I can't come out today, it's raining.

There's a river that runs through the Smiling Mule. During the summer it's a series of muddy puddles, but through the winter it's fast flowing and deep.

Last month we had some heavy rain and in one day the river rose by two and a half metres. Most people live on this side of the river, but there are a few who live on the other side, and Maria is one of them. She lives alone in a house where she can't see any other buildings. She's recently had her house connected to the main water supply, before which she relied on rain water which collected on the top of a hill behind the house and ran down a home-made system of pipes. I can't decide whether I think Maria is really brave or barking mad. The last time I saw her she was excited about having a floor laid in her bedroom. I assumed she meant she was having the tiles renewed, but as we talked I realised she meant she was "having a floor put it". Until now the floors in her house were earth, topped with carefully chosen, flat stones from the river. "The problem", she said, "is that during the winter the ground gets wet and leaches its way into the house through the floors." No wonder she was excited at the prospect of a bedroom floor!

Contacting Maria can be difficult. She has no land telephone and relies on a cell phone, but the other side hardly gets a signal. There's a patch about a metre square, somewhere behind her house where she usually gets a signal of sorts which she calls her office, and that's where she stands to make calls. After the heavy rain of last month I got a call from her. We'd arranged to meet and she called to say she couldn't get over the river so was stuck at home until the water levels dropped. She said she was fine (it takes a lot to faze Maria), that she had plenty of food and books and would be in touch when the river allowed.

I've decided at the moment I admire Maria. She doesn't have to live like this, she wants to. She's lucky enough to have choices and brave enough to make her choices work for her, but I'm sure when we next meet and I'm sat with my mouth open listening to what she's put up with I'll go back to thinking she's as mad as a bag of snakes.

Oh, and the above picture is in fact that same river. I think it dates from the 60's and shows the kids from the other side going to school.

Digital frustrations

Over the years we've had a few digital cameras. We always take care of them, they've never been dropped, accidentally ended up in a swimming pool or had wine spilt on them as I've seen happen with others. So why is it they all end up useless after a year or two?
Our latest camera has been showing signs of giving up over the last months. When we go to view the photos we sometimes get an error message saying the card is empty, but they upload on to the computer. Once we've uploaded we delete images from the card, only to find out later that they hadn't gone and duplicate themselves in our pictures file. Nothing major, just annoying and a sign that all isn't well.
Last week P took a party of kids from school to Granada to draw, paint and photograph examples of Islamic design as the foundation of an art project. He took lots of photos but when he went to upload them onto his computer it said the card had not been formatted and if he formatted it now he'd lose any pictures already on it.
It seems to me that digital cameras have a very short life span. In our experience they start to become unpredictable after a couple of years and shortly after that unusable.
We tend to buy middle price cameras so I don't think the problem is we're being cheapskates. That said, we're thinking of splashing out a bit and buying a digital SLR but nervous that the extra cost would end up a waste of money if this too has a short life span.
If you're reading this and have a digital camera please leave your thoughts in a comment because I'd be interested to know whether other people have found the same thing happen to them.
Thanks.

The one about the sink

Ever since we moved into our small (but beautifully formed) house five years ago one of the sinks in the kitchen has been a bit dicky. We've had several plumbers come to fix it, each one slagging off the work of the one before and adding an extra pipe here and there, and none of them actually fixing the problem. What we've been left with is a sink which sometimes drains, sometimes not, sometimes smells, sometimes not and so much pipework it looks like the Madrid Metro system in the cupboard underneath. A couple of days ago it all came to a head when all the dirty water from the dishwasher erupted from the outlet pipe and flooded the kitchen. I'd had enough. It was time to get the big boys in. I contacted a company which specialises in unblocking drains and they came this morning.
"Oh dear, oh dear" said #1 when he opened the cupboard. "Looks to me like somebody's been trying to do the job of a professional here", he managed (cleverly I thought) to say whilst sucking his teeth. My heart sank. "Compressed air", he said, "that's what's needed here". "Compressed air", repeated #2. I stood back and watched them shoot compressed air down the main outlet. "That should do it", #1 said with a smile. "Should do it", echoed #2. I felt my eyebrows meet in the middle. "But how do you know it's worked", I asked. "Because it's compressed air", he said, "and that's what it does, it works". Then he got a pen out and I thought, "oh please, no, please don't draw me a picture!" But I was wrong, he started to write my bill.
This is the point in the spaghetti western that my home has turned into with all the cowboys wandering through it that I know I should make a stand, say my piece and refuse to pay. But the problem is I always think they must know what they're doing and certainly know more than I do. "You are going to put my plumbing tribute to the Madrid Metro system back aren't you?" - I said instead. "That's my colleague's department", slimed #1. "Work of art" said #2, "should see my plumbing..." I pushed that thought away and replaced it with a confident glimpse of future sink heaven, all draining and odourless after its treatment of compressed air.
They raided my wallet and left. Wanting to get everything back to normal I started putting the clutter back into the cupboard under the sink, and that's when I heard the drip.
Does anybody know a good plumber?

Children in need

How far would you go to raise money for charity?

Introducing George

There's a road in The land Of The Smiling Mule which (as far as I know) doesn't have a name, but it's known as The Ski Slope. It's only a few metres long and connects two busy streets and it's very steep. Everybody has their own method of tackling the Ski Slope, for me it involves a standing start, turning off the air conditioning (my car would never make it otherwise) and a very deep breath. When you get to the top it's a very tight turn onto a busy one-way street, not made easier by the police cars parked on the double yellow lines across the road, which often means making the turn in a couple of attempts. However, the police station does close for lunch between two and five and their working day finishes at eight, our criminals are either very accommodating and stick to office hours or are afraid of the dark, but it does mean taking on the Ski Slope out of office hours is that bit easier.
Anyway, I was making my way home yesterday and I had to tackle the Ski Slope. I stopped the car at the bottom, made sure everything was switched off (does anybody else turn the car radio off when they have to do a tricky maneuver?) and went for it. Sounding like some boy racer I revved the car up and started my ascent. It's not until you get to the top that you can see whether the police cars are there or not so it involves a sharp stab at the brakes, a quick look forward for the police cars, a quick look left for cars coming up the hill and then some fancy foot work to get the car steady before turning out and carrying on up the hill. It was at this point I noticed movement from the corner of my eye, and before I knew what was happening there was a man sat in the back seat of my car.
Note: The Land Of The Smiling Mule sits on a hillside so it's streets are all steep. When you drive into the village (at the bottom) there are often people hanging around waiting for a lift to the top. It doesn't matter if they know you or not, if you stop for any reason somebody will get in the back of your car and tell you where they want dropping off. It takes a bit of getting used to but it's a good system and it works well, but I've never experienced it at the top of the Ski Slope before.
"ARE YOU CRAZY?" I shouted while slamming on the brakes and looking in the mirror to see who it was. "Oh, hi George..."
I don't know his real name but I call him George and he seems happy enough with that. George has made it his mission to categorise everybody in the village into one of two types, you're either a good person or a bad person. If you're a good person he laughs at you, but if you're a bad person he steps back to put a bigger space between you and him and hangs his head. The only words I've heard him speak are "good person/people" and "bad person/people", but when he laughs he laughs like a drain and you can't help joining in.
I was really angry and as I pulled away and carried on up the hill I told him so. He laughed. I parked at the top of the village, I didn't know where he wanted to go but from there everywhere was down hill, and stopped him getting out of the car. In my best Spanish I explained what he did was dangerous and never to try to get into a car on that corner again. He laughed. I dropped my tone and said it again, trying to sound as serious as I could. He laughed. I got out of the car and opened the door for him, "I think this is where you get out George". He shook my hand, said "good person" and doubled over laughing.

Djinns in the toilet

It wasn't that I didn't understand what she was saying, I'd read the book too, it's just that we both interpreted the words differently, taken different elements seriously.
We were in an old house, on the edge of a medina somewhere on Morocco's Atlantic coast. We'd finished dinner and were cleaning away in the kitchen when K suggested we kept some of the leftover food out for the Djinns. We both laughed but I knew K was half serious, or at least testing me for a reaction. She was convinced the house had other occupants, mischievous souls who had to be respected if we were going to live together happily for the weekend. I threw all the leftover food into the bin and heard a little voice behind me say, "you'll be sorry". To be honest the whole Djinn thing was getting on my nerves. We'd already been told we mustn't use the toilet after midnight (I can't remember now why), so when I did I found myself creeping around a dark house at the dead of night, urinating in silence and sloping back to bed all to keep K and her Djinns at bay.
We'd also been told to watch out for things disappearing and reappearing in another place. K was really keen to witness this one and constantly made a mental note of where all our clutter was. A couple of times she got excited about items being moved, "I left it over there" she'd say, "I know I did." Reminding her there was a housekeeper didn't do much to curb her enthusiasm.
Our last morning came all to quickly and I was in the bedroom packing. K passed the open door and laughed at my open case on the bed, "I wouldn't leave that open if I were you, a Djinn might get in it and end up going home with you." I rolled my eyes and sighed.
On our first night back home I got up in the middle of the night for a pee. As I went to switch on the light there was a crackling sound and I heard the fuses trip. I tried to flick the fuse but it wouldn't work, the house remained in darkness. I decided it could wait till the morning to sort out and went into the bathroom. My feet suddenly felt cold and I realised I was standing in water. What the...? By torch light I threw some towels on to the wet floor and added looking at the plumbing to my list of things to do the next day.
The next morning I went into the bathroom again to find it dry. Odd. The fuse box worked again and gave me electricity, very odd. After breakfast I went upstairs to put some oil on our new, oak cupboard doors we'd recently had put in. They were in pieces and hanging off the hinges. Odder still.
Maybe it's coincidence, maybe not. Maybe I'd better call K and ask her again about the chapter on exorcising Djinns.

Smoke and mirrors

Is it just me, or has anybody else noticed you don't see

Lewis Hamilton and Tutankhamun in the same room?

Bugger, I forgot my mantra.

There IS a God

I purposely haven't written anything about the American election result because there are other people much more capable of doing a better job. The Teapot Monk is one such person and you can find his thoughts here. I did however steal this YouTube video from him...



...I would like to thank every American who voted for Barack Obama.

watching and waiting

Message from the Ambassador - October 2008

"...Whilst many leave the UK to settle in Spain, the UK is still a country where many foreign nationals want to settle. You may have seen in the news that on 25 November the first identity cards for people from countries outside the European Economic Area will be issued to people who apply to stay in the UK as a student (or applications based on marriage or partnership). These ID cards will replace the vignettes previously placed in passports. ID cards will then be rolled out until everyone living in the UK has one. I know that there’s a strong demand amongst many UK nationals living in Spain for an ID card so that we don’t always have to carry passports around as a form of identification. Keep looking at our website for more news on this."
And the website address is http://ukinspain.fco.gov.uk/en/

Free rice

This is a small way to make a big difference. Go to http://www.freerice.com/index.php and answer some of the general knowledge questions (you can change the level of difficulty) and for every correct answer the sponsors donate rice to the World Food Programme.

Go on, test yourself and make a difference!

<...> insert missing words

Before I came to live in a small place I was a bit concerned that everybody would know everything about me, then I realised that's only a problem if you have something to hide, which I don't, so my concerns were laid to rest.

It's been interesting over the years to hear back snippets of information about myself which have done the rounds of the grape vine before finally finding their way back home. I've come to the conclusion that people simply don't listen, or rather they hear but don't listen and that causes problems. If you hear something but don't listen there are gaps in what you know, and gaps have to be filled if you want what you know to make sense.

The latest round of "fill-in the missing words" has been about me working at the school for the last month. I had to tell everybody what I was doing and why because the temporary job interfered with my other job and I wanted the least amount of disruption to clients as possible. Within days I started getting panic calls from clients asking if it was true I'd folded my small business and was now working full-time at school. Somebody stopped me on the street and congratulated me on my new job teaching I.T. at school. "NOOOO!" I sighed, "I'm the temporary paper-clip monitor" and explained the situation again. (I wonder if this gem originated with the hags because on more than one occasion I parked the car close to where they have their hag fest and heard mention of "computer" as I carried a laptop bag from the car.) Anyway, I then received a call from a client asking me where in Gibraltar I was working because he was about to take his lunch break and would pop over for a quick haircut. What? "No, I'm not in Gibraltar, I'm in Pleasantville and I'm the temporary paper-clip monitor" I repeated again. Then there was the call asking me how easy it was to get my new job as Head of I.T. at school. I was tempted to say it was REALLY easy because it was an imaginary job and hey, if we all listen to Willy Wonker (or was it Judy Garland?) if we wish hard enough anything can come true. But no, I explained AGAIN that it was temporary and a lowly paper-clip monitor.

I finished at school last week and smiled to myself when I thought of all those people who didn't listen and filled in the gaps. Over dinner last night P mentioned somebody at school had sent me an email on my school email account, not realising I'd finished. So in case it was something important I opened that account for the first time since I'd finished and found the in-box full of emails saying "I didn't realise you were only temporary..."



Nurse, I'm ready for my medication!

On being proactive

Photo ID cards for Brits living in Spain

Please sign the petition you will find HERE to help British nationals living in Spain receive the photo ID cards we desperately want.

There is a fundamental flaw in the online petition site, it will only allow one signing per email address. So, if there are two or more who want to sign this please use separate email addresses for each signing. All information given is strictly confidential. So come on, sign our petition...or the fluffy kitten gets it!

Thanks in advance.

Goons go to Morocco

I didn't do French, I did woodwork. S said he had a smattering of French, but not enough to understand what was going on. P said he did O' level French twice (we sighed), but he failed it both times. K said nothing but slowly shook her head. We'd all assumed that one of the others would be able to communicate on our behalf, or that a mix of Spanish and English would work. We were wrong.



We were stood in a strange (but beautiful) house which we'd rented for the weekend in Morocco. In front of us stood a woman who was clearly very friendly and welcoming, glad to see us, mid way through cooking our dinner and trying to get something across in a language none of us understood. Bugger!



We were using Spanish and English and she was using French and Arabic, but her husband spoke some Spanish so he was called in to help. It went something like this:
Simo: My wife she cooks your food, yes?
Us: Ahh, yes.
Simo: But she needs deen...no, one moment, she wants you to understand about dee, deener. Now, yes, if it's possible?

Us: Ohhhhh, she wants to show us what she's cooking. (We go into the kitchen, followed by Simo and his wife, who are talking together in rapid Arabic.)

Us: Hhmmm it smells wonderful.

Simo: No.

Us: No?

Simo: No, you don't understand. The deener for food, yes?

Us: Yes.

Simo: No. You pay for house, yes?

Us: Yes.

Simo: And the deener food is from us.

Me: Wow, thank you so much. That is so kind of you...(to the others) Dinner is on the house.

(We all smiled a lot, shook their hands and thanked them, but they just looked confused.)

Simo: (Muttering in Arabic takes his wallet from his pocket and gestures giving money to his wife.) She cooks your dinner, you have to give her deenero.



For any none Spanish (or Spanglish) speakers, "dinero" is Spanish for "money".



Six people, four languages, one syllable...an ebarrassing cock-up.

caption

This pic is crying out for a caption...please leave one

Pushing my luck and my temper

WARNING This will probably be a long post, so make a cup of tea first.

There are issues with residency permits for Brits living in Spain. Basically the Spanish authorities stopped supplying European residents with photo ID cards a while ago and replaced them with non-photo certificates of residency. So what do I use as photo ID? Driving license? No. I have a Spanish "foreigner's" driving licence and the photo is only stapled to the card (cheap-skates) which makes it unusable as official ID. I can't reapply for a UK licence because I don't have an address there. I had two options, either carry my passport wherever I go or simply refuse to renew my residency card when it expired. The card expired two years ago and I've been using it constantly ever since as photo ID...and to all the unobservant shop assistants throughout Andalucia, I thank you from the heart of my bottom.

In the meantime I wrote to the British Ambassador and asked for an explanation as to why I was expected to carry my passport around (I know, I lied, it's bad and I deserve to be spanked) wherever I go. It transpires that the Spanish government are in fact playing by the rules (at this point Andaloo is rolling his eyes and doing that lemon sucking thing with his face) and doing the right thing. They (the Spanish government) are allowing European nationals resident in Spain to use the photo ID cards from their birth country in Spain instead of using a Spanish one. Problem solved? No. The UK don't have photo ID cards so we have nothing to use as a substitute other than our passports.

So, back to my situation. I decided not to renew my expired residency card and push my luck. I knew that one day I'd need to do something official and my luck would be up, but until then I'd keep on pushing. Well, my luck ran out. As I mentioned I've been doing some work. OK stop smirking, you've had this long intro so it's obvious what's coming...but I didn't. Yup, I got a call to say my residency had expired and unless I renew it they can't pay me. Now that's what I call motivation! So, on Friday I trotted off to the Big Smoke along with some new staff at school to be processed. I'm still angry and frustrated at the number of hoops I had to jump through to get this all new and improved certificate of residency, but that's another post, this one's already too long. The bottom line is I got it. What's interesting (or ironic) is, the others I went with all got photo ID cards. Why? Well, one is Canadian, two are Americans and the third is from Lebanon. It's absolutely BONKERS!

Limes under the sofa

So, here I am two weeks into my temporary job and feeling for the first time that I can come up for air. It's been difficult for lots of reasons, not least because I'm still doing my original job in the evenings too. I've found it hard to switch off, my mind has been racing and that's stopped me from sleeping, but over the last couple of evenings I've gone whole hours without thinking about work...a big step forward. When I just had the one job I was lucky enough that it afforded me time to sort out all the mundane house stuff as well. With both of us working full time we've had to make some changes, one of them being we had to do something about the cats being locked up all day, getting bored and trashing the house. (The first thing we do when we get home from work is re-make the bed that was perfectly made when we left the house that morning, collect the limes from under the sofa, put the chocolate wrappers back in the bin etc, etc...) We decided the answer was a simple catflap. Unfortunately the catflap idea coincided with our new neighbours arriving with a kitten, Jay. Jay? What a stupid name for a cat, so we renamed him Colin Con Cojones. Colin and Trevor have hit it off big time, I think Colin sees Trev as a bit of local totty and Trev just thinks colin is a big dolly to play with. The day the catflap was installed we got home expecting to find our cats happy and liberated. Wrong. What we found was our cats sitting outside looking through the catflap as if to say "what exactly am I supposed to do with this, and who's going to hold it open for me anyway?" Inside the house was Colin looking fat and happy on the sofa and two empty food bowls. Now...what was plan B?

Why the kids are spending so much time behind the science block

I stole this from a local blog to post here.

“Behind one of the buildings at a school in Pleasantville is a small machine, a number of dustbins, some plastic pipes and a dedicated science teacher.
This believe it or not is where the school produces its own diesel fuel. The scheme is the brainchild of science teacher Sean Johnson. He has set up the equipment so that the school’s pupils can learn about re-cycling in a very practical manner.
The used cooking oil from the school’s kitchens is collected and the converted in to biodiesel. It is then used to fuel the buses that transport the children to and from the school.
The process to change the cooking oil into fuel is not only a simple one but very cost effective too. Innovation advisor, Vicent Von Néree, says it costs 25 céntimos a litre, 80 per cent less than at a petrol station.
Sean Johnson has for some time wanted to set up a unit within the school dedicated to sustainable development. The pupils learn about the need to find alternative fuels, the re-cycling of oil and clean energy. He admits to having used the diesel in his own car for several months and says there are many advantages, not just the savings.”

The one about Andaloo going back to school

Quite close to The Land Of The Smiling Mule is "Pleasantville", and unlike here Pleasantville is very shiny and posh. There's a school in Pleasantville, and in that school is a member of staff who's been signed off work for a month and I was asked to cover for her. My first thought was "ppfff, you've got to be joking, do you think I'm mad, it's been fifteen years since I did anything like that." Then I thought of all those little shiny students with shiny attitudes and thought, "no, definitely not. I won't do it. No.
So, I've been there a week now and really enjoying it. I'm not teaching, I'm more of a paper-clip monitor, but hey it has prospects.
On my first day I was asked to take the minutes of a meeting. It started well, apart from forgetting people's names so I couldn't note exactly who said what, but towards the end of the meeting it all went pair shaped. I got so interested in what was being talked about I forgot what I was supposed to be doing and just sat there listening. It wasn't until I caught myself about to chip in with my contribution that I realised I hadn't written anything down for about five minutes. Bugger!
The office has glass walls with blinds and my desk sits in a corner (I know, too much information, but keep up it's important). On the other side of the nearest wall is a common area used by the older students. NOTE ON SHINY LITTLE STUDENTS: These people are mostly taller than me, have beards (not the girls) and are surprisingly worldly wise. What they don't realise (or maybe care about) is that I can hear everything they're saying. No, I'm not going to repeat it here but I've had quite an education myself over the last few days. I had no idea a cigarette could buy so many favours!

Strictly for no reason

Just one question: Is John Seargent Jo Brand in drag?

Doctor, I think there are signs of recovery

The fan on this laptop has been working overtime. It never went off. I constantly burnt my fingers on the mouse square thingo. Something had to change.

It may look a bit weird but it works. My computer is now sat on a baking tray, which allows air to pass under it, keeping it beautifully cool(er). No more burnt finger tips, no more losing work when the computer suddenly shuts down after over heating, no more banana bread for a while.

Caution, nerd in the making

I haven't written anything for a while because I've been working on a website. Now, don't get all impressed because it's my first attempt and it is of the drag and drop variety. It should be finished soon and when it is I'll shamelessly plug it here. But what has amazed me is how totally engrossed I've been by it. On the day this thing started life I lost the whole day. I sat here working out colour schemes, fonts and layout and completely missed the day passing by. That really spooked me, so after that I worked a couple of hours into my day when I could sit here and lose myself, and I do, completely. Not only that, it's also running through my mind when I'm not sat here. I was talking to a friend the other day, well she was talking and I was trying to look like I was listening, but I was thinking, "should that image expand on rollover or not?" In the middle of eating lunch today I got up and switched a lamp on, then held it up to a picture frame to create shadow so I could decide whether it really did give depth. This is really worrying behaviour and I want my life back!

Farewell trusty old friend

I just know that one day soon I'm going to open my computer and it's going to go phutt. I don't blame it, it's really tired now and more than ready to go to wherever it is that computers go to die. I've been wondering for a while whether to go for a Mac next or stick with what I know. At home we often move things across from one computer to another, which presumably we won't be able to do if one's running on a Mac O.S. and the other on Windows? Every Mac user I've spoken to raves over their baby, but many years ago it seemed everybody was raving over their Citroen 2CV's (click here if you don't know what I'm talking about), so we bought one. We had it a week before taking it back to Citroen and pleaded with them to exchange it for a proper car. Hold on, did I just compare Mac computers to 2CV's? Nawww surely not.
Anyway, I'm busy trying to back up all the crap trasures off my computer incase it gives up before I get a new one, and it's made me realise I'm a) a hoarder, and b) a filing slut. I've tried, honest I have, to take out the trash as my laptop's memory started to diminish but the problem is you can't see it. Unlike physical rubbish the treasures crap I've got stored on my computer is out of sight and out of mind. So the big question is what goes and what stays? Do I really need three "teach yourself how to type" courses? Well, yes, frankly I do. The first one I installed is in Spanish because I use a Spanish keyboard, but I got bored with all the accénts so installed an English one, which was pointless because the keys were all in the wrong places, then there's the American one. Obviously this one is as pointless as the English one but the cheesy voiceover makes me howl and takes away the boredom. No, they have to stay.

Reading through what I've just written I've realised a lot of the stuff I'm planning to clog up my new computer with won't transfer if it's a Mac. Bugger.

Health and safety in the workplace

They started drilling at about eight thirty this morning. Pneumatic drills never really do it for me, and especially when I'm half asleep. The windows rattled, the cats got under the bed and I got very bored with it very quickly.
Mid morning I had to go out. As I got closer to the noise I realised they'd dug a big rectangular hole in the middle of the street, well, I say "they" but in fact I should say "he". There was one man, waist deep in a hole in the middle of the street. Around him stood three men in suits, complete with hard hats, protective goggles and ear protectors. They all stood around watching the man in the hole sweat. I walked closer and looked in the hole, the suits shuffled their feet and put their arms out as if to stop me jumping in or to demonstrate getting any closer was dangerous. What I saw was a man with a pneumatic drill, waist deep in a hole and wearing a vest, shorts and slippers. ¡Qué Andalu!

Ants

What is the point of ants?

Of toe nails and slime

I've just been reminded of something that happened whilst we were on holiday in July. Have you ever been in a situation where your brain just doesn't compute and you can't make any sense of what you're hearing? That's what happened to me.

We'd been out on an excursion, which would have meant a four or five a.m. alarm call, a five hour (full on) session with our guide and back to the hotel before lunch. In the afternoon we'd settled ourselves under our favourite tree by the pool, books and iPods at the ready, brains disengaged and total sun block dutifully smeared. My mind was doing that fluffy thing it does on holiday - "what do I need next, iced coffee, food, sleep or a swim?" Basically I was in somewhere that isn't home, limbo, heaven. Then I heard a little voice next to me say, "this nail varnish is crap." I know I heard it, I also know the voice was P's but it didn't compute. I summoned up the energy to open my eyes and glance sideways, and sure enough P was fiddling with his feet. My brain did that fluffy thing again. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and tried to focus on the sound the water was making lapping at the sides of the pool. Useless. "What did you just say" I asked, and looked again to my side. Sure enough he was still looking at his feet when he repeated, "I said this nail varnish is crap, it's all coming off." My brain decided it couldn't make any sense of this so turned to mashed potato and slowly switched off just to be safe.

A couple of weeks later we were back home and I was chatting to a friend, Jenny. It turns out that P went to Jenny for a pedicure before we went on holiday and she put (god only knows why) sun protection on his toe nails. No, it wasn't nail polish after all, but I'm still having problems getting to grips with sun protection for toe nails. What's all that about!

The reason I was reminded of this happened this evening. P came home from work and told me a colleague announced today that she had to leave work immediately. "She is pregnant and the doctor has told her to have total rest during the pregnancy because she's already lost one baby through an ectoplasmic pregnancy." EWWWWWWWWWW!

Nines

The Land Of The Smiling Mule is split into two very different areas. There's the main village with its steep hills, old Arab quarter and castle, and there's Estacion. Estacion is the newer bit, it's where the train stops (no **** Sherlock!) and I've just found out its real name is Los Angeles. Estacion Los Angeles is in the middle of its Novena at the moment so there's a buzz in the air again. From what I can gather there are lots of things happening centred around the number nine but the main emphasis is on nine days of prayer which culminate in parading the Virgin (La Señora De Todos Los Angeles) around the streets.

I'm told the devoted are deep in prayer for nine hours a day for the nine days of the Novena. However, sombre as this is Spain wouldn't be doing it's job properly if it didn't turn even this into a fiesta. There are all sorts of competitions, sporting events, live music, dancing and generally staying up far too late and not going to work the next day. At mid-day on the eight day there's La Mojada (the soaking). One of the main streets in closed, huge vats of water are brought in and everybody takes part in a water fight. The rules are, there are no rules.

I've never made the connection before, but could this be our own version of La Tomatina?

Introducing Jaime La Campana

The Land Of The Smiling Mule town hall has a clock tower, and as the crow flies it's only a few hundred metres from where I live. The clock chimes once for the half hour, and on the hour it chimes the relevant number of times, twice. In other words, at say eleven o'clock, it will chime eleven times and two minutes later it chimes eleven again. I've never understood why it chimes twice but I like it, even when the windows are open and it sounds really loud. As if that wasn't enough the chimes are interspersed by the voice of Jaime La Campana, who shouts "DOH" after every gong.
Jaime lives with his mother at the top of the street, near the hags. He's difficult to put an age to, but I imagine he's in his early thirties. His mother dresses him in over sized track pants which are pulled up to his chest, into which he tucks his jumper. I see him most mornings going down the hill with his mother to the shops, and later he (literally) pulls her back up the hill. He's a shy man, if I say hello he turns away with a huge smile on his face, but once I've walked on a couple of paces he turns back and shoots me with his ray gun. But Jaime was blessed with a booming voice. So going back to the example of eleven o'clock; Imagine twenty two loud gongs and twenty two very loud "DOH"s ... nuff said.

The street where I live, Hag Central

When I first moved to The Land Of The Smiling Mule I wrote about the hags who congregate at the top of the street. At any given time there'll be four or five of them hanging out and cackling at the passing cars. I hate walking past them. Driving past is fine, they just shout "adios" as I pass and then I'm gone before I can hear what else they say. (Note: It's a bit confusing at first when you pass people on the street and they say "goodbye" instead of "hello". Basically it's used when there isn't time to go into a full sentence, i.e. "hello, can't stop I'm in a hurry, bye.") But when I'm walking I hear what they're saying as I approach and after I've passed. It usually goes something like this:

"...The bin men are late this morning. Terrible. I could complain. You should. I would but it's José, he likes his lunch on the table at two thirty. How's his leg? Wait, look, here comes the guiri again (that's me). What do you think's in that bag? Don't know, what do guiris carry in bags? Look at that shirt. Aww it's a shame. He needs a pullover. (As I pass) Hello, good morning. How are you? Not driving today? Yes, it's good to walk isn't it? That bag looks heavy. Yes, we're in a rush too. Bye then. Careful you don't slip on that...ooh, are you alright? Bye. There's nothing of him. If he fell he'd really hit the floor carrying a heavy bag like that. And spoil that shirt. Where on earth did he buy that? Not round here, that's for sure..."

You'd think after almost five years I'd be used to it, or join them, but I just feel really intimidated by them. In the beginning I assumed they thought I didn't understand what they were saying, but that can't be the case because I speak to them in Spanish. Maybe they think I'm deaf.

La Tomatina

As I write, the little town of Buñol in Valencia is waking up, its population swollen massively with people from around the world. The town council will be busy putting protective covers over the buildings in the main square, a ham is being fixed to the top of a tall, greased pole and 150,000 kilos of tomatoes are no doubt already loaded into several trucks. Sounding strange? It gets better.

The crowd of thousands will be working each other up into an excited frenzy. Hundreds will try to climb the greased pole to get their hands on the prized ham. The atmosphere will increase as the morning passes, everybody anxious for the main event ... ¡LA TOMATINA!

Yes it's that time of year again. At mid-day thousands of people will squeeze into the main square of Buñol where trucks will dump 150,000 kilos of tomatoes onto them and the worlds biggest food fight will start.

Said to have started in 1945, there are several versions of how the fiesta started. One claims to have its origins in a simple food fight with a couple of brothers throwing the tomatoes from their salads at each other, another tells of locals throwing tomatoes at a street musician, whilst another dares the claim it started during an anti Franco rally. We'll never know. But what we do know is that the fight will start with the dumping of the tomatoes and last for two hours. By the end the crowd is exhausted, the square is knee deep in red mush and nothing, and nobody is spared. At the end the crowd is marshaled out of the square and hosed down by council workers, yes I mean the crowd is hosed down, then the square.

I must be running on a full tank of Spanishness because I love this and wish I was there.

For no particular reason

The great thing about digital photography is if you take enough photos sooner or later you'll get a result. I took this photo a few years ago and it's still my favourite. I love the depth of the shadows, the solid black against the texture and colour of the cobbles. I've no idea what I did, probably nothing because the camera is set to auto most of the time, but I've never managed to get that depth of shadow since.

Is it just me?

I've been reading somebody else's experiences of being a foreigner in Spain, and one of the things he said really struck a chord with me. He was talking about "spanishness" being something he had to wear, like a coat or a hat. Once he had his spanishness on he felt equipped to cope with whatever this country and its people threw at him, he almost became more Spanish. I really like this train of thought and completely understand what he means.



This thing, this spanishness, needs feeding to survive. By speaking the language, watching television (oh please, don't make me do that) or simply being with Spanish people for instance, keeps your spanishness levels topped up. It's not a language thing, that's different again, it's about being open to all the things which set us apart, the culture gaps, including language. When my spanishness is satiated I love being here, I take much more notice of all the positive aspects of life here and feel part of it. I think in spanish and can generally switch between languages without too much trouble. However, if I forget to feed that spanishness it withers. I don't notice the changes, it's a whiley demon that spanishness, it simply starts to fade. Then without notice something will happen which REALLY winds me up, or I answer the phone and realise I don't understand what's being said to me. What's happened is my spanishness levels have got so low I've reverted to being an anxious northern European, not entirely sure what's going on.



Spain is one of the noisiest countries in the world. When I'm running on a full tank of spanishness I not only accept the noise, I often don't even hear it. We once had a friend staying and we were sat chatting, he suddenly went white and his mouth fell open. "what the **** was that!" he spat out. We looked at each other, then back at him, realising he was genuinely worried. "What was what?" I asked. "That noise, it sounded like a huge aircraft landing outside." It took a couple of seconds before we understood what he was talking about, it was the gas man driving a truck full of metal gas bottles at speed down our cobbled street. We didn't even hear it. There was another time when, looking back, I'd let my spanishness levels drop. We were trying to sleep and our neighbours had gone to sit in the street where it was cool and chat to whoever passed by. I lay in bed tutting, letting myself get wound up and getting more agitated by the minute. In the end I couldn't stand it any longer so threw open the bedroom window and shouted...

Another symptom of low spanishness levels is opening your mouth to speak and then listening to the rubbish that falls out of it. You're thinking in English and about to speak in Spanish, or more acurately you're thinking in English and about to speak in tongues.

...and shouted, "excuse me, we are trying to hear. I mean, listening. No wait, we are asleep and the listening is a problem because tomorrow we have to go to work."

Pfff that told them!

We were adopted by a cat burglar

It was about this time last year. I was going to hang some washing out to dry when something moved in the shadows and caught my eye. It was the scrawniest of kittens, filthy dirty, so thin I could see it's bones sticking out and it's eyes were almost glued shut. I did a double take because I was on the roof terrace and there was no way this thing could have got up there, it really was in a bad way.

The vet said it may not survive. It had flu, an infection of the ears and nose, an eye ulcer and to top it all off it was badly dehydrated and half starved. He gave it treatments for the ticks, fleas, worms etc and told us to take it back in a day or two if it was still alive. It was, so we did, and this is how the summer of 2007 progressed. The kitten started to put weight on and get stronger but we were still going to the vets every few days. She turned out to be quite a character, always looking for trouble and a really tough little thing, we called her Trevor. We found out much later that a neighbour found Trev on the street and realised she wasn't going to make it unless somebody took her in, so he dumped her on our terrace.

About three months later Trevor got signed off by the vet. Apart from the ulcer in the eye she was healthy, strong and playful. However, she started to do something I've never known a cat to do before. She started bringing us presents. At first it was plants (with roots) that we assumed she was digging up from neighbours gardens. She'd drag these things across the terrace, down the stairs, through the house and deposit them at our feet. Then she progressed to carrier bags. We started finding bags from stores we don't use around the house. Then she must have found access to a house which was being renovated because we got wall tiles, insulating foam, unopened bags of nails and screws, paint brushes and sand paper. Then we got the watch. That was when we decided it was getting serious and told all the neighbours what was happening. She now has the reputation as the local cat burglar and when people see her looking in their windows they quickly shut the curtains and close the windows in case she's casing her next job.

Trev relaxing after being out on a job.

Comfort and safety vs the hard sell

I recently had to take four flights, four flights too many. Well, I didn't have to take them, nobody forced me, but to get where I wanted to be it was the best option. As a kid I used to think travel was, or rather, must have been seeing as I'd never done it, very sophisticated. When I did eventually start travelling I'd turn up at the airport early because that was all part of the experience and worthy of enjoying in itself. I'd sit myself down in a swanky café and feel very self important as I sipped a coffee and watch the well dressed world pass by. Then there was the flight. The ever smiling, immaculately dressed cabin crew made me and all the other wannabe sophisticates feel comfortable and safe. We'd all flick through the in-flight magazine and rip open the goody bag of socks, face mask, headphones, fresh wipes and blanket, deciding what was worth slipping into our cabin bags. (Why did we all take those face masks home?)


Fast forward a couple of decades and it's a completely different story.


Firstly, booking a flight online is like a multiple choice exam in self preservation. Do I really want to fly through the night just to save the fifty euros? Do I pay more for extra leg room only to find everybody else who has done the same has children? Then there's paying in advance for a meal before you've seen a menu, but hey, I'll be hungry so better had. Lastly you have to decide how many bags you'll pay to have put in the hold. That's easy enough on the outbound flight, but usually a complete unknown on the return. Oh no, that wasn't the last "option", finally you get to the point of clicking "book flight" when a little window pops up and asks you if you'd like to pay to offset your carbon footprint. Screaming "NO" at the computer screen is pointless, childish and a complete waste of time, but it sometimes helps.

I stopped turning up early at the airport a long time ago. Once you've checked in and gone through security you want to spend as little time as possible in "Departures". The swanky cafés have gone, replaced by the big name coffee shops you can find on any corner of this global village. When you do find somewhere to sit your coffee is served in a polystyrene cup with a plastic spoon. I once asked a waiter in an airport coffee shop why I couldn't have a proper cup and a real spoon and was told, "it was for my own safety." I had no idea I was putting myself at risk every time I drank a cup of coffee outside an airport, I'd better check the small print on my life insurance. As for watching the world pass by, it's downright depressing. I couldn't help but notice everybody looked apprehensive, slightly nervous and paranoid. Tempers were short, queues were long and everybody wanted to pass through this slice of nowhere as quickly as possible.

The cabin crew still smiled as they walked along the aircraft aisle telling people "no you can't" but somehow the smiles were tired and well worn. They tried to sell us upgrades to better seats, food, drinks, duty free, lottery tickets, toys and headphones. At one point I asked if the air conditioning could be turned down seeing as we were all cold, I was tutted at, smiled to and ignored. An hour later I asked for a blanket and was told, "you can buy a comfort pack which includes a blanket and a pillow for €5." But the best sales pitch came as we were coming in to land at Luxor. We were asked if we wanted to buy bottles of water to take off the aircraft because "this was our last chance to buy English water." I think we'd landed before I managed to scrape my chin up off the floor!

Luna Llena del Castillo

Making up my mind

Browsing through the Men section of The Times I was intrigued by an article which stated a well known drugstore in UK has just launched a line of make-up for men. OOPS, there's mistake number one. It's not make-up, it's guyliner and manscara. I guess calling it make-up demasculates it, but what do I know? The article went on to say that this new make-up is a huge success with metrosexual men across the country and when applied properly was subtle and needn't make the wearer look like an Emo. Being on the furthest edge of popular culture here in the Land Of The Smiling Mule I had a vague idea what a metrosexual man was but decided to do a quick google search just to be on the safe side. Amazingly, a metrosexual man is heterosexual but takes an interest in his appearance and "demonstrates other homosexual characteristics". I chose to gloss (see what I did there?) over that remark and keep focused. I still needed to know what an Emo was and why metrosexual make-up wearing men wouldn't want to look like one. Back to google. Depending on the website, Emo is either short for "emotional" or "def not coz that sux and anyway itz sooo lame". So that clears that up. However, I did learn that Emo's wear lots of black make-up, look a lot like punks and clearly do not take an interest in their appearance (sorry Emo's), which obviously makes them def not gay.

It was an interesting dip into popular culture, short as it was, and I came out the other end a bit wiser. I can hold my head high and proclaim I am not metrosexual. If men want to wear make-up, wear it. Don't buy guyliner which no doubt will be merchandised in a very macho way and probably cost twice the price. Wake up, you're being had. As for the Emo's, enjoy every minute of it, I know I would have done all those years ago if my mum had allowed me to be a punk.

It's been a while

When I moved from civilisation to The Land Of The Smiling Mule I wrote a blog, it helped me make sense of all the new things going on in my life at that time. That time was almost five years ago. A lot has happened and, as expected, even more hasn't.



To be honest the long stretches of boredom and nothingness I expected from my new life didn't really happen. Tarting up the house took up a lot of time, and as I got to know my new neighbours and local characters the inevitable happened and little bits of their lives rubbed off onto mine. I started to care. I've decided it's time to put finger tips to keys again in an attempt to understand how I got to this point, and, more importantly, where I am?



Geographically it's easy, The Land Of The Smiling Mule is one of the White Villages of Andalucia, Spain. It clings to a hillside somewhere between Ronda and Algeciras, trying not to be noticed. All buildings are painted white (obviously), and should anybody try to sneak a bit of colour onto their house the white paint police turn up and give them a stern talking to. Life here is tough. The summer temperatures drift in and out of the late 30's and early 40's, the shadows are warm and the hags throw caution to the none existent wind and roll down their pop socks. In the winter the streets are scented with wood smoke, and onions. I still haven't got my head around the fried onions, but from dawn to dusk, wherever you go you'll smell onions frying. The main cultural event of the year is the Feria de Mayo, where the whole village gets together in friendly rivalry to see whose mule can carry the most cork and which dog has the waggiest tail. Life here is tough and competitive.

So, that's the stage, the set and scenery. All we need now are the characters...