'Half and Half' the home of The Victoria Gardens Literary and Philosophical Society: Fiesta, Trips and Heat Wave

The weekend fiesta ended with a magnificent firework display to celebrate the fine start to the season made by the Lads. That left us with lots of time on our hands to have a further look around this interesting part of the world. Outings to see fascinating shrines, hill top villages and the work done to restore the town of Lorca devastated by an earthquake earlier in the year.

A steep mountain road leads up to a summit interspersed with statues depicting the fourteen Stations of the Cross, or the events leading up to the death of Jesus.

These are to be found at La Santa above the town of Totana.

Statue of Christ - La Santa

Master of all he surveys

A view from the summit beneath the Christ statue had us spotting a small hill top village and fort that obviously needed to be investigated. Narrow streets, impatient natives and tempers worn by the heat contributed to our first real driver abuse at anything other than the Tom Tom Tart. Fortunately the recipients of said abuse quickly recognised that they were faced with VGLPS members on tour and decided that in the verbal or any other kind of joust they would probably fall short so they scuttled off in a cloud of dust.

Tower - Aledo

It was a very attractive village and on the way out we spotted a small shack with a large covered area outside that was clearly being used as a club house or bar, so we pulled up. There sitting out, engaged in the most vigorous debate were the members of Aledo’s Literary and Philosophical Society. We felt as if we’d come home.

Aledo

We were keen to visit Lorca. Nick had been there earlier in the year and he was interested to view the developments since his last visit, about six weeks ago. Whilst there is still an abundance of evidence of the carnage wrought by the earthquake there is a huge amount of progress that has been made. Building facades that had disappeared have been restored and most remarkable of all is the restoration of the church that whilst not finished is well on the way to being repaired.

Church - Lorca

Earthquake damage - Lorca

Corned Beef Pie works for me

An interesting aside, the day we went to Lorca was a feast day and that meant that everything else closed as it had been the day before, a Sunday. Can any of us who live in England remember when that would have been the case at home? Some people still value their traditional leisure and family time and are not slaves to the commercial juggernaut that governs the high streets of so many other countries.

Tuesday started early as we’d decided to drive down to Cartagena. Within a couple of miles of leaving home Nick noticed a warning light on the dash board. None of us could recognise the particular symbol and so we stopped to investigate. Panic began to set in as we wrestled with one of the down sides of buying a Spanish registered vehicle, the handbook is in Spanish. At this point Sheila came to the rescue and remembered that the bank teller who’d dealt with her last week, was an excellent linguist, so off she went with the hand book to consult him. Armed with the essential information that we were being told to consult someone with expertise because there was a problem with the engine we then had the problem of finding both a qualified person and also one who could converse with we inadequate linguists. As luck would have it Nick approached a chap who turned out to be English and was given directions to a garage run by a couple of English people at about seven miles distant. We decided to risk it and on arrival were welcomed and the car was hitched up to a diagnostic computer and the reason for the warning was explained to us. The best bit of the explanation being the news that we weren’t in imminent danger of losing any vehicular functionality. A real treasure of a find.

Onward to Cartagena and visits to harbours, castles and roman ruins as well as pleasant bars and cafes before heading home over the mountains to face a good bottle of burgundy. Nick has signed up for Spanish language classes.