I don’t know how I got here. Not in the lost sense—my house is ten minutes away—but in the bigger, weirder, “what exactly happened to my life?” kind of way. One second you’re living in a flat in Hackney where the neighbours complain about the noise of your kettle, the next you’re in a village square with chestnut smoke in your hair and a stranger pushing a glass into your hand like it’s a moral obligation.
“Drink, inglés. It’s for the cold,” she said. It wasn’t cold. Not really. But I drank it. Obviously.
They call it the Fiesta de la Castañas, which sounds deceptively gentle. Like a craft fair. It’s not. It’s a full-body experience. There’s fire and music and kids darting between tables like their legs don’t obey normal rules. Someone’s cooking something in a pot the size of a car tyre, and it smells—god—like warmth and garlic and maybe chorizo and definitely danger.
There’s a cajón somewhere, that thump-thump heartbeat sound, and an old man tuning a guitar with the slowness of someone who knows no one’s going anywhere. Then flamenco just… happens. It doesn’t start. It erupts. Like it was always lurking in the smoke, waiting to be summoned. I’d seen flamenco before—in London. Sanitised. Ticketed. This? This felt like someone cracked the pavement and music poured out. The guitarist wasn’t even looking. Just was the guitar. The singer sounded like heartbreak had taken up permanent residence in her throat.
I got handed a plate. Didn’t ask. Migas—breadcrumbs and oil and sausage and magic. Cheeses with bite, ham that needed no explanation, stew that made me want to sit down and cry a bit, not from sadness, just from—god, I don’t know—being fed. Properly. And chestnuts in every form imaginable. Roasted, sugared, mashed into cakes. Chestnuts as religion.
And everyone’s eating. Together. You can’t not. If you try to hover on the edge, someone grabs your arm and pulls you in. No one lets you watch. You have to be in it. That’s the rule. Even if you didn’t realise it was a rule. It wasn’t the first time I’d been ambushed with kindness and carbohydrates – restoring my townhouse started with a doorframe and ended with stew.
At some point—time lost meaning—I ended up in a card game. Tute, apparently. I still don’t know how to play it. Nobody cared. I played terribly and still got clapped on the back like I’d saved someone’s dog. Another drink appeared. I didn’t ask. Another handful of chestnuts. Also didn’t ask.
Later, when the fire was all that was left and the square had thinned out and everything smelled like damp ash and burnt sugar, I just stood there. Couldn’t quite leave. One of the old men nodded at me—not a “bye,” just a “you get it now” kind of nod. I think I did.
In London, festivals were things you observed. Pictures you took. Experiences with wristbands. Here? You get absorbed. Chewed up by it all. Spit out smiling.
And this? This was just a chestnut festival. There’s more. Apparently loads more. God help me.