De Perros y Limones

Hasta Luego, Andalusia

Well, we have two days until we leave for Northern Africa.  The van is equipped with a slightly gangly-looking storage box on the roof as well as a large doggy box in the back because Bindi has a lot of stress being in the car – it’s a way of limiting any puking she may do.

We have packed our clothes that we think we will need, realised that we may not actually require that much and put half of it back.  This is normal when you move countries or even when you go on holiday. 

The outstanding bills have been paid, future bills have been put on direct debit.  So what, you may ask.  Well this is Spain.  And our Spanish is very very far from fluent.  And the various organisations that collect bill payments really do manage it like everything around here – Manana – so no one is ever quite sure of when money will be expected or taken from you.  Or why.  Or for what.  

The house has been proofed for winter as far as I am able to do so and wood has been collated into the dining room to dry out since we know that when we do return, in late December, we’re definitely going to need the fireplace.

The animals have had all of their passports updated as far as the law allows  – they will have more rights than us post-Brexit – and their transport to another continent is now reliant upon Moroccan border officials understanding that we are taking four dogs and a cat on holiday with us since it will be a tourist visa that we will need to enter the country.   

dawn in the sierra

The animals have had all of their passports updated as far as the law allows  – they will have more rights than us post-Brexit – and their transport to another continent is now reliant upon Moroccan border officials understanding that we are taking four dogs and a cat on holiday with us since it will be a tourist visa that we will need to enter the country.   

dawn again

And our understanding that our year off has finally come to an end has brought about the inevitable small regrets and wonder at what we did manage to do.  We did, after all, learn to improve our non-existent Spanish to the point where we could hold a conversation with another adult, albeit at the level an infant would have been proud of. 

Nevertheless, this is something to cherish.  We were aided in this by our formidable, friendly and highly-fluent-in-English  Spanish teacher, Laura, whom we grew to love speaking to since she not only taught us the language, she informed us of Spanish and local customs that so fascinate us.  Saying goodbye to her was not easy.

One year.

It goes so quickly! 

what to do?

Was it really a year ago that we sat in Madrid airport, absolutely exhausted and nursing cups of coffee wondering what  the Hell we had done?  And that four hour car journey from the capital to this village in the middle of nowhere/Andalusia in the middle of the night that was so fraught with anxiety, was it really only twelve months ago?

It is easy to reel off a series of things that you did not do in any given time of your life or things that you maybe could have done.  We could have visited Madrid properly, or Seville or Malaga.  We could have learned Spanish far better.  We could have taken part in many more cultural events, cooked more local dishes, seen more castles, made more friends, learned to ski or snowboard more.  We could have done so much more, this is true.

eight in the morning…

But we didn’t.  We welcomed friends and family to our home in the Middle of Nowhere and loved showing them the some of the many delights of where we live.  We got drunk and stupid at the local bar, several times it has to be said.  We huddled together with our hounds and cats on the sofa watching English tv series in the middle of winter because it was too bloody cold to do anything else.  We sank sweet Cava of an afternoon and then fell asleep because it was our year off and we knew that we wouldn’t be doing this again for quite a while.  We went to important events in the lives of our friends elsewhere in Spain and Europe because it means something important to do so.   We went for walks in the campo daily and were smiled at for doing so.  We had long breakfasts each day because when you work you know that you cannot.  And, yes, we probably smelled quite bad. 

the ruins

This is something we are acutely aware of – wearing the same pair of jeans for six weeks, the same pair of underpants for three days, the same cardigan for six months isn’t going to be acceptable where we’re going.  We are, and I know this will shock you, even taking  the iron because we know that we will have to fit into what we will call the real world.   We don’t actually know if it works.

Real life also barged into our idyllic existence as we swanned around in our Berlingo Multispace;  My father passed away, my nephew agonised over his post A-level choices, Sonalee’s nephew got down to the serious efforts of revising for his O-levels.   Denise and Stuart, the people who most influenced and aided our move to southern Spain, themselves moved home and lifestyle.  Brexit and all of its utter shite continued to make the UK look like a very bad joke and Sri Lanka gave us some of the most terrible news possible with the awful bombings.

the mirador

We caught up on facebook, messenger, telephone and skype with some of the huge, life-defining things that were happening with our friends and family and wished that we could be more involved.  In many ways, having a year off is no different to working – you cannot be everywhere that you would wish to be so.   We think our friends and family know this. 

Our family here also changed in the time that we were in Fuente Tojar.  We gained a little bundle of naughtiness called Luna after Sonalee went off one night “just to feed her, the poor thing”.  We took her in, sorted her out, gave her away and got her back amid hassle and strife.  That Luna changed the life of my mother in the brief time she was with her is testament to her charisma.  We also lost Tango, whom we miss so much.  Even writing about him now still causes salt water to appear.   There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t think of him or wonder why life can be so unfair sometimes.

early morning

What to do?

Well, what we need to do is to celebrate what we do have because you should do.  We have an exciting opportunity in a brand new continent and a brand new country to explore, feel lost in, get mucked around in, wonder at, get ruined in, get ripped off in, be visited in, drive around in, learn about and wonder at.  And we’re going to learn.  Learn about living in Africa, in a Muslim country, learn French and Arabic, learn to work alongside an awful lot of Americans ( I know!) and learn how to iron a shirt properly. We are, as you can probably guess, extremely excited and extremely nervous.

Fiesta time has come and gone in Fuente Tojar, leaving its casualties and vague memories.  It was, as last year, effervescent and bawdy, just as we like it.  We will return for it next year since we have four doggies that will yearn for the open campo to run around in and a pissy pussy cat who wishes to hunt for the multitude of mice.  Fuente Tojar has met and, indeed, exceeded all of our expectations, mainly due to the welcome we have received from its habitants – it has been humbling as it has been surprising.

the civil war ruins

To all of our friends and family who have visited – thank you.  To all of our house-sitters who looked after our babies so brilliantly  – thank you so much and please feel free to visit again.  To all those that didn’t visit – please do so in the future for we would love you to see what we have made here. 

Wish us luck on our new adventure!

Hasta Luego

Paul

Look! Just look at where we are!

Paul

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