Our friends Juan and Anna kindly gave us some strings of ‘bell peppers’ which Juan has grown in his kitchen garden. Nearly all the houses in the area have great strings of them drying in the air from their roofs and balconies.

Two weeks before Christmas the fatted pig is brought out and slaughtered on a table in the open. Not a drop of blood is spilt and the men of the family meticulously clean the slain beast. Then the women of the house butcher the carcass turning it into Chorizo (with the pimiento) and a million and one other products, and the animal feeds the family a long way into the next year, all without the aid of refrigeration.