Weekend

We haven't managed to do much skiing this year. At first it was the lack of snow, but now it's lack of time; our weekends get booked up. The one which is finishing we really had  to spend in Zaragoza, because of family and church commitments. It's fun to spend a few hours shopping - mostly just exploring and poking about, and it's nice to sit at a big table and share tapas and beer and lament the state of the economy with the sisters and brothers-in-law: really good "paratas bravas" (fried potatoes with mayonnaise and Tabasco). It makes a change to go for long walks along really crowded, busy streets, but it's also lovely to find that, driving back, most of the cars are going the other way! The city's hoardes of skiers are going home. It does tcrowded in Jaca at the weekends in the skiing season, but it's still more comfortable to be here than in Zaragoza.
Tuesday is a big day in Jaca. The prince and princess of Asturias are coming to reinaugurate the Diocesan Museum. It's been closed for years, but now for this "Jacobean" year, they've made a special effort.

Le Somport

We finally made it to the cross-country ski resort of Le Somport- just over the border in France- on Saturday morning. There wasn't much snow over the Christmas holidays so we didn't go then, but after waiting so long it was now or never! We put the ski racks on top of the car and loaded up. Arriving early enough to park easily and move about was good. It meant we could get out onto the farther slopes without tripping over skiers even clumsier than us. Cross-country skiing is hard work, and very rewarding!

Turrón and mincemeat

In Spain the traditional Christmas sweet is turrón. It is made of almonds and honey among other things. There are two basic traditional varieties: hard and soft. I prefer hard turrón, but soft can be good too. You can buy it in the supermarket in packets ranging in price from two to eight euros. There's a make called "1880" which prides itself on being "the most expensive turrón in the world". Actually, I think the handmade turrones made in small local confectioners probably cost more.
In Jaca there are a number of very reputed confectioners, which produce turrones at Christmas, exquisitely decorated chocolate eggs at Easter, "Huesos de Santo" (saints' bones) for All Saints', not forgetting St Joseph's woodshavings and Epiphany rings. Although we see Father Christmas portrayed in many places here, traditionally children don't receive their presents from him but from the three kings, who visit on Epiphany, so on the evening of 5th January children line the streets to watch them arrive; on horseback, or possibly camels depending whereabouts in this big country, which stretches from the Mediterranean to the Cantabrian to the Atlantic and the African coast of the Canary Islands. I think they even ski by torchlight down the slopes in Formigal, a big ski resort in the neighbouring Tena valley.
When they go to bed, children leave glasses of wine and food for the kings, water for the camels, and I think, cleaned shoes. In the morning they will find their gifts, or if they've been bad, a lump of coal. (Shops sell lumps of coal made out of sugar.)
There's a family meal that day, and the dessert will be a special Kings' cake or Epiphany ring. Not, in my opinion the most exciting cake, but one which has a hidden token. In my English family, we had Christmas pudding in which my mother had hidden a silver sixpence.

Spanish confectioneries apart, I've found very few people who don't enjoy English mincepies when I make them. They take quite a bit of preparation, because out of necessity, I make the mincemeat- from ingredients bought here. It's very satisfying, but you have to make it at least two weeks befor you need it, so you have to get the timing right. However, there's always so much turrón around at Christmas that it's really not necessary to offer mincepies then, and since people don't associate them with Christmas, you can make them any other time and they're greatly appreciated.

Snowfall

On Monday, the last day of November, it started snowing around midday. It carried on snowing. My goodness, how it snowed! Tuesday morning, we woke up to find the biggest snowfall in many years. Cars were buried in 40 cm of fluffy white snow. The roads and pavements were thickly covered. Lots of branches broke under the weight. Everything was very pretty and extremely complicated.It took us half an hour to dig the wheels of the car out enough to be able to move it! There was a policeman stopping traffic going up to the hospital; he said the car park was a metre-deep in snow.If driving was difficult, walking wasn't easy either-the pavements were thigh-deep and we had to go on the road, keeping a lookout for skating cars and lorries.
By the evening things were getting better, and by the next day the pavements were cleared. Now there are only dirty piles of cleared snow and broken branches everywhere. The lovely snowmen which had appeared even in the city streets have all gone.
The place is crammed with tourists for the first weekend of the ski season; this year there'll be skiing right from the beginning of December.

 This is one of the nicest snowmen I've seen. His buttons are green leaves and he carries a broken twig as a trident. He is guarding the Ciudadela.

Autumn

Today it started to feel a bit cold and we needed coats when we went out into the windy morning. You couldn't see the mountains for the clouds on them. Looks like the autumn weather has come at last. There are fallen leaves all over the pavements just to prove it really is the beginning of November.

Yesterday we went to Gavín, a village just past Biescas in the Tena valley-first to visit the Mozarabic chapel of San Bartolomé and walk in the country, and then then a wander round part of Gavín. It was completely destroyed in the civil war; only one building remained standing, and now there are quite a lot of newly-built houses. Very pretty and well-kept. Was there one balcony or windowsill without pots of geraniums decorating it?

It was warm and sunny - for November, and the trees on the hillsides were in their autumn colours.

Mountain flowers

You can see this is an old photo; it's from when my camera was new. We went to Cerler, the highest Pyrenean ski resort in Aragon. I found this patch of spectacular flowers which turned out be aconite; monk's hood (of course it's terribly poisonous) but aren't they pretty?

Tomatoes, figs

One of the nice things about being home; just one of them, is eating Jaca tomatoes. What are they like? Big, dark red, soft and sweet. Some are quite ugly and misshapen, but that doesn't matter, they are delicious. I don't know if they are only grown on allotments; they couldn't possibly be sold in big places because they are almost as squashy as the figs I bought from a woman selling garden produce outside the cathedral this morning, and would disintegrate if roughly handled.
In the spring I bought a tomato plant, tended and watered it, and missed all the fruit while I was in England in the summer. No matter, the ones you can buy now are better than anything else!