De Perros y Limones

Summer is here

So, a few weeks ago, I made cheese on toast.  Lovely!  The next day I decided to do the same but this time add Worcestershire Sauce that had been in the fridge a while.  An hour later we were on the Mirador.  It’s a plateau that overlooks the village and you can see for miles from up there.  It has a wooded area that would be beautiful if only the locals picked up their trash.  The dogs love it up there.  So we reached the wooded bit when I felt a familiar twinge in my belly.

One of the many towers around here from the time of the Moors

Hmm.  What to do?  There was no way I had the time to run back to the car and drive home even if I could have collected Luna from her exploring.  What to do?  Well, I had to do what bears do in the woods.  Four times.  Whilst praying that the motocross dude busy on the trails that abound didn’t come my way.  Oh, and also whilst having three curious dogs sniffing at my bare bum. 

It was, I will concede, not one of my finest moments.  That this remains the standout moment from the last month will tell you all you need to know about how exciting my life is right now. 

Our house, in the middle of our street. It’s the one opposite the now gone palm trees. You can see our gorgeous lemon tree and the white wall that needs more white

I am working online still.  It’s frustrating (because I can’t be in the classroom physically) in part and also something I’m grateful to be doing at all.  In August we will be moving to Lisbon to take up the offer of a one year maternity cover.  Sonalee will not be working, she has had an unbelievably shit year and deserves some time off.  A new adventure awaits!  

We are still anxiously waiting for the confirmation that air travel between Morocco and Spain will resume.  It’s maddening for us both, this fretting and worrying.  We just want it to be over.  Sonalee’s American colleagues have all booked their flights home; you can imagine how that makes her feel.

The bit of our back walll that fell in. The rest will, no doubt, follow soon

The extremely rich bloke opposite us has decided to build another house in his garden, as you do.  All of a sudden, whilst I was online teaching, a jcb turned up and levelled the garden, the walls, the gates and anything else it could lay its arms on.  This is when you just hope the guy knows what he is doing because those arms came mightily close to our balconies and windows.  I’m sure my students all caught the regular looks of alarm and terror from me. 

We have had quite a few kestrels flying around lately

Other huge vehicles have parked outside the house and poured concrete or drilled or cleared up, completely blocking the road.  No one cares.  There’s no point.  You just go down the one way road the wrong way.  It is the way here and has been for an awful long time.  I am well used to parking up and waiting whilst various things occur in the street which are not limited to:-

  • Two ladies chatting
  • Bread van dropping off his produce (and then chatting to the lady of the house)
  • A dog just sat there not giving a flying one
  • An old and frail elder being dropped off
  • The gas man dropping off his cannisters (and then chatting to the lady of the house)
  • Two old men chatting
  • Shopping being dropped off
  • Someone parked up and having a chat with someone in the street
  • Tractors inching their way around the small roads
  • The Man Who Walks walking (he’s very special)
  • Someone parked up outside Coviran and doing their shopping
These are the remains of the Roman ruins of a town that existed only 1 km away

What to do?

The absolute worst example of having to park up and wait was in the town of Acala la Real ages ago.  We were going to our Spanish class and reached the zebra crossing where two women were walking from opposite directions.  They met in the middle and stopped and just started chatting.  We were fairly new to the country and didn’t know what the convention was here.  Traffic came to a standstill whilst these two old ladies nattered away in the middle of the bloody road!  Thankfully a stranger ran over to them and pointed out  that they had stopped traffic in the town and should bugger off to the pavement to chat.  They looked surprised.

The nearest ‘hospitality suite of negotiable affection’ called The World of Girlfriends has closed down. I guess it is the kind of profession where social distancing is a real problem. Sex working has been decriminalised for years in Spain.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, stands in the way of the Spanish when they want to talk.

But back to the racket and the dust of the works opposite.  They have helpfully put up a Health and Safety poster that details all of the rules that must be obeyed whilst on site.  You know the kind of thing;  helmets, goggles, gloves and all of that sort of thing.   So it was pleasing to see, over the past two weeks, that every single builder opposite has completely ignored the poster and gone about their business in their normal clothing.  I don’t think ‘elf and safety gorn mad’ is a phrase that the Spanish know or will ever know. 

Three local villages. Population roughly 30 in total.

Elsewhere in the village, summer has announced its arrival with regular temperatures in the 30’s.  The village plaza bar has opened up and the annual May festival, San Isidro, has had to scale back its celebrations due to covid.  The fields have been flattened of its spring flowers and the next harvest is starting its journey on the myriad of olive trees that cover the campo here.  We await the opening of the pool – always a highlight of the summer and the mayor has decided to pursue a campaign of attracting tourist to the village by prettifying it somewhat.  Good luck with that.

The statue celebrates the dancers of the San Isidro festival, sadly unable to perform this year.

This is a very short blog because nothing really happens to me.  Plus we are both in a kind of limbo, waiting upon the whims of the Moroccan government.  Wish us luck that this can all be over soon.

This street is about 100 yards long. It has taken our village government 10 months to repave it. Did someone say the word ‘dynamic’?

Ayubowan

Hasta Luego, inshalla

Paul

PS  You know you get songs that just give you goosebumps when they come on?  Oh yeah. 

Paul

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