And that was another fiesta.

Another week gone by, another fiesta in Yator -  the big one this time, San Sebastian, but quieter than usual.  Lots of cars in the village but not so many people there at Saturday lunchtime.  Some years you can't get near the tables of food it's so crowded, this year there were less people and less food too.  This morning when I was on my way out I spoke with Eduardo and he said people don't want to pay for fiesta and if they don't pay there is less in the 'pot' for the next event and so it goes on.   Payment is almost voluntary,  when you are around over the weekend, someone will come up to you with a large book, write down your name and you pay what you think is right.  If they don't find you, you can always go and find them or pay more next fiesta.  But if you don't pay anything, and neither do lots of other people,  then the fiesta fund gets smaller and smaller.

We don't usually go down for the evening dance, by the time it gets started either we've had  too many glasses of wine to drive down, or it's so late we're ready for bed.  Some friends from UK who have homes here as well,   had dinner together on Friday night and at 11.30 they wandered across to the salon to find it still empty but apparently it did get going by midnight.  Then finished at 7am.   Followed by another all night session on Saturday night.  And a late night on Sunday too. 

In the vegetable garden, what is growing is doing well.  Coriander, pak choi, lettuces, broad beans and peas were all planted October or November time and are very healthy.  Chillis left from last year are all red and slowly drying on the plants,  sprouts are still sprouting although quite tiny ones, cabbages are slowly getting hearty and kale is still making new leaves, the sugar beet that was too small and ignored has taken on a new lease of life and is looking very healthy.  Unfortunately though, something has decided to take a regular short cut through one of the broad bean and pea beds, cutting across the coriander and lettuce rows and exiting  via the pak choi.   Could be a small dog or cat or fox, or one of those chasing the others.  Most days I have to mound up soil around bent or broken stems and hope that not too much gets too damaged.   Broad beans are very forgiving, they just grow again from the base and if the stem isn't completely snapped the plant will continue to grow but with a curved stem.  It just heads on up to the sun and ends up U- shaped.

Still picking and juicing oranges, still pruning for firewood, other on-going jobs around the place that we start and stop according to the weather and time available.  Olives?  The mill this year is paying 26 cents a kilo, the lowest we've ever heard of.  8 years ago we were getting 79 cents.  Not many on the trees, not worth the work.  It takes the same amount of work per tree to get 1 kilo or 10 or 100.   What there is on the tree is probably worth more as compost/fertilizer and left to drop and rot back into the soil.