Time After Time

It was that familiar problem. Where to park? It is one of the mysteries of the local fairs and fiestas that anyone manages to get to them, unless they have arrived on foot. In Pollensa, it doesn't help that one of the main access roads into the town is closed anyway. How about trying here, you think? Nope, they've closed that off as well. Put up tents. Hmm, where else? Oh look, a blue P, in front of the sports pavilion. Boing, bounce, bang. The sound of stones crunching under tyre makes a satisfyingly disturbing noise, and you take a quick look at the rubber when you get out. There is only so much of this waste land to occupy, part of it has also been roped off, reserved for cars it says, which seems slightly odd as cars are everywhere else on this unmade parking lot. Perhaps it has been reserved for the dignitaries, those who always make an appearance at fairs and fiestas. The official programmes always make a point of scheduling their arrival. Maybe let's those who might wish to voice some discontent make a note in their diaries.

From and into the pavilion emerge and disappear children in martial arts robes. They make a big thing of the sports events that coincide with the fairs. Not that they hold much interest for anyone other than parents and a handful of supporters. The real stuff, the fair, is over the main road, past the cockerel roundabout and into the town.

Everywhere there is food. Pastries, cakes, sweets, baguettes, bread, various concoctions. Everywhere someone is consuming something from a paper plate. The fairs are a non-stop exercise in exercising the jaws and the palate. The only ones not chomping away are on the stands themselves. Here is one for Cuxach, the building materials company. Thirty years of Cuxach, it proudly says, or rather doesn't. But that's the reason for the stand, and red sacks of what are probably building slag. Here is a tent, two gentlemen in suits looking bored. It is the government's environment ministry, a display of spectacular dullness, except ... What is that noise? Edge a little closer, but without wishing to show any interest in case one of the boreds attempts to engage you in conversation. That noise. Good God, it is. Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", but not by Queen. Some Freddie tribute being played over the speakers by the environment authority. What on earth for? "Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frighteningly. Galileo, Galileo ... " Maybe the ministry is wishing to prove that the Earth is round. Very strange.

Ever more food. There is a makeshift table with paper-cut letters stuck onto a brightly-coloured dining table. Something about a voyage to Berlin. Schoolkids selling yet more cakes, raising some euros for a school trip. One feels inclined to tell them that first they must take Manhattan, but it's most unlikely they would have a clue why. Turn a corner, and they've set out some plastic chairs and tables; makes it easier for dealing with those paper plates. The Fira d'Artesania, the craft fair. There are pots, those earthenware ones that make for good tumbet and light casseroles. Loads of plants. Doesn't seem that crafty, but they look very green and, well, plant-like.

Up into the main square, the Fira Pagesa, country or farm fair. There's a startling construction that looks like a junior Wicker Man - Wicker Boy. One looks around nervously in case Edward Woodward is about to be incinerated. In the raised area of the square are a number of ancient-style wagons for moving hay. The work on these wagons is superb, the craftwork of a wheelwright is one understood by only a few nowadays. I know one in England; the shaping of the wood and the bending of the iron are rural achievements shared by different countries, albeit by a dwindling number of true craftsmen.

Then more food. Turrón, the local nougat, in cellophane packets. And for some peculiar reason, amidst this farm produce and workmanship, is a stall selling kitchen equipment - frying-pans, ladles, knives. The evening before, here in the square, they held a farmworkers' dance, a ball de bot with an agricultural twist, but probably the same as the other balls de bot (or is it ball de bots?).

Later, there was a procession with a drum and bugle band, as there are always processions with drums and bugles, and over this same weekend, there will be a how big is your pumpkin competition in Muro, as there is always a pumpkin competition. There was also, in Inca, the night of burning the bonfires, as there always is in advance of the coming Dijous Bo (good Thursday) fair. And everywhere there is food and more food, fuelling the Mallorcans and the few others, who come, as every year, to see the same produce, the same products and to hear the same music (except Queen) and dance the same dance.

Time after time, the fairs and their collisions of ancient and of new, of rock or dance music (as at the Sa Pobla autumn fair pre-event this coming weekend) and of traditional dance and music. The fairs of Mallorca. And Pollensa fair.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Goldfinger, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZt8jcFAsrA. Today's title - good grief, this was a hit 25 years ago; unbelievable.

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