Que frio!!!

The heavy cloud and  cold air coming in from the north will bring the coldest weather this area has suffered since January 2005, the first winter that we were here.

Nought degrees at night rising to  only nine during the daytime is bloody cold and with a dewpoint as low as -10 it will feel even colder!

Then, just as things start to improve a little by Sunday, the wind will pick up making it feel just as cold!

I am so glad we had our boiler serviced last Monday because it will be working flat out to keep us warm.

PS Yesterday was mostly sunny and so felt warm unless you were stood in the shade. As I post this, it is pouring with rain outside and work has stopped on the house next door.

Unless the rain stops, Pam and I are going nowhere today!

Some would say it was a lively debate

Having read an account of the council meeting in Bigastro, it sounds like it ought to have been televised. Even the best TV script writers could not have come up with a story like this.

The hall was packed with people waiting to see the battle they knew would ensue. The audience were naturally divided between those who supported either side of the argument. As the present team taunted the socialists their supporters booed and as the PP/UNPLC gained points their supporters cheered. 

The main target was of course the ex mayor, Raúl Valerio Medina who side stepped the accusations made against him by shifting the blame to his predecessor, José Joaquín Moyá.

One particularly stinging attack was made by Antonio González who is now in charge of Finance. Amongst other things he said that, such was the chaos of the socialist accounting system, some bills had been paid two or three times.

During the election campaign, many socialist supporters accused Aurelio Murcia of being a thief, last night he told them, “now we’ll see who comes out of this a thief”.

I imagine that everyone who was at the meeting needed a good stiff drink to get over the three hour session.

Something for the weekend

I can’t find a web site dedicated to the Medieval Market this year, what I can tell you is the it runs from this Friday to Sunday.

From past experience, Saturday and Sunday are the most popular days so, if you want to look around without the crowds, perhaps Friday is the best day to go.

No doubt there will be all sorts of events taking place but as I say, without a programme, I can’t tell you what or when these will be.

The thing I am most looking forward to is one of those roast pork sandwiches – naughty but very tasty.

The Russian takeover

According to the newspaper Laverdad, the Texas Oil Company Ltd is owned by Russian capitalists and investors and has its headquarters in one of the luxury villas built by the Jesus Quesda family in Ciudad Quesada.

Apart from marketing fuel, oils and lubricants for cars, they also market food and beverages; sell, service and rent all types of vehicles and run hotels and restaurants.

The paper goes on to explain that Texas Oil SL  are currently in the business of acquiring petrol stations in the Southern Costa Blanca region, particularly those that are showing low profits. They have just bought a station in Mutxamel and are looking at one in Los Montesinos along with further stations in the industrial area of Babel and Apollo Street in Torrevieja.

These petrol stations were previously owned by Tamoil, a company linked to the family of Muammar Gaddafi.

The good news for consumers is that the newly acquired Texas oil stations offer the lowest prices for fuel in the province; for example their biodiesel is priced at 1.229 Euros per litre. Just a pity that Skoda warns you not to use this fuel in their diesel engines because it can cause damage.

A neat product

Whilst writing this blog, I often find pictures that I want to incorporate into my stories. If they are my own photos, then I simply insert them into Windows Live Writer (the best blogging tool out there) but when the pictures are screen grabs, the process used to be a lot more tedious. When I had Vista, I used to grab the whole page and then edit it using Photoshop to crop out the unwanted parts. It was the same when I wanted to use a screen grab for my Flickr 365 project.

For those who still use earlier versions of Windows, there is a better solution that comes in the form of a program called SnapIt.

Read the description of what this program does and see whether it could help save you time.
Capture anything you see on your PC screen with SnapIt. It is convenient tool for graphic designers, bloggers who capture and crop images for their posts, for tech writers who need to describe menus and interfaces of applications, web designers and those who work with graphics every day. It captures and auto saves images with one click. * Supports hotkeys, auto-saving, clipboard * Automatically copies screenshots to the clipboard * Tracks capture history, auto-saves captured images * Saves files in BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG and TIFF formats * Auto-names captured images

You can find out more about this product by clicking this link Screen Capture Software.

PS If you have Windows 7 on your computer, you will already have a similar program called Snipping Tool which does much the same thing. SnapIt is really for those with older versions of Windows up to Vista.

Romance is not dead

For Valentine’s Day, the Department of Commerce and Hotel in Torrevieja will be installing a giant screen in the Plaza de la Constitución.

Anyone who wishes, can make a video declaring their love which will then be shown on the screen between the 10th and 14th February.

Tell me a story

These are the winners of the competition for Christmas Stories:

INFANT CATEGORY:

Two first prizes:

Carmen Navarro Andréu Dunia "The First Christmas"

Monica Torres Belmonte "Christmas Lucia"

Second Prize:

Rosa Maria Moya Anton "Christmas cakes"

Special Mention:

James Van Ravenstein Grau "Santa's Dream"

JUNIOR CATEGORY:

First Prize:

Pablo Perales Andreu "It happened at Christmas"

ADULT CATEGORY:

First Prize:

Marina Medina Esquiva "Man of the Park"

Special Mentions:

Belén Antolín Rodriguez "The Miracle of Three Kings Day"

Evaristo Moya Moya  "Cludy and the Snowman"

SENIOR CATEGORY:

First Prize:

María Esquiva Belmonte "Migratory Birds"

Special Mention:

Teresa Garcia Gracia "The Miracle of Christmas"

I recognise one name in particular there – Evaristo Moya Moya who got a special mention in the Adult Category. I know he reads this blog so to him I offer my congratulations.

Close to home

Included in the documents published by Aurelio Murcia are those related to the sale of municipal land by our house. The project was to build a hotel complex along with golf practice courses at La Predrera. As it turned out, this was deemed to be illegal and so the company concerned, Proyectos e Inversiones Patrimoniales Rambla  SL, sent a document to the Ayuntamiento on the 7th April last year claiming 7,405,283.01 Euros in damages for the losses they have suffered.

This is, you will recall, the subject of one of the cases against the former mayor, José Joaquín Moya Esquiva, yet to be examined by the courts.

Figures rarely tell lies

Monday at 8pm, there is a Council Meeting scheduled at the Ayuntamiento in Bigastro and so with perfect timing Aurelio Murcia has published on the town’s web site the audit report that was commissioned by the PP just after they were elected. The sorry picture of the town’s situation is there in black and white for all to see.

What the new government team asked Aplem Consulting  to do was to provide an accurate picture of the state of finances for the town as of the 31st May 2011.

In the report, the auditors highlighted the difficulty they had in obtaining accounting data from the people responsible because normal accounting procedures had not been strictly followed.

Still Aplem Consulting came up with figures which show that 7,770,888 Euros was owed to creditors – that debt is pending legal action. The financial debt was calculated at 4,924,174.30 Euros; which when interest for late payment is added on rises to 5.7 million Euros. The total of debt for Bigastro is a staggering 31 million Euros.

You can find the report, along with other relevant documents by following this link.

PS Now I understand why there are no budget figures on the web site for the town after 2008. I think it is fair to say that there could be some red faces at the meeting on Monday!

For the literary types

Calling all bookworms!

For the benefit of those of you who like a good read, Maxine and Carol have agreed to take over running the “La Pedrera Book Club”. This club, which was started by Allan White, has quite a lot of books to choose from to suit all tastes.

The important thing though is to know when and where you go to borrow or return your books:

Sunday once a month between 3 and 4pm in the bar up at La Pedrera starting today.

Que frio

The main topic of conversation in Bigastro is how cold it is at the moment.

If the forecasts are correct, it will get a whole lot colder towards the end of next week. One forecast shows temperatures at night plummeting to –1 on Thursday night. I’d rather go with AEMET’s forecast which says it will drop to 2 degrees on Tuesday night and then pick up slightly to 3 the days afterwards. Temperatures in the daytime will not be what we would regard as mild – 14 degrees is not good.

The only crumb of comfort for us is to look at weather conditions for England which is in the middle of a cold snap. According to forecasts, temperatures will barely rise above freezing in the daytime and will drop to minus 3 or 4 at night in Manchester where our youngest daughter lives. If it is any comfort to her, things will be worse for our eldest daughter who lives in the Midlands. The forecast for Wolverhampton is for daytime temperatures of minus 4 in the daytime and minus 8 at night by the end of next week. 

Cheeky buggers

Trying to fiddle the electricity is something that has been going on for years. I remember hearing of people in Britain who used magnets  and other devices to stop the wheel in the meter from turning. I also heard of people trying to connect to the supply before the meter and even hooking up to street lights to get themselves free electricity.

Where the cables are underground, it is very difficult to get yourself free electricity but of course, in many parts of Spain, the cables are still carried on poles especially in areas where there would not have been a supply before the houses were built. Making a connection to a pole is obviously a whole lot easier.

I read in the papers this morning that engineers from Iberdrola, accompanied by officers from the Guardia Civil, visited houses in Orihuela, Bigastro and Benejúzar where the owners had connected up to the poles that carry overhead cables to get themselves free electricity. The houses were apparently in the poorer areas of the towns.

In some cases Iberdrola suspect the fraud may well have been going on undetected for years. The neighbours knew what was happening but were afraid to report the cases for fear of reprisals.

The company say that it will be very difficult to work out exactly how much electricity was consumed without payment because they have no no way to meter an illegal connection to the poles that carry the cables.

The engineers from Iberdrola dismantled the connections and warned the individuals of criminal proceedings but they know it will only be a matter of days before new connections are made. They now need to find a way to prevent these people from making a connection to the overhead cables.

The importance of the bar

We learnt yesterday that there is no such thing as a Spanish town, no matter how small, that doesn’t have at least one bar. The directory of companies on the Bigastro web site lists 30 bars, cafeterias and restaurants in a town of 7,000 people.

The bar is the centre of social activity in the town, it is the place where Spaniards go for breakfast, for an aperitif before lunch, for tapas during the evening and at the weekends it is the place to meet up with friends.

There are bars that open at 7am to serve breakfast to workers, there are those that open just in the evenings to serve tapas and drinks and yet others which are open during the daytime to serve people around lunchtime. A few are open both during the day and also at night.

It isn’t all about alcohol though, visit any bar to observe the locals and you will find many of them drinking water or soft drinks. When they do drink beer, it is usually in a small glass or cana. Pint glasses are normally reserved for foreigners - notably Brits. The other thing you will notice are the families, children are just as welcome in a bar as adults but usually only during fiestas or at the weekends. Where do you go after mass on Sunday – to the bar of course!

Most bars serve food in the form of snacks and sandwiches, some though will have an area where you can enjoy a cheap but cheerful menu of the day. Remember that the main meal for Spaniards is taken between 2pm and 4pm. La cena, in the evening is usually just a snack of some sort. All that is changing though in cosmopolitan areas where tourists want a main meal during the evening and just a snack at lunchtime.

Back to square one

After closing the market at the Recinto Ferial and looking to move it to the area by Ociopia, it now seems that Orihuela’s market will located back in the Recinto Ferial. Plots for the stalls are being marked out in readiness for January 31st.

There are also plans for Orihuela to hold a Saturday market in the city centre. This would only have 150 stalls so it will not compete with the regular Tuesday market which has 295 stalls.

Every little helps

I read this morning in the Costa Blanca News about a scheme that Carrefour are running to help pensioners during the economic crisis. The hypermarket chain are offering over 65s a card which they call Plan 65+ which you can apply for in store. The paper does not explain just how you apply or what documents you will need to prove you are a pensioner.

Using the new card at the check out will apparently take off the tax (IVA) from all fresh products. The reduction applies to meat, fish, bread, pastries, fruit and vegetables, cheeses and eggs.

The standard rate of IVA in Spain is 18%, 8% for most foods and 4% for essential items like bread, milk, eggs, fruit, vegetables, cereals and cheeses.

Apparently the card can be used for online purchases as well as those made in store and can also be used by someone who is doing the shopping on your behalf.

You know the tax saved may not be much per item but every little helps.

Step 2

Having got myself a flash brolly kit, I needed to work out how to use it.

The first thing I had to do was to make sure that the flash filled the brolly (not much point having a large brolly and only using part of it).  That meant using the zoom facility on my flashgun to set the widest angle (smallest number) possible.

Since the flashgun was off the camera, I had to set the exposure manually.

Flash on my reflex camera will only work properly if the shutter speed is set at 1/200th of a second or slower so I set it to about 1/150th. Since the duration of the flash is much less than that, the speed set will not affect exposure. The exposre will be determined in this case by setting the aperture and the film speed (ISO).

Apart from controlling exposure, I use the aperture to control depth of field so I will want to set that accordingly. A smaller aperture (higher number) gives greater depth of field i.e. more of the subject will be in focus and a larger aperture (smaller number) will give less. Sometimes I want more and sometimes less. So I set the aperture first.

That leaves the film speed as the means to control exposure. A lower ISO number will give less exposure and a higher number more.  I could calculate the correct ISO number to use by using the guide number of the flashgun and the distance of the flashgun from the subject but to be honest, with a digital camera it is just as easy to use trial and error and examine the results on the screen at the back of the camera. Start with a rough estimate and then fine tune it is the way to go.

Ah but surely, having to use a high ISO will create a lot of horrible digital noise. That is true, anything less than about 1600 ISO is going to be OK on my camera. However, in those cases where I am going to use a small aperture which will mean setting a high ISO to compensate there is another trick I can employ. My flashgun can be set to different power levels ranging from full power to 1/128th power so, when I use a large aperture I can still use a low ISO speed by turning the power down.

You know this all sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is in practice.  As I said, it is all a matter of trial and error.

Step 3 Using the brolly as a reflector or as a diffuser.

That is some title!

A Classroom/Workshop Recital, "Ars Musicandum." will take place on Saturday 28th of January 28th at 5pm in the Auditorium Francisco Grau

Cost 2 Euros to cover the expenses of the Recital.

Let me explain; my late mother-in-law used to describe certain forms of classical music as “arsey”. To her ear, music by e.g Shostakovich was like, “rubbing your arse (backside) with a brick”. It was a colourful expression which  summed up beautifully the pain she felt when listening to certain contemporary composers.

I feel sure that Ars Musicanbum will not inflict the same sort of pain!

Orange and lemon trees can be fickle

For those who want to learn how to control pests and diseases that affect citrus trees, Bigastro is organising a 12 hour course.

The course for 25 students will be run by professionals from the Valencian Institute of Agricultural Research and will take place between the 23rd and 26th April in the Municipal Auditorium Francisco Grau - 7pm until 10 o’clock.

I would like to know why my lemon trees have yellow leaves in winter and why they only produce a small crop of fruit. However with only two trees and with insufficient Spanish to understand all that is being said, I’ll probably have to look elsewhere for an answer.

Actually, a friend of mine did point me in the right direction last year. He noticed that my trees were surrounded by limestone chippings and explained that lemon trees are not lime tolerant.

His solution was to remove the chippings and to feed the trees with some acidic material. He suggested collecting vegetable waste and old tea bags, let them rot well down and then spread the mix around the base of the trees.

A further suggestion was to add sulphur to the soil because that will loosen it and reduce the ph level. 

A noisy protest outside the town hall

Yesterday, a group of parents, students and teachers from IES Miguel Hernandez and the Colegio San José de Calasanz protested outside the Town Hall in Bigastro.

The headteacher at IES Miguel Hernandez, Paul Perales, said that the protest was about the cuts in spending by the council. He explained that his school has not received any money since May and that meant he could not even plug a heater in because there was no money for the diesel which runs the generator and added that his school is short of vital supplies like copier paper, chalk and even toilet paper. Inevitably, companies are reluctant to  keep supplies to the schools without payment of arrears.

The headteacher at San José de Calasanz, Solomon Rivera, painted a similar picture at his school. In his view, the two vital services in any town are health and education and these should not be affected by cuts in local council spending. The cuts, he says will lead to a decline in the quality of education provided.

It is all in a flash

Like a lot of photographers, I prefer to use available light when I can. However, there are times when the available light is either insufficient or is in the wrong direction for the effect you want to create; that is when you need a flashgun to provide light.

Many cameras have built in flash which you can use on these occasions but of course these have their limitations. The first is the power which is usually quite low meaning that they will only work within a relatively short distance. The second is the position, which is by definition close to the lens. Apart from the red eye effect this creates, this means the light produced is harsh, flat and unforgiving. My compact camera has built in flash and no alternative so when I need extra light, I have to put up with the unnatural effect it produces.

The obvious solution, with a camera which has a hot shoe or flash socket, is to buy an external flashgun which will have a lot more power. Mounting it on the top of the camera though still gives that unforgiving light and at the same time creates ugly black shadows especially if you use your camera in the vertical position. In a sense, moving the flash a little further way is worse than having it close. 

To soften the effect you need to make the flash appear to be larger which you can do with various clip on attachments. The simplest and cheapest of these is the Stofen which is made from translucent plastic. Pop it over the flash and point the flashgun head  upwards at about 45 degrees and bingo, the light is a lot softer and the shadows a lot less harsh. I use one of these a lot when I am out and about.

Even better though is to move the flashgun off the camera. Of course you then need a way to communicate between the flash and the camera. This can be in the form of an extension cord which fires the gun and transmits the data at the same time. You also need long arms, an assistant or a light stand/tripod to mount the flashgun on. If your camera is heavy like mine, holding it with one hand and a flashgun with the other is a no no.

Taking this all a step further, you can eliminate the trailing wire by using wireless flash triggers. The market leaders in this field are Pocket Wizards but these cost a fortune to buy. Fortunately, there are cheaper alternatives which may not be as durable but do the job equally well. The downside of most wireless triggers is that the flashgun no longer works in automatic mode meaning that you have to set the exposure manually. This is what we used to do anyway before TTL and then ETTL flash became the norm so it is no big deal. In any case, with digital cameras it is a lot easier than it was with film because at least with digital you see the results immediately and can make adjustments as necessary. 

So, now that you have the flash off the camera, it is time to consider other forms of light modifiers. The cheapest and simplest to set up is a brolly. Just like the kind of brolly you use in the rain but this time made of white, silver or gold material, these are used as a reflector to give a broader spread of light. You can also use a white translucent brolly the other way round i.e. you shoot the light through it to give an even softer, broader effect. Those professionals who have expensive soft boxes and beauty dishes may scorn them but the truth is the flash brolly is a very versatile tool.

That is where I am up to now, experimenting with ways to improve my flash pictures and capture better portraits of my granddaughter Molly. My next step is to consider a second flashgun either to be placed behind the subject to give a rim light or on the opposite side to the main light for cross light effects. That is very much for the future though, I need to master using one light and a reflector first!

For those who are interested, the Strobist blog explains all this a lot better than I do.