September Song

By Richard Morley.

The Cuatro Torres on a sunny day.

The guy who plays the accordion has returned to his pitch halfway up the double escalator at Cruzco metro station. His dreary renderings of Ave Maria once again accompany my ascent from platform to pavement as I strive to arrive on time for the lesson. Like most of the population of Madrid, he’s been absent for the past month. Their place was taken by tens of thousand of camera snappy, culture vulture tourists, who just have to “do” the Prado, oh!, and a million and a half of the pope’s groupies.

Now, except for a few stragglers, the visitors have gone home. I hope they have happy memories of this most wonderful of towns, but I am glad they’ve gone. (With a notable exception who I am going to miss! Ah! No name! I have to maintain an air of mystery.)

I suppose many who live in places deemed “tourist destinations” have similar thoughts. What the visitor comes to see, those things I famously call the “Three Ps” of the Prado, the Palacio Real and the Plaza Mayor, with maybe a side trip to the Retiro Park or the new Madrid Rio embankment park (if they venture that extra half kilometre out of the centre,) all assiduously recorded on a million digital cameras, are what they will tell their neighbours and colleagues about when they return home. “Madrid is so historical! ”, they will exclaim.

And that includes that monolithical concrete lump of an eyesore called the Bernabéu Stadium, which happily, might not be around for much longer as there are plans by the club to replace it with a steel and glass monolith including a new shopping mall. I am not detracting from the sporting skill of the club, just their choice of architects! And to be honest, there are a few other buildings in that area that hark back to the concrete and glass heyday of the sixties and could well, should be, replaced.

Possibly Madrid's ugliest building

Travel more than a kilometre from Sol and, with a couple of exceptions, that sense of “historical” Madrid disappears. Most of what constitutes the city dates back not much further than the 1950s. Gran Via itself is only a hundred years old. Yes, a lot of it is a Jungla Cristal of not very attractive apartment and office blocks, which is not what the tourist has come to see. Yet that is where the people are, and it’s the spirit, the friendliness of those people which is the essence of this city I now call home.

Like all large cities the majority of the population are immigrants. Madrileños who can trace their ancestry back two or three generations and stay within the city are few and far between. These are the so-called “gatos”, or Madrid cats. I do have a friend who can go back five generations and when I mention this I am met with expressions of amazement. It is very unusual. But the spirit of the city imposes itself even on us new-comers and we don’t, in the main, live in “historical” Madrid. We live in a modern, bustling, vibrant town that, yes, like any place that predates 1776 actually has some history!

The Business District in Castellana

From the soaring Cuatro Torres, Europe’s highest skyscrapers, to the bottom of Castellana this spirit is evident in the architecture. But who is the brave tourist who ventures north of Colon? Or west of the Palace, east of the Puerta de Alcala, south of Atocha? Yet that is where you’ll find the real Madrid.

I want to drag our visitors out to the Parque Juan Carlos Primero to see new thinking. I want to lead them around the streets and markets of Carabanchel. I want them to see some fantastic modern architecture in Alcobendas and Alcorcon.

Instead, when a tourist wishes to escape the town centre, where do they go? Toledo! I am sure history is fascinating to those who have little history themselves, but just because we in Europe do, they shouldn’t ignore our more modern achievements.

I know on this blog I tend to write about the historical myself, because it fascinates me. But in the same way that I tell people to cross over the Paseo de Prado and visit the Thyssen-Bornemisza gallery (much more interesting than the Prado) I want our visitors to see beyond the “Three Ps” and experience a real Madrid, the living city, not the time capsulated centre where even the modernisations look old.

Men in suits.

But they’ve gone now, these interlopers. We have returned to our offices and classrooms (or soon will). We still have clear, brilliant blue skies with thirty degree plus temperatures, but the shorts and patterned shirts have been replaced with business suits and ties (reinforcing my belief that Spanish men are nuts as the ladies are still sensibly wearing thin strapped summer numbers), the metro is crowded and the lines for the Menu del Día are long.

Mind you, we break into our work schedule gently here in Madrid. The first full week of work ends ……… in a bank holiday. I mean a full five days would be too much for the poor things!

And the accordionist sits on his stool halfway up the escalators at Cruzco and plays Ave Maria. Madrid is ours again.

Don’t worry. We will lend it to you again next year.

Madrid's River Manzanares. Where it begins....

Or Out of the frying pan and into the Fridge,
By Richard Morley.

When I wrote, a couple of posts ago, about Madrid’s new park running alongside the Manzanares River as it lazily glides though the city, I gave little thought to where that water came from. Like the crowds happily picnicking on the river banks in Goya’s famous painting above, I was quite happy to spend a cool evening beside the cool water.

Not many days later and Madrid stopped having cool evenings. The numbers on the electronic temperature displays at the bus stops climbed way up into the thirties and refuse to come down. Madrid is hot and sticky. The washing machine seems to be continuously on, removing the perspiration from several shirts a day, with the shower doing the same thing from my body. (I wish the guy on the Metro this morning had followed my example. It must have been yesterdays shirt. What a stink!)

Last week one of my students injured himself playing football and limped into Monday’s lesson wincing as he walked. On Tuesday he called and cancelled, claiming his ankle needed the expertise of a doctor. And so, with a free evening ahead, a friend suggested an escape to Madrid’s northerly mountains.

Now I like a walk in the hills, but I should have smelled a rat when she also suggested that I bring my swimming trunks.

By six that evening we had parked the car in an almost deserted car park in the Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, a nature reserve high in the Guadarrama mountains, recognised by UNESCO for its unique biological heritage and overlooked by La Pedriza, a huge granite uplift that dominates the region.

Geologically speaking, the Spanish word “Cuenca” means valley or bowl. Hence the town of Cuenca, which has nothing to do with this post, but where houses precariously hang from cliffs over-looking a deep valley. In the case of the Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, the “bowl” here signifies the confluence of several small streams into one main river valley which officially becomes the Manzanares river.

On the drive up to the parque I took in the scene of boulder strewn slopes and thought that at sometime in the past something pretty serious had happened to the geology. Granite is an igneous rock, spewed out by volcanoes, and here was several cubic kilometres of it. In places the granite was fissures and the cracks were filled with black basalt, again of volcanic production, and then it had been uplifted and split asunder. The area would have been pretty uninhabitable at the time. Now the parque is a peaceful retreat from the heat and bustle of the city. A place of shady pines and scented bushes, riverside walks and picnic spots. And, my friend told me, of places to bathe in the cooling water.

We left the car and strolled down the slope to the river. A handy sign informs you or where you are and what you can see. Beyond, a narrow wooden bridge, half submerged in the shadows of high tree – don’t ask me what they are, I am no botanist – led us across a narrow stream that tripped lightly over a few rocks and a fallen tree trunk.

A pretty little river I thought. But as we progressed up stream the rocks became boulders, the trickle turned into competing flows of white water. There was a water fall around every bend, and behind each fall a pool where people picnicked and splashed in the water.

Now, if you were to dip a toe into the waters of the Manzanares as it meanders though the city you might remark that the water is “refreshing”. But when the water reaches the city it is well on its way along its eighty-three kilometre journey from its source to where it joins the Jarama river. Yes, the “mighty Manzanares” is but the tributary of another. On the first half of its journey it has had time to relax under the warming sun while it dawdled in the Santillana reservoir, near the town of Manzanares de Real, and then slowly tumble along its lazy route, past courses for golf and horse racing, into the city.

 Cooling off in the cold, cold waters.

Up near its source, in the Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, the water is not “refreshing” but BLOODY FREEZING. A few degrees cooler and those sparkling water trickles would be icicles. It is not many days since the tumbling water of the Manzanares headwaters was snow peacefully at rest on the peaks of the Guadarrama mountains. Then summer arrived and raising the temperature by not very much sent the snowmelt in a raging torrent over the granite boulders where it splashed and tumbled, eddied and pooled as it squeezed through the rocks.

 A local resident basks in the evening sun.

Still unaware of just how cold this snowmelt was, as my friend and I walked along the river banks under a burning sun from a cloudless blue sky, I looked on with envy as groups of family and friends paddled and splashed in the water. The car park we had used was not the only one. My friend stopped a passing dog walker and asked him how far up river did the picnics and pool parties continue. He laughed sardonically, remarking that on a Tuesday evening he had hopes of having the woods and banks to himself, but that he thought most of Madrid, us included I suppose, had come out to spoil his evening.

 Going ...... going ........ soon to be gone. A boulder balances precariously over the river bank.

My friend remarked how nice it was to be able to walk unencumbered with a back-pack through the shady woods. I, being a gentleman, had volunteered to carry the back pack and grunted that I was happy for her. A language difference means that irony sometimes gets lost in translation!

The open and flattish woodland walk soon gave way to a more rugged and narrower path. There were cracks to be squeezed though, boulders requiring giant steps to surmount, sticky, snagging bushes to circumvent. All the while the laughter and joy of those who had already found their little pool of paradise rose up from the river.

Eventually we found an empty spot. A place of washed pink granite, known appropriately as Rose Granite, that had been eroded over millennia into broad, smooth beds which the acrobatic water washed with sporadic waves. We changed into our swimming stuff and dipped a toe in the water.

I shall not record the first word I used. Children might read this! Suffice it to say the coldness of the water came as a surprise. The second surprise was that the smoothness of the eroded rock allowed for no grip and I slid into the water. My friend was greatly amused by this, until the same thing happened to her and it took us a while to scramble back on to dry rock, which, compared to the water, was positively hot. Half on and half off the rocks we dangled our feet in the water. We had possibly walked four or five kilometres so the cold water gurgling though our toes was a welcome relief. Later, now with anticipation than ignorance, we let the water console more of our bodies.

 A couple of degrees less .....and this would be an icicle!!!

From the backpack she produced tortilla and bread and something to drink. Like others in their own personal paradises along the river bank we let all thoughts of hot and sweaty Madrid pass from our minds.

Walking back, with the sun casting long shadows and dappling the wood floor with light and shade, we noticed birds hovering on thermals over the Pedriza. The mountains here claim the title of the largest expanse of Granite in Europe.

On the way from Madrid I thought I was being clever and spotted the shape of a face in the rocks. My friend gave me that look which means I will for ever be a guiri and remarked that gazing at the slopes of the Pedriza is like observing shapes in the flames of a fire. She pointed out a tortoise, a helmet, which is what this particular peak, El Yelmo, is named for, and even a mammoth, while above us the rock formation known as the Canchos de los Muertos contemplated the living below.

I am told that there are nearly a thousand different routes for hill walkers and rock climbers within the thirty two square kilometres of the Pedriza. I had already had enough exercise for one day and the only exercise I was now contemplating was raising a glass or two of cold beer.

This was achieved after we drove out of the park into the small town of Manzanares el Real where stands a real medieval castle and a church tower swarming with storks.

Below that tower, in a small plaza, lay a bar. Around me kids, lots of kids, probably something to do with the storks, played in the plaza. A beer sat in front of me - but not for long!!

Now that was paradise.

Not a quiet revolution.

By Richard Morley.

The times they are a-changing.

Something is happening here is Spain, and I am not sure what it is.

Now, not being a native, but a guest, I do not feel it has been appropriate for me to take sides with the “indignados” (the indignant ones) who have recently been encamped in the Pueta del Sol here in Madrid and in public squares around the country. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion.

Before moving to Spain permanently I would compare the control being imposed by central government on the people of the UK with the relative laissez faire attitude of the Spanish authorities. However, recent events here, for whatever reasons, have inculcated a feeling that the state is sticking it’s nose in where it’s not wanted. And in the minds of those who can remember a time when the Government very much imposed its will on the populace, this latest interference is not welcome. Particularly when the activities of that government seem to be doing nothing to relieve the very real and current concerns of a nation with massive debt, high unemployment, and a lack of confidence in the future.

Even though the next general election will probably see a change of political will in congress, the indignados don’t think that will change the direction in which the country is going.

Of course, part of the problem does not lie with central government, but with each of the autonomous regions where each  creates their own problems. The workers’ unions must also take some of the blame. The “sindicatos” have been engaged in negotiations with the government in order to come up with some sort of policy that would make the creation of jobs easier. The employers say that the cost of employing people is high under current legislation and the social packages Spanish workers are entitled to make it expensive to fire people also. As the sindicatos have been refusing to relinquish workers rights and the employers have also dug their heels in, the negotiations reached an impasse. As the government want to be seen doing something, they will now impose an employment policy that no one will agree to.

Last year Esperanza Aguirre’s Comunidad de Madrid said it would cut fifty-eight legal steps from those needed to create a new business. They cut fifty-eight! How many are left? A friend of mine involved with starting a new business here in Madrid can answer that. Too damn many!

Many are not taking those steps. The ex-construction workers who want to put a roof over their family’s heads and food on their table can’t afford the luxury of time or the cost of legally starting a new business, so the lamp post are adorned with computer printed, or hand-written, advertisements for their services to decorate your home or replace a kitchen or bathroom. I am sure that most cannot afford the €3000 payment that must be made when starting any form of business, or the very high social security payments demanded of the self-employed. Not being legal, I doubt they are declaring their earnings for tax. They can’t legally take on employees either, so the unemployment numbers don’t get reduced and the hacienda, the tax office, loses revenue. But to make the process easier would mean that government funcionarios, civil servants, (a misnomer in many cases!), and notarios would have nothing to do. Except get a proper job, of course!

So, the indignados have been protesting. Firstly in the month long encampment that formed in Sol and other plazas around the country. Then in small demonstrations everywhere and culminating last weekend in street protests all over the country. They claim to want “Democracia, Ya!”, or democracy now, but enticed voters to spoil their ballot papers at the recent local elections. I don’t follow that. A young protester that recently gate-crashed the inauguration ceremony for the swearing in on the newly elected representatives of the Comunidad and managed to demand from Señora Aguirre what right she had to represent all the Madrileños as voter turn-out was far from 100% and there were so many spoiled papers. She replied that, “This is a free country and …… each is entitled to vote ……. and the nature of elections is to renew the mandate of those who had done a good job and throw out those who had a done a bad one.” She went on to remark that voting was the one important responsibility of a country’s citizens. I agree and will also say that those who did not vote, or enticed others not to vote, were not supporters of democracy.

As Winston Churchill said (I think) “democracy has many faults but it’s better than the alternative”.  

The protesters’ camp in Sol had their own problems with democracy. They had lots of noisy protests, but couldn’t actually agree an anything. Apparently their decisions needed everyone to agree. Just one dissenting voice meant they would not reach concensus, because the voice of the majority was not the voice of all. As Abraham Lincoln remarked, “…….. you can’t please all of the people all of the time”. In a democracy the minority have to lick their wounds and wait for their turn.

But whatever the demonstrators protested about, they did it very noisily. Walking though Sol one Saturday evening at the height of the protests I was struck by the sheer volume of the voices raised in anger and was pleased that I wasn’t living in that neighbourhood and trying to get to sleep. It would have been impossible. And it would have been impossible for four long weeks. The erection of the encampment brought with it, despite the best efforts of the organisers to impose some order, a hygiene problem and restricted free passage though, and free use of, the Plaza. Many businesses reported a severe drop in trade because the “Democracia, Ya” protesters had imposed their own, un-elected will on the area.

And just as an aside here, When I wandered though the encampment which was set up to highlight and publicise the plight of so many, I noticed many notices restricting the taking of photographs. What were they afraid of? Surely they wanted all the publicity they could get? If you want someone to take notice, you have to stand and be counted.

However, Spain is, whatever the protesters say, a democracy. They have the right to protest and freedom of speech. Having lived and worked in countries where neither of these things is a “right” I probably value them more highly than those under forty here do. Perhaps they should ask their parents and grandparents what the country was like before 1975.

But did they have the right to disturb the sleep and business life in Sol during their month long protest? You see, while the authorities let them do what they wanted, those same authorities are prohibiting loud music in the street in Chueca during Gay Pride weekend – because the local residents have complained.

And it’s not just Chueca. Over thirty barrios that traditionally have “fiestas patronales” such as the Verbena de Poloma in La Latina, in Tetuan for the Fiesta de Victoria and for the Fiesta de Carmen in Vallecas. All of them are being reviewed regarding the loudness of the entertainment that will now be allowed. A spokesman for the barrio of Tetuan commented,”…. In the first week of July there will be concerts and fairs in the plaza de Remonta. Of course they are noisy and some residents have already complained”. But “What would become of Madrid without the streets fairs?” said Fernando Garcia of the Cuatro Caminos neighbourhood association.

Suddenly Madrid’s, and Spain’s, live and let live attitude is undergoing a sea change. After years of smoking being allowed everywhere, now we have had to adjust to being restricted. Most of us smokers have happily taken that on board, but it must have affected sales as twice in two weeks the price of cigarettes came down recently.

Yes, that’s right. They came down! Amazing.

My recent remarks regarding a speed restriction on cycling in the new cycle lanes in Madrid Rio meant that I watched with some amusement interviews with cyclists on TV last week. They were angry. “Six kilometres an hour is hardly enough to allow you to balance”, claimed one. Another, echoing my point, argued that painted lines delineating walkers from those on wheels was the sensible solution. One more made the point that the cycle lanes were designed for the users to enjoy exercising on their machines and introducing ridiculous speed limits was not a proper solution. After all, they are called “Cycle Lanes”. Were these of a similar age to the young “indignados”? No, they senior citizens wanting to enjoy a bike ride in the sun.

The smoking restrictions, noise controls (on a normally noisy city), reduced speed limits on the motorways and now other petty rules are seen by many here to be unwarranted intrusions into the citizens’ right to enjoy life. Non-smokers, those wanting peace and those who like to walk without fear of accident will all have their opinions – as do those who think otherwise.

Shouldn’t we all learn to live together?

.

A Happy New Year - with cost constraints.

By Richard Morley.

Two years ago I celebrated the arrival of 2009 in Madrid’s Plaza del Sol. It was crowded, I was jostled, and I stood in one place for four hours. New year came, the bells of the clock on the casa de correos chimed twelve and we ate our grapes. There were fireworks, music and a laser show. It was great fun and a wonderful display of city pride, but it was now on my “Been there, seen it, done it – bought the tee-shirt” list and said I would never go again.

So what the heck was I doing there last night?

I have a friend who a few months ago moved to Spain for work. She is Scottish and therefore loves her New Year celebrations. Her Spanish friends and colleagues told her that most definitely she had to celebrate New Year in Sol. Enjoy the atmosphere, eat the grapes, drink, sing and be merry. It is a Great Spanish tradition.

And then all of her friends found something else to do!

So, instead of there being a crowd of us, it was just us two. We met early, planning to eat before joining the crowds in the centre. Her Scottish compatriot put it well when Robbie Burns wrote about “The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley”, because where we had planned to eat had closed its doors for the night. Nearby was a VIPs restaurant, which informed is they were not cooking that evening. (So why the heck were they open?) They did however provide a pancake postre and a couple of beers, which saw us through.

My Scottish friend was amazed that catering establishments would so willingly give up the chance make money from the tens of thousands who attended last night’s celebrations. In Edinburgh, she told me, when the masses gathered in Princes Street to welcome in the new year, the restaurateurs and pub landlords would not waste such an opportunity to fill their cash registers.

Walking along the Calle Mayor last night we passed bar after bar whose doors were shut and in darkness. Even McDonalds was closed.

But there was drink aplenty in Sol – so long as you had brought it with you. Early arrivals came with a liquid picnic and sat on the cold slabs of the plaza. Some near us, had bought twin packs of Coke and Red wine taped together to create the instant calimochó and of course, there was Cava, the Spanish champagne, everywhere.

After our meagre dinner, my friend and I found our spot in the plaza and began the long wait for midnight. Our legs weakening, we followed the example of the picnickers and reclined on the cold, stone slabs of the plaza while we waited until the thickening throng started standing on us. One picnic group generously passed us a can of Cruzcampo to share.

The television companies, who had set up al fresco studios on the balconies and rooftops opposite the clock would incite the crowd to cheer and wave as they sought to add colour to their broadcasts. Those wearing garish wigs of bright colours out-numbered those who didn’t. I noticed a new line in headdress this year with the inclusion of Venetian masks, richly decorated, worn by the ladies. Men tended to stick to orange afros. A guy dressed as the pope staged a one man protest against the catholic church’s opposition to condom use, another group sailed a huge banner in support of the right of divorced fathers. An annoying guy banged a drum non-stop.

By eleven the crowd had grown to jostling proportion. We had to almost fight, at least be really stubborn, to maintain our position on the two stone slabs where we had staked our claim. But it was a good natured crowd with only a couple of *¨/&$Ys who rudely shouldered others out of their way without a perdone. There was singing, restricted dancing, and much taking of photographs. You can see my blurred offerings on this page. (I really must get a better camera!)

A minute before midnight and the already deafening screams of the crowd rose to painful. People prepared their little bags of twelve grapes, ready to consume one for each chime of midnight. It was a slow minute, but then the minute hand clunked up to vertical and the preliminary peal from the bells began, catching out those who thought this was the actual midnight chime. A few first grapes were consumed before the twelve strident bongs rang out across the plaza.

A grape for each chime. Manage this small feat will bring you luck for the year ahead. The noise fell to a murmur until the last grape was swallowed. Then the crowd broke into song, shaken cava fountained, unconsumed grapes were thrown. There were kisses and hugs, back slapping and wishes of Feliz Año on all sides. And then ……

Nothing!

No fireworks – no laser projections – no music. Around us people watched the sky expectantly. It remained dark. Someone in the crowd let off a small rocket and there were a couple of thunder flashes. But no official celebration. There was a definite feeling of anti-climax. Within minutes the crowd began drifting away. Some glancing back to see if something would happen. But no.

My friend and I joined the exodus and wondered off in the direction of Plaza Santa Anna in the hope of an open bar. No luck, they were all closed. What sort of celebration was this? Eventually we bought some beer from a Chinese shop and sat in a plaza near her hostal drinking and chatting. Passing strangers wished us “Feliz Año”, one man stopped and kissed my friend – and then insisted on kissing me!

A dead Plaza Santa Anna. No celebration here!

I would be lying if I told you I had not enjoyed the evening. I had a good time and in great company. The generosity and joy of the people around us was infectious. But there was something missing this year. It must be “La Crisis”. It would surely be wrong for the ayuntamiento to spend Money on public entertainment when so many are without jobs or have had their salaries reduced.

So I am curious to see to what extent the parade of the three kings will be reduced next week. Last years cabalgata was a fantastic show which must have cost a fortune to stage. It is a night of colour, noise and music. It’s the night when the three kings come to bring the presents for Spanish children. I hope they come in style.

After leaving my friend I attempted to get a taxi home; A necessity when, after attracting tens of thousands into the city centre for a midnight celebration they still insist on shutting down the metro at one-thirty! I had no luck and walked back though the town to catch a night bus from Cibeles. I did pass open bars, but with others closed those that were serving were packed beyond limit. It seems strange that in a time of financial uncertainty business owners would deliberately give up the chance of profiteering from the thirsty.

Spain, still, is different!

This blog is on the cusp of being two years old. Last month it achieved a record number of hits from every time zone around the world. For that, let me say a huge thank you to all of you for reading what I write and, sometimes, writing such encouraging comments in return. I apologise to those who were caught out by my annual Diá de los Inocentes mischief. We will continue to alternately roast or be soaked in the Plaza Mayor for a long time to come, and there will be no bio-dome in the Retiro.



And of course, allow me to wish all of you a very happy and prosperous New Year.

Xmas in the City

By Richard Morley.

Madrid Graffiti. A winter scene painted on a wall near Arturio Soria.

Somewhere back in the archives of this blog, down in the comments section, someone once wrote a happily complimentary comment but finished with a suggestion that “You must certainly have a lot of free time on your hands”. I was cut to the quick. The couple of thousand words that he or she were commenting on had, as seems to customary for what I write, taken weeks of research, visits, photo taking and then the plain hard graft of actually sitting down and collecting my thoughts and research into a coherent whole.


This year, being the centenary of Madrid's (now slightly dowdy!) Centre Piece, the Gran Via, the sheer complexity of its history forced me into writing a trilogy. The finished result, liked by many, I am pleased to recount, reflected only the more striking, more interesting (from my point of view – this is my blog, after all) of all the stuff I had to sort through. Such is the complexity of the history of any great city. It was, in fact the culmination of seven months (on and off – this is not a full time occupation) of research on line, in my local library, asking people who had lived through that history and so on.

The history of the Madrid's water supply took almost as long. The Canal Isabel II, the name of the company that supplies Madrid with its water, is buried under a heap of its own self-congratulatory list of achievements. It will tell you how wonderful it is now, but how it began, using convict labour, poor geological surveys, and the usual Madrid political grumblings about its cost and who should take the credit, took ages to sift through. But I found the time. Nice comments made it all worthwhile.

Were that true now! As someone once said, “Time is like a handful of sand – the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers”. Can it really be that I haven't posted here for nearly a month? The trouble is that I have been plagued by that curse of life – work. Couple the offers of work with an inability to say “no” and suddenly “having time on my hands” is no longer an option.

So, apologies to those who have clicked on here expecting to find something new each week. But there are articles in the pipeline, so all is not lost.

However, here I am in that most majestic of cities, Madrid, at that most wonderful of times, Christmas, and Christmas in Madrid is always a huge pleasure. For a start, the roasted chestnut sellers are out in force. On your behalf I have been making my annual survey of many of the purveyors of this fine food. I have been disappointed in the Calle Goya, near to El Corte Inglés, where the dozen I bought were undercooked and three were bad, and astonished at the Puerto de Toledo where the lady there sold then in multiples of seven – so I was forced to buy fourteen. The choices were seven, fourteen, or thirty-five. Perhaps the latter is the “party pack”. But they were all good. Last year's winner, the man at the Plaza España was way up there in the rankings but a guy under the bridge at Nuevos Ministerios takes this year's award as the best chestnuts I have ever tasted. Perfectly roasted, he chose my solicited dozen with great care, segregating the nearly cooked from the over cooked until he filled the bag with twelve nuggets of sheer heaven. I was about to board the metro, which would have necessitated eating them in a rush, but I chose, after the first couple, to walk to the next station, savouring them as I walked.

I do despair for the poor street cleaners who have to follow in my discarded shell footsteps.

El Corte Inglés department store at Goya. The display is a sound and audio delight.

Due to “La Crisis” the illuminated decorations are, in many cases, the same as last year and there have not been nearly as many of those silly “Christmas Cones”, Madrid's mechanical solution to saving the fir-wood forests, as last year, although the monstrosity in Sol is there again. The thing about these metal surrogates is that they may look quite pretty all lit up at night, but their black ugliness during the hours of day light is no substitute for a real tree.

Golden Rings (ting-a-ling) along the Calle Naráez

And while the shops might be exhorting us to enter and buy, and with El Corte Inglés enticing us to “make a present of Christmas”, the shops have not been looking particularly Christmassy. There seems to be a dearth of Belens this year and although ECL have decorated the outsides of their stores, inside it is business as usual. The most successful shops seem to be those selling what I call “fire sale” goods. “Everything Ten Euros” proclaimed a shop in the Calle Alberto Aguillera this morning. I walk past these premises every week and each time it seems to be selling a different line of goods at knock down prices. Today, the last Saturday before Christmas, it was toys and games. Piled high and sold cheap. Inside was standing room only and a queue of expectant buyers stretched fifty metres along the pavement outside. A sign if the times.

Calle Goya all lit up.

At the other end of the financial scale, the finally finished Calle de Serrano, with its serried ranks of “posh” shops, seems to be doing an equally brisk trade. Serrano finally got rid of the workmen and machinery a few short weeks ago and, carpeted in pink, allowed its patrons to shop without fear of tripping over exposed pipe work or falling into deep trenches. In its first refurbished Christmas it has pulled out all the shopper attracting stops and illuminated itself like a fairy wonderland.

Serrano.

There is no doubt that “La Crisis” is biting into Christmas expenditure. One man, interviewed in the street on Madrid Direct, our local news channel, said that due to his unemployment “there would be no Christmas this year”, and I am sure that many will have to settle for less than before.

That said, the shops have been packed full of those who do have the disposable income to celebrate. Sol and its radiating streets have been jammed with package clutching shoppers since the start of December. I wonder what my friends have bought me!

If only they could buy me time.

Calle Principe de Vergara.

Smoke and Morirse

By Richard Morley.

The Main Street of my Neighbourhood.

I like my little bit of Madrid. My barrio is sandwiched between two major arterial roads and cut off from our neighbouring barrio by an expanse of wasteland where forty years ago they dumped the sandy soil known as Peñuela that was removed from the tunnel of our metro line. Google earth shows my barrio to be about one kilometre long by about a half a kilometre wide. Isolated by the roads and the dog-walkers wasteland we are, to all intents and purposes, a little village.


Running through the centre is our main shopping street. These days it seems to consist of hair-dressers, opticians and banks; lots of banks. In four hundred metres we have eighteen branches of one bank or another. You are never more than twenty metres away from a cash point. I suppose they must all find customers. Our barrio might be small in area, but it is high. Apartment blocks up to twelve stories high soar into the Madrid sky. From my own apartment window I have a glorious view of all of eastern Madrid.

Surprisingly, at ground level, our concrete jungle, or Jungla de Cristal (glass jungle) as the Spanish call it, is hardly noticeable. Our streets are lined with tall, leafy trees that effectively hide the brick and concrete beyond.

At either end of the main street are two small businesses. Both of them are estancos, or tobacconist shops. They sell more than cigarettes and cigars. Here you can buy bus and metro tickets, newspapers, birthday cards, stamps and envelopes and decorative wrapping paper for presents, which for some reason the gift shops where you buy the presents, don’t sell.

I tend to frequent one of these estancos more than the other, for the simple reason that is the closest to where I live. I have wished this wasn’t the case. The far estanco is run by an attractive young lady who is always polite, cheerful, and knows my order as soon as I enter. The only words of Spanish I have to use is “uno”, “dos”, “mechero” and, of course, “gracias”. She, on the other hand, likes to practise her few words of English, with a smile and a self conscious chuckle. It is a pleasure to go there on the odd few times that I do. Maybe I should move to the other end of the street.

My estanco, the one nearest me, was run, in the mornings, by a sharp chinned, sharp nosed and sharp tongued woman called Esperanza. Give her a black cloak, a pointy hat to hide her grey straggly hair and a broomstick and she would have been first choice for any of the three witches in Macbeth. In the more than three years I have lived here Esperanza never once remembered what cigarettes I smoke. Or at least pretended not to. I had to order them, by name, every time. Then she pretended not to understand and gave me a pack of some different brand. I know she did it on purpose. And when I pointed out the error, the look on her face suggested that I was the one who had made the mistake.

The Estanco.

It wasn’t just me. Others had a similar problem with the woman. Every transaction, whether for a simple purchase of a single packet of cigarettes or a more complicated postal matter, took time and frustration. All queries were answered with a snapped reply. The woman had the shortest syllables in the Spanish language. Queues would form, with much grumbling from those at the back when the unmoving line of people stretched metres along the pavement outside her tiny shop. It was not possible for more than three or four people to actually be inside together.

At two in the afternoon she would shut up shop for lunch. Not a second later. Leaving any proposed purchase to the last minute was a fatal mistake. More than once I was caught on the wrong side of the road, waiting for the crossing lights to change in my favour, when I would see her face at the window, dead on two, pulling the concertina security bars into place and slide the sign on the door to, “Cerrada”. No amount of gesticulated pleading would make her remain open for a few seconds longer.

Luckily, Esperanza only worked in the shop in the morning. From five, when the shop reopened, to eight in the evening, we would be served by Carmen, Esperanza’s daughter, but who certainly did not take after her mother.

Carmen has deep brown eyes, jet black hair and bee-stung lips that always carries a smile. Once she had realised that I stayed loyal to one brand of cigarettes I have never had to ask again. Unlike her mother she dealt with all her customers quickly and cheerfully and there was hardly ever a queue. Naturally, I tried to make my purchases in the evening.

Last August I was away from Madrid for the first two weeks of the month. Having broken from my normal routine I found myself without cigarettes after two o’clock on a Monday afternoon. I knew the estanco would be closed, but my local, the Elizabeth Bar, with its more expensive cigarette machine would be open. Being a Madrid summer, it was hot. I needed a break and thought a cold beer would be a good idea (when isn’t it?) and so set off for the bar.

Imagine my surprise when I saw, at approximately half past two, that the estanco was open. To buy the cigarettes there would only have saved me fifteen céntimos, but look after the céntimos and the Euros look after themselves as my mother would have undoubtedly said if we had lived in post euro Spain. So I entered the estanco fully expecting to see Carmen behind the counter. Surprise number two was that it wasn’t Carmen but Esperanza and therefore, even more surprisingly, there was no queue. Just her and me, but then it was lunch time.

But the greatest surprise, if not shock, was yet to come. “Hola, Buenas”, she almost chirped and then a strangely smiling Esperanza turned to the rows of cigarettes and turned back with my brand. The right brand. Then, while making change, talked about the weather, followed by a cheery “Adios”, when I left.

Twenty five hours later, meaning at three thirty the following day, the shop was open again. Esperanza stood alone in the door. I didn’t need any cigarettes so walked past on the other side of the street. She saw me, popped her head out, and waved. This was so strange I will admit to thinking that perhaps she was on some sort of medication.

That evening, when I did need cigarettes, I went to the estanco and was served by Carmen. Oddly, she was not her usual happy self. But then, I never did understand women.

For me, this was very welcome. If I was busy working in the morning and slowly working my way through a pack of cigarettes, I no longer had to keep an eye on the clock to ensure that I had renewed my supply before two. There are times when writing or researching a piece for the blog or working on interminable lesson plans for my students means I lose track of time. It gave me a new flexibility.

And so it continued for two weeks. September had begun. Vacation time was over and my students were back in their offices expecting me to arrive for lessons at fixed times. I had lost some of my flexibility, but if I timed it right, I had just time to get to the estanco before catching the bus to the first lesson of the afternoon. I left my apartment and walked the two hundred metres to shop. I crossed the small plaza opposite and saw Esperanza standing in the doorway and wiggled a hand in her direction, but the lights of the pedestrian crossing were against me. The nearest approaching car was still way off, and if I was quick I could have made it across the road, but that vehicle was a black hearse with a cherry wood coffin buried in piles of flowers in the back. I looked across at Esperanza and smiled. She smiled back. A rather strange, wistful smile I thought. And she returned my wave.

The Crossing.

As the hearse passed me by, I stood on the pavement in respect. In first car of mourners bringing up the rear I thought I caught a glimpse of jet black hair behind a sad face that stared unmovingly ahead towards the car bearing the coffin.

The slow procession passed and the road was clear. I looked across and began to cross. But the little estanco was in darkness. The security bars had been pulled across and the sign in the door proclaimed, “Cerrado”. I swore. Perhaps Esperanza had to go somewhere and couldn’t wait, I thought. But she had seen me. Waved at me.

I was puzzled, but thought what the heck, shrugged and recrossed the street and bought my cigarettes from the machine in the bar Elizabeth.

Returning from lessons a little after five the following afternoon I climbed off the bus and crossed over to the estanco. Carmen was just pulling back the security bars and opening for business. “Are you back to normal hours, now?” I asked. “Now that everyone’s back at work.”

A look of puzzlement crossed her face. “We haven’t changed our opening hours”, she said.
“But you have been open every afternoon at least for the past two weeks”, I protested. “I’ve been getting a pack nearly every day”.
She looked me square in the face. “Your normal brand?”
“Yes, of course”. I assured her. “You mother’s been serving me.” I smiled. “It’s been interesting talking to her. Usually she’s so busy. But she’s a different woman when the shop’s not crowded. Quite chatty, in fact.”
“My mother’s been serving you every day for two weeks?” she asked, uncertainly.
“Yes”.
“One pack?”
“Normally. Sometimes two.”

The blood seemed to drain from her face. She turned to the rows of stacked cigarettes. “For the past two weeks when I’ve opened the shop at five we’ve been a pack short from the end of morning count. One day, two packs. Your brand”.
“Perhaps Esperanza forgot to tick them off”, I suggested.
“Esperanza? My mother?” Her body suddenly shook and she grabbed the counter for support.

“Señor, my mother died two weeks ago. Because some of the family were on vacation the funeral was just yesterday. In fact I saw you standing at the crossing, opposite the shop. I remember seeing you wave, but I couldn’t see who you were waving to.” Her eyes narrowed and stared into mine. “Where were you going?”

Far from the Maddening Crowds

By Richard Morley.

A couple of years ago some friends and I thought that a pleasant way to celebrate the end of a working week would be to pass lazy summer Saturdays having picnics in a park. Each of us took our contribution and although I invariably got the job of bringing the drink, the stuff that weighs a lot, I remember those Saturdays with pleasure.

The first picnic was taken on the sloping lawns of the Parque Berlin and the idea developed that we should picnic in a different park each week. This we did, with the proviso that each park should be close to a metro station because those cartons of fruit juice and glass bottles of something stronger didn’t need to be carried for long, and so we enjoyed happy times on the banks of the lake in the Casa del Campo, in the Arabic garden of the Parque Juan Carlos Primero and so on.

There are many parks in Madrid. Of course the most famous is the Retiro, and its fame brings the crowds and one of the joys of picnics with friends is NOT to share them with the madding masses. There is also the Parque del Campo del Moro behind the royal palace, the Parque del Oeste with the adjoining Parque de la Bombilla and the Parque de San Isidro. But these parks, like the Retiro, are not far from the centre and, should you want to eliminate the city from your senses they only succeed to a certain extent. Another of my favourites, the Parque Enrique Tierno Galvan, with its high spurting fountains, forum, shady plantations, and very steep embankment, has its peace shattered by the horns of passing AVE trains and the rush of neighbouring motorway traffic.

One of the fountains at the Parque Enrique Tierno Galvan

So I was intrigued when an attendee at my Friday evening English Speaking Group mentioned “her” favourite park and I hadn’t heard of it. She told me of its tranquillity, of how she would go to peacefully read or study. I was even more astonished to find it was in my part of Madrid - well four stops on the metro, so it’s not far.

Following her directions I took the metro to Suanzes (line 5) and emerged on to Madrid’s longest street, the busy Calle de Alcalá and according to her I was there, at the park. But there was no park to be seen. Just a high wall painted in fading pink with an inset building with barred windows. However, my heightened powers of observation noticed that some of my fellow alighting passengers were disappearing through an arch in the wall. So I followed.

In fact the arch is a short tunnel which opened into a small courtyard lined with shady trees and pink flower beds. The height of that hideous pink wall and the narrowness of the tunnel effectively killed the noise and the bustle of the Street outside. It was like entering a secret world.

Before me stretched a long avenue of trees and on either side spread twenty seven hectares of green lawns, small, shady spinneys and wide walkways of peace. That’s about 67 acres for my US readers.

I was in the Parque de la Quinta de los Molinos.

Leaving the small courtyard and following the slightly inclined tree lined path ahead leads you wide open areas, an orchard of almond trees, a hidden depression, a temple. Before the park came into public hands the Quinta de los Molinas was a private garden. Here stood the home of César Cort (y) Boti.

Cort Boti was an architect and considered a pioneer in the contemporary urbanisation of towns in the 20th century. His work can be seen around the Plaza de Olavide in the Trafalgar district and he was professor of Urbanisation at the Madrid School of Architecture. In 1928 he worked on the expansion of the city of Murcia and later reformed the town centre of Valladolid.

For most of his life he worked and lived in Madrid, but he was born (in 1893) in Valencia and arranged to die (in 1978) in Alicante. Whether by whim or perhaps through a feeling of homesickness for Catalonia, when he designed his garden in 1925 he stocked it with plants indigenous to the Mediterranean coast.

The name, Quinta de los Molinos, comes from the wind driven pumps that extracted the water for the estate.

I know nothing about the names of plants or how they grow, but I like surrounding myself in their tranquillity. The nature of Cort Boti’s selction of trees and plants meant the park reached maturity quite fast and in places seems overgrown and tangled. The park authority must work hard to maintain it, but it is far removed from the showpiece landscaping of the Retiro.

Also, before I get too bucolic I should mention that despite the peace you can find there, the grounds are over-looked by high apartment blocks and that at the northern end the city encroaches, as the agreement between Cort Boti’s family and the Madrid Ayudamiento allowed for some land to be retained then sold for building.

Apartment blocks peer down through the trees.

The land dips and rises, the paths take unexpected turns. When I explored a charming small gateway I found myself cruelly cast out into the real world of suburban street life. But there are hidden corners where I found a student spread out with his books and unwittingly intruded on a courting couple’s privacy. There are areas to sit and think and flowerbeds to contemplate.

A small pond with a central fountain cast my mind back immediately to a similar area in the park in my English home town. A stream bed lies nearby; dry when I went, but showing signs of activity when it rains. And just beyond that a small grotto for secret trysts and, unfortunately, graffiti artists handiwork.

The secret grotto cut into the rock.

"Welcome to the Jungle". I am pleased to see the Graffiti painter learned something at school.

It is a well used park. Footpaths criss-cross the grassed areas to allow passage from one barrio to another. Joggers run and dog-walkers amble. A row of exercise apparatus runs along a wide path along the central crest. They come with instructions though I saw no one using them.

This is not the Retiro. This a simple open area for the use of the people. One of the intentions of this blog is to show that Madrid is so much more than the three Ps of Prado, Palacio Real and the Plaza Mayor. Here you could have a completely undisturbed picnic. A sign warns of squirrels, though I saw none. It is well out of the centre of the city, yet just eleven stops from Gran Via on the metro line 5.

All you have to do is find it.

The Entrance to the Park.