Pre-romería Preparations

This weekend is the Romería de San Pancracio and so preparations have begun.  This year, with my studies I've been less directly involved with the Asociación Amigos de San Pancracio, but nonetheless I pitch in when I can.  Sunday we all got together to do a bit of forestry work in the sierra where the ermita is.  The city planted pine trees there about 20 years ago and they're pretty short and scrubby still so the job was to trim the lower branches encouraging upward growth.  Of course, once the branches were cut we had to get all that slag cleared out of the area for this weekends festivities... so that was how we spent Sunday morning.

You already saw what a great time Bela had up there sniffing around finding bottles and rabbit turds! ;)  Here are a few pictures of what we humans did up there:

These trees have been trimmed very infrequently and so some of the branches, as you can see, are practically tree-sized!

I think come Nov. Angelines and I will make a trip up to the pile we made to cut ourselves a bit of kindling. :)

The crew posing for a picture.  You can see all the slag that's left and this was after we'd filled at least three tractor loads!

Happy dog!

Other preparations include a bit of last-minute tailor work on my flamenco dress.  My sister-in-law is a whiz with a sewing machine and she's fixed up my bata rociera just perfectly.  She shortened the skirt (pictures forthcoming) so it's more flattering, more comfortable and cooler for the camino, plus this way you can see my boots, which are a key part of the whole get-up.

Speaking of boots, Angelines bought herself a pair for this year's romeria and they are super cool!  I'm a bit envious, I must admit.  She wore them for the first time today on our morning walk with Bela to start breaking them in. ;)

And last but by far not the least, today Maggie is coming!  Angelines has gone to pick her up in Malaga.  I can't go because I've got classes and the economy's in no situation to be cancelling. ;)  She'll get to partake in all the fun that is San Pancracio; I can't wait!