The 15th May is the Feast of San Isidro Labrador, the Patron Saint of Farmers. He´s also the Patron Saint of Madrid, do pop over to BlueJellyBean´s blog and check out her beautiful recipe in celebration of this feast day.
Summer has arrived like an explosion. No gentle easing into gradually warmer days. It turned overnight from Spring to Summer and temperatures in the 30s just a few days ago.
The celebration of San Isidro is one of the first big summer celebrations, and is particularly important in villages like ours. Most of the inhabitants rely on the land to employ and feed them to some degree or another. Things are tough in Spain right now and work is scarce. Today is symbolic for many of these land workers and planting today hopefully carries a blessing from San Isidro for a good crop. Tonight we finished planting the last of our vegetables garden…well, we´ll take help where we can get it!
The statue of the Saint was blessed in the little village church and processed down through the village to our little sports centre which has a large building used for village gatherings.
It´s a Pueblo Blanco, a white village. Perhaps not the quaintest or prettiest, but it has a certain charm. The streets were quiet today as most people were in the church when we arrived.
Although our village celebrations were scaled down from previous years, there was still time to enjoy a plate of rice together and have a few drinks.
Oh, and a little dance of course.
Chica Andaluza 