San Isidro 2012

	It is that time of year again when Bigastro celebrates the patron saint of farm workers with a Romeria which means the statue of the Saint will be carried from the town up to La Pedrera in a grand procession which will include people from the town, the fiesta queens etc etc
	The form is as usual: Mass at 10am. Then the assembled party will make their way up to the hermitage at La Pedrera.  At 5pm there will be a disco for the adults and bouncy castles for the children. Then at 8pm, the party will return San Isidro to the church stopping off at the park near the new school for the traditional lettuces and maybe a drink or two.

That sounds bizarre

You remember that the infant school La Paz held an exhibition of work for the little boy Manu who lives in Jacarilla?

Well , on Saturday 12th May at 7pm the theatre group Amamacriajoro Jacarilla are putting on a performance called “Snow White’s dad will not eat onions” and the proceeds will go to help the little boy and his family.

Funky pair

On Sunday 13 May at 6:30pm there will be a concert featuring José M. Bañuls and Elwin Hendrijanto - one on piano and the other on saxophone.

That is a funky photo of the pair! Must have taken a bit of doing to a) get them both in the air at the same time and b) to light them so well with flash outdoors.

San Isidro

I am reliably told that the programme for San Isidro is now available from the fruit and veg. shop opposite the chemist (among other places). The date is the 19th May.

Thanks to Scout John for providing this information.

Feeding the five thousand

Over the time that we have lived here, the Fiesta de la Cruz has grown in popularity. When Pam and I first went down for the grand paella there were only a handful of tables where people sat. Now they erect a large marquee and arrange dozens of table to accommodate the diners and for the last few years, the neighbours from the district prepare the arroz – five large paellas full!

Adding the rice	Waiting for the paella to be ready
The mix has to be right	The chefs pose for a photo

If you look at my album, you will see that they are not all a crowd of smiling faces, perhaps they were hungry waiting!

I’ll pass on that one!

This information panel will show the climbing routes on the Black Wall of the Sierra de Orihuela. In all there are 30 routes but some are only available to the most experienced of climbers.

To open these routes, a great deal of work had to be done to remove the Arizona cactus which covered the mountain. That work is of course ongoing but at least now the wall is clear for climbers.

Once all the routes have been passed, a booklet describing them will be available in the Tourist Office.

Rallying together on the coast

It seems that the Automobile Club Vega Baja Federation in collaboration with the Federation of Motor Sport in the Valencian Community have organised the first Orihuela Coast Rally which will take place on Friday and Saturday. Quite what route they will be taking and where the special stages will be, I have no idea.

Que pasa

Sometimes I post a photo on Flickr which I think might attract attention but only get a few viewings and then other times I post pictures which I think will be of little interest and the viewings go off the scale.  The classic one is of three pens which has been viewed 2,319 times, has nine comments and 8 people have bookmarked it as a favourite. Next up is a photo of a pile of bills which has been viewed 1,572 times and is counted as a favourite by 6 people.

One photo which didn't; attract much attention when it was posted was of the two silver rings that I bought from Boots the chemist - they supposedly cure snoring.  The photo was more of a comment than a work of art so I wasn’t at all surprised.

In the last few days though, viewings have gone mad.  On the fourth May, 140 went to look at it, then a further 133 the next day. So far today, a further 79 people have viewed it taking its total to 451. Quite why there is such interest, I have no idea!

On the up

After a few false starts, it looks like the weather is starting to settle down to what we would expect.

Our friends Glenys and Peter were over for the last couple of weeks and had some mixed weather. Thankfully there was quite a bit of sun but there were days when it clouded over either for the morning or for the afternoon. They even had a few hours of rain to contend with.

The rest of this last week was a lot better but still cold at night and of course yesterday was cloudy and grey in the morning when I went down to take photos of the cross. Today is much better, the skies are blue and the sun is shining so it should be good for the paella later on.

Looking at the temperature chart for this next week – climbing up to 31 by the weekend it just perfect. Pam will be pleased, she flies back from Manchester tomorrow. Today will have been cloudy and cold for her and tomorrow she could well see some rain on the way to the airport. She’ll be glad to get her washing out on Tuesday which will be dry within the hour!

 

Bum steer

My friend, scout John went down yesterday to see the Holy Cross. However, when he got there, there were no flowers on it. When he asked, John was told that it would be dressed this morning at 10am.

I thought that sounded like a great opportunity for some good photos – people actually fixing the leaves and flowers to the iron cross so I went down at 10am this morning only to find that it had all been done. Still, not to worry it does look rather splendid even though the sky was grey.

I didn’t see any evidence of small crosses on the walls of houses, maybe they will be put up later.

For the moment here is the main cross and some details from it:

In case you thought that the cross was decorated the same each year, here are a few versions from previous years.

It’s not all our fault

In a report by the official auditors of data from 2009, it was revealed that millions of Euros had been lost in the health system due to bad administration. In particular it was the administration for foreign patients that produced the greatest losses.

The auditors found a large number of administrative and bureaucratic failures that prevented the correct tariffs from being applied, allowed SIP cards to be issued to foreigners who did not comply with current legislation, the duplication of SIP cards and a total lack of information technology that gave way to people making up what to charge and a major failure in charging patients countries of origin

Now we can’t be blamed for that, it is up to the authorities to sort the mess out and make the correct charges to Britain for our treatment and medicines. Many of us did not arrive with existing conditions, they have developed since we came to these shores.

That’s where the money is

When I was a young art student, many of my contemporaries and certainly my parents dismissed so called modern art as a load of hog wash. They could not understand why anyone should get excited by it.
Obviously there are those who think differently and are prepared to pay a lot to own a piece of art history.
Here is a list of the top ten selling art pieces and you notice that, with the exception of the Chinese vase, they are all from that so called “modern art” period.

1. Edvard Munch's The Scream (1895), auctioned at Sotheby's Sales of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Art on 2 May 2012 in New York City.  The painting sold for $119,922,500
2. Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (1932) sold for $106,482,500.
3. L'homme qui Marche I (1961), by Alberto Giacometti sold for £65,001,250 ($105,182,398).
4. Picasso's Boy With a Pipe (1905) sold at Sotheby's New York for $104,168,000.
5. Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912), went under the hammer at Christie's New York, 8 November 2006. The painting sold for $87,936,000
6. Francis Bacon's Triptych (1976) sold for $85.9m to oligarch Roman Abramovich.
7. A Chinese 18th century Qianlong dynasty porcelain vase, sold for £53,100,000 ($85,921,461) at Bainbridges auction house in London, 12 November 2010.
8. Dora Maar au Chat (1941) by Pablo Picasso, sold at Sotheby’s for £51,560,080 ($83,429,503).
9. Portrait of Dr Paul Gachet (1890) by Vincent van Gogh. This painting sold for $82,500,000 (£50,985,692) at Christie's in New York on 15 May 1990.
10. Claude Monet's Le Bassin aux Nymphéas (1919) sold at Christie's in London for £40,921,250 ($66,212,514).

Every child loves a granny

We read a lot about the problems that the Internet creates and the dangers it poses to young people. Here is a story from the BBC website that illustrates the other side of the coin, where the Internet is providing great benefit to the young. In this case children in the poorest parts of India.

The Granny Cloud

The Granny Cloud project is the brainchild of Prof Sugata Mitra, best-known for his hole-in-the-wall computer scheme which put basic PCs into some of the poorest parts of India. The work is being supported by the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University.

Prof Mitra installed the first such computer on the wall of his south Delhi office, opposite a slum. He was amazed to see that the children, initially curious about the machine, soon became self-taught experts. Within days the children were able to browse the internet, cut and paste copy, drag and drop items and create folders.

The children liked to draw, discovering how to use the Microsoft Paint programme to create paintings. Then they moved on to downloading games and playing them. By the second month they had discovered MP3 music files and were downloading songs.

Prof Mitra noticed they did best when an adult was present offering advice and encouragement over their shoulders. There was, he reasoned, no-one so encouraging as a granny and so the idea was born.

The grannies are retired people in Britain who volunteered to take part. They use Skype and messaging to talk to the children in India, they read them books and show them photos and apparently the children love it.

It is good to know that “third age” citizens can make a contribution even if they are not totally in touch with current trends.

Will it happen?

Fifty eight percent of the municipalities in the Alicante province have less than 5,000 inhabitants. In total throughout Spain there are 8,116 small towns, each with its own council, mayor, budget etc, each trying to provide the services that you would expect from your local council. Many are struggling and like Bigastro (which lies above that threshold with a pop. of over 7,000) are drowning in debt.

The government has now decided that this is an untenable situation and urges those small communities to merge to produce more viable units. However, as you might expect, there is some resistance to this suggestion. Towns, no matter how small, want to keep their own political make up, In particular they do not want to be merged with a council with a different political agenda.

The plan could effect savings of 10,500 million Euros which is a considerable sum in anyone's books but whether anything will come of it we will have to wait and see.

Put your best foot forward

The Department of Social Welfare has organised ballroom dance classes in collaboration with Recycle Alicante.

They start on the 7th May and run from 5pm until 6:30pm.
There is no charge for this. If you are interested you can register with Social Services on 965350000 / ext. 3 or directly at the course.

Especially for us

Calling all pensioners (that would be most of us at Villas Andrea).  The Department of Third Age in collaboration with the Club for Pensioners and Senior Citizens has organised a Guateque for us on Saturdays starting at 8:30pm. The cost is 3Euros which includes a snack.

For those who haven’t worked it out from the poster, a guateque is a party and picoteo is a snack.

I hope he is alright

I uploaded my pictures of the Gala for Manos Unidos to my friend Germán in the Ayuntamiento and then sent him an email telling him I had done it. I usually get a reply from Germán that day and then maybe later on or the next day he posts the pictures into the Bigastro web site Photo Gallery.

This time though nothing. Maybe he is on holiday, I hope so. 

All to play for

From my meagre understanding, football is as much about psychology as it is about skill. When you are up and winning games, you have faith in yourselves, when you are beat and loosing, you lack confidence.

Several weeks ago, United had eight clear points from their rivals City and what seemed an easier run in to the end of the season. Now they are neck and neck with City leading on goal difference.

Many said the derby match last night would not be a critical match for either team, even my son-in-law said it and he is about as expert on these matters as anyone you would wish to meet. The thought was that the league would have been decided either way before last night but it wasn’t and the next two games will be critical for both teams.

CIty’s boss, Mancini said that United would still win the league even if the two teams drew last night. They didn’t draw though so where does that leave us? Those people who have already printed Champions T-shirts in red may have to go back and change the colour to pale blue.

To be fair, City have lead the field for so much of the season, they deserve to get their first title since 1968 and if United play the last two games the same as last night, they deserve to loose it. Just don’t tell Dave I said that! 

That was some party

The two footballers who own the house next door don’t come up here very often to use the house. Mainly, it is used for parties when they invite friends around for a barbecue. They are usually noisy affairs where the children scream at the tops of their voices.

Yesterday though was something very different. The ladies had been up to the house the week before to clean everywhere up and that should have been a clue. In the morning they arrived with all the paraphernalia they needed to decorate the outside ready. First off was a long table with chairs either side where the forty children were going to sit. Then there was black netting to cover the walls at the bottom. They strung balloons along the fence between the houses and stuck butterflies and other items to it. There was a large poster stuck to the house wall which looked lie a rural scene from a children’s book and posts with ropes to provide an entrance from the main gates. They even put down carpet over the concrete. Of course, a sound system had to be brought in with a speaker on a stand and finally they erected a bouncy castle in the road.

About five pm the guests arrived and they organised sack races and other games for the children. Then the children sat down to eat whilst the adults supervised. Later, more adults arrived and the party by this time was in full swing and was still going strong at midnight when I went to bed. The music had been turned off by that stage, it was mainly the children screaming at the tops of their voices that I could hear. Fortunately our bedroom is on the other side of the house. By closing all the shutters and the bedroom door, I was able to restore peace to Casa El Willo.

When I went out to survey the debris this morning, I was pleased to find that they had cleared most of it up. On our side of the fence there was just a burst balloon and what looked like a cake that had managed to fly over!

So a minor inconvenience really for what I imagine was a superb party for all the invited guests.

Car chase ends in carnage

When the Guardia Civil in Torrevieja spotted an Audi A6 being driven by someone known to them, they gave chase. The driver, who had just recently being released from jail and had a history of burglary, sped off dodging lights and other cars on the road. Finally he hit a parked car, lost control and managed to destroy eight cars in the process, two of which were overturned. 

As the miscreant tried to flee the scene, the agents drew their guns and got him to lie down on the road where they handcuffed him.

Incidents like this  always raise the question of whether the police should give chase to runaway cars. Does the danger that these kind of chases pose to other road users, the risk of someone being hurt outweigh the benefits of catching the criminal at all costs? I dare say the owners of the parked cars have a view on this.