Since my last post the number of unique views of this blog has gone from half a million to over 800,000, which makes me feel very lax for not posting in months. Here is something of a round-up of news etc.:
My friend Cristina Ybarra, wife of Enrique Moreno de la Cova who bred the Saltillo fighting cattle I so often faced in the ring, has had her painting selected as the cartel, official ‘poster’, for the pilgrimage of the Rocío which attracts about a million of the faithful to Andalusia each June. It is being exhibited for the first time at the ayuntiamento, ‘city hall’, of Seville, tomorrow morning at eleven-thirty a.m., and is open to all. For more details, on Cristina’s own blog, click here.
I will be there as I am currently sat sweltering in Seville in air the same temperature as my blood. There are worse places to swelter than a terrace overlooking the most charismatic cathedral on Earth. (FYI: I have since moved from the lovely Hotel La Doña María to an apartment at No. 11, calle Almansa, in El Arenal by the plaza de toros. To rent one of the same – short term or long le – contact Joaquín Fernández de Córdoba by clicking here.)
However, it was for the bulls that we came to Seville – more fool us – and about the bulls this blog nominally is.
We came to see the corridas, ‘bullfights’, of the Feria de Abril – my parents, Sarah and I – but after an awful showing at the Maestranza bullring on Thursday with the toros of El Pilar facing the toreros Miguel Abellan, Manuel Escribano and David Mora, we sloped off to the pool of the Sherry Park Hotel in Jerez and the restaurants on the beach in Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Continue reading