There must be different career opportunities here than in the UK. For instance, there must be a whole industry that surrounds fiestas. Not only the organisation, but also the stall holders, the bands and the other entertainment. In Villagarcia they pride themselves that no more than 6 weeks goes by without a fiesta – and I am sure that this is not unique, so every weekend around Spain there are probably hundreds of small fiestas going on, each requiring organising, bands etc. We haven’t been to any of the fiestas this year, although we did see the sardine.
However we did pop along to the end of San Juan last weekend – after the craft fair. We didn’t get along until 1, by which time things were beginning to get off the ground and passadoble-ing was the name of the game. We can’t dance – of course, so thought it would be nice to learn the passadoble so we could join in with basically everyone else in the village. I did find some instructions on the internet – however this appeared to be for a dance style which was completely different to what we see here, so we didn’t progress. The next fiesta is the fiesta for ‘emigrees’ which is people who have left the village and come back for a party.
Another job which we have noticed is the clearing of the fonterias – the big water troughs which you see in every village. The big one on the end of the village was cleaned last week and it is now sparkly clean. Interestingly, fish are put into the water to help keep it clean – we did wonder how they got there.
And lastly, there are a lot of delivery vans which go around the village. Some villages exist completely on goods from these vans. We don’t generally use them – although we are daft not to. Every Saturday the fresh fruit and veg man comes and honks his horn outside the house and we ignore him, only to go to the shops later and find they don’t have any fresh fruit and veg left. If only we nipped out to the van we’d not then find ourselves going to Llerena for emergency onion supplies. The frozen food van came whilst I was coming back from the bin, and the man asked if I wanted anything – I panicked and ended up buying some icecream. He gave me his price list and really anything that we want in the frozen food line he sells – so it makes sense to start using him more.
The kittens are still doing well. All but one now are weaned, they are all using their litter tray and are sleeping on top of a box of cd’s in Ians office which must be a lot less comfortable than the nice cosy bed they have. We’ve moved them into the area outside Ians office so they have the run of that and his office. I felt that my workshop was just too exciting for kittens and imagined the havoc they would cause. Ian thought I was making a fuss about nothing until about a minute after he had them in his office and had to rescue yet another one from climbing up a curtain/box/pile of papers….