De Perros y Limones

Lonesome

It has been nearly a month since she left and we all miss her terribly.   I find myself getting  emotional at odd moments or when my ipod plays a particular tune at the gym.  The most embarrassing time was at Mercadona when I was putting mushrooms in the trolley.  Mushroom and Halloumi skewers was the last meal I cooked for us before she left and it just got me, just like that.  Seeing Sonalee’s favourite fig tree whilst we’re on walkies does it every time as well.

Good Morning!

The walkies.  It is now part of the routine of daily life.  It goes like this;  That bloody cockerel across the road starts squawking at dawn, which is the cue for Luna to wake up and start trotting around the bedroom in excitement.  Eventually she is joined by Bindi and Dante and I have no other choice but to haul myself out of my pit whilst Dora snarls at them for trying to jump onto the bed.  Then ablutions, which are busy times.  Have you ever sat down on the white throne to do your business surrounded by four very excited dogs who are sniffing around your bare bum?   I don’t recommend it.  

Then putting harnesses on four by-now-extremely-excited hounds and exiting onto the street hoping that  there isn’t anyone else there because being  pulled by four now-delirious dogs isn’t a lot of fun.  Then into the campo after we have had Bindi pulling away from our parked car (she hates being inside it) followed by releasing them to wander freely.   And always exhorting Luna to come back to me safely.  Luna is like a little child, always getting fully involved in her never-ending hunt for rabbits.  She has a habit of staying out far longer than I would like.  Last week she stayed out for two and half hours before demanding to be let into the house.  

The only days that are different are weekends when I dare not release Dante and Luna because of the hunting that happens then.   They both get  really spooked by shotguns going off around us.   I’ve jumped a few times as well.   Always wear very bright  t-shirts when out during hunting seasons and stick to being near to the village.

Luna and pure joy

Anyway, after the walkies comes breakfast for doggies, another exciting time for everyone.  And then it’s my turn to eat so, of course, they all crowd around me in that tiny kitchen expecting their fried egg.   Do the outside chores before it gets too hot to venture out and then, finally, get around to trying to repaint and replaster the house.   And create absolutely tons of dust.  It  gets everywhere.   And then clearing up everything.

the higher of the two towers

It takes ages!   Everything takes so much longer by myself.  Everything.   And it takes a lot more energy as well.  Unfortunately the mean temperature is still in  the low to mid thirties which means that your body is using a lot of energy just to keep cool.   I’m constantly knackered.    I know I will not be saying this in December but I just wish it would stop being ludicrously hot every day.  

I have managed to drag myself out a few times in the evenings for a drink but it isn’t easy for a natural introvert.  I’ll try to do that a few times more especially since football is back.    I should try to find out a bit more about village life and to meet people to talk to.  

Some in the village have enquired where Sonalee is.  They all assumed that she was ill and seem relieved that she has, in fact, left the country.   Fuente Tojar is slowly getting  back to some sort of normal after the weird summer especially now that the school has started lessons again.   By normal I mean, back to work and weekend play because this place is most definitely a working village.

A camouflaged Dante

Fuente Tojar is not Zuheros, it is not a pretty one with a castle.  It is not El Canuelo, the very definition of sleepy.   And is most certainly not idyllic.   Not by a long  way.  Does it  have petty jealousies and feuds that have been ongoing for years?  Of course it does.  Does it have a sex-mad plumber who is also an ex karate champion of Spain?  Which village doesn’t?   Does it have a lesbian mayor who doesn’t like foreigners?  Naturally.   Does it have the very strange Man Who Walks?   Yep.   Does it have some nasty pieces of work?  Oh yes. 

A knackered Bindi – it is quite a hike up to the tower

Take Antonio down the other end of the village, by all accounts a truly horrible person.  Rock T-shirt Antonio is always smiley and affable, as is Antonio who lives up the road.  Antonio who works round the corner always seems sad.  Antonio who lives down the road is very taciturn but Antonio from near the other bar always waves a greeting.  Antonio from near the hill loves the dogs and tries to engage me and my terrible Spanish but I don’t particularly like Antonio from near the panaderia, he seems to scowl whenever I see him.  The same with Antonio from down the other side of the village but I do like Antonio from the square, he gives a nod and a smile.  Antonio is a popular name around here, which you may have guessed already

We didn’t really realise it at the time but it would appear that we have bought a house in the posher part of the village or at least the newer part.   And you’ll be able to work out which of the houses that surround us is the most shabby.   Ah.  Yeah.   I need the temperature to drop to something below brutal in order to make the front of the house more in tune with some of those that are around or at least a little less shambolic.

the track to the valley

Of course, I could never hope to match the manic cleaning that takes place in most houses and yards and terraces.  Seriously, you could eat your dinner off the terrace next door.  When Rosario and her daughter get the brushes and mops out, they do not muck about.   That they are very nice means I don’t mind the stream of bleach that trickles down the steep road and past  our door every second day.  

the ubiquitous olive trees of Andalusia

So I went into our library for the first time last week.  Couldn’t believe it.  A village with 750 people has a modern library with proper books and stuff as well as a bank of twenty quite modern computers for those who wish to avail themselves.  And, of course, free Wifi down  the main street  that packs quite a punch.   Naturally the library also had three cleaners killing anything resembling a germ.  I think back to all of the stories of libraries closing in the UK thanks to government cuts and I think I prefer to live somewhere where that ugly word socialism is a bit more acceptable.

Our baby girl

Andalusia has had a socialist government since Franco died and it shows.  It shows in a library in a village in the middle of nowhere.   The computers and books are probably not used constantly and so are probably not ‘efficient’.  But that isn’t the point.  The point is that they are there for those who wish to use them and make something better of themselves or their family, to give them an option in life if they wish.  It is there for those who are skint, who can’t afford what we’re lucky to have.   The point is that all who live here have an opportunity irrespective of whether they can pay for it or not.   I like it.

But enough of the evil socialist thinking and back to the goodness of naked capitalism.  Well, capitalism Spanish style where the exchange of money for goods takes second place to having a bloody good gossip.  I speak, of course, of the local Coviran, the franchised mini-supermarket two streets up from our house.  It never disappoints. Not only does it have every conceivable product for sale it also has a revolving villager loudly talking for ages with all of the staff – a mother and what seems to be about five daughters.

They’re all lovely in there.   And they always push me forward to get served at the till in an attempt to get the idiot out of there so they can get on with gossiping.  That they have deep Andalusian accents means that I just cannot follow anything they say, including what the bill is.  Bless, they always repeat what it is, give up and show me the bill.   Luna always enjoys  a short  trip there because she gets to be cute and chase the gang of cats that hang around the place.  

At the Mirador

I’ve been listening to Spanish radio whilst I’ve been hacking at the walls of the house and when driving in an effort to listen better.  It does help, not much but I can recognise more words as I chug along.  What has been interesting is the efforts of songwriters to rhyme with the word ‘conmigo’ (with me) which is an ever-present in pop songs.  I had to applaud the band who tried to rhyme it with  ‘supermercado’.  My next task is to work out quite why a love song would include a reference to a supermarket. 

Fuente Tojar

I’ll get there.

The Salt Lake next to the via verde (green path), an old train route

Finding out my grade for my final essay was a high that I just wanted to share with Sonalee.  I got a whopping 64 for the assignment which means that I have passed my postgrad course and passed it well.  To say that I was chuffed is a massive understatement.   I got quite emotional, I have to say.  That course was not easy for me at all and that I did it whilst taking on a new job in a new country means an awful lot to me.   The sense of relief just swept over me when I read the feedback.  

the via verde used to be the trainline serving olive farming. Long since abandoned and replaced by roads

Naturally I went to Coviran and bought a bottle of cava (eventually) to celebrate and of course I wished that my wife could have been here to help drink it.  Just like I wish I could be there for her upcoming birthday. 

A bridge over a hundred years old, a fifty foot drop and rotting sleepers that you need to cycle over. What could possibly go wrong?

But I can’t.  My sister and our friend Ken have both given me good advice which is, in summary, to stop whining and just get on with it and to remember how lucky we have it compared to many others.  They’re right.  I am just going to get on with it and not worry about being triggered into getting a bit emotional by something  random.   It is the way that it is and I cannot change the way that it is.

Ayubowan,

Hasta luego, inshallah

Paul

PS  It has to be this song.   I wonder what will happen if I paint the spare room door green? 

PPS Well done to Graham and Jane for spending two weeks isolating  in a hotel room in a new Asian country and not strangling each other.   Two weeks!

Paul

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