Fiesta de los Reyes Magos

Today is the start of the major Christmas celebration in Spain - Epiphany. Tonight the children hang their stockings up to receive gifts, not from Santa, but from the three kings, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. The celebration starts with the arrival of the kings on the evening of 5th January. Yesterday was dull and cloudy and ended with torrential rain from tea-time until we went to bed, so everyone was concerned for the parades today. But we needn't have worried. This morning dawned bright and sunny, and it stayed that way all day. We decided that as we will be in our own village for their parade next year, this year we would try somewhere else, so we went to Garrucha. Being a fishing village, it was reasonable for the kings to arrive on a fishing boat! When it arrived at the harbour, the kings were transferred onto three elaborate floats, designed to look like a horse-drawn sleigh, one pulled by an elephant, and the one carrying a very dark-skinned king was drawn by camels. As they processed slowly along the main street they tossed copious sweets with gay abandon into the crowd. Each king had several large sacks of sweets and the children had carrier bags to collect them in. By the end of the parade we saw children who had at least a couple of kilos of sweets in their bags. The Spanish are obviously not as concerned as us about the their children's weight or their teeth! (I read on the internet that, at the larger parade in Madrid, 7000 kilos of sweets are distributed). At the end of the parade the kings go to the town hall where they distribute gifts to the children (previously supplied by their parents).

While we were waiting for the parade to start, we walked around a small 'artisanal' fair along the sea front. There were stalls selling hand-made candles, jewellry, toys, hats and other novelties, and food stalls with a range of cakes, bread, herbs, teas and coffees. We bought half of a huge loaf which will last us for a week, as well as a big wedge of fruit bread. Then I chose some interesting drinks - tea with chocolate and rosehip, and white mint tea, and Chris bought five litres of local wine for €6. That should keep him quiet for a while. We had lovely kebabs for our supper and then followed the parade and watched a short firework display before heading for home.

For more photos, see my gallery on www.picasaweb.com/kayempea1947

Hooray - Christmas mail !!

I know it's January, but yes, today we got the rest of our Christmas post. Mike got some down to Brighton for Jonathan to bring over, but we continued to check the post office box every couple of days. We thought we'd do one last run on Christmas Eve, so on 23rd, as we were taking Jonathan up to Sierra Nevada, we gave Cuevas a miss. However, when we got there on the morning of 24th, we found the post office all locked up. There was a notice on the inner door which I couldn't read, so Jonathan suggested taking a photo of it, and when I got it home and blew it up on the computer, this is what I found. Basically it says that the post office is closed from 24th December until 31st. We now know that this is usual for all post offices in Spain except for the main ones in the largest cities. They forgot to add that it is also closed on 1st January, but I guess we should have just assumed that New Year's Day is a public holiday in most places, so after another fruitless trip yesterday. we went again today, and Bingo ..... lots of lovely Christmas cards. They are now hung up in the flat. My decorations always stay up until twelfth night any way, and they deserve to have their showing along with the rest. So thank you to everyone who sent to us. I am sure all your cards and messages did reach us in the end, and it meant a lot to us to receive them. It will be better next year when we have a proper address, and our own little mail box on the house.

I apologise if anyone has tried to contact us in the past few days. Unfortunately we have lost our 3G connection for the internet and although we can still use it, it is very slow, and it is not possible to use Skype. But we can still e-mail, so we haven't lost contact altogether, and when I am in a patient mood, I will log into facebook as well. We are not sure what the problem is, but Chris is trying to get it sorted out.

We are in rather a state of limbo at the minute, until we can proceed further with the house, so I do not have much to blog about, but I shall continue to update you once a week at least, so keep checking, and I'll keep chatting!