Martes de Campo

May 15th, 2008 Posted by john
Martes de Campo Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias.

The local freesheet said that Tuesday had been marked on a lot of calendars since the beginning of the year. It’s called Martes de Campo (or La Fiesta de la Balesquida, or el Día del Bollo). I asked a student a while back what happened and she said that you go to the country and eat a Bollo, a bread roll stuffed with a chorizo, you drink wine or sidra and… well that was it really. At nine this morining there were some really loud rockets from the park two blocks away, that carried on every hour or so until 2. In the park the Balesquida was underway, this, I gathered is a form of skittles/bowling where the solid wooden ball is thrown underarm, high into the air, towards the skittles, which are in a set on sand. The ball is thrown with a spin and doesn’t bounce very much. It looked pretty hard. There was a lot of folk music, a few marching bands wandering round the park, the members of the Oviedo Balesquida club had a huge marquee and were dishing out Bollos and wine like there was no tomorrow. The paseo del Bombé (the wide French style boulevard in the park) was packed. Young and old were tucking into their Bollos, chatting away, having a fine time. And it’s only a holiday here in Oviedo. If you live here and work in Gijón for example, you’re out of luck… but you’ll get your holiday some other time.

The Bollo I had was lovely, warm and the chorizo juice was like blood from a fine rare steak… I needed paper towels for my greasy greedy chin…

I think, like Jorge said, we’re gonna need a thicker rope….

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