De Perros y Limones

Bordeaux

I know what you’re thinking.  Bordeaux, isn’t that in France and isn’t this supposed to be a blog about Spain?  Well, we had to visit there for this last weekend because we had no choice.  Literally, no choice.  It was the occasion of my god-daughter’s First Communion.  You can’t miss that, can you? 

Nerea is 2nd row, 2nd from left. All of them are cute. Obviously

I’m not sure how she timed this big moment in her life to coincide with our time in Spain but we’re both very glad that she did.  If we’d still been in Sri Lanka, we probably wouldn’t have made it which would have led to much sorrow all round.

To get there, we had to drive to Madrid Aeropuerto and leave our dogs and cats behind in the care of our house-sitters, Cathy and Bob, who were wonderful.  A pair of Brits who, like us, are immigrants in this country.  They live in Murcia but seem to spend most of their time travelling around Spain.  They wanted to see and live a bit of rural village life and so chose us to spend a few days in Fuente Tojar.  Their time here was at the start of Fiesta season and the first event was the Shit of Fortune.  Unfortunately neither theirs nor our tickets won the thousand Euro prize but they said they had a good time at the show, which included bingo – another great British export.

Dora is Queen of all of her land

So, yet another long(ish) drive across Spain.  We’re getting used to it.  And yet another stop at a roadside café/restaurant/bar/shop.  And another reason to love Spain.  There are the familiar menus, the glass cabinets full of knives, penknives and general tourist tat that are for sale but in each place that we have stopped over this past year there is a total lack of corporate uniformity that so bedevils the UK.  There are no Burger Kings, bloody McDonalds or tedious Starbucks.  Each and every place that serves food is locally run, slightly tatty in appearance, serves different beers, has slightly different portions and has its own version of what  they think is good coffee.

Love

It’s just so refreshing.  True, you never quite know what to expect but isn’t that better than the total vapid blandness of what you get on the motorways of the UK?  Sri Lanka had this lack of sameness, this idea that everywhere should offer the equal of what you have left behind so many miles ago.   Why is it that the UK feels that safe boringness is good? 

Sonalee upon realising that she married me. That’s the only explanation.

Anyway, we got to the outskirts of Bordeaux, a city that was English for three hundred years ( a long time ago) and is built on the profits of wine.  It is wine that is the principal reason for its existence even in the time when it was ruled by the Rosbif (That’s the rugby term for the British).  Today it is one of the largest cities in France with a thriving trade in wine, an enviable reputation as a seat of learning, a modern tram system that is second to none, a vibrant immigrant population, areas of wealth as well as signs of desperate poverty of the 1st world type. 

Of all of the cities that my best mate could have moved to after living in the south of France, I’m not sure he could have chosen a better one.  It’s a place that captures your imagination at the design (from the bloke that planned Paris), makes you marvel at the entrepreneurial spirit is the one that drives progress and why the French of Bordeaux  seem to love the idea of what an English pub should be like.  I am not kidding when I say that there are more English style bars in that city that in the rest of the country.   

  • Arty shot
  • Arty shot
  • Arty shot

But it was not the city that was the reason for our visit, it was the Confirmation of my gorgeous god-daughter and her handsome brother the following day.  And the attendees of these two events,  for all god-parents were to be there with their partners.  These were either British or Spanish because of the union of the parents.    It made for an interesting mix.

Champagne

The Spanish side of extended family were concerned with the food.  This is natural.  This is a good thing.  The Spanish are very concerned with their food.  It is of vital importance.  This is a thing to discuss, often.  This is a good thing.  Oh my God, the food.  It was glorious.  It involved lots and lots of it.  Including Oysters.   This is a good thing, trust me on this.  Sonalee disagrees about the last bit.

Nerea can be very serious about things sometimes

The British were more concerned with the booze.  This is a good thing.  This is natural, the way of things.  In fact the British got slightly carried away with this good idea, to the point where more was needed in an emergency trip to the supermarket.  This says a lot about my best friend’s family and me.  Is this a good thing?

Needless to say, good times were had by all.  It was a time for our nascent Spanish language efforts to make themselves  known, to the nods of encouragement from those that have met us before and an opportunity for two very different sides of two families to come together to celebrate their shared values and loves.   

  • Spring is here…
  • In all its beauty
  • Dora loves it

 Once the families had left, it was time for my wife and I to spend some time with the mummy and daddy of the newly Confirmed kids who were now back at school.  Ha! 

So, we went to the central market of Bordeaux which reminded Sonalee and I of Paris – outside of the building it smelled of piss.   What to do?  Inside, it was full of colour, strange people, amazing cheeses, American tourists speaking really loudly, patient cheese vendors explaining basic things about cheese to arrogant Americans in English whilst rolling their eyes and overcharging them and an overwhelming feeling that we had escaped the privations of looking after children for just a little while.

  • Tango looking annoyed
  • Luna looking bored

This feeling carried on as we reached our next destination.  Sonalee and I, together with my best friend from 35 years ago and his wife, were visiting a Bordeaux vineyard.  This was it.  We had reached peak Middle Class British Person.  We had made it.  He lived in suburban Bordeaux, I owned a house in rural Andalusia.  We both had nice cars.  He had a fence.  I had a wall that looked Spanish.  He had polyglot children, I had multicultural pets.  We had made it, we were finally Middle Class!  It was a wonderful moment.  We didn’t high-five, we shook hands.  Because that is what us Middle Class Brits do.  Yeah.

  • Sonalee is an expert wine taster
  • Wine brings you joy
  • Wine brings you strength

And what better way to end such a trip than by feeling the effects of a strike by French Immigration Officials at the airport?  Ah, our French cousins.  They feel no difficulty at all in striking for what they believe is their right as a citizen or employee.  Unlike us British who meekly accept all kinds of crap from our government and exploiters  employers because we’ve been conditioned to “take it on the chin, old boy”. 

It was good to be back home, eventually.  It was nice to get back into shorts and t-shirt again.  Spring is very much here now and will, I think, quickly turn into summer – it’s already reaching 30 degrees.  The roses are in bloom in every town and village whilst the fields are full of tall grass and pretty flowers.  The harvest is in, most of the pruning has been done as has the fertilising.  It will soon be time to fiesta!

Monte is a good looking boy

Talking of which, you will be sad to learn that last weekend saw Sonalee and I attend the last Priego De Cordoba FC game of this season where they went out with a bang.  Having secured safety from relegation the previous weekend, the team relaxed a little and proceeded to beat the league leaders 3-1.  The third goal was a class one as well, one that any player at any level would be proud of.  We weren’t sure who was the more stunned at the result – the winners who were gob-smacked or the losers who just looked at each other with expressions of ‘did that just happen?’

You can feel the excitement of the crowd at Priego De Cordoba CF

I will miss my local football team and Sunday evenings spent hopping from the bar to the ground as well as learning to swear in Spanish alongside some of the more ribald crowd members. What to do?

Also sadly, Melodia FM seem to have stopped broadcasting of late.  We are now listening to Spain Radio 3.  Eclectic doesn’t do it justice.  One minute Jazz, the next experimental Sitar music followed by a country and western song from the 60’s.  I’ve picked out this one for your listening delight this time because we heard it so often back in the day.

If you’re going to do cool, do Sonalee cool in Alcauedete, Jaen Province, Andalusia

 Hasta Luego

Paul

I’m not sure Kevin and I need to know what Sonalee and Igone are smiling about



Paul

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