Vejer, our village in Spain, seems to be permanently in ‘Feria’. This is of course where we got the name for our restaurant.
Its a bit of a euphemism for “we’re not working, we’re having fun, drinking sherry, watching horses doing amazing things and going to bed very late so don’t expect the bank to be open, or anything else for that matter.”
Vejer is extra special in this regard. We seem to have a huge fair in April to celebrate the Virgin Mary. This has lots of tents for sherry drinking and tapas and beer and then there’s lots of people dancing and riding horses. Most nights it concludes around 5.00am. People then slope off for churros and chocolate. I’m not sure how the village continues to thrive, because it goes on for about three weeks, with everyone basically half cut for the entire time.
However, this is nothing in comparison to the August Feria. This goes on for the whole month. It means that people from all the local villages for about a 1000 miles around, come to the town to eat, drink, dance and listen to music, until about 7.00am. Its absolutely crazy. Naturally the village can’t really cope with the influx of what seems like 100 million people. Jez starts to get stressed that we won’t get a parking space for the car, when we get back off the beach. He once drove around for an hour and half and missed dinner, as ‘out of town ers’ start arriving at about 8pm every night and cram all the roads. This means we have to leave the beach before we’ve arrived! Stuff like that.
At the end of the Feria, which is the last Saturday in August, there’s a spectacular firework display. Basically the mayor sanctions the ‘blowing’ of a shit tonne of money on fireworks. Normally it takes three or four guys, smoking heavily about a week to set them up. Anyway, we usually go on to the terrace to watch it with friends. I inevitably cry because its the end of another wonderful Summer of memories.