It has been an oddly boring month or so since I last wrote. It’s difficult to point out any really significant happenings or visitations. This is reflected in the somewhat staid photos.
I did reach the age of 55, which makes me wonder just how. We had curry for dinner as a celebration. We love curry.
The building work in the kitchen area that was supposed to have started was postponed after delays from the builders. It has been a bit weird since I had already started to prepare the house by moving tons of stuff upstairs. It means that I have no idea where anything is. Or that might be because I’m 55.
Anyway, I’ve built another wall and, with tons of bricks left over, built a woodshed. Why not? If it were possible to become addicted to building things with bricks, then I think I would become it. It’s a very satisfying occupation is building stuff. That I have learned to plaster to a standard up from “Absolutely embarrassing” is a real bonus as well.
Oh, we rescued a piano, as you do.
Some bloke from down in the costas was trying to offload it for free to anyone who could take it. Sonalee started playing the piano in lockdown in Morocco and it was really lovely to hear in the house despite the decrepit nature of the machine that was there. She got really good – there’s an App for it.
We now have a piano in the front room, awaiting tuning and bit of TLC but it only cost us the charge of a van hire for a day. These things are worth tons! Not that I would think of selling it, not after the sheer bloody strain of trying to load it into the van and out again. Thank god we had help from the bloke down south and our friends here.
Down south is a territory that the both of us are wary of, mainly because there are so many Brits down there. We’re not sure we would like to be associated with them because of the, frankly, ghastly examples we have encountered on our trips to Malaga and beyond. Is that us being snobs? Maybe. Possibly.
Oh, and I had a tournament for my girls’ team. Yes, after a month of coaching, the powers that be in the Sports Section of the Fuente Tojar Government thought it would be a good idea to take a team to a local town to be humiliated by other teams from the surrounding subbetica (sort of a countryside area).
I was as surprised as the girls, especially so since I still don’t know the names of half of them. So we trotted along to play four other teams who were at least twice the size of my little ones. Our team have an average age of 11, our opponents were all at least 14, with boobs and hips and thighs and who could just stand there and watch us bounce off of them.
It turned out largely as expected with us losing all but one game. But what a game! We went one up, their coach brought on the really big girls and we found ourselves 2-1 down with a minute to go. By this time, the village girls were annoyed at losing and giving it all. Fair play to them. I need to learn the Spanish for “I was so proud of them” because they just refused to give up.
A long ball from our defence found our lone striker with a really large girl to beat and a tall goalie to stroke the ball past. So she did.
The many parents who were there went absolutely mental.
Afterwards there was much chatter about more training sessions for the girls. I think it was a kind of watershed moment for a lot of the mummies and daddies – their girl deserves support for something they clearly love doing.
From next week, there will be more training sessions for the girls although I’m unable to help because of work. There’s talk of another tournament (no trophies, no medals, no table just playing) in May. I have to say, it was great to do this again. I have missed it. I’m not very good at a lot of things, but this coaching lark is something I can actually do well. And, apparently, even in a foreign language.
That’s all about the news from Fuente Tojar.
I’m sure that there could be much more to write about but I have no knowledge of it since I have been a bit of a hermit in terms of social interaction with creatures who aren’t dogs. Is this a fault or a sign of genius? I’m often torn about it.
I do know this though, that life here in Andalusia continues to be an adventure for the both of us. In adventures you have low moments such as we do every Sunday when we have to part from each other. But there are also the highlights such as a curry on a Friday night, a curry all the way from Cordoba.
And rescuing pianos on your only day off.
My Spanish continues to improve from diabolical to merely terrible, which I am quite pleased with. I still have conversations with people here in the village that I am totally baffled by but they seem to accept that I’m a complete moron and that’s okay. At least he’s trying.
Sonalee’s dream of living here in Andalusia has not turned out quite as expected but not in bad way, far from it. Who would have thought she would find the role she has been craving just up the road? We’ve had adventures in other countries but we’ve ended up here. We’re where we landed in 2018 and perhaps that’s a good thing. We expect to stay for a while before we seek one more adventure.
Adventure is always interesting and may we live in interesting times.
Hasta Luego, Inshallah
Ciao
Ayubowan
Paul
PS – And why not? Slightly cheesy but I love them.