Handgrenades are not the only fruit

There comes a time in every young man's life when he knows that he will never play "the Dane"; Uncle Monty would like Almagro, and might even find his jaded
thespian ambitions revived by the place. We arrived there after driving across the relentless plain of la Mancha - no wonder Don Quixote was driven to wandering
about in search of uplifting experiences; oi gevaer, it's flat already (sorry, haven't quite recovered from the Hospederia la Sinagoga). The Hotel Almagro is just
outside the main town, so no searching this time, and it's a Neo-rustic Holiday Inn kind of place; all rush-woven chairs and hacienda-style rooms with hand-painted door numbers. The town itself is definitely authentic, though.We walked into the main square and gasped at what appeared to be a theatre-set. On each side of the broad open space is row of 19th century wood-and -glass-fronted arcades with small shops, bars and cafes incorporated. What's more, the square was teeming with people - schoolchildren, families, old people, visitors, but all chattering and milling about contendedly; and so, we joined them. Almagro's greatest claim to fame is its 17th century theatre, rediscovered in 1955 when the town council bought out an inn and began to demolish the courtyard. We signed up for the guided tour and were ushered off the square and through a big old door. Imagine walking through a completely nondescript street-door and finding yourself inside Shakespear's Globe or the Swan Theatre, and you'll have some idea of what we found. Three storeys from floor to "gods" and a small apron stage, all inside an area of about 20 metres square! The tour turned out to be quite exceptional. We were greeted by a glamorous Dona, in 17th century costume, who explained to the group where we could sit. She happened to come and talk to Faith and me, and we soon discovered that a) we were the only non Spanish people in the theatre, b) she was delighted to talk to us, c) she couldn't speak English any better than we can speak Spanish, c) she understood French, d) her French was slightly better than our Spanish! Nevertheless, I enjoyed the conversation, well it's not every day that a Dona chats you up (particularly at my age)! It turns out that we were going to have a taste of the theatre's history, through the gift of drama. Our friend told us that she was the daughter of one of the local noble families, and quite an afficionada of the theatre; though, it must be said, mainly because a lot of dashing caballeros gathered there too. We then met her maid, a typical Despina character, who helped her in her plans and demonstrated the way the theatre worked at the same time. Great fun - though we hardly understood a word, we did get a wave from the Dona as she came on stage!What could follow that?How about a meal in one of those arcade restaurants? Once again, we were the only two dining! The table was at the open window, looking over the busy square below. After the meal, we went to the bar to have coffee and an aguardiente, and one of the locals began a conversation with us. He was trying to improve his English, he said, and so we had a good time helping each other with vocabulary and trying to navigate our way around all sorts of topics, including how glad (though guarded) we were that ETA has declared a perpetual cease-fire. Our Collins Spanish Language Survival Guide coped surprisingly well.
The session ended with our new friend encouraging the bar-man (an old friend of his!) to have us correct his English version of the menu. He handed it over with a flourish; he'd prepared it himself, he said proudly, with the help of a dictionary and the internet. It all went swimmingly until we got to "Ice-cream with hand-grenade"; we both smirked, and the poor bar-man looked crestfallen, even after we'd agreed that a "granada" , the fruit (pomegranate), does look very like a "granada", the hand-grenade - actually, we only found out about the pomegranate later; we guessed pineapple from his explanations - but, come to think about it, that looks like a grenade, too.We ended the night happily, though, and still friends.
Tomorrow, Andalucia!