Tres Reyes V Santa Claus

When you're straddling a couple of cultures, there are times when things can get a tad complicated. Christmas is one of these times. For young children, there is much talk of presents and the poor, overburdened soul who has to deliver shit loads (sledge-loads) of plastic tat to households across the world.

Obviously, as fully paid up Brits, presents in our gaff get delivered by the big man in red on Christmas Eve, so long as you leave a mince pie, a healthy shot of something alcoholic and some carrots for the reindeer. But for our kids' friends, Santa (or Papa Noel) is a jolly fellow who gets hauled around the village on the back of a tractor chucking sweets at the kids, the real players are the three kings.

But what happens when your kids start to confer with their peers? "Why do you get presents from Santa Claus?", "Why do you get your Christmas presents practically two weeks before we do?".

The questions come back... "why don't the three kings bring us any presents?"

The latter is easily resolved - "do you want to wait an extra 12 days for your presents?"

This clash of cultures, where we are basically lying through our teeth to our offspring, is fraught. You have to add multiple layers of fallacies to make the whole thing even remotely conceivable. I have tried to explain this huge difference in cultures away by saying that Santa can't possibly deliver ALL of the presents to ALL of the children in one night, so, you know, the three kings pick up some of the slack.

"But why are they so late?".... "Erm, Spain innit! Mañana, mañana."

However, my keen-eyed pedants are quick to call me out on this when tracking Santa's progress via t'interweb apps on Christmas Eve, although they strangely don't question how quick he can cover entire continents or his rather random route.

"Well, he has to deliver to all the British kids who don't live in Britain...."

Occasionally, the three kings can be quite useful - particularly when we spend Christmas in the UK but the presents we want to give our kids are larger than the average suitcase can handle on budget airlines. In these instances, we can call upon the three kings to deliver oversized parcels directly to Spain - Santa has a word and calls in a favour. This, however, means me having to leave the Christmas tree up until the 6th of January when I'm fucked off to the back teeth of the thing and want rid of all the sparkly shit.

The strangest thing about the difference in the British and Spanish culture concerning gift giving is their timing - yeah I know it's the 3 kings (or wise men as I was brought up with), following yon star etc... etc.. who didn't rock up to Jerusalem with their shite and not very practical gifts until 12 days after the birth, but dealing with the here and now, the poor buggers break up from school on the 22nd of December and don't receive their presents until the 6th of January. They then have to return to school two days later! Practically three bastard weeks of wishing they had a new skateboard, PS4 games, bike, Girls World to play with during this time.

Thankfully the oldest is beyond all this nonsense, having been told by his best mate (cheers Ivan) a few years ago that the 3 kings didn't exist. Being the bright boy that he is, he naturally deduced that Santa must also be a big fat lie.

The girl is just six and is at the prime age for the entering into the spirit of Christmas and believing in all the magic, and I am more than happy to go along with it and come up with random on the spot embellishments to try to bring the two cultures together. It won't be too long before she too, no longer believes and the only thing she questions is the decision to "black up" whichever local who is playing Balthazar in the village precession the night before Epiphany.

Despots, Tin Pots and Road Blocks

As anyone with the internet and a television might have noticed, our usually fairly quiet little corner of the world is making rather a lot of noise.

The independent movement in Catalonia has been going a long, long time but has gathered speed over the recent years, largely due to feeling completely ignored and walked over by the Spanish Government.

Catalonia has always had its own identity, culture and language. In fact, Catalonia was its own country long before it became part of Spain. More recent history saw the area devastated by the Civil War and Franco's treatment of Catalans was appalling to say the least - dawn shootings and people disappearing were commonplace. In everyday life, people were not allowed to speak Catalan in public, were not allowed to call their children Catalan names, etc.  Considering Franco only died in 1975, the memory of his acts is still very much part of living history for many people in the area.

More recently, Catalonia's issue has been fiscal. In short, Catalonia is one of Spain's richest provinces and therefore collects more taxes than most others and contributes more to Spain's pot than areas such as Andalucía or Extremadura for instance - no problem here. The problem lies in what Catalonia receives back from central government. Catalonia receives less money for public spending per head than other regions, which means despite contributing more money, the hospitals, schools and other public services are better funded and better equipped elsewhere. This, one would think, is a fairly easy problem to solve and could have stopped the uprising from gaining traction a long time ago. However, as we know, this hasn't happened and the Catalans' cry for a referendum to decide its own fate has continually fallen on deaf ears.

It's very difficult to gauge public opinion on independence here. Largely, those who want independence are quite vocal about it. They will proudly display the Senyera (Catalan flag) from their homes and wax lyrically about how great Catalonia would be as its own country.  However, until recently, those who were for continued unity with Spain, mostly kept quiet - the sight of the Spanish flag flying from balconies was rare, if not non-existent in our area and unless you asked them directly, you wouldn't know their stance. The only way anyone will know for sure what direction Catalans actually want the region to go in is to hold a legally binding referendum, but no breaths will be held while waiting for this to happen.

The Spanish government's handling of the situation has been nothing short of a complete shambles and a national embarrassment. It has served only to further ignite the independence movement and to push those who were ambivalent towards wanting to break away to join the cause. Images of the Civil Guard throwing women downstairs and attacking pensioners have shocked the world and the denial from the Spanish Prime Minister, Rajoy, that there was no unnecessary force or violence has angered people around the world.

On the other hand, many feel that the Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, shouldn't have declared independence on the strength of a vote where less than half of the electorate turned out. A move which has accelerated the political game of chess to a point where eight of his ministers are now in jail and he is currently in exile in Belgium.

The use of the word "despot" in the title is a little sensational, but Rajoy's actions have prompted many to compare him and his party's tactics to those of Franco's. After all, they could have let the Catalan's have their vote and then ignored it, as they have done anyway. They didn't need to go in with violence and then begin sacking and then jailing politicians involved in the process.

The Catalans have responded with a series of peaceful protests, from large rallies in the cities of Barcelona, Lleida, Girona and Tarragona to impromptu strikes. Candlelit vigils for the jailed ministers and the banging of tin pots are unlikely to trouble Madrid much, but the roadblocks as witnessed yesterday would have a more far-reaching effect.

Candlelight Vigil in the Village

Catalonia is the gateway to the rest of Europe, these roadblocks will have caused considerable disruption all over Europe, from those flying out of Barcelona airport (including our unfortunate customers) to haulage lorries bringing their goods in and out of Spain. All major routes into Barcelona were blocked off from around 8am and throughout the day until late at night, smaller trunk roads across Catalonia were affected, anyone coming in or out of the region would have been affected.

The roadblock protest wasn't just about disrupting traffic, demonstrators were keen to put across a message regarding the jailing of Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart - two of the founding members of the independence movement.

"If you waited one hour and feel trapped, imagine what it feels like to be imprisoned for a month".

With snap elections in the Catalan government called by Rajoy due in December, we await to see what happens next.

Hello

After taking an extended hiatus from blogging, I've decided I'd rather like to get back into it again.  It's been a while since I last subjected the t'interweb with my inane mutterings but hopefully, I can find my feet again and occasionally pen something folk might find interesting to read.

What's changed since last I wrote?  Well, the ginger things have grown some. The boy is now 11 and in the throes of puberty - which so far seems to consist of the odd zit and an increased level of farting. The girl has just turned 6 and is going through that awkward no front teeth phase - just in time for the school photos!

We've also acquired a hound, a rescue dog called Monty who is either a pointer or a Breton spaniel - no one seems to be able to agree. He too farts a lot.

Despite the current political upheaval of the area (of which I shall no doubt write more about), day to day life in southern Catalonia remains much the same, with me being perpetually confused about what I'm supposed to be doing, where I am supposed to be, and why I am handing out money to various people.

Anyway, good to be back.😊