Remembering victims of terrorism

A huge new bronze statue has appeared on the waterfront at Cartagena. It shows a man with his head downcast and his knees raised up. The statue was only installed this month and it is a striking addition to the city´s modern street art.

The statue is in memory of the victims of terrorism and it was sculpted by Victor Ochoa. Spain has suffered badly from terrorism, with the ETA group murdering in the cause of Basque independence and the terrible train station bombings in Madrid by other terrorists.

Now this giant statue shows that the victims of violence are not forgotten.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009.

Poppies scatter the fields

The fields and roadside verges in the countryside around Cartagena, Spain, are splashed with red as poppies wave in the breeze.

The beautiful poppies are the brightest and deepest red and stand out strongly against the other wild flowers which are nearly all yellow, with a few purples thrown in. The poppies appear now, just before the heat of summer and are a gorgeous splash of new colour.

For many people, poppies are associated with remembrance, even though we are in April and Remembrance Day falls on the second Sunday of November. Originally it was celebrated at the 11th hour, of the 11th day of the 11th month, and was known as Armistice Day, as that was the day the armistice ending the First World War was signed.

John McCrae, then a Major, of the Canadian Army, was a surgeon attached to the First Field Artillery Brigade at the Battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915. In a break from treating wounded soldiers, he sat exhausted on the back of an ambulance. The day before, May 2, he had buried his friend and former student, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer who was killed by a shell burst.

Major McCrae spent five minutes writing on his pad the following poem, In Flanders Field.

In Flanders Fields the poppies bow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up or quarrel with the foe:
To you from falling hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders field.

Not satisfied with his words Major McCrae threw his poem away but it was picked up by another officer and published in Punch on December 8, 1915.

Who can look at a poppy without remembering?

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©Phillip Bruce 2009.

Typical tapas

A few days ago we enjoyed a couple of cups of café con leche, frothy milky coffee, and tapas at the Café Columbus, in the Calle Mayor in Cartagena.

The café makes its own excellent potato chips, or crisps to the British, and these are well worth trying.

From the range of tasty tapas on the bar we chose baby new potatoes in alioli, which is a sauce made of pounded garlic and olive oil, and goats cheese overlaid with anchovies, served with fresh bread.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009.

Wonderful wheat

Fields of wheat are still grown around Cartagena in Spain although cash crops such as lettuce and broccoli have almost taken over since the appearance of irrigation systems more than 20 years ago.

Wheat has been grown in Spain for a very long time and it was a granary in the times of ancient Rome providing food for the Imperial city and elsewhere in the empire.

Wheat has been cultivated since at least around 8,500BC. It reached Greece about 6,500BC and probably appeared in Spain soon afterwards, brought by the Greek traders who sailed along the Mediterranean coast. Early farmers in the “fertile crescent”, the area which includes modern Iraq and Iran, selected the wild wheat type that displayed the useful genetic mutation of having non-shattering stalks – so that the grain stayed together rather than being spread all over the ground and impossible to collect. By nurturing the useful mutation, the wheat that was to be spread so widely was developed.

The waving fields of wheat grown by traditional farmers look lush and green after the recent rains and continue an ancient heritage.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009.