With the excesses of the August Ferias looming JULY is generally a quiet month in the Sierra, although it would be completely alien to the Andalucian character to let the month slip past unobserved. To this end there is always something happening somewhere, concerts or free film shows.

In Cortelazor we have our Cultural Week, which is in no way as stuffy or formal as it might sound. A different day of the week is allocated to different groups in the village, children, youths, men, women, pensioners and, this year, thanks to our presence, foreigners. The Alcadesa was adamant that we were to get involved in proceedings and to give our fellow villagers an insight to life and culture in Scotland and Denmark . To this end we both gave short talks, in Spanish, well we call it Spanish, poor old Cervantes probably hasn't stopped revolving yet, on the gastronomy of Scotland and Denmark. Stuart sacrificed some of his precious haggis, neeps and tatties to the cause while Annette made meatballs, red cabbage and sugar potatoes to allow the audience to sample what we were talking about. Then while we had them immobile with good food we delivered short lectures on Rabbie Burns and Hans Christian Andersen, with examples in Spanish culled from the internet. It was a very enjoyable experience, for us anyway. In Aracena the neighbours of the little Ermita de Santa Lucia organise a little fiesta which is incredibly welcoming and good humoured and fills three nights with light and fun.