On The Trail Of The Soapy Pine

You may have noticed that your car, your terrace, your washing have recently been turned the colour of what a paint-maker's swatch might term a dewy green or a breezy lime. I prefer to moniker it Norwich City, but whatever title it might be given there is no escaping the powder that floats on the breezes or is thrown about by a force six or seven hurtling in from a north-westerly direction. The pollen is a peppery pulverulence of the pine and the pellitory - and try saying that as you are in mid-sneeze. Nettles, sticky-weed, these are the worst offenders in allergic terms, but what is tossed hither and thither can include the pollens of cypress, olive and pine trees.

The Mallorcan relationship with the pine is such that researchers once studied the "hate" that the islanders have for it. Emblematic it may be, poetic it has been - as in Costa i Llobera's pine of Formentor - but there's no escaping the fact that pine needles clog up drains and gutters and that the trees harbour the unpleasant processionary caterpillar and can cause respiratory problems, and not just because of the pollen.

Notwithstanding this dislike, the good old pine tree does have its emblematic and symbolic qualities. There is even a political party that has adopted it as its name and its logo, not that El Pi is likely to get very far in the forthcoming elections. I mean, you wouldn't vote for a party whose name is The Pine, would you? Perhaps you would.

But its symbolism is such that when the moment arrives for a tree to be required to be chopped down, replanted in a village square and climbed by the youth of said village, there is only one arboreal candidate. The pine.

Now, many of you will know that in January the good people of Pollensa take themselves off to the finca of Ternelles on not one but two occasions in order to first locate and chop down a pine tree and to later transport it to the town's centre, while at the same time helping themselves to copious amounts of strong alcohol. The bark of the pine of Ternelles is stripped down, the denuded tree is given a good soaping, a cockerel in a bag is tied to its summit and up go members of the youth once the tree has been hauled into place in the old plaça of Pollensa.

The pine that is climbed as part of January's Sant Antoni fiesta is not the only pine to be scaled. Puerto Pollensa has one as well. But this odd tradition is unique to the municipality of Pollensa. Or is it?

As far as Sant Antoni is concerned, it is, but there are other pines that need climbing, having first been lathered up with industrial quantities of Palmolive. The village of Selva gets pine-slippery on the occasion of its Sant Llorenç fiesta in August.

Away from Mallorca, in Torre de l'Espanyol in Catalonia, they have a pine as well, and it is produced for Carnival. Said to be a ritual of pagan origin, the pine is climbed but with certain differences - there is no soap, the bark stays on, as do some stumps of branches, and there is no, in a Pollensa style, cockerel in a bag.

This particular tradition now involves the local "quintos", these being teenagers of the village who have come of age (the name comes from a centuries-old scheme for selecting young army conscripts; every fifth - quinto - male would be called up). The quintos of Mallorca court some controversy. Or they do in Muro, where there have been allegations of cruelty to chickens - fiercely denied. Quintos, generally speaking, are just out for some harmless, high-spirited fun, and quintos are central to a pine-climbing event - featuring a soaped-up tree - that is barely a pine-tossing throw away from Pollensa.

In Campanet, as with several other villages, there is a post-Easter picnic. The folk of the village gather to eat, to dance and to partake healthily of the local grape. Once the more sober formalities of a procession with the image of Christ and mass are dispensed with, the picnic entertainment this coming Tuesday involves a mass rice eat-in, something for the smaller people of the parish and finally, at 6pm, the climbing of the soapy pine by a selection of quintos, the tree having been located and chopped down the day before with the same due ceremony that the people of Pollensa reserve for the Ternelles tree, i.e. plenty to eat and drink.

Why do they do it? Who knows. But what one does know is that, for all the disadvantages of the pine tree, it has one very clear advantage. It can be climbed when soapy. Or not, as the case may be.

MALLORCA TODAY - Ufanes springs burst for the first time this autumn

The phenomenon of the Ufanes springs in Campanet occurs when there is an accumulation of heavy rain (or snow, as was the case earlier this year) and they have burst out for the first time since February and are expected to continue gushing at least until tomorrow.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

The Rules Of The Playground

Campanet is one of many villages in Mallorca which masquerades as a town. With a population of just over 2,500 people, it hardly merits the title of town. In Spanish (or Catalan), it wouldn't receive such a title, but in English, it does, for the sole reason that it has its own town hall.

Not a lot happens in Campanet. Its proximity to the motorway means that it isn't off the beaten track, and it does lay claim to reasons why it might be visited - the caves and the aquatic phenomenon of the "Fonts Ufanes" - but like other villages, it is easy to overlook it.

It is rare for Campanet to register for any reason other than that the springs are being particularly active (which they have been, thanks to recent deluges). On one occasion, a year or so ago, it did come to wider attention because of regular cuts to the water supply; the system was so antiquated, it was falling to pieces.

It now has another, doubtlessly brief moment in the spotlight owing to a little local difficulty, and it all has to do with its town hall.

In January this year, the president of the Mallorca hoteliers federation suggested that, as a way of saving money, the town halls in Mallorca should be done away with. Though she argued that all the ayuntamientos should go, she probably had in mind the likes of Campanet in particular. What, after all, is the point of a village of 2,500 people having a town hall?

There is sense to the hoteliers federation argument, and it is one that has been made by others, but were it to be acted upon, it would undermine the principle of localism and of the devolution of representation, even to the smallest of communities. It would also run up against the forces of loyalty to these communities, the strength of which resides in families, the local networks and sheer parochialism.

The principle of localism is a sound one in that it takes democracy ever closer to the ordinary people. The strength of the system is, though, also its weakness, not just in making local government as a whole more expensive but also in creating what amount to fiefdoms, rife with rivalries.

It was once said to me, about Muro, that the town hall is a playground for adults. The individuals know each other, grew up with each other and had their fallings-out in the school playgrounds which they now take into later life. It is that strength of families, networks and parochialism that fuels small-town (and village) competition, squabbles and vendettas.

Campanet's little local difficulty has its roots in events that go back two decades. The decision of the mayor, Joan Amengual (PSOE), to chuck councillors from the PSM socialists out of his few-months-old coalition administration has more to it than the mayor having apparently taken umbrage at the PSM councillors having organised a committee to arrange festivities for Three Kings.

Petty this may seem, and is, but the PSM councillors having seemingly gone behind the mayor's back has echoes of what happened in 1991. Amengual, who, in true dynastic fashion, had succeeded his father as PSOE chief, was the then second in command at the town hall to the PSM mayor, Francesc Aguiló. Amengual withdrew PSOE support for the then coalition when Aguiló, without telling him, called a meeting with the village's pensioners.

The bad blood, over something this inconsequential, has festered ever since. Aguiló went on to be mayor until 2007. He was succeeded by the PSM's Francesc Morell who was mayor in coalition (with Amengual) and who gave up the mayorship - just one of the peculiarities of how pacts work in Mallorca's town halls - so that Amengual could serve for a year.

And now, PSOE and Amengual, finally in a position of dominance, have, or it would appear, taken their revenge. Moreover, Amengual has said that he had not agreed that Morell could share the mayorship and take over in 2013.

Amengual maintains that there have been other factors behind his breaking of the pact with the PSM, but it is being seen as simply the outcome of a long-standing feud predicated on utterly trivial matters.

In the small towns and villages, such feuds can and do arise, and they dominate local politics; Santa Margalida is just one other example. They are not really about the rules of politics but about who controls the fiefdoms, and lend support to calls to scrap the town halls - and not just on financial grounds. They are really about the rules of the playground.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Tapping Up - Water supplies

You've just put the shampoo into your hair and the shower suddenly dries up; you've set the washing-machine going and then it suddenly stops; you've used the loo and when it comes to flushing there is that awful moment of low or no pressure.

Water supplies. There is an argument that the utilities are equally important, but without water ... ? Pity the poor people of Campanet who have been long-suffering where it comes to water supply and have recently been subject to as many as three cuts in a week. Think about the impact not only in homes, but also in bars, businesses and schools. They're worried that there will be inadequate drinking water as the weather warms up.

In Campanet the problem has been with tap supply, and it is one of ancient pipework that badly needs overhauling. The schoolchildren of Campanet can always bring their own water, and it is inexpensive to buy (70 centimos for five litres for example), but it's still 70 centimos multiplied many times over and above the water rate. And don't let's even start on the cost of having a water supply switched on.

Campanet is not the only town that is subject to unannounced cuts to water supplies - far from it; not the only place where something unpleasant is left to lurk under a hastily lowered lid. And wherever one looks, there is an issue with water. In Santa Margalida there is a demand for a report into why the public swimming-pool is losing twenty cubic metres per day, something that adds to accusations in the town of leakages in public money; a different sort, but the pool's water is ultimately funded by the taxpayer. In Sa Pobla a water-processing plant was established two to three years ago and has proved to be useless. Part of the solution for the town is to use water from desalination plants, notably one near Alcúdia. It has not been that straightforward, owing to the nature of the negotiations, but supply does now seem guaranteed via a mix of desalinated water and that from the island's network. In Playa de Muro there remains a question as to the quality of drinking water that dates back some years. Nitrates. The local water company in Playa de Muro (Fusosa) is a strange affair. It cannot be contacted by landline telephone after the morning. You have to know the emergency mobile number. The company has only recently established a skeleton website. At least it includes an email address. Public service? It sucks. Against all this wet utility provision, hats off to Alcúdia where there is now the bold initiative to recycle waste water for garden irrigation. It's something.

There is plenty of water in Mallorca, or rather beneath it. Huge underground reservoirs are what supply much of the island's water. They benefit from the regular soakings from September to April and even from the mountain snow. Occasionally, when the winters are exceptionally dry, there can be concerns, but nature seems to have a knack of making an adjustment, even if it means rain throughout May and into June. The availability of water isn't really the issue. It's what happens with it and what it contains - the product of the limestone on which Mallorca is largely built: the "cal", as the word has past into British usage, the cal that affects everything - from kettles to boilers to toilets to taps. Hard water. Very hard water.

Water, water everywhere. An island the size of Essex surrounded by the stuff. It hangs in the air, drenches terraces because of the dampness and humidity, infiltrates walls. Everywhere water, except from where you might most want it. Taps for instance.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.