Wednesday, January 31, 2018

A sick person that need help



The neighbours who live in the area by ​​Perales and Ferrer have a serious problem. Actually all the neighbours of the town of Bigastro have a problem.

There is a neighbour that, either because some of our pets bothers him or simply because he is not animal lover, is putting out Frankfurter sausages with nails inside in the hope that some pet will eat them

There is already a pet struggling  between life and death because of this.

If anyone sees something suspicious they need to come forward so that this person can be spoken to.

Help save the planet

As you poster says, make a purchase from any local shop and you can adopt a tree.

Of course, you can go ahead and plant your own tree and the poster gives advice about this.  Or, you can buy a tree and the Town Hall will plant it for you. 

The trees will be planted up here at La Pedrera.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

A clean town

From Pascual Segura's Facebook page, this advert shows that there was a factory producing bleach in Bigastro.

Monday, January 29, 2018

And now for the dust

The DANA that brought us the rain has now moved away leaving us with a path of dust from the Sahara desert. We are not forecast a lot of rain but what does fall will be mucky.

The advice here is don't wash your car but equally we could say, "don't hang out your white washing!".

Sunday, January 28, 2018

The culprit

The swirling mass of cloud you see over this part of southern Spain is what brought us all the rain last night.

In total we had 42.4mm of rain per square metre between 10:30pm and 9am this morning with the peak period at around 5am.

As is normal, the amount of rain varied between locations.

Alicante fared worse as did Benidorm where 25mm of rain fell in just one hour at around 3am. That would surely have woken up those who were trying to escape the British weather for a break in sunny Spain.

Friday, January 26, 2018

To whet your appetite

You can watch this video announcing the Medieval Market in Orihuela.

A welcome relief

This popular event returns again to brighten up the gloomy days of winter.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Bigastro Floodplain Master Plan

Is a project that will be carried out over ten years with a budget of 15 million euros

The works of the first phase of the Bigastro Flood Plan will be starting in less than a month.  The  aim is  to solve the flood problems and allocate the water that is collected for irrigation.

The councilman of Urbanism and Environment, Antonio Meseguer, says that the plan is to prevent the damage we have when there is heavy rain and storms.

The problem, explained Meseguer, is that the CV-95 road acts as a dam in the municipality retaining the waters, so when there are storms several streets suffer flooding. This project is going to alleviate those problems of flooding on the one hand, while on the other it is an environmental initiative that will allow the collection of rainwater to be used for irrigation.

This ambitious plan, which includes the subsidy of 100% , starts with a first phase on Calle Tomás Villanueva, with a collector for rainwater which will be stored and used to irrigate gardens etc. This work, which has a budget of 625,000 euros, is expected to be completed before the end of 2018.

The project  will eventually include work in all the streets of Bigastro as well as in the Industrial Estate.

PS Whilst those who live in the worst affected parts of the town might regard this as worthwhile, there will no doubt be those who feel that this money could be better spent elsewhere. However, I am guessing that this money is specific for projects of this type and could not be used for other purposes.

Another date for the diary


A DANA

A DANA (Depression Isolated in High Levels)is a feature of the weather here on the Mediterranean Coast. In layman's terms, it is a pocket of cold air that produces torrential rain, intense winds and a significant drop in temperature. 

The reason that this is mentioned now is because there is the strong possibility we will experience the first DANA of 2018 sometime after the weekend. Of course, nothing is certain with the weather and things could change.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Slightly irreverent

When my friend Pete suggested that the new Parish Priest in Bigastro was the spit and image of Sam Allardyce, I could not help but knock up a few cartoons from the pictures I took on Sunday.




Big Sam refusing to take any blame for Everton's poor performance on Saturday against West Brom.

Monday, January 22, 2018

A couple from the weekend

Saturday night, we were down at the Auditorium to watch the latest production by Percuseve.

Percuseve is a theatre and percussion group belonging to the CE Severo Ochoa School, Los Garres, Murcia. Their director is Miguel Sáez who happens to live in Bigastro. His brother, Emilio, was President of the SUMB and now plays with the symphonic band..

The first performance we saw by Percuseve was El Ritmo de los Tiempos back in 2006. Since then they have performed Ritmografía de una vida, Ritmos de Papel and Ritmo sobre un lienzo.

Their latest production, called Arritmias, was what we went to see.

Arritmias, based in a hospital,  aims to portray the situation that hundreds of families of children with serious illnesses go through. For that reason they asked for a donation to AECC who supply support to patients with cancer and their families.

Their music is made by using the combination of a variety of every day objects; pieces of tubing, cups, sticks etc, etc. along with their bodies and hands. In past productions they have also made music with unlikely objects such as wheelie bins and monitor cases.

Sunday, we were at the Plaza de la Constitucion for the blessing of animals.
In a complete change this year, the Mass beforehand took place outside the Church. This was followed by the blessing by the priest.

You can view my photos of both events by following the links in the sidebar.

Friday, January 19, 2018

New roundabouts

According to the Costa Blanca News, six new roundabouts are to be built on the CV95 between Orihuela and Torrevieja. Let us hope that one of them is on the junction between the CV95 and the CV945 to Los Montesinos and another on the junction with the CV951 to Torremendo.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Time to celebrate

This year is a special year for SUMB  as it counts on 100 years as a society, an  historic milestone that we are going to celebrate in style.

For this year they have prepared various activities such as lectures on the history of the society, exhibitions and a centennial magazine that will surely occupy a privileged place on the shelves of all the people who love the music of Bigastro.

And the icing on the cake is the registration in the Provincial Contest 2018. With a free work of maximum difficulty such as "Miraculum", by maestro Martínez Gallego, they will give everything and more on stage.

Pam and I look forward to taking part and recording the magnificent concerts they will be performing.

Monday, January 15, 2018

For those whom it may concern

Those of you who have mobile phones that will work with 4G will now be able to access data at much faster speeds thanks to the upgrade.

Unfortunately, the 4G band operates at 800 MHz which may effect those of you who have digital terrestrial TV.

If your reception is affected, you can contact the Centre for Attention and they will sort the problem out free of charge.

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Bless the animals

This is always worth a visit. People bring along all sorts of animals to be blessed by the parish priest.

It looks like there are some useful prizes in the raffle this year. 

NB Previously, we have seen live pigs in the raffle.

Monday, January 08, 2018

A real treat

We always look forward to the Christmas Concerts by the Sociedad Union Musical de Bigastro and yesterday's performance did not disappoint.

We started out with the Infant Choir, in front of the band, singing a medley of songs for Christmas.

They cleared the stage to allow the Symphonic Band to perform their programme which started with the competition piece they will be playing at the Certamen this year. As is normal, this is a technically difficult piece to play and will require a lot of rehearsal to get it to the band's liking.

Following tradition, Mr and Miss SUMB danced to Shostakovitch Waltz No 2 and the concert ended with the audience joining in with the Radetsky March by Johann Strauss Sr.

You will find my photo albums from the event in the sidebar and you can listen to the concert here.

Their latest production

Pam and I have followed the work of Miguel Saez and his theatre group Percuseve for a number of years now.

Their latest production, Arritmias promises to be just as good as the previous ones. You can see it in Bigastro on Saturday 20th January.

Sunday, January 07, 2018

1920s Spain

This photo of a man and his dog outside a house made from mud and sticks comes from the late 1920s.

Although, the picture was posted on the Old Photos of Orihuela page on Facebook, it isn't clear whether the photo was taken there.

However, we do know that this type of construction was typical of parts of Valencia at that time and some of these houses still exist as museums.

Spare a thought

After a spell of unseasonable warm weather that would be considered good for a summer's day in Britain, it has turned cold here in Bigastro.

The top temperature during the day plummeted from 25 degrees to around 16 in a matter of a couple of days. Night time temperatures have dropped to 4 degrees which feels polar to us. 

However, spare a thought for our friends and relatives in Britain who have suffered storm after storm so far this winter. The combination of strong winds, heavy rain and arctic temperatures have brought misery to much of the country and it isn't over yet.

Today is forecast to be calm for much of the British Isles but that means cold temperatures during the daytime and even colder temperatures at night. A nighttime temperature of 4 degrees would feel almost tropical to those who are experiencing drops to -15 in the north of Scotland. Four degrees is as warm as it will get in the middle of the day for even the south coast of Britain.

No doubt we will see people out in thick coats, woolly scarves, hats and gloves today for the Christmas Concert in Bigastro. You wonder what they would find to wear if they were in a really cold climate like Britain is experiencing this year. 

Thursday, January 04, 2018

Get your free calendar

With the aim of promoting awareness of environmental issues, Bigastro Town Hall has launched an initiative aided by a local resident who is fond of everything related to the environment - Efrén Pamies,

This local policeman has been commissioned to illustrate the calendar with photographs of the fauna, flora and fossils which he says are unique in the province.

Antonio Meseguer, Councillor for the Environment, says that "the purpose of the 2018 Calendar is to offer citizens the opportunity to become familiar with their environment and to know part of the Nature, Diversity and History of Bigastro",

Pamies points out that, in the different natural routes of Bigastro, you can meet many species of this area; birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals.

This calendar will be distributed by local businesses It will be available to all who are interested in the City and will be free.

Monday, January 01, 2018

From the Town Hall

Discard the sadness, remember the best moments and start the year with many new things.