This is one of the hardest things that I have had to write.   I have started close to a dozen times - and avoided writing on so many more occasions - and not been able to see it through.  I suppose that the core issue is that I just don’t want to face what I have to say: we have left Valencia; left our beloved Spain.
Why? How? Wherefore?  Good questions.  (And is there anyone out there still asking after such a long absence?)  I will do my best to explain.
Amending the …

March 28th is a pretty important day in the Larcombe/Mead family calendar.  On that date in 2006, two weeks after the due date, Oscar Mead made his first appearance in the world.  You’d think that this date would be etched into our minds forever; unforgettable, totally.
Not so.  This March 28th, Oscar’s third birthday, almost came and went without the slightest fanfare or celebration.  In fact, when we finally realized what day it was, we marked the event with a chocolate bar and a ride on a coin operated horse.  Oscar didn’t …

3 AM on the night of March 19th, the last day of Las Fallas, and I had every intention of writing a post about what I had just seen and experienced.  I got as far as sitting down in front of the computer and sorting through some photographs, then…BOOM!  Fallas burn-out hit me.  36 hours later I can finally face this small task, just barely.
Living in the centre of town, in the heart of the celebrations, has been fun but tiring.  The band that blared away into the wee hours …

Do they burn the Virgin?
I think this is the first question that any newcomer to Las Fallas asks.  I mean, if they are about incinerate 500 or so fallas, the most expensive representing an investment of over 1 million euros, what’s to stop them here?
As it turns out, the Virgin is not reduced to ashes.  She is allowed to stand in her flowery splendour until her body is virtually rotting away - is that better, really?
The Offering of Flowers - Ofrenda de las Flores - takes place on the 17th and …

A Real Blast
Wow, the Valencians love gunpowder.  From our fifth-floor perch we can hear countless explosions throughout the day and night - and we are lucky enough to be able to see a good portion of the nightly fireworks display in the Turia park (a dry riverbed system that amazes me with its vastness).
Last night I came home to a sleeping household - despite the amazing noise coming from the square - and took this picture as I sipped on a cider on our terrace.  The display was quite impressive …

In the past week I’ve written thousands of words about both the past and the present of Las Fallas, Valencia’s signature celebration.  As ridiculous as it seems not to dedicate a lengthy and detailed post to this virtually inexhaustible subject (or inextinguishable?) event, I just can’t do it.
Here’s what I’m offering instead: the chance to read some of the articles I’ve written for other sites - Expatica and Eat In Valencia; and a series of vignettes about these incendiary celebrations as they unfold around us.
I’m not widely known for brevity …

In part one of this post, I gave some background into my national identity, or lack thereof.  I talked about the elusiveness of the moment in which it could be said that I became Canadian (having been taken to Canada from England as a child) and the decisive moment in which I later realized that Spain was home to a culture that felt like home to me.  What I didn’t do was answer my own question about why my wife and I felt compelled to relocate to Spain despite the …

I have always been amazed at how wine gets around.  In Canada we drank wines from all over the world and it seemed clear that the global marketplace was getting smaller.  Trends that we saw as winedrinkers in British Columbia appeared to be happening all over the planet.  Now I think that maybe that’s not quite the case.
Back in BC, Katie and I began to suffer from a mild case of oak overload, at least when it came to white wines.  We enjoy full-bodied whites but found that most of …

One of the things that I most love from Spain’s culinary arsenal is jamón serrano.  One of the things I like least in life is not having all the answers.  Last week, it was time for these two things to come head to head at our house in an event that we dubbed jamón, jamón.  (It may not be the most inventive name, but the event itself didn’t suffer for it.)
Spain’s cured ham may just be the best in the world.  Wait - it is.  No doubt about it.  I’m …

Just the other day I heartily agreed with a friend of mine that the term ‘expat‘ isn’t a good description for people who choose to make their home in a foreign country.  For him the term is most closely associated with corporate employees who spend a year or two recreating their own country within the borders of another while waiting for their tour of duty to end; never learning more than a few words of their host culture’s language and little else about their surroundings.
And then I happened to notice …