My Mum and Dad were a holiday romance and they met in Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava. My Mum went on holiday with her girlfriends and she met my Dad when he was working in one of the hotels there. (Their relationship is still going strong 30 odd years later)
My Dad had moved to Lloret because he really didn't want to be a farmer which at that time was probably the only career available to him if he stayed in his village. He escaped with his friends as soon as he could, sure that he could make a better life for himself.
After meeting my Mum he had to do his national service so my Mum upped sticks from the UK and worked in Barcelona as an au pair so they could see each other when he had leave. Eventually, after he finished his army time and after I was born, my parents made the decision to move to England where, at that time, there were more opportunities to improve their life.
This meant that my summer holidays were always spent visiting my Abuelos in a tiny little village in Badajoz. The village population was not too small but small enough for us to be noticed whenever we arrived in our UK plated car. This was not a place used to foreign visitors so it always caused a stir when we drove through the little narrow streets.
As we usually spent the first few days of our holiday driving through Spain (and sometimes France too) I used to get really excited when we reached the outskirts of the village and saw the old defence tower which loomed over the village. (The only part of the 15th century castle remaining) I knew that I was about to have a good few weeks of total and absolute freedom, playing with my Spanish friends who also visited their Grandparents for the summer.
My Abuelos lived on the far side of the village with campo as far as the eye could see out the back of their modest, traditional Spanish house. The house was fairly small and in my younger years didn't have a real bathroom. It was definitely back to basics. Me and my sister used to take baths in a bucket out in the back courtyard and it was not unusual to have a donkey stick his head through the window of the outside toilet whilst in there. The walkway through the house was often lined with buckets filled with the biggest, reddest tomatoes I had ever seen from my Abuelo's farm and from the kitchen beams hung cured meats all at different stages of the process. They cooked all food with liberal amounts of olive oil made from their own olives grown on the farm, all done on a small 2 burner portable gas stove, hooked up to a gas bottle and all meals were served up with lots and lots of French bread bought fresh from the small shop down the road which also doubled up as someone's living room.
We usually ate around the small table just off the central walkway which was also the living room. No big sofas, just a couple of worn out leather high backed armchairs and 3 or 4 traditional Spanish wooden chairs with woven wicker seats. In the winter the table would have a heavy cloth draped over it and my grandparents would sit there with the cloth draped over their legs and underneath the cloth would be a tray of hot coals to keep them warm. Definitely no central heating there! But, as I usually visited in the summer, it would be a light lace one instead with plastic over the top for easy wiping.
Coming from England, with a nice warm house with all mod cons, (like an indoor bathroom), living there for the summer was very different but also an adventure for me and my little sister Maria Paz.
At the end of the road there was a small water pump where people would come and fill up containers and where the farmers would stop to pump water for their thirsty donkeys. The roads around the village were, unsurprisingly, filled with droppings from the donkeys. No poop-a-scoop big enough to manage them you had to watch where you were treading, especially in the evening!
My Tia Matilde, before she was married, worked for the local priest and nun and lived with them in their large grand house at the centre of the village and we spent a lot of time visiting with them. Their house was amazing to play in. They had a classroom where they taught Sunday school and Maria and I would play school teachers and put each other in detention. They also had a sewing room where the local women would sit and embroider cloth for dresses and shawls. We tried our hands at this but much preferred to use the room when it was free so we could roller skate and sing our hearts out. The acoustics were great; unfortunately our singing was not, as covert video evidence proved, thanks to my Dad!
During siesta time, Maria and I had the run of the village. All our friends were sleeping and the place was a ghost town. To us, it just wasn't normal to sleep in the middle of the day. After a few years of visiting, one of the more entrepreneurial locals decided to open a swimming pool which was open all day and that's where we usually spent the hottest part of the day.
Like most Spanish villages there was a central plaza which was surrounded by most of the bars in the village. Puebla del Maestre had a circular dance floor in the centre of theirs which during siesta time we turned into our very own roller rink. It also had a large permanent stage for the bands to perform during Relicias and other fiestas. The Spanish take their parties very seriously and don't do things by half!
In the evening, the village came alive. Everyone, and I mean everyone, came out dressed in their finest. By 11pm the village was buzzing. Tables and chairs covered every spare inch of the plaza and waiters raced around taking orders for drinks and tapas. Everyone knew each other and people table hopped regularly.
Us kids just disappeared for the night. Our parents only saw us when we wanted money for sweets or a drink. We would wander around the village in large groups, stopping by the sweet shop opposite the quaint little church and buying frigo pie ice creams and "chicle". On occasion we would dare each other to walk to the cemetery located just outside the village where there was no street lighting. It was a freedom that I didn't get back home living in a city.
Those summers were idyllic and I was very lucky to experience them. Some things have changed in the village since then. The cars are more modern, a bathroom has been installed at the house, and most farmers use motorbikes to travel to and from their land but the village still stirs if a foreign car arrives and still comes alive during the summer months and most importantly, the young people visiting their families still get to experience the freedom they don't get in the cities they normally live in. I hope that can continue but the population has halved since I used to summer there as each new generation moves away to find work. It’s a sad situation and unfortunately one that is happening across the board in remote places in rural Spain.
