Not only have all our hens gone broody, but Limpy, the cockerel, seems to have gone broody too. Either that or he decided that he can’t be bothered to get up if they can’t. We are having to deploy operation go-outside-and-play as they all seem to be spending their time snuggled up rather than doing chickeney things, this will entail putting them outside and shutting the barn door. We keep checking that they are not sat on eggs, so there won’t be the pitter patter of tiny chick feet. Needless to say they will repay our kindness by eating the tops of my cotton plants that have started to emerge.
I don’t think we can vote in the elections. We need to register on a voters register, which we haven’t done. So we will have four years to get ready for next time. In 2003 there was only one vote in it, so our votes could have been important! Less so in the last election when the current council was reelected with a significant lead. I was researching the process of elections and looking at previous results and was amazed at the high percentage of votes. Nearly 80% of the village vote in the local elections. I guess that there are many reasons for this, however one of the main ones has to be that we vote for a council ‘team’, plus reserves. So instead of voting for individuals, we would vote for a complete council, including a reserve set of people who will stand in if necessary. That way the electorate won’t get nasty surprises if they vote for one set of people and then find them all replaced after the election. But of course, what that means is that there are 20 or so people for each of the three parties, and given that everyone is related to everyone else, I can imagine that everyone is related to someone who is standing. Hence the high turn out rate. Well, part of the reason.
The current council represents an Extremduran breakaway from one of the other parties (the ‘People’s Front of Judia vs the Judian People’s Front’ in Life of Brian keeps springing to mind). I think they have only been in existence since 2003, however appear to be strong throughout the region. This probably reflects the fact that the issues faced in a rural region with strong agricultral industries like this are going to be very different to those faced in other parts of Spain. So, while we won’t be voting we will be watching the village elections with interest.