De Perros y Limones

Vacaciones!

So, at last, we were on the way to the north east of Spain, to a place that wouldn’t  be described as our  cup of tea but somewhere that is very important to the both of us.  We were going to Oropesa Del Mar, a very very Spanish beach resort town – think Benidorm for Spaniards.  We dropped the dogs off at a boiling (42 degrees) kennels on the way to Malaga and then drove for 9 hours to see some of the people that we have missed the most – my god-daughter and her family.

For the past ten months the only bodily contact I’ve had with other humans was when Sonalee visited us here in Andalusia for weeks that were too short.  True, I have hung out with Ken and Maria and Jan but, what with the covid thing and everything, it wasn’t long hugs and the huge release of joy at seeing old friends and what are, when all is said and done, our Spanish family.  This was different from the outset.  Those first hugs from Kev, Igone and the kids and their grandma was, well, it was a bit overwhelming to one so deprived of it for nearly a year. 

It is funny the things you take for granted when times are ‘normal’.  I think it is fair to say that Sonalee and I are so looking forward to the day when we can ‘pop over’ to the UK to get more hugs from our family. 

Sparky, our perpetually annoyed cat, enjoying a siesta

From one perspective, we found the best week to be away from the village for we found out that Fuente Tojar ran out of water for three days.  Yeah, quite serious.

  • Downtown Castil de Campos, our nearest village

The hints came with the leaflets posted in our letter boxes the week before that urged us to preserve water in our everyday lives – which we do I think.  Others don’t.  Apparently it is the law that if you wish to fill up your swimming pool, you should buy water to be delivered by a tanker – you know the kind.  We’ve never ever seen one in the village so it is safe  to say our fellow villagers just fill theirs up from the taps in their house.  This is a problem that could be solved with metered water but, alas, this is not yet a thing here.

  • Zuheros, the pretty village

The wells ran dry.  Water had to be driven in by tanker for three days but only for two hours at a time whilst the village government assured as that ‘the youth’ were going around checking that old people could fill up their jerry cans.  Great.  What you really need during a water shortage is loads of teenagers sulking at your door asking if you have any, like, water and doing that teenage ‘tuh, hurgh’ that they do so well. 

  • Campo Nubes. Population 25, half of which are Brits. Behind Sonalee and Luna is the old primary school that was closed over 40 years ago with the teacher’s house directly behind that. Rural Spain has been slowly changing for many decades.

Anyway, the wells have been filled again at probably great expense and perhaps, just perhaps, the villagers will start to believe that global warming will affect you when you least expect – temperatures have once again been breaking records around here.   What to do?

Well, obviously it is to try to forget the journey and remember the destination when holidaying by road in Spain.  Firstly, some of the country is quite stunning – the Sierra Nevada Mountains for example – and some of it is absolutely dreadful – Murcia, pretty much all of it, for example.  Some of it is incredibly boring like Castille-La Mancha, a place that even Laurie Lee could not find a good word to say about in his memoirs of his time here in the civil war.   Some of it is a bit traffic crazy like the outskirts of Elche and Valencia and the vast majority of any lengthy Spanish drive is meeting utter bell-ends on the road.

There’s so many of them!  You get the types with their arm hanging out the window, probably smoking and/or chatting  to their mate in the backseat but turning around to do so.  Normally they’re all over the road but they’re okay because the person in the passenger seat will normally yell at them at some point.  Then you get the ancients who drive at 20K below the speed limit because it is safe to do so.  Tractors are cool; they are what they are and always belt it along at  their fastest pace – normally 40 kph.  The worst, however, is the macho man.  The twat who drives at the fastest possible speed because he is a moron and who thinks it is safe to come within 2 centimetres of your bumper whilst doing 120 kph.  They also tend to be the ones who object to a husband and wife in a Berlingo giving them the finger and other crude signs of their twattiness.  So many of them, so many.

Almonds

I think it is safe to say that Sonalee and I had an amazing time with our Spanish Family.  We ate too much, naturally.  We drank too much, for sure.  We walked a lot – we didn’t realise our hotel was 45 minutes by Shanks’ pony to Kev’s apartment and we lazed around an awful lot.  Sonalee cooked a wicked curry for all, we ate a lovely paella and the tortilla that Igone’s mum cooked was deliciously oily. 

But, I digress. 

It was a holiday.  And we loved it.

We also got to see Igone show the reasons why she got a job at one of the most prestigious French universities as a liason officer for foreign students.  Igone has two gifts, which she has passed onto her children.  One is the gift of languages, she speaks four of them fluently – she is Basque and yet works using French as her base.  Her other gift is that she can talk to people so easily and get them to talk to her so openly.  We saw it here in our village when she stepped outside our front door one day and immediately engaged our neighbours in chit chat, finding out more in five minutes than we have done over three years.  She displayed it time and time again last week, speaking with strangers and engaging them to a level that we can only admire.  It is a remarkable gift and one that I, as a confirmed introvert and possible misanthrope, wonder at each time I see it. 

  • Julen, Kev’s boy, playing the ‘catch the ball and fall into the pool’ game that they all love

Her kids have those same gifts, switching from French to Spanish to English without a thought.  They speak respectfully to all and charm all that meet them.  Naturally they are a pain in the backside at times but they are kids so that is part of the job description. 

Amaia demonstrating that jumping into a pool of water for hours on end is pretty much the best thing you can do to be happy

And there was one time when we were both glad that she was there.  Kev’s apartment, ten floors up,  needs a lift to access it quickly.  After a really nice walk along a via verde we tried to ascend from the underground car park  (Don’t worry, I did a Zombie Check as we got out of the car) but the lift did not move.  Cue panic from my god-daughter Nerea.  And then Sonalee trying to calm her down as Igone chatted to the lift people and explained that we were stuck – a first for the both of us!   Kev was silent, as was I.  I wasn’t pondering who it would be to be eaten first or who it was that would have their blood sucked out by the rest of us, honestly, but it would have been Kev during either scenario if I had thought about it. 

  • Amaia playing the same game as her brother

It was a hairy five minutes.  The small space steaming up.  An eleven year old yammering and being scared witless, Sonalee also scared shitless but  trying to calm her God-Daughter in Law down and me and my best mate letting Igone get on with it calmly and fuss-free because that is what she does.  It isn’t something Sonalee or I are keen to repeat – we’d watched the opening scenes of Speed the week before to really set us up!  

So, Sonalee likes to make sure the dogs have enough water on our walks. This has now been extended to actually carrying around a bowl of water as we explore the campo. I am not here to judge.

So, we are back here in Fuente Tojar and drawing water from the taps just as the village puts on a week of entertainment in the plaza which includes a puppet show, a magic show and other such  nonsense that makes a village a place to live and enjoy living in.  We are in the process of trying to find a place to live in Lisbon in less than a month but, somehow, we are not at panic stations about it.

I think we can all agree that my god-daughter is beautiful

I’m not quite sure why this is.  We literally have only four weeks to find somewhere to live in a city and country we have never been to, using a language neither of us knows and for me to start a job that I am not qualified for in a school that I know little about.  And yet we approach it with an equanimity that surprises me.  Perhaps it is the knowledge that after this year nothing could ever be as bad for the both of us.  Perhaps it is the joint experience of moving countries to seek new work that we both have.  Perhaps it is a holiday that has reminded us of what it really important.  Perhaps it is our version of a mid-life crisis whereupon you just go with the flow.  Perhaps it is understanding that we will be doing this together and that togetherness will see us through anything life can throw at us.

  • More Peniscola

In truth, I do not know.  I’ll take it though, it is a nice way to feel. 

Ayubowan

Julen is now a young man

Hasta Luego, inshallah

Paul

Pope Luna

PS  A Sri Lankan DJ played this on the radio once as I was stuck in a typical Colombo traffic jam that took me two hours to navigate. I’ve never forgotten the mesmerising voice on this brilliant cover.  You’ll agree that it is beautiful. 

It’s almost as if we were on the Med!

PPS  Speaking of beauty…

Peniscola, north of Oropesa Del Mar. An important citadel in European history and quite beautiful on a Mediterranean evening
  • A small part of our Spanish Family

Paul

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