The One With Sod's Law

In writing this, I realise that half of my meagre total of posts to date have been about the weather, which just makes me painfully, archetypally British in every way, but ho-hum. This past weekend has been party time across the globe – but in Andújar at least, the Royal wedding took a back seat. It’s all about Romería here, in which everybody wears a gitana (gypsy dress – well, the women at least), everywhere plays godawful Flamenco music (although it’s a beheading offence to voice this opinion) and there are interminable queues for everything (which, truth be told, isn’t all that different to usual). To illustrate, here’s a picture of a dog:

The whole thing looks for the most part like an excuse for a massive piss-up, but there’s a religious aspect at its core, and a pilgrimage into the mountains to El Sanctuario, where a statue of the Virgin appears on Sunday for a walkabout and many blessings.

In any case, much like Semana Santa the previous week, it rained. Really rained, rather washing out celebrations. They normally have a preliminary piss-up down by the river before setting off for the mountains, but there wasn’t a soul around this year. Which means they towed all the cars away for nothing – which is nice of the town hall, what with the postage-stamp notice of the closure of the parking area and all.

Back to work this week, and the sun’s back out, naturally. Soaring temperatures, clear skies … and work. Mustn’t grumble and all that.