Inland from the Guadalquivir: Ducks, Drakes and Meres

After exploring the banks of the Guadalquivir[i], This weekend we turned inland to explore the countryside surrounding the town of Espera. To our surprise, we discovered a set of three meres, the Complejo Endorréico de Espera, that are home to a wide range of birdlife, both aquatic and otherwise.

Far in the distance, Fatetar castle dominates the countryside.

Turning off the main road, we took a dirt track towards the meres. Click here to see a map. As we took the track, to the left we coud see Espera's Fatetar Castle rising above the emerald green fields, more of which later.

We then took the track towards the wetlands. Today we were in Burbuja, my Dark Lady's Citröen C4, which was completely at home with the conditions. 

Scrubland, farmland and newly-sown fields.

Burbuja, parked up and watching over a complex of rabbity residences.

Leaving the castle behind,we forged on along well-maintined dirt tracks towards our destination. As we passed the undulating hills of farmland, we were amazed by the sheer number of birds to be seen: partridges running across the road as we approached, finches of every descrition wittering away in the bushes and trees, and marsh harriers hovering above us in search of a tasty hare or rabbit, whose warrens are to be found everywhere. 

Indeed, we were lucky enough to see two harriers involved in their aerial mating rituals. 

For a more exhaustive list of the flora and fauna to be found, click here. The common names are in Spanish, but they are accompanied by their Latin names, too.  

Bad joke: Q.;What do you call a man with a load of rabbits 

stuffed up his fundament?

A.: Warren.

The vastness of the landscape is truly amazing, yet the rolling hills make it seem more familiar and intimate than the endless plains that conform the Guadalquivir valley that lies beneath the foothills.

Soon we arrived at our destination. The first of the three meres, Laguna Hondilla, is completely fenced off and has no path around it, so we started to walk towards the second, Laguna Salada de la Zorilla.

Laguna La Zoriilla Salada.

If the truth be told, there was not a lot of birdlife to be seen, but we could certainly hear it; quackings, splashings, plashings honkings, flappings, tweetings, twitterings and witterings filled the air. In fact, it sounded frighteningly like one of the bird-brained Wednesday morning meetings at the august educational establishment where I have the honour and privilege to earn my crust.

Moreover, with just a phone camera, it would be well-nigh impossible to take good photos, but there are plenty to be seen in the links I have included above. 

After a walk around the mere and the surrounding countryside, it was time to head back to the car and explore the castle. 

Like many castles in Andalusia, the town's cemetary nestles close to the walls.

Fatetar Castle. you can just about see the tower on the left.

Although the rocky outcrop doesn't look particuarly high, the road leading up to the castle from the town side was quite steep and had to be taken in first gear. The view, however, was worth it, but not really woth photographing. Seen one alluvial plain, seen 'em all!

I did take some photos of the castle and its environs.

A piece of decorative stonework,
probably replaced during restoration.

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An interesting limestone formation

A set of doorways and an arch. All very
Velázquez.

       The entrance to the castle.
       Once serving as a church, it
         is now a museum.

Then it was back into the car and off to find somewhere to have a well-deserved coffee before returning to Sanlu to watch from our balcony the sun set over the neighours' houses.

And so, dear reader, to bed.

[i] BTW, Guadalquivir is a corruption of the Arabic, Guad-al-Kebir, literally big river, or in Spanish Río Grande – a name I’m sure that lovers of Westerns will be more than familiar with. 

On The Banks of the River Guadalquivir

Navigating the Guadalquivir. The Belle de Cadix, a mini

cruise liner that plies between Seville and Cádiz makes

its way upriver  on the tide from Cádiz. On the far side we

can see the Doñana Nature Park.

The river Guadalquivir runs almost the whole length of Andalusia and is navigable as far as the inland port of Seville where, in the 16th century, the gold from the Americas was offloaded from Spanish galleons and then straight onto waiting Genoese boats to service the debts that the profligate Spanish crown ran up with the Italian moneylenders.

Another of La Belle de Cadix with tourists lining the 
upper deck.

For years I lived in Seville and had often wondered if there was a road that ran the length of the river from Seville to its debouchement in the Atlantic at Sanlúcar de Barrameda, where I now live. Last Friday I found out that there was. This road is known as el Camino del Plástico the Plastic Road. My friend, Joaquín, told me that the name was a corruption of el Camino del Práctico - literally the river pilot's road.

I was also told that, although the road was in a bad state, it was driveable in a normal car so, on Sunday, my Dark Lady and I set off, taking the road from Trebujena as far as La Señuela, an abandoned village. For a satellite image of the journey, click here. If you want to see images from another blogger, click here.

The Mighty Focus, proud of a job well done,
poses in front of a building housing machinery 
that operates the sluice gates that control the 
surrounding marshy farmland's 

water levels.  

The day before, we had got as far as Lebrija through the salt pans of Sanlúcar and the pinewoods of La Algaida, passing flocks of flamingos and various other waders (grist for another blog) before having to turn back due to potholes that the Dark Lady's car did not have the necessary clearance to negotiate. Today, therefore, it was the trusty Ford Focus' turn. 



It performed the job manfully (carfully?) and only bottomed out on a couple of occasions. 

The Guadalquivir plain with the Sierra de Cádiz in the
background.

When we arrived at our starting point for the day - a landing stage for pleasure craft - we could see quite a large cargo ship in the distance, so we waited a while to see it pass but, unfortunately, as the tide was going out, the ship was waiting for the next rising tide. We pressed on, but not before taking a photo of the river plain on t'other side of the road. 

I would not go so far as to say that such flat, riverine, agricultural countryside is beautiful, but interesting it certainly is. Somehow, it reminded me of the Dee estuary on the Wirral Peninsula and the Severn estuary, as well as the plains of Lincolnshire. I suppose it was the salty tang in the air, coupled with the smell of fresh mud and the loneliness of the area.

Cows. Grazing, creating life, harming no-one. Creatures
of beauty. Photo courtesy of Vanesa CR

Here and there, we also saw beef cattle living out their tranquil  lives next to the river, as well as sheep grazing the aromatic herbs that grow on the salt marshes. As a carnivore who has had the privilege of eating lamb raised on a farm on the banks of the Severn, thanks to my cousin in Dursley, I immediately started to feel hungry. Not having any lamb chops on us, we stopped in a meadow and feasted on coffee from a flask and cakes instead.

Coffee, chocolate and egg
custard palmiers and a very
consistent Spanish custard. 

Then it was onwards and up(river)wards again. The next point of interest was a long avenue of eucaplyptus trees leading to La Señuela. Eucalyptus trees were originally planted in the Doñana area, replacing the native stone pines, in order to supply the paper industry with a cheap, replaceable, rapidly-growing source of cellulose. These trees impoverish the soil and are now slowly being removed in favour of the autocthonous pines. 

A view through the eucalyptus trees onto a stream
running parallel to the road and the river. The water, in 

contrast to the turbid Guadalquivir, is crystal clear

And so we motored on. Now however, the scenery became more industrialised as we entered the rice-growing part of the marshlands, so it was time to turn back and say hello to the placid cows again. 


On the way back we were also fortunate enough to witness the cargo ship we had seen that morning chunter past the landing stage where we had been waiting to watch it .

A nice, circular way to cap off our Sunday adventure

A Long Weekend in Andalusia Pt. 1.

Last weekend was a Bank Holiday here in Spain, celebrating the 1978 Constitution on Dec. 6th and some Virgin Mary or other's on the 8th - although I prefer to think of it as marking the anniversary of John Lennnon's death.

Luckily for us, my Dark Lady had Friday 5th off and I don't work on Fridays, so we set off to Granada while the rest of Spain - well at least the few who still have a job - were working. We decided to avoid the motorway for the first part of the journey and so went through the Sierra de Cádiz, stopping off for a coffee at Algodonales in El Cortijo a roadside restaurant/café/hotel with a charming exterior and interior. Here's a photo.

The Romantic Spain that many look for, but few find.

WHY BOB GELDOF AND HIS MATEYS WON'T BE SHAMING ME INTO PARTING WITH MY HARD-EARNED PENNIES.

Oh how it warmed the cockles of my heart to see Sir Bob Geldof and his superannuated millionaire mateys bestir themselves once again for the poor benighted Africans! 

Oh how (bowel-) moving to see the aristocracy of rock gather together in a spirit of brotherhood towards their fellow man and revive a conscience-stirring anthem of giving!

Oh how warm and fuzzy I felt inside seeing all of these rich people sacrifice their time and talents to help those less fortunate!

Oh how wonderful it must feel to swap anecdotes and tax dodges in a glow of camaraderie while quaffing champers and scoffing caviare butties (tax-deductible, no doubt).

Oh how guilty I felt as I fingered the change in my pocket, realising that I was going to have to spend it on diesel to get to work instead of buying this hymn to universal brotherhood.

Oh how grateful I felt to Bobby and his mates as they made me realise how selfish and uncaring I was towards my neighbour. 

Oh how unworthy I felt as cynically I wondered if this was nothing more that a ruse to revive various flagging careers.

Oh how much self-loathing and hatred I felt as I mused upon the fact that U2 gave away their latest album to iPhone owners (not exactly the most destitute of people) instead of putting it on sale at a greatly reduced price, proceeds going to combating Ebola. Obviously I am a hateful sceptic unfit to share a bottle of Bollinger with the great and good who were setting me such a shining example of self-sacrifice. 

In sum, instead of trying to shame ordinary people with their mortgages, school and/or university fees to part with a few pennies, why don't these people donate the royalties of one of their hit songs or albums to the cause - although I dare say that in the case of Saint Bob such royalties would be rather (and deservedly) meagre these days? How easy it is to have a social conscience when you've got more money than you know what to do with, except employ armies of accountants and tax lawyers to keep as much of it as possible and scrabble for more by demonstrating how wonderful you are by donating our money to your pet causes. 

Pay your taxes, I say, and then both the people and their governments will be able to contribute more to such things as the Ebola crisis.

I don't deny anyone the right to accumulate a fortune and enjoy it as they see fit, but I do object to a bunch of millionaires taking money from my pocket in order to bolster their own images as concerned humanitarian crusaders.

El Vaporcito. Better a Viking Funeral than Being Left to Rot?

Not so long ago, I wrote an entry on the El Puerto de Santa María - Cádiz ferry service. Well this weekend, my Dark Lady and I repeated the experience.

This time I was able to take a closer photo of the ill-fated Vaporcito mentioned in the above entry. Here is a picture of the boat in its present state. Have you ever seen such a sad sight?

A(nother) Modest Proposal

This week my colleagues and I have been conducting B1 certification oral exams for our august educational establishment's degree students. Thanks to the EU's Pisa Hgher Education treaty (GB quite sensibly did not sign up to this particularly demented bit), European students need a B1 level in a foreign language in order to get their degree.

Now, as an English teacher, I must admit to serious misgivings over my power to deny a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, or whatever, to a truly academically gifted student because s/he cannot give me grammatically correct advice on how to stop my imaginary daughter from spending all of her money on shoes, how I can lose weight, or remove a spider from my bath, however welcome that advice may be.

I also find it worrying that there is a growing number of unemployed 40+ year-old students with families etc. who are back at uni. trying to get a degree in order to have the slimmest of slim chances of finding employment. It's also rumoured that there are unicorns in the local park - they should try hunting them instead. It's depressing enough to see all the young ones with hopes of a bright future when the only brightness thay will get to experience is that of the TV as they kill zombies on the Play Station because IN SPAIN THERE ARE NO JOBS - unless you have friends in the right places.

A possible - but just as brutal - solution might be an adaptation of Swift's Modest Proposal. Swift ironically suggested that as the 18th-century Catholic Irish were such prolific breeders and so grindingly poor, they should breed babies for the tables of the English nobility and mercantile classes. Spare the babies, I say! What Spain needs is another Civil War. It might plunge the country into poverty, starvation and mass murder, but it would sure as hell reduce unemployment. Indeed, it would provide huge opportunities for the unemployed young men and women as soldiers, doctors, nurses, black marketeers, NGO leeches &c. &c. &c. And, of course, post-war there would be a lot of reconstruction and fewer workers.

The above is obviously an ironic comment on the state of the country, yet all of the ingredients for a civil war are there - a disgruntled populace, tired of the corruption, and unemployment that devastates the country while highly gruntled politicians, bankers and union executives live off the fat of the land, tax the people and bleed the country white. And now we are witnessing the rise of Podemos (aka Pokemon), a demogogical political party for the disaffected - i.e. almost the whole Spanish populace - which seems to have borrowed from Castro, Chaves, Morales, &c. 

The cafés and bars in Plaza del Cabildo, the main square in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, are witness to a constant procession of beggars, asking clients for food, a coffee or money. Some are addicts. Most are unemployed people whose benefit has run out and who have no other means of support. And all credit to the good people of Sanlúcar de Barrameda; they are very charitable and willing to help when they can. Who knows? It might be them next.

Strolling through Seville

Seville is not exactly my favourite city, but I work for one of the august higher educational establishments there, so I do have to go to the place  regularly to impart classes. As I live in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, which is at the mouth of the river Guadalquivir - the same river that runs through Seville - this involves a two-hour commute by coach or, indeed a two-hour drive by car. if you're interested, you can read previous posts about Sanlúcar here, here, here or here.

An aside: "How", you might well ask, "does the car journey last as long as the bus journey, especially as you don't stop in the five major towns en route?" And indeed: "Isn't it cheaper and more environmentally friendly to use public transport?". And I would answer "The car journey is just as long because as I don't have to get up so early, I arrive in Seville in time to get caught up in two separate traffic jams, one on either side of the city". And in answer to the second I would reply that "As my classes start first thing in the morning, no bus arrives in Seville early enough for me to get to my first class on time, thus necessitating an overnight stay in the city the night before. This makes the bus journey more expensive than going by car so, unfortunately, the environment loses out on that one. Furthermore, try sitting on the bus next to someone with halitosis who has in all probability just had toast with olive oil and garlic for breakfast. That will dampen your enthusiasm - even if the bus journey does give you four hours more reading time". I once made the journey on a bus that stank of rotten teeth - wherever I tried sitting. This, incidentally, is not an indictment of the hygiene habits - or lack thereof - of the great Spanish public. People in Spain tend to be scrupulously clean; more so than in most European countries, especially, entre nous, the one sandwiched between Spain and England. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to forget, here as elsewhere, that mouths can be just as noisesome as armpits - or even worse. 

A useless piece of information: Listerine was originally a badly-selling floor cleaning product, but a clever marketing chappie discovered halitosis and convinced the manufacturer to rebottle it as a mouthwash. I suppose that the composition has changed since then. This was a cynical move by anyone's standards, but the marketer deserves a Nobel prize for services to humanity, though there's still a long way to go before we are no longer assaulted by the halitosis of our fellows. 

Digressions over, here are the photos. Let's start in Sanlúcar as I prepare to leave:

Sanlúcar's Calzada de la Duquesa with Doñana across the
 river in the extreme background.

Quinto Centenario Bridge. The winning design was,
strange to relate, submitted by the brother of
the then Minister for Foreign Affairs.
  Image courtesy of Panoramio

The first traffic jam I run into is on the access roads to the Quinto Centenario bridge. Built for Seville's Expo '92 - more of which later - it was rumoured to have been designed with eight lanes. Apparently, three of these lanes disappeared unaccountably along with part of the budget to build it, so it was built with five lanes. All rather silly considering that three lanes of traffic in each direction converge there. This problem is further compounded on the southern side of the bridge as there are a further two filter lanes full of cars jostling to get onto the access.Furthermore,the lanes on the bridge itself are illegal as they contravene the minimum width required by Spanish law.




Having parked my car, I walk past the Andalusian Regional Parliament which used to be a hospital, called Hospital de la Cinco Llagas - literally the hospital of the five running sores - a reference to Christ's wounds. Now, however, there's only one enormous running

Hospital de las Cinco Llagas. Suppurating with corruption.

sore there - the blatant corruption and money-grabbing antics of the politicians as they root around in the trough. To give you an idea of the scope of the problem, there's a corruption case grinding through the courts at the moment involving the alleged defalcation of over €1bn through various clever wheezes involving politicians of the ruling (Socialist) regime and high officials of trades unions, as well as quite a few of their family members. If in power, the Right would be just as bad.

A view downriver to the Torre Pelli skyscraper

I then cross the river, going over Santiago Calatrava's spectacular Alamillo Bridge to what used to be the Expo '92 International Exhibition which celebrated the fifth centenary of the Discovery of the Americas - yet another opportunity for the politicians, their families and friends to grab money from the State with the complicity of the government of the time. To be scrupulously fair, however,it must be said that lorryloads of the marble that entered the Expo site for use there found its way into hundreds of bathrooms and kitchens in the city of Seville. Everyone involved had their share of the cake, not just the politicoes. I think I'm not mistaken in stating that the final Expo audits, like the EU's annual budgets, have yet be signed off by the corresponding Courts of Auditors.

In its day, the bridge caused a furore among the more narrow-minded Sevilian traditionalists because the height if its arm meant that it, not the cathedral belltower, was the first thing seen by people arriving in Seville from the North. Now they moan about the Torre Pelli which I mentioned in a previous post. 

Two views of the bridge: one from the bridge deck looking towards the backwards-leaning mast and the other taken from behind the mast itself. there is a widespread view among structural engineers that the roadway is self-supporting and that the mast and stays are there for show only. Still, it is rather pretty. Originally there were going to be two such bridges spanning two separate arms of the Guadalquivir, but the money ran out - or found its way into politicans' pockets faster than it could be spent on the two bridges - so the second bridge, connected to the Alamillo by a breathtaking causeway (see the photo below) is a more humdrum box bridge

The causeway. in the distance you can see a white mast leaning away
from the structure. There is one on either side, recalling the mast of
the Alamillo bridge itself.

Municipal allotments - but how are they allotted?

Once over the bridge, my stroll takes me past some allotments among the orange groves that the Expo left untouched. Apparently, to get one you need to have friends in certain places.

And finally it's on towards one of the two centres where I give my classes before getting into my car and escaping from Seville and its monuments to institutionalised corruption.

When I started to write this entry, I was just going to write a brief, bland commentary on the photos, but as I started, I realised that at almost every turn I could make a comment on corruption - a sorry state of affairs indeed. 

From El Puerto de Santa María to Cádiz and A Bit of French for Good Measure

El Puerto de Santa María, bathed by the Guadalete, is another Sherry town, approximately 5 miles across the bay of Cádiz from the eponymous city. Today El Puerto, like Jerez and Sanlúcar de Barrameda, is full of mouldering wineries waiting for the next property boom to be turned into des. res. flats for upper-class tourists and bijou shops idem. 

It is also famous for two 20th-century poets, Rafael Alberti[1] and Jose Luis Tejada. As well as a poet, Alberti was quite a gifted painter, but unfortunately his oratory left quite a lot to be desired – let’s just say that when reading his own oeuvre he sounded like Leonard Cohen babbling through a particularly monotonous dirge - but without the ebullient Canadian’s burning passion and joie de vivre.

El Vaporcito in happier days, chuntering up the
Guadalete. Courtesy of photaki.com.

Anyhow, let’s cut to the chase. El Puerto has a regular ferry service to Cádiz, for more information click here. For a satellite image of the Bay of Cádiz, click here. This weekend, my Dark Lady who knows that I’m addicted to boat rides (there is nothing to beat a bracing ferry ride across the Mersey on a blustery winter’s day), treated me to a ferry ride to Cádiz. It was almost a decade since we had last made the journey on the Vaporcito, or Little Steamer, that used to ply the route.

And thereby hangs a rather sad and sorry tale. Launched in 1955, the wooden-hulled

El Vaporcito, afer its encounter with
a breakwater. Courtesy of El Mundo.es

 Vaporcito merrily transported passengers across the bay until August 2011 when it hit a breakwater, struggled pluckily into the port of Cádiz and sank – fortunately without loss of life or injury. A few days later it was raised and taken to a shipyard for repairs. The shipyard promptly went belly-up and the boat was seized by the yard’s creditors. Since then several attempts have been made to rebuild it, but Byzantine court cases among shareholders, the Regional Government and anyone else who cares to join in has left the Vaporcito literally high, if not completely dry.

El vaporcito, awaiting the decision of the courts.
Courtesy of Vanesa de la Cruz.

So today we went on one of the four catamarans that cross the bay (€5.30 return). All of them are modern, fibreglass vessels and are not of any real aesthetic interest. The interest lies in the crossing, not the medium. We wanted to do a Kate Winslet à la Titanic, but unfortunately the prow is permanently roped off.

Once out of the Guadalete, we got a magnificent view of the new cable-stayed bridge, La Pepa,  so called after the 1812 Spanish Constitution signed in  in Cádiz on March 19th, Saint Joseph’s day, Pepa being

View of La Pepa. Courtesy of Vanesa de la Cruz.

the nickname for Josephine. In its time, La Pepa was the most progressive constitution in Europe. It even, gulp, gave women the vote! 

Cádiz was the only provincial capital not to fall into the hands of the French during the Peninsular War. As such, it became the temporary capital city of Spain. Under siege from the French on the landward side, the jolly Jack Tars of the Royal Navy kept maritime communications open. This is the historical backdrop to winner of the Crime Writers' Association's International Dagger, Arturo Pérez Reverte's best-selling and highly absorbing thriller El Asedio, in English The Siege, 

When finished, La Pepa will be the second bridge connecting the isthmus of Cádiz to the mainland. Immediately in front of us we could see the Muelle Pesquero de Cádiz basin which gives onto the lively Plaza San Juan de Dios presided over by Cádiz Town Hall.

This basin is also the port of call for cruise liners, as mentioned in a previous post and today we were lucky enough to see a sailing cruise ship, the Sea Cloud II from Valetta.

Sea Cloud II from Plaza San Juan de Dios

After coffee in the plaza and a walk around the city we wended our way back to the dock to get the boat back to El Puerto and thence home to Sanlúcar by car. Today, the views across the bay had been stunning – we could even see inland across the bay, past Rota, home to the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet, as far as the town of Trebujena[2], some 24 miles distant, and the wind turbines outside Sanlúcar. All in all, it was a most enjoyable day in the best of company. We hope to repeat the experience this winter when the crossing will be rougher. What could be more invigorating? 

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[1] Alberti was an intimate friend of Dalí, Luis Buñuel and Lorca. This latter (when not dressing up as a nun and riding around the Barcelona trams with his aforementioned chums) would probably have faded into obscure mediocrity had he not been murdered in a rather savage manner by the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War, thus becoming  a martyr for left-wing trendies and a reliable cash cow for certain tousle-headed Irish academics. 

BTW, when making meatballs, Lorca's family cook would press the patties of meat in her armpits to give them that extra little je ne sais quoi.

[2] Trebujena's rice paddies were made famous in Spielberg’s film Empire of the Sun. What the viewer sees as a sunrise was, in fact, a sunset played backwards. It has to be said, though, that the town definitely looks better when there’s a good 24 miles' distance between it and yourself.

On Sanlúcar de Barrameda

As I have mentioned in previous posts, Sanlúcar  de Barrameda is a relatively undiscovered jewel among the smaller coastal Andalusian cities – and its catchphrase “Calidad de vida”, or “Quality of Life” is one of the truest I have ever come across. For further general information click on this wikipedia link.

A panoramic shot of the beach.

Sanlúcar is famous for its Manzanilla sherry – it’s 10 miles from 

A Chinese restaurant. Note 
the round window .This was to
regulate thetemperature in 
the wineries and is common to
all the"Cathedrals of Wine"in
the Jerez DO.

the city of Jerez and is one of the vertices of the Sherry 
Triangle.
For the past few decades, Sherry consumption worldwide 
has been in decline and the large number of abandoned 
wineries to be seen throughout the Denomination of Origin
are its silently eloquent witnesses. Some become 

restaurants and shops as this image attests, others are 
bulldozed to become blocks of flats.

Luckily for Sanlúcar, the city is also famous for its beaches, 

fresh fish, horticulture[1] and, therefore, cuisine.
Indeed, people come from other cities in Andalusia to enjoy 
dining in the local restaurants which range
 from the relatively expensive, but still good value, 
such as El Espejo to the down-to-earth family establishments that serve good, honest, 
fare; Casa Balbino, for example.

Inside the municipal food market.

A firm favourite here – indeed, in all 

of the province of Cádiz’ coastal towns are the famous tortillitas de camarones and tortillitas de bacalao. These are shrimp or cod fritters and are quite simple to make – see the rough recipe below.

My own effort. I used frozen pollock,

employing the meltwater in the batter
mix - a neat (Hairy Bikers) trick 
when battering fish. To accompany, 
fried green peppers.

Make a batter with the consistency of 

double cream, add finely-chopped 

sweet onion and parsley along with

 shrimps or finely-minced, salted cod 

that has been soaked overnight. 

Ladle the mixture one fritter at a time 

into very hot oil – not olive oil as it 

begins to smoke at a relatively low 

temperature. Fry until crispy and lacy. 

Enjoy with a chilled, dry, white wine. 

Obviously the wine of choice should be 

Manzanilla. 

Calidad de vida on a plate and on your palate!

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[1] The Patata de Sanlúcar for example, is grown on sandy soil (bajo navazo) relatively near to the beaches and is a firm favourite of gourmets throughout Spain – it can even be ordered online for next day delivery anywhere in the country!

Come on, My Son - or A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted

Now this one's going to give away my age...

When I was an infant, my maternal grandfather would often take me out for a cup of hot chocolate to the Top Ten Café near where we lived. How I enjoyed those moments with Granddad in the café! Sometimes I was even allowed to go into the, gasp, back room with him.

The back room was a pretty stark affair, wooden floors, hard seats and tables, a fat ginger tom asleep by the gas fire, enough (Player's Navy strength & Woodbines) ciggy smoke to cure a boatload of kippers, a blackboard(???) and a wall-mounted loudspeaker that chanted exotic names and numbers. Strange to say that all of this chanting seemed to make some of the men there ecstatic and plunge others into the deepest depths of small-bits-of-paper-ripping despondency. 

With the passage of time - decades - I realised that I had spent part of my infancy in an illegal gambling den; licensed betting shops were still a few years away. These days, I suppose that this (coupled with a tot of rum or whisky in my morning tea, administered by my Granddad who also taught me Welsh and how to sup tea from the saucer) would place me firmly on the risk list of even the most cynically disillusioned of social workers.

Looking back, I don't think I was traumatised by it all. In fact, I would argue that in hindsight it was an interesting experience. I, for one, do not gamble. I don't have a knee-jerk reaction of revulsion towards it, nor do I condemn it from any feeling of outrage. I merely pity those who are ingenuous enough to believe that they are going to make, instead of lose, money. More than that, I pity their families who are the real victims of the bookies, online casinos etc. who prey on such weak-minded folk. 

People on both sides of my family lost fortunes on the gee-gees and the financial markets, but heigh ho, that's all water under the bridge.

So finally to the photo I want to publish.

A magnificently dramatic shot of a horse race, 

Sanlúcar de Barrameda. August 2014 Courtesy:

Maricielo Gil Arranda

Every Spring and Summer in Sanlúcar de Barrameda there are cycles of horse races on the beach in the evening. These are the oldest horse races in Spain and amongst the oldest in Europe.

Another powerfully dramatic spectacle. A
supernova sunset at the beach after the last
race of the day (this one's mine).

Thousands of people gather on the beach to watch. Indeed enthusiasts come from all over Europe to enjoy the spectacle. And a mighty impressive sight it is too. Let's forget the money side of it all and concentrate on the aesthetics: the sun is setting and there is a certain tension in the air among everyone - whether they have been foolish enough to have a flutter or not. The horses are off and a murmur runs through the crowd, turning into a roar as the horses approach. Then with the an earthquake of hooves and a deafening rumble from crowd, the horses dash past. It's all over in a matter of seconds, but in those scarce couple of seconds you have witnessed a powerfully dramatic spectacle.