Three Kings, four camels and a man in a hat

Well - here you have it; the man, flashing eyes and all - and the camel, circulating gently round him. But now Christmas - at last - is over. There were two men and a van up by the roundabout this morning dismantling them. Christmas does take a long time to go away here. No relief straight after New Year. You have to wait for the Kings to come and go with their presents and their sweets. All over Spain they come by different means: limousines, floats, Rolls Royces, boats, horses, helicopters. Here of course, camel island, guess what? They have a ritzy camel version down in the main town, glitter, floats, you name it. Up in Granny´s town, out in the sticks, is the plain version. Complete with a blacked-up Melchior; the sundry Moroccans, Senagalese etc arrived illegally by patera - open boat - now resident don't seem sufficiently resident to be drafted in. Also complete with drum band, stilt-walkers and mini Gigantes - people wearing large heads. All of them wearing all too visible jeans and trainers underneath their costumes, regal and otherwise.















None of the kings seemed used to camel riding. One was distinctly nervous. The camels were led by camel men from the breeding place, togged out in kaftans. They got themselves together at least half-an-hour after schedule. This is normal here.

















The children, all carrying plastic bags pick up the sweets the kings chucked at them. Here they are. The sweets are all boiled sweets. Granny - being a granny - sighs and thinks of their teeth.
















The Kings have now deposited their bikes, skate boards, barbie dolls etc etc to all the lucky children. Granny was not so lucky: she did not get so much as a telephone line. Oh yes, Telefonica came and went. The line came for a while. But it also went. Again. Granny has resorted to the local Internet Cafe. She suspects this post, photographs and all will not be as well-formatted as it should be. She has lost one picture for sure. Sorry. It was either that or wait for Telefonica - again. ¨24 or 48 hours.¨said Madrid when rung for the 5th time. Not good enough said Granny - to no avail. The Madrid operators vary from the helpful and clued-up to the unhelpful and unclued-up; this was - how DID you guess? - the latter.

The Kings didn´t bring any rain either. Meantime it has been warmer than usual- and sunnier - which has its merits, it must be said. On the other hand -island should be green now: it isn´t, Granny´s land should be covered in flowers: it isn´t. The rains might come - some are cautiously forecast for the end of the week, but only small ones. Not enough probably to allow the planting of the already long prepared fields. Granny won´t be there to see the rain, the planting/ not planting anyway. She is off back to the UK on Thursday, on family business as usual, and won´t be back on the island till February.

Next time she will be posting from London; assuming she has a working connection there. Hasta luego.

Update. Local Telefonica turned obliging, if in impenetrable local accents, which swallow every consonant into some inseparable soup of sound. Are baffled, despite, first (vainly) having attacked part of drive with a pickaxe, then, equally vainly, urging reluctant Beloved and still more reluctant Mr Handsome to shift very heavy bookcase, full of VERY heavy books (Beloved's) so that they could get at the entry point of phoneline. It turned out to be in perfect order. So now what? They leave promising to come back. They didn't. But phone currently working. Good. Granny uploads missing picture. Tomorrow, with or without a working phoneline, is a new day.