De Perros y Limones

Fuente Again

Happy New Year!  We hope that 2020 brings you all that you deserve, all that you need and all the Halloumi cheese you can eat.

Winter Morning over the campo

As I type this, we are ‘back home’ in Spain, in very sunny Fuente Tojar and preparing for our journey back to Morocco so that Sonalee can return to her job and I can officially start mine – the school were desperate enough to agree to hire me for the next six months as a middle school science teacher.  I’m crapping myself; I’m really not quite sure what the Hell I’m doing.  I mean, I know how to teach, I know quite a bit about science but I’m just worried that I won’t be up to the mark. 

What to do?

Clear air in the campo

I’m also a bit anxious about the 5000 word dissertation I’m supposed to hand over in six weeks’ time as part of my post graduate certificate.  5000 words!   Properly referenced!  Me!

  • Rabbit hunting
  • Our house
  • Dora

Anyway, these are worries for another day.  For now we have to concern ourselves with whether the ferries to Morocco will be running since we arrived a day late here in Spain because of bad weather and all ferries cancelled.  That we’d driven to the ferry port to be told this wasn’t great.  That we had to drive home again wasn’t great.  That we repeated the drive the next day wasn’t great.  The copious amount of good wine and two trashy films  that we watched to cheer ourselves up in between all of that were great. 

What to do?

I think it is safe to say that we have missed Fuente Tojar and Andalusia.  The air here is so clear, the sky so bright and the nights so cold.  We have been greeted by smiles and waves by nearly all of the villagers that we have met throughout the busy fields (its harvest time for olives) and on the streets of the village and they seem genuinely happy to see us walking our dogs in the campo just as we used to. 

  • It is all about the olives
  • and other flora

We’ve also had my mum over for a few days from England to visit the doggies and she seems to have enjoyed herself meeting some of the old and new British and Irish and Dutch residents of the village at the social evenings that we have participated in including the famous Sonalee Curry Night. 

The only downside has been the bittersweet memories of our cats.  There are reminders of them everywhere in the house and especially in the garden where we buried Tango.  I have really missed my little boy.  He was a little shitbag but so effervescent.  We only lost him about a month before we went to Morocco and at  the same time as we had the car accident so I guess that we were a little pre-occupied to mourn him properly. 

This two weeks back home has brought it home,  to me especially,  just how much joy he brought us.  That we have since lost Monte has made it even more profound.     I’ve found that tears have come all too easily this past fortnight.  And over a cat.  What is wrong with me?

A campo morning

In contrast, Luna has had the time of her life in the campo once again.  This countryside is her home and where she belongs.  We have no idea why she was abandoned by her owner but it cannot have been her lack of enthusiasm for trying to find rabbits – she has bounded into every earth bank of holes all over the local fields.  The other dogs have enjoyed the sunshine whilst looking over our street from the balconies and barking at everything that passes the house. 

It has also been great to be back trying to speak really awful Spanish.  French is, well, it’s very French.  Andalusian Spanish is where it’s really at though – that way the people have of speaking really really quickly and, crucially, at great length at any given opportunity to anyone.  In every shop, every bar you visit here, business cannot be transacted quickly without a good natter.  Hey, even crossing the road cannot be hurried if you see someone you know to pass a long chat with. 

Mum and Sonalee contemplate the view

We’ve caught up with a lot of the village gossip, with neighbours who exclaim awe that we have been working in Morocco and with prices that delight us with their shallow effect upon our wallets.  Sure I regret not having the chance to see the local football team in Priego but I’ll get over it.  Sure, Sonalee has the added complication that the local one-eyed saxophonist has taken a fancy to her but she’ll cope with the attention. 

When in Fuente Tojar…

We’ve also caught up with some of the local cuisine, bacalao especially.  Aww, that salty cod is just awesome!  And the wine!  And the cheese!  And the ham!  And…

You get the idea.

The patron saint of the village

The truth is that life here in Fuente Tojar is not complicated.  It isn’t flash, it isn’t sophisticated and it doesn’t pretend to be anything that it isn’t.  It’s quite basic in many respects but it isn’t backwards.  The village is a working one, albeit one that could be seen to be in a slow decline.  But there are signs, with new plans for B&B’s from newly arrived foreingers, that others recognise that a simple, quiet and relatively traffic-free way of living has its place in the modern world.

Thoreau said ‘simplify, simplify’ and I get that.  When we’re working (and studying) we’re in a world of complication and competing attentions.  When we are in Fuente Tojar, we are not working to impress anyone.  We’re here to have a good walk with our dogs.  And that’s it, really.  And cheap wine, of course.   

Quintessential Andalusia

So the new year sees us glad that we chose this place to call our home and grateful for the chance to come back several times per year from our new adventure in Rabat.  And, frankly, it’s that new adventure that we need to focus on.  We’ve had five years of new adventures:-

  1. Meeting each other
  2. Moving in together
  3. Sonalee nearly dying of Septicaemia
  4. Getting married (3 times)
  5. Buying a home in Spain
  6. Moving to Spain with 3 dogs and 2 cats
  7. Moving to Morocco with 4 dogs and a cat

This year it would be nice if we didn’t have another life-changing event seeing as all of the above are on all the lists as the most stressful events any couple can go through.  I think we would both settle for a year that is, I dunno, normal.

Bindi enjoying the freedom

But what is normal?  Is having dogs that have lived on 3 continents normal?  Is having friends living all over the world whom we miss,  normal?   Is wondering whether we have an iron or not somewhere in two different houses normal?  Is having a wife who buys her husband 6 pairs of Christmas underpants that he should wear throughout the year normal?  Is being this fortunate normal?  I don’t think it is.

So, I’ll scrap that wish for a normal year.  I’ll settle for another year of wondering what  the Hell we’re doing and making it up as we go along.  We hope that you’ll do the same.

Wherever you are in the world as you read this, we wish you well for 2020.  If you ever get the urge to visit Fuente Tojar, give us a call because you’ll be most welcome to stay and partake of the delights of Bar Chico, the Fiestas, the endless vistas and the rest of what we lovingly call home. 

Hasta Luego

Paul

PS  New year’s Eve found the three of us drunkenly watching Jools Holland on the BBC as he and his guests sang in 2020.  One of the guests was Rick Astley and I have not been able to get this song out of my head.  I have to say, he has aged well.  Enjoy. 

She married me!

Paul

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