Spain
Virgen Pobre de Xaló

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    • Illegal immigrant

      December 23, 2017 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

      When the almond trees blossom in Spring, this valley of Jalon is a carpet of pink and white flowers that attracts many sightseers, much to the irritation of the local peasants discomfited by sharing their road with other cars.
      But perhaps no more, for following the British and Dutch expats a new resident has arrived, Xylella fastidiosa. Not a prima donna on the flamenco circuit as one might guess, but a deadly tree plague. Farmers hereabouts are anxiously fighting the EU directive to eliminate all infected trees, including those within 100m of each one.
      "Laying waste to all the trees, healthy and infected alike, is no solution," gripes Eladio Aniorte, president of the Asaja Alicante agricultural union. "We are not facing isolated cases because the plague has spread to the Marina Baja, the Marina Alta and El Comtat. There is every likelihood that new focii could soon be found," he explains.
      Adolfo Ribes, spokesman for the AXFA growers' association thundered "This is the beginning of the end for our woodlands, towns and way of life."
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    • My host

      December 24, 2017 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

      This is Rob, the medical marvel who reminds me of Don Quixote de la Mancha. If he could stand up straight he would be a little short of 2m tall but damage to some vertebra in his lower back give him a permanent stoop. H He accidentally modified his left hand by smashing the sinews of his thumb repeatedly with a hammer. Despite this slight to his eyesight, he prefers to rely on his eyes rather than on site layout when building and subsequently is proud of the fact that the structures he builds are "organic" in shape.

      His knees are bigger than his thighs owing to arthritis and that, with a meagre bodyweight of 60kg, he weighs less than his dog. This may be explained by his diet which has been carefully planned to exclude most food groups especially fruit and vegetables. Perhaps this is to placate his hernia, though it does render him incapable of more than half an hours work before needing a nap. On the other hand, emphysema - treated by minimising his roll-your-own cigarette consumption to one every 30 minutes - could well have a part to play.

      Periodically he is unable to sleep which doctors desperately trying to prove their competence have suggested is caused by an unidentifiable ailment of the pancreas. To cap it all, his wife believes he has memory lapses caused by "frontal lobe dementia" which to me is as skillful a diagnosis as any his doctors could give, though deafness in his left ear might account for some of it.

      He is resigned to the pain and not inclined to do much about it; just chugs along one day at a time.

      Despite all his he is an affectionate and considerate host. Sometimes I think he is frightened by the prospects of his end.
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    • My host, Joanna

      December 24, 2017 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

      This is Rob's wife Joanna, matriarch of the family.
      She too is a transplanted Dutch burgher who has had her problems, chief of which was a brush with cancer 20 years ago. Having won once, she is confident she could do it again so limits her roll-your-own Drum consumption to before, during and after meals, (where 'after' is the time until the beginning of the next one).
      Jo has been working very hard to get her Dutch supermarket up and running, spending most days down there. She has been helped by one of her children, Jacinta, who lives nearby having married a Spaniard and producing a son. Jacinta's 2 brothers married and moved back to Holland with their own offspring.
      Joanna's mother also lives in Holland. Bizzarely, she refused to acknowledge her daughter's illness and has not spoken to her since. After several rebuttals, Jo has given up the attempt to communicate.
      She leaves plenty of white sandwich loaf with squashed meats and cheese for lunch and on her return home in the evening around 7:30 she insists on frying us up a dinner, for example of meat in breadcrumbs with cheese fried in breadcrumbs.
      With luck she wont discover that I have been stealing lovely oranges from an adjacent, abandoned orchard.
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    • Huntin'

      December 25, 2017 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

      Woke this morning to the pop-pop of local hunters vainly trying to get some porc for dinner. I didn't realise that I was experiencing the living hell that they have made for expats in the Jalon Valley.

      "We are terrified here," moaned a 70 year old grandmother formerly from Leicesteshire who does not wish to be named. "I had a cat killed, lead shot coming through the window and you just have to shut up."
      Having moved to this scenic area from the coast 15 years ago, she says that hunting dogs often jump her fence and run amok in her garden.
      "The noise from July to February is ridiculous - they begin at dawn and and we can't sleep! They hunt anything and the dogs are destroying the environment. Once I shouted at them from the roof but one just put his finger up. Then they spent hours parked at the end of my drive trying to intimidate me."

      After France, Spain has the largest number of licensed hunters in Europe, amounting to 2% of the population.

      The government has been slammed by animal right's groups for not doing enough to end hunting, and especially for extending til 2020 the planned 2017 deadline for ending hunting in all of Spains 15 National parks. And of course, King Juan Carlos himself an avid hunter when still mobile was roundly criticised and made to resign as honorary president of WWF (Spain).
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    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Virgen Pobre de Xaló, Virgen Pobre de Xalo

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