Salt: A.K.A Corpus Christi

The finale to The Cure story will be up tomorrow. You'll have to put up with this aside for the time being...

What it is to live in a Catholic country. Corpus Christi is celebrated in Spain - why Granny hasn't yet been able to find out - by making flower pictures on the road on the Saturday after the feast, a holy procession of priests etc trampling over and destroying it on the Sunday.

Beautiful ephemera; a bit like making a fabulous - and decorative - meal and seeing it disappear immediately down other people's gullets. On this island, at this point of the year, flowers always few and far between, floral picture-making was difficult if not impossible. On the other hand, what there was, a plenty, it's being a sea-girt island, was salt; altogether too much of it. Someone had a bright idea. Enough said.

The tradition of salt pictures was dying out at one point; the salt works had more or less closed down. But thanks to all the foodies' demand for sea salt in their
cooking, they've been partly reopened and the festival revived in its old form too. Good.

The road through the town was closed on Saturday; first heaps of salt appeared, then large cans of colour. On Saturday evening half the town came out and made their pictures - like all the celebrations here, things continue both alive and local, particularly in a municipio like this, one of the most traditional on the island, with only a smattering of in-comers. Whether or not the procession followed yesterday, Granny doesn't know. The pictures still looked to be there in the afternoon and she hasn't been back since. It's unlikely they'll keep the road closed for long; the bank, the cafe, the bread shop wouldn't like it.

Here are some pictures.

First some older ones at picture making





Here some younger




Here the youngest of all.



And here are some of the pictures they made: this large sun and three crosses was put out by the third agers; Granny includes this to show solidarity with her own generation, rather than religious fervour.




here a somewhat misshapen angel



She will spare you the very grim looking BVM. She has some regard for your feelings and for hers.

Back on the ranch the wind is blowing from the North again. Granny and Beloved have an odd taste in their mouths, somewhat dental. Beloved did not realise that Granny had filled up one of the old pepper grinders with cloves - he was using that to spice thing up things instead of pepper. Clove-flavoured prawns anyone? Cloves with your breakfast egg? Unusual gastronomic experiences. Granny doesn't think they'll be repeating them.