Off to Fish? No, Fish was off!

For any of you following my blog you will be familiar with my ability to arrange to do things only to find the venue closed. Last week we arranged to go for Menu del Día at a local Chiringuita with some friends, only for them to phone me on the morning to say they had forgotten, it's closed on Thursday's and we would need to re-arrange. They said they knew it was closed on Thursday's and should have realised when were arranging to meet them there - so I seem to have passed on my ability to arrange to do things when places are closed

....and so,

Amelia, the Spanish lady I have lessons with, had told us we didn't have a lesson this week because it is Semana Santa - Easter week, but we would have a group outing to Águilas yesterday for breakfast and then on to the Fish market so she could explain what all the odd looking items are that we see on the fish counters and explain how the Spaniards eat them, she is really good at helping us in this way, and of course, we are expected to speak Spanish while we are out with her for practice.

We did question whether the market (which is indoor) would be open yesterday, it being Semana Santa and she assured us it would be.

Well, you've guessed it, well sort of. The building was open but none of the fish stalls were staffed or had any fish. Why? Well not because of Semana Santa, but because the fishing boats don't go out on Sunday so there is no fish to sell on Monday - apparently the fish stalls are normally closed on Mondays - every week.

No matter, in the same building there are some fruit & veg stalls so she took us over to one of them and started to ask us to name the various items. One of them was a prickly pear - ' un higo chumbo'. Well as you can imagine there wasn't anyone in the group that had tried one she Amelia asked the stall holder if she would show us how to peel it and to cut it up so we could taste it, which she was more than happy to do. The skin came away very easily to leave a peachy coloured flesh which had some small seeds in it but it tasted quite sweet, a little like melon but without the tartness.

So, we had a good chat over breakfast sat in the square in Águilas and we met some ladies Amelia knew so we had a chance to practice our spanish on them by introducing oursleves and telling them a little about how long we had lived in Spain, who we lived with and what we did. Then we had a good nosey around in the fruit and veg so the morning wasn't a waste but I would have liked to have seen the fish stalls and had a chance for Amelia to explain what things were and how to cook them. Maybe another time.