Join in the celebrations

Forty years has passed since the Spanish Constitution was first published and Bigastro wants to commemorate this moment.

Events are planned to take place on the 5th and 6th of December.

Another weekend of entertainment

As you will recall, the Union Musical de Bigastro is celebrating it centennial this year and so the concert on Saturday promises to be something special.

Pascual Segura has put together a 100 page book which documents the history of the Society which I hope to obtain a copy of.

The sad state of affairs

Looking at pictures of the flood waters of the Segura, there are numerous plastic bottles and other items of debris floating in the river.

Where will all this plastic end up? In the sea as it floats down to the estuary at Guardamar.

Window dressing

Location is everything

This table illustrates the differences between different locations in the Vega Baja.

There are only a few kilometres between Torrevieja and Guardamar but one is at the top of the table and the other the bottom.

NB 104,8 l/m2 is equivalent to 4.13 inches of rain and 12,4 equals 0.49 inches.

In Britain, they talk about the amount of rain in inches. It is calculated by measuring the depth of water accumulated independent of  the area. 

In Spain, we talk about the number of litres accumulated in a square metre which is of course different.

So much water, where does it come from?

 I hardly need to tell you, we are in a spell of heavy rainfall AGAIN!

When I woke at about 6am, I could hear the rain outside.

When I later got up and looked out the window, the pool was full to the brim.

In the picture below you can see the culprit, that heavy band of cloud that is passing over the southern coast

We know from past episodes that intense rain is often very localised and whilst we may be deluged, down the road it could be almost dry.

There are videos on Facebook today showing flooded roads in Torrevieja so we can assume that the coast got the brunt of the heaviest downfalls. In fact, Torrevieja is described as "in chaos" with roads and schools closed.

That is a lot of water

The Segura after the rain

Santa Cecilia

The Last Supper

Following the opening of the classroom, we were treated to an enthralling dance spectacular.

Inaugurating a lecture room for the University

Last night, representatives from the University at Alicante and the lady mayor signed an agreement to create a lecture room for the university.

In my photo there are the representatives from the University along with the lady mayor and the councillor for fiestas.

I was unlucky

The rain we were promised came in the early hours of the morning.

I woke to go to the toilet and could hear distant thunder. Then I heard the rain outside the bedroom. The thunder got closer and the rain increased in intensity. Eventually, it calmed down and I was able to get back to sleep.

In the meantime, Pam just slept through it!!

Looking at the statistics for Orihuela it seems that 25mm or rain fell between about 5:30 and 6:30am. That must have been the time I woke up. 

The map shows that the whole of the coast is on alert for rain with Valencia on red alert. 

My gotcha

Here is Fonta at the event on Sunday, snapping away at the audience.

Note to Fonta, you need to bounce that flash upwards to avoid nasty shadows - especially in portrait mode. I had a fair bit of work to remove the shadow on the wall on my left in your photo.

He got me

Often, when Fonta and I are taking pictures at an event, we capture a quick shot of each other. We try to do it without being noticed.

Fonta certainly succeeded here, I had no idea he'd taken this until I saw it in his Facebook album.

Gender violence

Complete the weekend

So, Friday we are invited to the opening of the new classroom followed by a dance spectacular, Saturday there is the showing of the DVD that has been made collecting accounts from the senior citizens of the town and now we have a choral concert on Sunday.

Speaking about the old days

The Town Hall has produced a compilation of anecdotes from some of the oldest members of the community. In the DVD, the neighbours talk about the food they prepared, the musical tradition, the games they played etc etc.

The end result of this project will be screened this Saturday at 6pm.

Part one

The first part of my video about Bigastro, made using my drone, is live on YouTube.

I now need to move on to grabbing shots of the town and video of the market garden so I can complete the second part.

You can view the first part using this link. It includes shots of La Pedrera and Villas Andrea.

Honoured for his work

In a delightful ceremony yesterday, Pascual Segura was named as the official historian to the town.

My first contact with Pascual was when he was producing a blog about the history of the town. Soon after he launched a page on Facebook with old photos that people supplied him with.

As a musician in the band, Pascual became involved in sorting out the archives of the Musical Society to ensure that they were properly preserved for generations to come.

As part of his website project, Pascual decided to interview people in the town that he considered interesting. Thus I became the second person to feature on his website.  I had already supplied Pascual with thousands of photos of the band which he described as the archive for the future.

His next project was to investigate the scientist, Thomas Villanova. After an enormous amount of research, Pascual was able to present an illustrated talk about the bigastrense. He was also able to write a book which was published with assistance from the Province.

His latest research about the Auroros led to a further pamphlet which details the history of this tradition in the town.

At the same time, Pascual has produced articles about aspects of the town's history e.g. the time when it was bombed during the Civil War.

In my photos, Pascual being presented with his certificate from the town and then being congratulated by the lady mayor on receiving a medal to mark his entry into the Royal Association of Historians.

One to watch

We'd recommend that, those of you who have UK TV, watch Peter Jackson's "They Shall Not Grow Old" if you haven't already done so.

As a film in its own right it is compelling but as a documentary about conditions during the 1st World War, it is a must.

Jackson used old black and white archive footage which was then colourised, retouched and stabilised before being dubbed with a soundtrack of banter, explosions and screams from the men who fought for Britain between 1914 and 1918.

BBC 2 11th November.

New Year's Eve

As you know, New Year's Eve is the more important occasion during the Festive Season in Spain.

Camping La Pedrera are putting on a special meal which you can see from this menu.