My hairdresser says I have to make an appointment; we're practically parking in Orgiva; at the Regüerta, Manolo is looking thinner and more harassed than ever, and my elderly neighbourly ladies (who all made appointments) are swanning around town with candy-floss hair overdo's. Our sixth San Juan fiesta in Lanjarón was as much noisy fun as its predecessors.
The fiesta - ours is dedicated to Lanjarón's famous mineral water and jamón serrano - opened on 19 June as the Durcal majorettes (national champion twirlers no less) stepped out towards the Plaza. At midnight, the Fiesta Queens and 'Mister' were crowned with solemn rituals stretching back to 1980, and the Orquestra Milenio accompanied the first of several verbenas - open-air dances where women could show off their frothy flamenco frocks, and men could show off.
Saturday, as always, the big fancy dress parade, La Pública, rolled through town on a wave of noise and free tinto de verano. And if some of the costumes seemed rather cobbled together, insiders knew why: the handsome young tailor who strolled into town and undertook to create the costumes for at least four different groups, strolled out again last week with all their money and some big rolls of material. He's now being hunted down like a pantomime dog by the Guardia's best minds.
Brazilian-themed marching bands and Caribbean orchestras, break dance and sevillanas, flamenco and salsa. Andy and Lucas in concert with their support band, the Demented. Then for an hour after midnight on San Juan Eve, the 23rd June, the streets once again flowed shin-deep with water as revellers ran a gauntlet of hoses and buckets from Hotel España to the town hall plaza. That's a lot of nautical miles. I went up on the roof terrace with some vino to enjoy the screaming, and was treated to my annual glimpse of bare bums as a French family crouched behind their car to change out of dripping clothes.
Best of all was the long walk through town, greeting friends every few paces, stopping for drinks, the familiar faces behind the familiar counters, the three-generation ice cream sundae worship at the Heladeria, grandparents and prams and toddlers and police all weaving around each other, the miniature train nipping at everyone's heels, and good-natured chaos under a flavoury cloud of roasting chicken.
This weekend marked ten years since we left England, and though I do miss many things about my old home, fiesta always renews my gratitude for community: the fragile, priceless ingredient I have found here as nowhere else, as essential to our quality of life as pure water and deep garnet ham.
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