

Join the party

Enjoy a snack and a drink among friends. 

A 100m water slide - just the ticket on a hot afternoon.

Ready to party?

Our last respects

Last night, in the Town Park, we paid tribute to Francisco Grau Vegara. Francisco Grau was born in Bigastro and rose to become the only Musical General in the Spanish army. He wrote many musical pieces including a revision of the Spanish National Anthem.

Although his funeral was held in Madrid. his ashes have been brought back to Bigastro.

Time to reflect

Tonight

Tonight, the Juvenile Court, the Infant Court and the Third Age Queen will attend their first official function at the Fiesta for Santa Ana.

Another hot one

My photo tribute to Francisco Grau Vegara

Born in Bigastro, Alicante, Francisco Grau started playing instruments in the Bigastro band at the age of seven. Later, he went on to compose more than 700 pieces and since 12 October 1997, he has been the official author of the Spanish National Anthem (previously Marcha Granadera). He was also a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, the Real Academia de la Virgen de la Arrixaca in Murcia and the Academia de San Carlos in Valencia. From 1988, he was the director of music for the Spanish Royal Guard and was the Director of the Spanish Military Academy of Music since its creation. From 1988 – 2008, he was also director of the Musical Unit of the Spanish Royal Guard. In January 2008, Grau became the first General of Music in the Spanish Armed Forces, having been made a colonel some years previously.

He was too young

The sad news last night was that Francisco Grau had passed away. He was born in January 1947 which made him almost exactly the same age as me - 72.

The Alcaldesa has declared two days of official mourning from midnight tonight until midnight on Wednesday.

Flags on official buildings  in the town will be flown at half mast. 

Going to the beach?

Be aware that the sea will be rough today. 

Biker's lunch

Chaos

It used to be chaotic at departures at Elche Alicante Airport. You could park up there free of charge and so people used to avoid the fees in the main car park.

Then they installed barrier gates and you were restricted to 15 minutes. That worked well and it was usually possible to find a space even at peak times.

We take our car to the airport and use a company called Plane Parking. The deals is that you drop your car off at departures and they take it away to their compound. When you return, you phone up and they bring the car back to departures.

The problem is that people are back to abusing the system and are parking at departures to pick passengers up. On a number of occasions, the barrier gates have been left open to try and avoid the chaos but that means that they can park for longer.

When we came back on Monday it was mayhem, not a space to be had and you could see that none of the parked cars had people in them. Plane Parking had to bring our car back to the lane reserved for taxis.

We missed it all

Pam and I have just spent the last week in Sale with our grandchildren. I understand we missed another day of suffering heat and two earthquakes.

Now that is hot!!

Was that fibre cable?

Yesterday, we saw workmen who looked to be installing cable in the telephone ducting. Surely, this must be the fibre optic cable that we were promised.

The Town Hall celebrates 75 years

Many thanks to Pascual Segura for this fascinating account.

Until the 1940s, Bigastro Town Hall was located at number 12 in the Plaza de la Constitución, a space that today is occupied by a modern building of housing and commercial premises. The poor condition of that old building of 165 m2, which included the jail and open courtyard, led to the consistory commission in 1942 to the two expert masons, Joaquin Moya Martinez and José Alcaina Esteban, a report on the state of municipal buildings .

The report, presented in 1943, ruled the poor state in which they were, and for that reason the mayor, Manuel Fuentes Torres, made the decision to auction all the municipal properties to deal with the acquisition of a space that would serve as new Town Hall.

Thanks to the money raised from the auctions, the house of the then secretary of the Town Hall of Bigastro, Juan Gálvez Gálvez, was purchased for 40,000 pesetas, commissioning the project of adaptation of said house to the architect Severiano Sánchez Ballesta, who approved the acquisition of the property affirming that "the structure of the building, its architectural style and the consistency of its walls and work in general, are well designed".

In August of that same year of 1943 they began works that culminated in December to adapt the house of the secretary to a Town Hall, with offices, court, archive, plenary hall, etc. In June 1944 the building was ready for the workers to make use of their facilities.

From June 1944 until today 75 years have passed. A work of adaptation of an old house to which subsequent rehabilitation works followed.

Over the course of those 75 years, Bigastro has travelled a path of prosperity, improvements in infrastructure and services, social and cultural advances, etc. A path that prospers with a newly named Municipal Corporation, which has as its Mayor-President, Teresa María Belmonte Sánchez and the councillors Antonio José Meseguer Cabañés, Alejandra Moya Celedonio, José Manuel Maíquez Moya, Nuria Andreu Mompeán, Manu Giménez Terrés, Teresa Moya Moya, Mª Carmen Medina Oltra, Raúl Martínez Campos, Olga Soto Pardo, Joaquín Sáez López, Nora Taj Lidón and Aurelio Murcia González, to the municipal representatives in charge of protecting this anniversary.

Try to keep cool

Looks familiar

Quirky dancing seems to be a traditional feature of celebrations for Corpus Christi.

These two pictures from Orihuela show two groups performing dances that should look very familiar to my English readers.

Mosquito season is on us

Female mosquitoes need water to lay their eggs in. They don't like clean water or chlorinated water though, they prefer water that has been standing.

Once they have somewhere to lay their eggs, the females go into breeding mode and stock up on blood for energy. That is when they will bite you to extract blood. Unfortunately what they leave you with is a dose of their anticoagulant that causes swelling and irritation.

If you want eliminate mosquitoes from your garden, patio or balcony, then you need to make sure there are no pools of water they could use to breed in.

Note the route

It is well worth going down into the town on Sunday afternoon to walk this route and see the magnificent work that the neighbours have done to prepare for the procession.

Corpus this weekend

Photo Rally 1

With my fellow photographers, receiving our diplomas.

What a shambles

It seems that the contest to find the replacement for Mrs May has descended into a farcical situation where each of the candidates feels the need to come clean on whether they ever took drugs. Michael Gove confessed that he took cocaine, others smoked cannabis or opium and Boris Johnson thought he might or might not have snorted cocaine - it could have been icing sugar which either did or did not go up his nose.

They all believe that, one way or another, they can deliver Brexit by Halloween or maybe not. In spite of overwhelming evidence that a “hard Brexit” would cost Britain dearly and in any case would be blocked by parliament, most say that would be their default option. The EU have categorically said that there will be no more negotiation so where does that leave us?

When Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair, Johnson said they should have had a general election to give him a mandate from the public. I wonder whether he will stick to that principle if he is elected? Indeed, will any of them risk “going to the country” to confirm their position?

The big clean up

Now that we have more visitors to La Pedrera as a result of the opening of  Ruta Alquibla, there has been a noticeable increase in the amount of litter.

In an ideal world, everyone would take their bottles and plastic bags home with them but sadly we no longer live in that sort of world.

We know that plastic waste is a real danger to wildlife which is why environmental organisations are putting their weight behind this initiative.

This is not a problem confined to Bigastro. Throughout the country teams will be meeting up on the 15th June to clear up their areas of natural beauty.

All that you are asked to do is give up one hour of your time between 7:30pm and 8:30pm to help clean up the leisure zone.

As the slogan says, "we are part of the problem and part of the solution". 

NB You may have noticed a team of workers in yellow vests cleaning up the roundabouts. This is an annual campaign for which Bigastro receives funding. In time they will cover the whole of the town and clean up verges pathways, parks etc including those in our urbanisation.

Photo rally

Having submitted a few photos for this, I'll be down at the Sala Polivalente tonight at 8pm ready to collect my diploma and T shirt.

Spotted on beaches at Mazarron

The Portuguese man o' war is a highly venomous open ocean predator that superficially resembles a jellyfish but is actually a siphonophore. Each man o' war is actually a colony of several small individual organisms that each have a specialised job and are so closely intertwined that they cannot survive alone.

If you spot one, let the authorities know and DON'T RISK TOUCHING IT. Although their poison rarely kills humans, it can be extremely painful.

Little Ana

 Some of you will remember Ana Moya who taught us Spanish in the first years that we were here. The middle girl in the pink is Ana's daughter who is also called Ana.

The occasion is the coronation of fiesta queens in Molins and Ana is one of the three Infant Queens for 2019.

The format of the ceremony was slightly different to that in Bigastro but was equally delightful.

Noisy weekend

Try again

Last photographic competition I misinterpreted the theme. This one is very clear.

Let's look more closely

If we go back to 2007 (the first vote that Pam and I participated in) the PSOE had the majority with 8 seats and 58.24% of the vote. The total of votes was 3,981 which represented 88.82% of those eligible to vote.

Yesterday, the PP held on to their 7 seats with 48.29 % of the vote. The total number of votes was down to 3,504  which represented 74.49% of those eligible to vote. As the caption says, 40 more votes for the PSOE would have given them the seat awarded to the Liberal coalition.

Looking at it another way; in 2007 the PP got 1,525 votes, yesterday they got 1,666 - just 142 more but that was enough to give them 2 more seats than they had in 2007, On the other hand the Socialists were only given 1,341 votes yesterday which was 955 less than they got in 2007 losing them 3 seats. Possibly,  some of those that once voted for the PSOE have changed their allegiance to the PP but also many may have stopped voting hence the reduced turnout. 

Looking at the country as a whole we see that the total number of voters increased and the abstention rate fell from 4 years ago. We can also see that the PSOE were the winners overall. However they lost out in the "jewel in the crown", Madrid and the Madrid region.

The results

The PP have maintained their majority with 7 seats (the same number as last time). The Socialists still have 5 seats and Aurelio clung on to his one seat.

You can probably hear the celebrations from the Town Square which will continue into the night.

Fuelled up and ready to go

Tradition dictates that the party faithful meet up at 7:30am on the day of the election for breakfast before heading off to the polling stations. There they will be helping out in various capacities.

For the General Election, Pam was there with them but an early morning get up is not her style. She will join them later today to do her stint.

If you have seen my photos from the final meeting of the campaign which was eventually held in the Auditorium, you will see how determined they were during their last push. Each of the candidates spoke and delivered a clear message to the audience.

Of this you can be certain, if the PP fail in their mission to get Teresa reelected as Mayor, it will not be through lack of effort.

Please don't forget

Whatever else you do today, don't forget to go and vote. Whichever party you chose to give your vote to, the important thing is that you show your support.

That's a promise she will keep

On your behalf, I thanked Teresa this morning for taking the trouble to come to La Pedrera. In reply she said that it was "an interesting experience".

Teresa went on to say that, if her party are still in power, she will arrange a similar meeting every year if that is what we would like. I felt confident enough to tell her that we would very much appreciate regular meetings.

Third time lucky

It seems that the Liberals, who have a meeting scheduled for the Centro Social Integrado at the same time, have  objected to the PP holding their meeting outside in the Plaza de la Concordia.

The suggestion is that the PP meeting should now take place in the Sala Polivalente in the Auditorio Francisco Grau but I have yet to see confirmation of that on Facebook.

Special thanks

In addition to my thanks for your attendance last night, I would also like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to those of you who took the time to thank me for this blog especially Jim Ryder.

My first post was made on January 6th 2006. Since then I have written 7,373 articles.

I apologise for the odd misspelling and for any grammatical errors that you find. In my defence, I would point out that some national newspapers do a lot worse than I do. 

Once more, I would like to thank Jim Ryder for his kind words. I hope that the 1st of June is a red letter day for you and your family!

Please take care

Work has begun to install lighting on the Vereda el Molino as far as the Municipal Sports Centre.

You are advised to take care as you drive along that route during the next two weeks.

Once the work is completed, speed bumps will be installed to make it a safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

Closures and parking

This one is for Saturday. 

The final push

Today, each of the parties in contention will be making their final push for your votes on Sunday. The Liberals will hold their meeting in the Centro Social Integrado and the PSOE will be in the Plaza Constitucion. I haven't seen any information at all about Cuidanos.

The PP had originally intended to hold their meeting in the Parque Huerta del Cura. However, following an objection from the PSOE, it has been moved to the Plaza de la Concordia.

A huge thank you

On behalf of my wife Pam, I should like to thank all of those residents who took the trouble to go up to the Restaurant La Pedrera for the meeting last night. It was very kind of you all to show such support for her candidacy.

I'd also like to thank Teresa Maria Belmonte Sanchez, Teresa Moya Moya and the other candidates for being there to answer questions and concerns that people have before the election on Sunday.

It has been a long while since the residents here have had an opportunity to make their voices heard, last night put that right. There were legitimate concerns raised which the Mayor listened to carefully. I firmly believe that the valuable points that people raised will not be ignored and will, where possible, be acted upon in due course

As I said last night, Teresa has worked long and hard to improve the town and resurrect it from the mess that is was in. She strikes me as one of those rare politicians that actually put the needs of the the town before their own personal political ambitions.

I will certainly be voting for her and I hope you do too. Thank you all once again for turning up and supporting Pamela.

More documents on show

Oh dear

Some people just don't photograph well.

The day after Teresa May tells of the changes she has made to try and win votes for her Brexit plan, most of the British newspapers have savaged her.

One of the most Tory newspapers out there leads the pack with this front page story entitled, Desperate, deluded, doomed.

Just to reinforce the point, they have included three images which I am certain Mrs May would prefer them not to publish.

I am no fan of Teresa May but I think that this is just a tad cruel. Imagine the lady's reaction when she sees this.

PS In their reaction to this new proposal. some MPs have chosen colourful expressions. The best I have read came from Green MP Caroline Lucas  who said Ms May had done no more than “put lipstick on a pig”.