Well, it's been a while...again. Christmas came and went, as did New Year, Three Kings and the winter sales, in fact the whole festive circus passed without a blog mention. I know, I know, a prize winning blogger I am not. It seems this is as good as it gets, so I'll get on with it.

Christmas day was a bit odd. We usually go out of our way to do something untraditional but decided this last year to stay home and do whatever it is that people do. (Eat turkey and argue I'm told.) So, after breakfast we decided to exchange gifts. I was sure I'd bought the perfect gift and was looking forward to seeing P's face when he opened it. Paper started to fly as we both tore into our presents. Like a couple of excited kids we got the paper off, turned the boxes over and saw we'd bought each other the same thing, a digital photo frame. It's never happened before in all the years we've been together and it was so strange. Now, we all like to think we'd be generous in spirit at times like this, grateful and mature. Forget it. We both flipped the boxes over and started reading the blurb on the back to see which one was the best. Boys and their toys eh!

Later we each wanted to play with our new toys, as you do, and work out their little intricacies. That was when we realised the next hitch, we both have the same photos in our respective archives. So we fiddled for a while, adjusting settings, uploading pics until we were satisfied they worked. Then we read the instructions. Then we were ready to put the frames where we wanted them. Believe me, when you live in an open-plan house it's really easy to achieve digital photo frame overkill. Even though we put one in the kitchen and one in the living room you could still see them both. Every time the image changed we found we involuntarily glanced over. After a couple of hours of eyes flicking constantly from one to the other and seeing the same photos we pulled the plugs.

The best photo of Christmas has to be Trevor (above) who got inside some wrapping paper and stayed there for several days. Very wise.

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.