A Day to Remember

If you live on La Palma, one thing you might want to arm yourself with - apart from sun cream - is a calendar of public holidays and fiestas.   With this useful aid, you will have some idea when the shops are likely to be closed, apart from weekends and siesta time.  Although, I have to admit, no list is definitive as you might find what I call 'flying fiestas' (local ones) which are not on any list or calendar.  

Whilst many of them are obvious, such as  Christmas Day, New Year's Day and Easter, some are less so although the 1st and 30th of May (pleasingly called 'Day of Work' and 'Canary Day') are still a good reason to down tools, as in the UK.  

There are also a few less well-known ones thrown in such as Constitution Day on 6th December and Epiphany on 6th January.  Some pass almost un-noticed to us here in the country, whilst others such as Epiphany are celebrated in style, as in Los Sauces where the Three Wise Men arrive on camels.  Real camels, that is.

However, whilst they are all important for different reasons, one that I particularly like to mark is All Saints' Day on the 1st November.  Way back when (835 AD), the Roman Catholic Church declared the 1st November a Church holiday to honour all the saints, known and unknown.  On this day it is also customary to pray for the all those who have passed away, although not necessarily with sorrow.  On La Palma, as in many other places, we say it with flowers.  

Whilst the rest of the shops on La Palma remain closed, the flower shops are a hive of activity, trying to provide flowers for what amounts to every single and solitary headstone or grave on the whole island.  And the lovely thing about it is that no-one is forgotten or left out - that is after all the whole point.  So, no matter that Don whoever's family moved away years ago and there is nobody left to lay flowers on his grave or to place them tenderly in the little flower holders on the headstone.  All are remembered.