Anyone fancy a “lard-o”? Thought not…

On Sunday I went to Murcia for breakfast. Murcia is the capital of the region where I live, and given as it’s a good 45 minute drive, this did seem a little excessive. But it wasn’t my idea, and I wasn’t driving, so my colleague and I set off towards a range of extinct volcanic mountains, which can be seen from all around where I live because the rest of the land is so flat. We drove up and up and up, and then we coasted down, and it was wonderful to watch the countryside change. My first impressions of Murcia itself were dim. It seemed run-down, poor, and lacking in life. Until we wandered into the city centre, when suddenly there was architecture to enjoy, shops which weren’t boarded up (albeit not open on a Sunday), a valiant late-November attempt at street café culture, a flea-market and a rather bizarre motorcycle ralley in memory of road traffic accident victims!



After an orange juice and a custard-filled croissant we hit the road again – it being Sunday there was little to do there – but I resolved that I would return one sunny Saturday in the new year and explore a little more thoroughly.

It’s been a rollercoaster week for my language abilities. There have been moments of near despair (ironically including my inability to pronounce “don’t despair” in Spanish), when I’ve wondered how I am ever going to achieve a decent level of fluency over the next four months, which is my ultimate goal. For days I couldn’t work up the courage to say anything to anyone at the gym, but on Thursday I knew I had to bite the bullet – I’d challenged myself to talk, after all! So in the changing rooms I asked an unintimidating soul from my Body Combat class what a particular word used frequently in the class meant – it turned out to be “breath”. Hardly a conversation to win hoards of friends with… but it was definitely a start. And at dancing this evening I managed to splurt a few inane words out (in context, of course!). My biggest victory, however, came out of the blue at work. I was sitting in the tiny office kitchen with four colleagues. When this happens, I can usually follow most of the conversation if I concentrate really hard, but I can’t join in until they slow down for me. This time was no exception. But then… I made a joke!! And suddenly my colleagues were laughing, partially in pure surprise, but mostly at my joke, and not at me! The funny thing to me though was not the joke itself, but the fact that I wasn’t even aware that I knew the word that was the crux of the joke (deaf – sordo)… I hadn’t planned to make a joke at all, it just jumped out of my mouth like a jack-in-the-box. I was the most surprised out of everybody!

On the topic of work, which has been busy but nothing to write home about, I got some new gear – look! I’m now the proud owner of a company-branded “bump cap”, which must only have resulted from a baseball cap and a hard-hat being allowed to mate, and a rather fetching high-vis jacket. I’m not quite sure I need them in the office… but hopefully this is a sign of future ventures into the unknown (or the pack-house…).

I would just like to take a minute here to put one supposition to rest. Spain – even in the south – is not hot in the winter. Warmer than the UK, yes. Hot, no. In the early mornings I can frequently see my breath in front of me, and even though it supposedly warms up to around 17 degrees at siesta time, there is almost always a biting wind here. Also, the buildings are designed to be cool in the summer months. Unfortunately they’re even cooler in the winter! I spend most of the time at work wearing a fleece!

And so here we are – Advent has begun, and the inevitable helter-skelter towards Christmas. Not that you’d know it here. No Christmas songs on the radio or in shops. No obvious festive signs in the streets, like our garish fairy lights. In the office, just a couple of little Father Christmases perched on the computers, placed there by some unusually festive spirit.

Even the supermarkets have only one low-key table display each of marzipan delights and chocolates and dried fruits and nuts. It certainly makes a difference from seeing Lindt Reindeers since September back home... and it's quite refreshing in a way, but I'd rather like a little more Christmas cheer! I suppose it comes of Spain still being a strongly catholic country.

So far, I’ve been introduced to one Spanish Christmas delicacy – the mantecado. This is much like the shortbread of the UK, although with a coarser consistency. The one I tried was heart-shaped and lightly flavoured with almonds, and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, but I haven’t experienced enough of them to know whether these are standard characteristics or not! Anyway, it was thoroughly enjoyable… until I decided to look up what “manteca” meant… and found out it meant “lard”. Mmmmmm -“lard-os”. It has such an appealing ring to it, don’t you think? I’d rather be blissfully unaware!

The Spanish don’t do Advent calendars. I was surprised… in Germany they were everywhere – I even found a herbal tea advent calendar there!! But here, no. One of my British colleagues brought a chocolate one with him, and we’ve allocated one day to everybody who works full-time in the office… the cause of much excitement and confusion. One senior colleague sent me a very sincere email asking, given as his date was a Sunday, whether the window should be opened the day before, or the day after, or whether he had to come in that Sunday in order to do it correctly! My family does advent calendars. More specifically, we do one advent calendar between us wherever we are in the world, and we have done now for many years. Here’s how it works. We each draw 24 different sized boxes on a piece of paper, and number them.

And we take it in turns to declare – by text or email – what is “behind the window” for the day. The image then gets drawn in, and so over Advent the page slowly fills up, and at the end we get all four of them together and have a laugh about our attempts. There’s only one rule: behind one of the windows must be a rubber duck. He typically appears around 20^th December (to keep the anticipation flowing), but you never know. He could arrive tomorrow!

On 1^st December 2011, we had a “glittering angel’s harp”:

On 2^nd December 2011, we had a “starry starry night full of magic and mystery”:

And on 3^rd December 2011, we had “a robin in a palm tree” (no prizes for guessing whose turn THAT was!):

But the big question still remains: when will the rubber duck come?!