A squeeze of the shoulder

I come from a remote family – in the sense that we kept our distance. The nearest my father came to hugging me was an outstretched handshake. That’s not a complaint, quite the opposite, although I enjoy the occasional hug with those I like very much or love, I do believe that hugging in the UK is little overdone nowadays and has lost its way. In Spain it is very natural, of course.

My first intimate experience with a Spanish woman dates from our time as smallholders on the outskirts of a town called Woodbridge. New people had moved into the cottage at the end of our lane: he built boats (big ones) in the attached barn, she embraced me as if we were long lost friends or lovers. I quite liked it. Annabella brought a touch of sunny Spain to sombre Suffolk and a friendship which has certainly outlasted the boat builder (never liked him much anyway and have no regrets about throwing him into our swimming pool – boy was he cross).

If I were sitting in a pub in Oxford, or even Stow-on-the-Wold, and some bloke I barely knew squeezed my shoulder , I would be deeply shocked and suspicions would crowd my sozzled mind. Yet here in La Fresneda it is quite normal: often nothing is said, just a squeeze and a smile. And I quite like it. I sometimes squeeze the shoulder of some villager I know and respect. I think my advances are always well-received.

There are, of course, some people that I would not like to be squeezed by at all: the carpenter for one. Eva is quite the opposite: she is the most passionate woman in our village. A lovely woman , she greets us with such enthusiasm: hugs and showers of kisses. Like most Spanish mothers she has taught her charming little daughter  well – the little girls stands face up waiting for a kiss once her mother has finished with us.

On Friday last we were taken on a mystery tour by our near neighbours who are both enthusiastic nature lovers. He is English and she is Swiss so the hugging and kissing is mostly replaced with a firm handshake before they drive us out into the countryside to view waterfowl and wild goats. We had a lovely day. 

Towards the end of it they took us to a village in the Maestrazgo mountain range where they  have befriended a very nice family who run a Casa Rural ( a sort of B&B) in which they often stay. The man of the family is a sort of forest ranger for the area and has two children. With the grandmother who has her own house, they dominate the village: there are just seven occupants in total. Most of the houses are unoccupied or used for tourism. Yet that family posseses a noticeable aura of contentment.

We met the thirteen-year-old daughter – out playing ball on her own.  A slim, tall girl, she presented herself to each one of us to be kissed on both cheeks with such a serious expression that I could only think of as charming.

The day was drawing to a close so we headed back to La Fresneda. Along the way we had one of those inspiring moments: a large male goat was standing proudly on a rock high above us seemingly watching out progress. With the setting sun behind him he provided a wondrous sight. He was a big boy and,  though I have milked many a goat, I would not like to squeeze his shoulder.

Oh, and that same week I saw a pine martin running over the roof that my house overlooks – a rare and thrilling sight. Isn’t nature wonderful.

A handful of chips and naming

The Spanish have solved the problem of inherited surnames. In the UK posh people in the past, anyone nowadays, sometimes combined the father’s and mother’s surname with an aristocratic hyphen. Hence Parker-Jones and Parkinson-Smith – so much more eye catching that Jones or Smith. In Spain this is the norm. The first generation take their surnames from the father and mother – in that order. That is so non-discriminatory in a country famed for its macho image and as a result, my grandson is called Robin Valero Walters.

 Hey, the Walters name goes on, but not for long. Assuming that Robin does marry and does have children, and lets presume that he marries an English girl with the surname Smith and that they decide to abide by the Spanish naming tradition, then what will my great grand children be called?  Valero Smith, of course. Hey, the Walters name has gone, shoved off the end by a Smith or whatever. So, what seems such a good idea and so egalitarian and non sexist is very short lived. The male dominates or, in my particular case, is soon swept aside.

Not that this bothers me much, probably not at all. But does a fair solution exist? Perhaps we should keep adding on all of the surnames at each marriage? That could be quite a burden for future generations. If my sums are correct then the fifth generation would  possess thirty-two surnames!. Alternatively, how about this: since the family is arguably disintegrating anyway we could abandon family names altogether – Bonjovi, Picasso and Björk seem to have managed OK and this would certainly make filling forms a little simpler.

From names to chips. I am glad to get back to our little village of La Fresneda again even though the elements were not welcoming. The rain began in Perpignan, just on the French side of the border and accompanied us on our entire journey south to our village. When we arrived it was raining so much that we slept another night in our camping car rather than attempt the walk up the hill to our house. In the following days we witnessed the damage caused by days of heavy rain: rivers torrential, roadside cliffs slipping, and terrace walls collapsing. However, by the end of the week the sun was shining so we went off to celebrate in the nearby village of Cretas.

We are regulars at the Cretas wine festival, itself accompanied by a Medieval Festival where local people dress up and sell stuff from stalls. Quite a lot of the stuff is edible and quite a lot of that is “ecological”, a word that rings alarm bells for someone as embarrassingly fastidious as myself. My sensitive stomach is not sentient of course, but it does perform a gentle churn when the word  “ecological” turns up. This churn replaces words like “wholesome, natural, organic” in my mind with things like “dirty, unchecked, no sell-by date”. Similarly perhaps, the  phrase “Made in China”  associated with anything that might pass my lips has a similar effect. The sensitive stomach has been to China and only just about survived the experience. Oddly enough, it has also survived many, many years of our own home-grown food which I suppose would now be called ecological.

So, rather than snacking, we sampled the wine and waited excitedly for the medieval breakfast for which we had prepayed seven euros (£5) each and was served by hand at the staggeringly late, but oh so Spanish, hour of ten p.m. I say “served by hand” advisedly. We tendered our tickets at the entry to a vast tent with seating for at least two hundred. In exchange we were given a plastic plate on which lay a lukewarm sausage and a slice of fatty bacon. We then shuffled long to the next server who picked up a fried egg from a nest of the things and threw it onto our plates. She then picked up a handful of chips from a big heap and spread these on top of our medieval breakfast. I could not believe my eyes, she really delivered the egg and chips with her hands: I filmed her doing it! 

Fortunately, she was wearing white rubber gloves, consequently the sensitive stomach stayed calm and the food - when washed down with more wine (included in the price together with a sweet course of an apple or orange) - was OK. But, if those gloves had been green, well, I could not have eaten one chip, not one! How I love it here; things are so…so ecological.