We went to the Feria today in Zafra. It was very good, you could buy anything from a quail to a prize bull or an egg cup to a crane – or flamenco dress to leather chaps, paella stove to a olive crusher or electric churros maker…..
I think the best way to describe the Feria is this – an X rated Bath and West! A pavilion featured top 6 hunting dvds and we could have purchased hunting hawks as well as a singing canary. There was lots of bull fighting things, a massive amount of hunting parafanalia – and quite frankly the meat tents were not for the faint hearted! However I had to smile at the juxtaposition of hunting knives on one stall, next to the widest range of dusters I have ever seen on the next stall! There were stalls with tables of hunting knives laid out on the table in the front so passers by could feel the sharpness of the blades – I am sure that this must be an unusual sight!
The cheese stalls were interesting and we’re getting to know a lot of the names and there were some fantastic breads – massive loaves, the like of which I’ve certainly not seen before. Really, we could have done with going around twice – we left the feria empty handed and we ended up going to Carrefour and getting some bread for our lunch.
There are entertainments every day, and it appears to be open for 24 hours (with a break for siesta of course). It’s free to go in so I imagine a lot of people dip in and out during the week. When we arrived this morning there were healthy crowds of people tucking into unhealthy breakfasts of churros and chocolate.
My only disappointment was that there wasn’t any sheep fleece. I know that there is a livestock class for merino sheep and I felt sure that there would be wool available. I thought they might have show fleece, even if it wasn’t marked for sale. But sadly, no. On the plus side I did sneakily get the info of a flock of brown Merino sheep.
In the afternoon Ian was helping someone get their Internet up and running so, we had a picnic lunch before this. Although it was Carrefour and not the Feria, we bought bread and cheese and sat in the shade under a tree. Ian has coined a phrase for our lifestyle which I think is pretty good. Since we’ve been getting a more regular income we treat ourselves more often – however our treats may not be particularly treat-like in the eyes of others!! They are things like nice cheese rather than the cheapest, and a bottle of wine that is a couple of euros rather than a few centimos. Anyway, Ian said that he felt we lived like humble Kings and I thought that this summed us up pretty well.