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Orange trees already starting to blossom

If something characterizes the Andalusian Holy Week, it is the fragrance of orange blossom in its streets, full of orange trees -which give sour orange. The beginning of Lent, Ash Wednesday, is almost synchronized with the appearance of the first orange blossoms. Azahar is a word of Arabic origin, az-zahr, which means “white flower“. In my portfolio I have a photo gallery of the Marchena orange blossom.

Will they give this year clementines?

However, just 47 days before Holy Week, all the streets are still under construction. Will the works be finished on time? We will have to ask María del Mar Romero Aguilar, mayoress of Marchena. The route of the Three Kings parade had to be changed, and it did not end well.

Category: Blog

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16 August, 2026

20:48

The booths for the Marchena Fair are already being set up.

Assembly is officially underway, with this year’s Marchena Fair taking place from August 26th to 30th. I always update this page, which features the current dates every year alongside all the reports I’ve put together since 2017. (only the spanish version).

And just as the fair is right around the corner, there’s only a month left until the feast day of the Virgen de los Remedios. Next up will be the Divina Pastora, and rumor has it that this year there will be a joint procession featuring Saint Francis of Assisi and our patron saint, the Virgen del Rosa r io. This special occasion marks the 800th anniversary of the death of Saint Francis of Assisi as well as the 300th anniversary of the privileges granted by Pope Benedict XIII for the procession of Nuestra Señora del Rosario. Later on, the Virgen del Pilar will take to the streets on Columbus Day (Día de la Hispanidad), October 12th—a date that marks 534 years since Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas.

The Miss Universe season is also kicking off, with this year’s pageant scheduled for November 24th in Puerto Rico.

Still, my absolute favorite Miss Universe moment has always been, and will always be, this one from 2021. For her reaction, that stunning hair, and above all, the incredible answer she gave:

I know this post is a bit of an eclectic mix, but everything has its reason.

29 December, 2022

16:59

Can we talk about how awesome Clémence Botino is?

Born on the French island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean sea, this authentic, cheerful and charismatic girl, an art history student, was crowned Miss France 2020 and got to the TOP10 of Miss Universe 2021.

15 March, 2026

17:40

Paquito is now 15 years old

It’s been a very long time since I last posted anything about Paquito, my hand-raised cockatiel, who recently turned 15. The reason is that for the past few years his feathers have been in very poor condition and he hasn’t been feeling well. Apparently, in the end it turned out to be fatty liver disease (a very common condition in this species) caused by feeding him a diet made up only of seeds. That’s the only kind of food they sell here in Marchena for cockatiels, and I didn’t know it was unhealthy for them. Since I started buying him a pellet food on Amazon (one made for budgerigars, because the one made for cockatiels is too large for him to eat, but he absolutely loves the budgie one—I buy one called Versele‑Laga B14), he has become much more lively. He chatters constantly and has started molting his feathers, so I hope that this time they will grow back beautiful and healthy.

Cockatiels belong to the parrot family. Like parakeets and other psittacine species such as parrots and cockatoos, when humans hand-feed them from a very young age with formula, they become familiar with people, very tame, and can learn words and whistles. In this particular case, I wasn’t the one who hand-fed him. A breeder from Palma del Río (Córdoba) raised him and sold him to me already hand-fed, when he was about 30 days old. I went to pick him up there on December 28, 2010—I still remember the date. His name is Paquito because he started saying it before I had even chosen a name for him. It turns out the breeder kept him in a cage with his father—what he called his “tutor”—so he could learn from him, because his father used to say “Paquito” a lot. An interesting curiosity about cockatiels is that they are the species of bird that sneezes the most. It’s very funny to watch them sneeze. It’s not because they have a cold; it’s just something they commonly do.

I made this video when he turned 10 years old to post on my social media. It’s a compilation of different videos I had of him.

© 2026 Francisco González SOLEMNITY