The Scissors and the Apple
May. 5th, 2010 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootSo we went to Granada, just in time for the Day of Crosses which also coincides with Spain's version of Mother's day. I didn't know about the latter until my aunt reminded me as I was on my way to my mother's house. I got three bouquets, one for Mum and one for each of her sisters; they are the affiliated matriarchs, though the eldest, Senti, never married or had kids. Still she presides over most things and looks so like my late grandmother, everyone now calls her 'Abuela' - granny. She questions, swears, spoils the children and guides on all matters of protocol. The youngest, my twinkling-eyed aunt Fatima, grins, fills every table and every glass with something delicious, and won't stop until her guests are unable to move. My mother sits, smiles and tries to stop the family swearing and cussing.
The questions about politics were many and interested, the very first thing we were asked was about Gordon's gaffe ('Este Prime Minister...how you say...foot in mouth?') Everybody laughed. There's a harsher edge to the laughter at the moment, with 20% unemployment in Spain, people unable to buy houses without 25% deposit and a guarantor, and fears of cuts being applied to Spanish pensions. The elders do not speak ill of Franco, though conversely, my mother at least would never now vote Conservative and they all take voting very seriously ('My favourite politician was Lord Stockton,he they called MacMillan - you are voting green? Isn't that a wasted vote?') my eldest aunt claims that Franco instigated pensions for the middle classes - indeed pretty much instigated the middle clases themselves - but it was King Juan Carlos who announced in the 70s (I think) that every Spaniard should have a pension however small. A political/historical climate so different to Britain's is hard to imagine, and our current monarch saying anything so practically powerful is very unlikely.
Last time, my mother took us to the Alhambra. This time, we wandered the old Moorish quarters, the Albaicin and the Zacatin, found a hill of hookah pipes and tea-houses, ate endless tapas, met up with my cousins in the evening, and joined hordes of people singing and dancing drunk. The traditional flouncy-skirt dance of the south (called 'Sevillanas') looks great performed in jeans and tee-shirts - better, I think, natural and sensual and surrounded by cheering maniacs.
On the day of the crosses, loads of people wear what we would consider the Spanish national dress. Almost all of the very young are dressed up like pretty little dolls, but from seven months to seventy, many women can be seen unashamedly wandering the streets with flowers in their hair, petticoats and polka dots, shawls and mantles flying. Gentlemen rode past wearing the traditional grey trousers, red cummerbunds and red braces of Andalucian horsemen, their mounts fine, clopping Andalusian style down the streets.
People put crosses up and decorate them, and some get prizes. Children make their own and beg for them, like penny for the guy. The spectacular crosses are surrounded by flowers, statuettes of saints and cherubs, the Virgin of course, and, strangely enough, household items - old embroidered mantillas, pretty pottery and crockery, sewing machines, little old flat irons...a spring festival celebrating all things homely as well as holy. In front of each cross you would see an apple with a pair of scissors, one of the open blades splintering the fruit. Apparently, this means, you cannot say 'This is beautiful but...' Your sentence, out of gallantry, should stop at 'This is beautiful.'
Behind it all the mountains shine, wild and silent, still covered with snow in the sunset. Swallows hunt between the rooftops and people carry on eating and drinking ...then it happens, barely perceived except by the occasional ghost above Granada; night falls and the scissors gently cut right into the apple.
The questions about politics were many and interested, the very first thing we were asked was about Gordon's gaffe ('Este Prime Minister...how you say...foot in mouth?') Everybody laughed. There's a harsher edge to the laughter at the moment, with 20% unemployment in Spain, people unable to buy houses without 25% deposit and a guarantor, and fears of cuts being applied to Spanish pensions. The elders do not speak ill of Franco, though conversely, my mother at least would never now vote Conservative and they all take voting very seriously ('My favourite politician was Lord Stockton,he they called MacMillan - you are voting green? Isn't that a wasted vote?') my eldest aunt claims that Franco instigated pensions for the middle classes - indeed pretty much instigated the middle clases themselves - but it was King Juan Carlos who announced in the 70s (I think) that every Spaniard should have a pension however small. A political/historical climate so different to Britain's is hard to imagine, and our current monarch saying anything so practically powerful is very unlikely.
Last time, my mother took us to the Alhambra. This time, we wandered the old Moorish quarters, the Albaicin and the Zacatin, found a hill of hookah pipes and tea-houses, ate endless tapas, met up with my cousins in the evening, and joined hordes of people singing and dancing drunk. The traditional flouncy-skirt dance of the south (called 'Sevillanas') looks great performed in jeans and tee-shirts - better, I think, natural and sensual and surrounded by cheering maniacs.
On the day of the crosses, loads of people wear what we would consider the Spanish national dress. Almost all of the very young are dressed up like pretty little dolls, but from seven months to seventy, many women can be seen unashamedly wandering the streets with flowers in their hair, petticoats and polka dots, shawls and mantles flying. Gentlemen rode past wearing the traditional grey trousers, red cummerbunds and red braces of Andalucian horsemen, their mounts fine, clopping Andalusian style down the streets.
People put crosses up and decorate them, and some get prizes. Children make their own and beg for them, like penny for the guy. The spectacular crosses are surrounded by flowers, statuettes of saints and cherubs, the Virgin of course, and, strangely enough, household items - old embroidered mantillas, pretty pottery and crockery, sewing machines, little old flat irons...a spring festival celebrating all things homely as well as holy. In front of each cross you would see an apple with a pair of scissors, one of the open blades splintering the fruit. Apparently, this means, you cannot say 'This is beautiful but...' Your sentence, out of gallantry, should stop at 'This is beautiful.'
Behind it all the mountains shine, wild and silent, still covered with snow in the sunset. Swallows hunt between the rooftops and people carry on eating and drinking ...then it happens, barely perceived except by the occasional ghost above Granada; night falls and the scissors gently cut right into the apple.
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Date: 2010-05-05 10:42 am (UTC)Like the new layout, too!
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Date: 2010-05-05 09:43 pm (UTC)