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The end of several eras

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  After yesterday’s excitement, today has only the joy of 12th Novembers past. 1627:  Diego Luis de San Vitores is born in Burgos. He founded the first Catholic church on Guam. He was killed by the locals, after rumours were spread that the baptismal waters were poisoned.  1912: Jose Canalejas, President of the Council of Ministers, is assassinated in the Puerta del Sol, Madrid.  Canalejas was a Lawyer and supporter of Regenerationalism - the movement that wanted Reforms following the Disasters of 1898.  He held various posts, including Minister of Justice, of Finance and Public Works.  He was assassinated by the anarchist Manuel Pardinas Serrano. 1956: Dr Juan Negrin, President of the Council of Ministers of the Spanish Republic from 17th March 1937 to 31st March 1939. He died in Paris. 1985: The UN Decolonization Commissions approves a resolution urging the UK and Spain to sort out the Gibraltar dispute. 1989: Dolores Ibarruri, La Pasionaria, first woman ...

Faithful El Cid and the much occupied hilltop

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What I love about this is by accident, whim or pure mischance we end up going to places I have never heard of but now want to go to,  Enter Morella. The fighting fantasy world is full of hill top bewalled towns, such as Blighty does not seem to provide. Spain does. Morella is one of them. It has a splendid and up to date website which has lots of pictures on it and the diary on it is up to date. Unfortunately we have just missed XI Trobada de Dimonis.  Nothing is down for today but I suspect it may be filled up by the time this is published. https://www.morella.net/   The area has been settled with the usual crowd. Unusually it has a cave painting of the earliest depiction of archery used in combat known to humanity. https://artrupestre.com/en/yacimiento/galeria-del-roure/   It is thought to dates from 7200-7400 years ago, The Romans took over a Punic town and made it there's, as did the Visigoths, the Moors and El Cid is reputed [i.e. probably didn’t] rebuild the wa...

The use of weather in character building

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  La Mata de Morella is behind us and Forcall. Wiki says of it ‘ Forcall, a town with a strong personality and the geographical center of the region and neighboring towns of Aragon, experienced days of prosperity that we can still recreate today by strolling through its streets and squares. ’ Today it is the home of 475 people. In the late 19th and early 20th century about 2300 people lived. The populace gentle sloped down thereafter.  They don’t like change. The PSOE rule the people through the mayor. Manuel Monfort held the post from 1987 to 2003 and Santiago Perez Penarroya has been the man in the feathery hat ever since.  Here is a news report with him in it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHIe2v5iRt4&forced   Wiki reported ‘ Patron Saint Festivals. Celebrated from the last weekend of August to the first of September in honor of Saint Victor and Our Lady of Consolation. Famous features of these festivities include the " toros embolados " (bulls with flaming ...