The Curmudgeon

Algunlugar is a pretty little pueblo blanco in the mountains of the Serrania de Ronda, where the local "mafia" is in full operation.

To look at the village, you wouldn't guess at this darker side of its life. Tourists and travellers don't notice the "mafia" at work in this village of fewer than 1000 inhabitants. Of these full-time residents some 40 are guiris, foreigners, and it is a small proportion of these incomers that make up the local "mafiosi". And not one of them is Italian!

Don't get me wrong - these people do not kill or kidnap, but a small number think they have the right to sit in judgement on and to control the behaviour of other outsiders who choose to live here.

These people have already seen off an English photographer and his wife, and an Italian chef, and split the foreign community into two. They have tried to get rid of an English architect and a retired Welshman. To their credit the architect and his wife have decided to stay on, despite the antipathy generated by the "mafia inglesa".

The latest "victim" has not yet decided whether to stay or go. This septuagenarian loves Algunlugar, but more for the village itself and the locals, rather than the "expats".

Fortunately, this gentleman is a fluent Spanish speaker and finds the local algunlugareños less complicated than the northern European "guests".

Quite a few long-term foreign residents have sold up and moved back home in recent times, although I cannot confirm whether or not they did so, because of the malign intentions of the local "cosa nostra". There are whispers that the village ain't wot it used to be.

Algunlugar remains split. There are a small number of guiri residents who keep themselves to themselves and don't mix a lot with the others. Whether they feel shunned or not, I don't know.

All in all, I find it quite intolerable that a small group of well-to-do guiris who speak little Spanish and spend their retirement drinking and complaining about those who seek to integrate into the life of the village and its people and who actively do "stuff"!

© The Curmudgeon

Tags:

Algunlugar, algunlugareños, cosa nostra, guiri, mafia, mafiosi, pueblo blanco, Serrania de Ronda, 

I’ve been flying with Ryanair, the Irish low-cost airline, almost since they started. We fly with them regularly, as they ply the routes we currently use or have used in the past, at the most convenient times, and usually at the best price.

Ryanair is a controversial airline, not least because of the oft ridiculous utterings of their chief executive, Michael O’Leary. They are leaders in the field; where they introduce changes most other airlines follow.

The company also expected not to pay landing charges at tiny airfields in Spain, France and elsewhere, where the airline promised them big business. When these airfields cottoned on and suggested Ryanair might pay them, the Irish company simply walked away. I can think of Granada, Jerez de la Frontera, Carcassonne, Frankfurt Hahn and Waterloo. There are many more. O’Leary and his mates are unscrupulous and uncompromising.

The routes I have used include Liverpool to Granada, Málaga, Jerez and Sevilla, to Cologne, Düsseldorf Weeze and Frankfurt Hahn. Since I moved to live in Spain 15 years ago, my routes have changed to Malaga, Sevilla or Jerez to airports like Baden-Baden, Hahn or Weeze and Bristol, Gatwick and Stansted.

Booking flights online these days is a nightmare. Offers and add-ons come at you thick and fast. And if you want to travel with more than a small bag, you pay extra; lots extra.

I flew from Malaga to London Stansted yesterday. I opted to fly with a carry-on bag, so I just paid for the flight. A 10kg small case would have cost me 40€ extra. I also refused to book a seat and pay a charge of anything between 10€ and 40€. I let them allocate me a random seat. I got 9D. Not bad, an aisle seat near the front of the aircraft.

So, I just paid 55€. A bargain for a 3000 km journey.

Normally I am quite happy to fly with Ryanair. I can put up with the non-reclinable seats and the tiny legroom for between two and three hours, their coffee (Lavazza) is drinkable, and their food offering has improved immensely over the years.         

More gripes about yesterday. The flight left 50 minutes late with no explanation given and no apology until we had landed and were about to disembark the plane.

More gripes, although these are not Ryanair’s fault.

At Stansted the automatic passport machines, as is often the case, were refusing scores of passengers, so we had to traipse to the manual desks, where the queue was immense. An hour to clear the airport is unacceptable. Then a 25-minute wait for a bus into London. Not my best ever flight day.

But, hey, I got here safely, albeit late for an appointment, and am now enjoying the company of my daughter and her two sons in Stratford, London. On Monday I head for Hastings to my son’s to meet my newly born grandson for the first time.

Unusually I fly back to Malaga next Wednesday with Vueling, the Spanish low-cost carrier. They’re just as much a rip-off as Ryanair. I need to book a small case to take some stuff back to Spain, which will cost me 40 pounds.

©  The Curmudgeon

Tags: Baden-Baden, Bristol, Carcassonne, Cologne, Curmudgeon, Dusseldorf Weeze, Frankfurt Hahn, Gatwick, Granada, Hastings, Jerez de la Frontera, Lavazza, Liverpool, low-cost airline, Malaga, Michael O’Leary, , Ryanair, Sevilla, Stansted, Stratford, Vueling, Waterloo

There are four groups of road users who are a pain in the a**e and dangerous. And they don't pay a penique to use and abuse the roads. Who are they?

Pedestrians

At the top of the hierarchy of protected road users. Is that why they wander freely in the road paying no attention to traffic? It's particularly bad in Algunlugar, when the day trip coaches disgorge their contents, who amble across roads en masse, not always using zebra crossings. The puente viejo is particularly bad. The pavement on both sides is rather narrow so people just step off into the road without looking. Why there aren't more accidents, I don't know.

This will be similar in countless other towns throughout Spain.

Cyclists

These menaces are also a protected species, number two on the government's list after pedestrians. Why do they have to ride three abreast uphill on major roads? I used to wind my window down and shout at them; now I don't bother. My blood pressure can't cope.

During winter cycling training Mallorca is an absolute nightmare.

Patinete riders

Shouldn't these have been banned by now? They have been in the Netherlands, I'm told. They break all the rules: no helmets, going in the wrong direction, riding on pavements, going too fast for the conditions, giving their mates a lift, and so on .....

Drivers of sin carnet cars

These silly little toy cars, driven mostly by very old men, are downright dangerous. They are too slow for ordinary roads, and like cyclists, hold up the traffic for long periods.

***

And, what do all four groups have in common? 

They don't pay a cent in fees, like cars, motorcycles, buses and goods vehicles have to. And they cause the most problems.

Ban 'em all, I say, or charge them an annual licence fee. And fine them when they step out of line!

© The Curmudgeon

By The Curmudgeon

We all know that local councils start spending money on vanity projects in the run-up to an election. It happens everywhere, in the UK, in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Probably also in Ukraine.

This diatribe is specific to Ronda, but I’m sure it is relevant to other places.

Ronda Council is taking the mickey, isn’t it? I don’t usually get involved in politics, but I have looked on in horror at the huge amounts of money being ploughed into all kinds of projects in the town, by the ruling Partido Popular.

Local councils in Spain have elections this May. Ruling councils tend to invest in a range of vanity projects to try and get re-elected. Opposition parties make promises they cannot hope to fulfil.

This activity demonstrates a lack of common sense on the part of our local politicians.

Look at this list of disastrous, extremely costly and environmentally damaging projects currently in progress or recently completed in my town: photo-voltaic farms, new outdoor pool near LIDL, new bus station, huge multi-storey car park in Barrio San Francisco, demolition of existing swimming pool to create a new sports area on Avenida de Malaga, new road layout at the Recinto Ferial.

The Council trumpets its environmental credentials, with its plan to do away with paper and transfer to digital means of communication, but this is just playing at being eco-friendly.

Not a single council building sports a solar panel! Lights in council buildings are on all day whether needed or not. Fiestas and ferias continue as before with a huge waste of electricity on lighting. I could go on, but I’m getting cross ….

Back to the list of vanity projects. Where is the common sense?

100 acre photo-voltaic farms in Cuevas del Becerro are insane. Where’s the common sense?

Why build a brand-new outdoor swimming pool that is only open for three months of the year? Particularly when there was one already on Avenida de Malaga. It would surely have been cheaper to renovate that one. It makes common sense.

Why do we need a new bus station? The current one is well-located. It would have been far cheaper to renovate that. It’s not as if there are that many buses that come to Ronda. No common sense.

As for the monster multi-story car park being built on a greenfield site in the Barrio San Francisco, well, words fail me.

The old swimming pool at the bottom of Avenida de Malaga has been razed to the ground, in order to create a sport zone. Sorry, I thought they were planning one of those on the site of the old Mercadona store, where there is already an indoor pool, an all-weather pitch and other facilities.

The latest headline in the local paper informs us that the council is going to spend half-a-million euros on re-arranging the road system at the showground. The work will take four months. Where is the common sense?

There appears to be no joined-up thinking going on at the council. Where is their common sense?

Right, my rant is over. I’ve probably missed other projects that make no sense, but I hope I’ve made my point.

I shall be exercising my right to vote in the May local elections and I hope other guiris got registered in time so that they too can have a say. I shall be looking for an alternative to the Partido Popular, which has presided over 12 years of waste and a lack of basic common sense in the town. PSOE is a possibility, but there are two other parties, I understand. Contigo Ronda and Ronda 100 por 100.

I hope you will make your vote count also. Vote for COMMON SENSE!

Spanish lagers have never had a good reputation, especially amongst real ale drinkers like The Curmudgeon. However, the rich offering of craft beers in the UK isn't sufficient for him to want to live in the land of his birth.

I no longer wish to live in the UK, which has been ruined by that country’s exit from the European Union and the incompetent handling of the process by Boris Johnson, Michael Gove et al. And BoJo’s two successors as prime minister have not improved matters one jot.

Not even the superior range of beers on offer in the UK is enough to lure me back.

Spanish beer

One of the few things I truly missed when I emigrated to Spain back in 2008 was decent beer. As a former CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) member, I was a fan of cask ales.

However, I have to admit that in the last few years here in Spain some better tasting beers  than Cruzcampo and Heineken (same company, by the way) which dominate in Andalucía, have come onto the market, and new craft beers are emerging all the time in places like Madrid, Toledo and even little old Ronda.

The adjacent photo I took recently in a bar in Sevilla, but there are other places around Ronda that offer a fabulous selection of tercios and botellines. Bar Alegre in Ronda, Bar Ankanita in Estación de Benaoján, and Venta El Puente in La Indiana spring to mind.

El Águila (Madrid), El Alcázar (Jaén) and Turia (Valencia) are widely available in the Serranía de Ronda, and beyond, both in supermarkets and in bars.

The major brands available on draft that are quaffable include: Alhambra, Amstel, Estrella Galicia, Mahou, San Miguel and Victoria Malaga.

Small wonder that San Miguel, which originated in The Philippines when those islands were still Spanish (Spain lost The Philippines, together with Cuba and Puerto Rico in 1898), is now on sale from London to Lima, from Cardiff to Caracas and from Edinburgh to Erfurt.

Marcas Blancas

When it comes to buying beer in the supermarkets, your best bet is to go for a marca blanca, an own brand label beer. Amazingly most are made at the same brewery, Font Salem SL in Valencia. Others are brewed in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Why pay 55 - 60c for a branded beer when you can get an equally good, I would say better, alternative, for 25 – 30c?

I particularly recommend Steinburg from Mercadona, Argus from LIDL, Karlsquell from Aldi, as well as own brands from Al Campo, Carrefour, El Corte Inglés, Covirán and Día, and, no doubt, other chains where I do not shop.

Foreign beers

A wide range of foreign beers are on sale in Spain nowadays.

Most supermarkets and some bars offer German Weissbier, such as Paulaner, Franziskaner and Oettinger. LIDL has its own marca blanca,

Occasionally the German discounters Aldi and LIDL have special offers of packs of English cask ales.

They all sell that famous black stout from Ireland, Guinness. You sometimes see Murphy’s also.

The Czech beer Budvar and the Mexican Sol are increasingly on sale, as well as Indian, Italian and Japanese lagers.

So, lots to be positive about with the current beer scene in Spain.

As for the UK, I can enjoy a decent pint or two of cask bitter when I visit family there, but that’s as far as it goes.

I’m staying here – Andalucía is for me!

Salud, Prost, Cheers, Skol!

© The Curmudgeon

Tags: 1898, Al Campo, Aldi, Alhambra, Amstel, Bar Alegre, Bar Ankanita, beer, bitter, Budvar, CAMRA, Carrefour, Cheers, Coviran, Cruzcampo, Cuba, Curmudgeon, Dia, El Aguila, El Alcazar, El Corte Ingles, Estrella Galicia, Font Salem, Franziskaner, Guinness, Heineken, Jaen, Karlsquell, lager, LIDL, Madrid, Mahou, Mercadona, Murphy’s, Oettinger, Paulaner, Philippines, Prost, Puerto Rico, Ronda, Salud, San Miguel, Skol, Sol, Steinburg, stout, Toledo, Turia, Valencia, Venta El Puente, Victoria Malaga

As you know, The Curmudgeon likes a moan. Today he is wondering what’s going on with bars here in Spain and also with political opinions.

Bars, etc

“When I were nowt but a lad”, most bars and restaurants in Spain were open all day until late. After they closed, you could go on to a bar de copas, pay double and enjoy the company of pretty young señoritas or even foreign girls on their travels.

It is often suggested that they were “prozzies”, but not in my experience.

But I digress…..

What has happened in Spain, is that, post-Covid, you’re struggling to find anywhere open, especially off-season. Bar owners shut when it suits them, often without notice.

A couple of recent examples spring to mind.

In the tiny village where I live (population 990), you’re struggling to find anywhere open in the evenings, unless there’s a local feria or it’s high season.

Thursdays are particularly bad. In the daytime only two places are open, but they both close around 4.00 pm. In the evenings, two other places open up, both bares de copas, where they only serve micro-waved pizzas and the like.

In the big town, Ronda (pop. 33,000 and falling) I haven’t got a clue what is going on.

The other week we booked a few days in advance a table for four for Friday night in one of the best new restaurants in town. Booking accepted. We were looking forward to eating there for the first time.

However, when we looked at their website on the Friday afternoon to check out the menu, we learned that the restaurant was going to be shut that night. They didn’t ring me to cancel. I rang repeatedly but no one picked up. Unprofessional, or what? We shan't be rushing to go there any time soon.

Fortunately, I managed to get a booking at one of our favourite long-established restaurants in town. As always it was excellent, if somewhat expensive.

To sum up, it seems to me that, unlike in the old days when bars, cafes and restaurants were a “service”, the owners are only interested in themselves and making money. At the first sign of an empty terrace, they shut up shop. We’ve even been hurried up to pay our bill because they wanted to close – at 4.00 pm!

No money to be made? OK, we’ll shut, without so much as a here no there!

Let's call a spade a spade. The restaurant that let us down was La Tropicana, the one where we enjoyed a lovely meal was El Almocabar.

Political opinion

I had a conversation with a Spanish neighbour in our local bar the other day. Sergio is only in his 30s, yet he was longing for a return to the ideals of franquismo. Astonishing.

A few days later I bumped into his father, who is in his mid-50s. Esteban is of the same view as his son (or the other way round!), yet he was a mere infant when Franco died in 1975.

I cannot fathom it. It’s a bit like those Americans, British, Turks, Hungarians and Russians who still believe in Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Recep Erdogan, Victor Orban and “El hijo de Putin”.

It’s enough to turn you into a curmudgeon!

What’s going on?

© The Curmudgeon

Tags: Americans, bars, bar de copas, Boris Johnson, Brexit, British, Curmudgeon, Donald Trump, Erdogan, Hungarians, Orban, Putin, Recep Erdogan, restaurants, Ronda, Russians, Turks, Victor Orban

Acknowledgements:

John Curtice

Prof Matthew Goodwin

The Guardian

Guy Hands

Stay European

Polly Toynbee

© The Curmudgeon

By The Curmudgeon

Yes, after early retirement I moved to Spain in 2008 and became a waiter.

At the bank, the gestoría, hacienda, the doctor's, dentist, optician and pharmacy, and the worst of the lot, the policía nacional. Wherever I go, I always have to wait. I’m a waiter.

It happens at the airport too: at security, to board the plane and at passport control.

Before Covid-19, and during the lockdown and afterwards, when you had to get a dreaded cita previa, even for the most trivial of matters, you had to wait. The appointments were timed, but they still ran late so you were still a waiter.

Today I am sitting in the comisaría de policia waiting to make a denuncia. As I write, I’ve been a waiter for three quarters of an hour. I’ve been on my mobile phone, catching up with emails and looking at my WhatsApp and Facebook messages. I made and received several phone calls. But I’m running out of things to do.

Shall I go outside for a cigarette? I don’t smoke!

Go for a coffee? Nip to the loo? If I do, I’ll lose my place.

Oh, well, I’ll just have to sit and wait. I could twiddle my thumbs, but that’s not much fun.

***

Oh, at long last, movement! The people before me have left the “denuncias” office and have gone, so it must be my turn. I’ve now been a waiter for one hour and 20 minutes.

Another 20 minutes and my denuncia is done. Now I need a cita previa with Extranjería . Today is 23 January; the first available appointment is 14 February!

So, I’m back to being a waiter!

© The Curmudgeon

Tags: cita previa, comisaría, Covid-19, Curmudgeon, dentist, denuncia, doctor's, extranjería, gestoría, hacienda, optician, pharmacy, policia, policía nacional, waiter

By the Curmudgeon

Brexit has proved a disaster for the UK and for British folk, both those at home and for those of us who live abroad.

Never mind the loss of trade, a rise in the cost-of-living, inflation, the Northern Ireland protocol, loss of European funding, loss of educational and cultural links, travel restrictions, insufficient seasonal workers in agriculture and hospitality. Not to mention the loss of thousands of foreign doctors and nurses from the National Health Service.

According to a recent poll 58% of British voters would now opt to remain in the EU.

The latest negative consequence of Brexit is the suspension of the Workaway scheme in the UK.

The Workaway scheme

This scheme, by which travellers can exchange their skills for free board and lodging, is immensely worthwhile for both host and “workaway”. A genuine “win-win”.

Katie Glass, a travel journalist and erstwhile Workaway host wrote in The Guardian newspaper: “I loved being a Workaway host but now Brexit has ended it in the UK. I was privileged to host international travellers wishing to work in exchange for board and lodgings, but tighter entry rules have now made it impossible.”

Workaway has stated it can no longer list exchanges in the UK because of Brexit entry rules.

When Katie first heard about Workaway it sounded too good to be true. It sounded like something that only happened in dreams.

She had moved to a ramshackle Somerset cottage without enough skills to do the renovations herself, or money to pay tradespeople, so she turned to Workaway for help. For the past year it has kept her in labourers and friends.

Her Workaway guests, sleeping in her caravan and spare room, came from across the globe and the social spectrum, ranging in ages from their teens to their 50s. A healer from Kenya; an engineer from Argentina; a graffiti artist from Seattle and an Irish teenager.

“Often guests were taking gap years or having mid-life crises, and I felt privileged to be a stop on their journeys.”

Most of the Workaways she met were travellers from abroad, but some were British people opting out of the system or young digital nomads looking for alternative ways of living.

“One writer from Boston, Lincolnshire, helped plaster my ceiling in between writing video games in my caravan; a builder from Manchester helped me install a garden gate while trading cryptocurrency on the side.”

As a travel writer whose ability to travel was drastically curtailed during the pandemic, Glass relished the way Workaway brought the world back into her life. She reports feeling spoiled as guests from Italy, Kenya and Brazil cooked meals and she learned to cook more vegan dishes than she knew existed.

Workaway made it known recently that it was “pausing a large portion” of UK host listings until further notice. “As regulations around travel and working visas have become much stricter post-Brexit, especially for Europeans, it’s become unfeasible to continue listing exchanges in the UK.”

A Workaway spokesperson added: “With changes in regulations for EU visitors because of Brexit, it’s no longer feasible to us to continue listing exchanges in the UK, as it takes up too many of our resources. This has been an internal decision.

It has not been a decision we’ve taken lightly, and we feel extremely saddened that we have to take this action.”

Since Brexit, someone from the EU can only volunteer in the UK for up to 30 days, and then only with a registered charity. To do voluntary work for more than 30 days requires a charity worker visa, which is also required by non-EU nationals coming for any length of time.

Katie Glass writes that the end of the Workaway scheme in the UK feels such a loss for her, other hosts, and all travellers who used the site to experience British life in a very “real” way. “Like so many things about Brexit, it seems to have closed the country down and closed the British off to new experiences.”

Personal Experience

I have met dozens of Workaways here in Spain, mostly volunteering in the hospitality industry, but some in construction. An Argentinian, a German and a Slovenian, all workaways I met in my local hotel in 2022, did work for me on the side, and I paid them.

I felt privileged to meet people from Argentina, Austria, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Russia (before the war in Ukraine), Switzerland, Uruguay and the USA. Most were young, but not all. An older, Argentinian/Uruguayan couple have converted their workaway status and are now waged staff at a local hotel.

Conclusion

The Workaway scheme is alive and well in 2023.

Spain and other countries around the world will continue to host Workaways, but no longer the UK for the foreseeable future.

Shame on you Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, Tim Martin (Wetherspoons) et al for all your rhetoric and lies about what Brexit would mean for the UK. This is just another consequence on the ever-lengthening list of negatives the 2016 referendum has left us with.

© The Curmudgeon

Acknowledgements:

Katie Glass

The Guardian

Tags: Brexit, Boris Johnson, Curmudgeon, EU, Guardian, Katie Glass, Michael Gove, negative consequence, NHS, Nigel Farage, Tim Martin, Wetherspoons, Workaway

By The Curmudgeon

You have to be careful when you talk about the weather with a Spaniard. What we British instinctively call “bad weather” isn’t anything of the sort to a local. I’ve often been brought up short when I’ve called rainy weather “bad”.

This current spell of heavy rain, which to us is bad, to the local farmers and growers, as well as to householders, is unquestionably good. “Hace falta, hombre” they pronounce. “We need it”.

They’re right, of course. Crop yields are down, the reservoirs are nearly empty and we’re fed up of having to share a bath, in order to save water!

However, continuous rain like we’re experiencing now in the whole of Spain, is beginning to get on peoples’ nerves.

Water is leaking into houses, unused to the incessant rainfall, from above and below. Crops are being ruined. Rivers are swollen and some have already burst their banks. Houses and vehicles have been washed away. Have you seen the recent TV footage of Extremadura, Comunidad de Madrid and Málaga?

Closer to home, at the weekend the road between Jimera de Líbar and Atajate was blocked for hours by heavy rockfalls caused by the heavy rain.

Once the much-needed rain starts to endanger life, to undermine the infrastructure of the country, to damage buildings and to ruin people’s homes, I think we’ve had enough.

I’ve lived in the Serranía de Ronda for almost a decade and a half. Over the years we’ve had bad/good weather from time to time. I have documented these events in the press and online. Here is a summary of those previous articles:

20 December 2010

“Rain, rain, go away… (part 1)

… Come again some other day!”  OK, the joke’s over!  ¡Basta ya con la lluvia!  We’ve had more than enough of the wet stuff now! It’s hardly stopped here in the Serranía de Ronda since 16 December 2010! Over 500 litres per square metre fell in just two weeks, according to the Spanish Met Office (INM)!

Local rivers have burst their banks five times! Hotels and other holiday accommodation have been inundated and put out of business, homes have been flooded and crops ruined.

The infrastructure has been significantly damaged: roads, rail lines, public buildings, housing stock, drainage systems.  Houses are growing mould inside because of the ongoing damp conditions and no chance to dry out.

Insurance companies are refusing to pay out – ¡acto de Dios! – so everyone is passing the responsibility buck: Ayuntamientos, Junta de Andalucía, ADIF (the rail company).  Nobody wants to fork out the compensation, although it looks as if the Junta de Andalucía may ultimately have to pick up the tab for failing to maintain its rivers properly.

On the positive side the reservoirs are fuller than they’ve been for many a year.  My village, Montejaque, has acquired a reservoir it never had since an ill-conceived and ill-fated dam was constructed in 1929!

But, really, we’ve had enough now …

“Rain rain go away
Come again some other day
Rain, rain, go away
Bring my love a sunny day.”

19 January 2011

“Rain, rain, go away!” (2)

“Rain rain go away,
Come again another day.
Little Johnny wants to play;
Rain, rain, go to Spain,
Never show your face again!”

The history and origins of the lyrics to this version of the English nursery rhyme date back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), one of the Tudor monarchs. During this period of English history there was constant rivalry between Spain and England culminating in the launch of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

The Armada, led by the Duke of Medina Sedonia, numbered over 130 galleons, while the English fleet, under Admiral Lord Howard, totalled just 34 small Navy vessels and 163 armed merchant ships. His second-in-command that day was Sir Francis Drake. 

The most famous (but probably apocryphal) anecdote about Drake and the Spanish Armada relates that, prior to the battle, he was playing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. On being warned of the approach of the Spanish fleet, Drake is said to have remarked that there was plenty of time to finish the game and still beat the Spaniards. There is no known eyewitness account of this incident and the earliest retelling of it was printed 37 years later.

Whatever the truth, the great Spanish Armada was defeated. Only 65 Spanish galleons and just 10,000 men returned to Spain.

Truth is the attack by the Spanish Armada failed because of superior tactics, the swift nature of the smaller English ships and because of the stormy weather which scattered the Armada fleet. Hence the origins of this version of the nursery rhyme.

December 2018

The Rain in Spain

“The rain in Spain falls mainly on the pla–ain”

This lyric from the musical My Fair Lady based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw is a load of nonsense. In my 12 years’ experience of living in the Serranía de Ronda, the rain in Spain falls mainly on the adjacent Sierra de Grazalema. In fact the town of Grazalema is the wettest place in Spain. According to official statistics, more of the wet stuff falls on this pretty mountain town than anywhere else in the whole of Spain. More even than in the towns of Galicia, Asturias and the Basque Country, which we more readily associate with wet weather.

In 2018 you would have thought the end of the world was nigh. In the spring heavy rain fell over a short period and caused major flooding around the Serranía de Ronda. At the Hotel Molino del Puente, at the bottom of the hill below our house, the restaurant, bar and terrace ended up under 30cm of water. Miraculously the hotel was cleaned, dried out and re-opened within 48 hours!

Then in October of the same year, so much rain fell in three hours that the whole of the area was declared an emergency zone. The hotel suffered again – this time water was lapping the ceiling of the bar and restaurant and first floor rooms were flooded by the torrent that ran off the fields, busted the land drains and entered through the front door of the hotel. This time the clear-up took longer and the hotel didn’t re-open until April 2019.

A similar fate befell the nearby Hotel Don Benito (now Hotel Ronda Valley).

The road past our house became a river. A friend’s car was washed away and mine was left suspended over a ditch that had been created when the water rinsed away the side of the road where my car was parked. The car had to be craned out and transported to the garage.

In Ronda, the emblematic Arab Baths were badly damaged and many streets, including the main shopping street Calle La Bola, were flooded, as the drainage infrastructure failed to cope. Around the Serranía low-lying villages such as Benaoján Estación, Jimera de Líbar Estación, La Cañada del Real Tesoro and El Colmenar were severely flooded, and some houses wrecked.

As this was deemed an act of God, the insurance companies were off the hook and the consorcio, a government–backed bailout scheme/emergency fund, paid for by us through a levy on our insurance premiums, stepped in. For example, the 800€ repair bill for my car was paid for by the consorcio.

This fund also picked up the tab for the damage wreaked in our garden, viz fallen trees, a wrecked fence, and a pebbled area that was washed away. Amazingly not a drop of water entered our house, although neighbours did suffer water ingress.

January 2021

“Here comes the rain again!”

We are currently experiencing a period of rainfall, but fortunately, toca madera (touch wood) it doesn’t seem to be the damaging kind. Given the amount of dry weather in recent years, the water is definitely welcome for the farmers and in order to top up our rather empty reservoirs.

But, don’t ever let anyone tell you that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. It clearly does not!

© The Curmudgeon

Tags: act of God, acto de Dios, Andalucía, Arab Baths, Asturias, Ayuntamiento, ADIFBenaoján, Calle La Bola, consorcio, Cortes de la Frontera, Curmudgeon, damage, Drake, El Colmenar, Extremadura, floods, Galicia, George Bernard Shaw, Grazalema, Hotel Don Benito, Hotel Molino del Puente, INM, insurance, Jimera de Líbar, Junta de Andalucía, La Cañada del Real Tesoro, Madrid, Málaga, Medina Sedonia, Montejaque, My Fair Lady, Pygmalion, Queen Elisabeth I, rain in spain, Ronda, Serranía de Ronda, Sir Francis Drake, Spain, Spanish Armada, sun, sunshine