Dealing with wasps

A 700 year old olive tree

We went to Hortiflor, the Vera nursery, to look for some more trees for the land, which still looks rather bare. The main field is mostly almond trees, but a lot of them have a bug, which turns them black; they bleed a kind of gum, which attracts wasps, so it’s double trouble. I have had to cut a couple down (not personally, you understand, but by asking my neighbour to come round with the mechanical saw). A large part of the nursery has rows of large trees, including olive trees, some of which are enormous; these are the most expensive trees they have, at around 1,000 Euros. They grow very slowly, I am told, so it can take hundreds of years for them to mature and develop the thick, twisted trunk that looks so picturesque. One of the trees, not for sale, is 700 years old, the nurseryman tells me, from the Middle Ages, really. It has a certificate of its history and used to live in a monastery. Strange to think what it has seen. We chose a smaller and more modestly-priced one, to plant by the house for the future. I suppose it will outlive the children and grandchildren. I had similar thoughts when I hung the painting of my great-aunt and grandmother on the wall the other day: I collected it from Frankfurt when my great-aunt died; it has also lived in Switzerland, America, and the UK and I imagine will continue to travel long after the descendents of the people in the picture are dead. I am not sure if it’s reassuring or not, but it calls to mind one of the few lessons I remember from school, when our English teacher told us we would always remember the poem she was about to read. This was, inevitably, a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the poem was The Poplar Field and I still remember it almost in its entirety: the first verse is the one that was supposed to stay in our head: The poplars are felled; farewell to the shade/And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade: The winds play no more and sing in the leaves, Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives. The last verse was the one the olive brought to mind: “’Tis a sight to engage me if anything can/To muse on the perishing pleasures of man/Though his life is a dream, his enjoyments I see/Have a being less durable even than he.” How true, except that in the case of the olive it is the other way around. Nobody cuts the trees down here, or nobody did: now they are being put into pots for people like me to plant elsewhere, at a price, but at least, unlike women, their value rises as they age. I can’t remember the teacher’s name though I can picture here: but she achieved what she intended, which is more than most.

Meanwhile the almonds are ripe, and Juana suggested to me I pick them. They are worth about 7 Euros a tree, so no, I thought. I suggested to her that she could have them to add to hers, which were lying out drying on big sheets, and she accepted. We wondered what happened to the kilos and kilos of almonds that grow here: they sometimes cook with a kind of almond flour, but what else? Then Johannes, a German gentleman who moved out here to start a jojoba plantation, turned up. He said there was a European shortage of almonds, which are needed to make marzipan, and for decorating cakes. This is because the Spanish, for instance, don’t grow them properly, he said, the way they do in California. They have all these little fields, like ours, with the farmers harvesting them with a cane and some nets: it’s just not efficient. In California, there are rows upon rows, proper, commercial orchards. He sighed. I don’t know if his jojoba plantation is efficient yet: he used to work on the marketing side in Germany and came out here to give it a try. We sat and chatted with him and his wife, Marianne, who is Dutch: He commented on how things here don’t work, or sometimes work and then sometimes don’t and on how different it was in Germany. We could agree with that; then there was a bit of a silence. We discussed marzipan –which, having central European parents, was part of my upbringing, and particularly the making of marzipan mushrooms, and potatoes, for Christmas. My father always made mushrooms; they made potatoes (much easier, I have to say, since a potato is yellow and has no features whatsoever, whereas the mushrooms have to have brown caps, coloured with cocoa.) We talked a bit about the Tirol, and he said when he went back to southern Germany, he wondered why he didn’t live there any more: it was so beautiful. And clean, of course, people don’t chuck their rubbish on the side of the road the way they do in Spain when they find a beauty spot. More sighs and silence. The thing is, he said then, is I can’t live anywhere else but here now. It’s the climate you know – I don’t like anything else any more. Yes, well. Spain isn’t efficient or clean a lot of the time, but there you go. It has something you don’t get in Southern Germany, cuckoo clock pretty though it is. But they do make good marzipan in Germany: it is too sweet here, when you can get it, though Johannes let us know that at Christmas you can buy proper German marzipan in the Lider supermarket in Vera which is of course, a little piece of Germany in Spain.

A moral issue: Michelle, and the wasps

Michelle, the other Inglesa in Los Herreras (well, she is Welsh, and as I noted before, also originally something else, I would guess, West Indian), came over half way through the day. She said she needed a favour: could I drive her to Vera. I haven’t met her before but once – but the boy, Guy, constantly pitches up looking for the kids. He is nice, but a bit slow. Very slow, in fact – shouldn’t matter, since he is clearly kind, but I do get bored. Michelle said she needed to go to Vera to pay her Endesa bill as she has no electricity in the house: it has been cut off. I didn’t at all want to go to Vera; it is an hour plus round trip, without the time you spend there, minimum, and it was roasting hot. I asked if they were open in the afternoon – a lot of offices aren’t in August. She didn’t know. Could she phone? No, she had no phone, because no electricity. She also has no car (broken down) and no moped (broken down). Basically, she has no money, whence all her troubles, and also not much common sense – the two things being related. She came out here from Cardiff, never having been to Spain (“I always liked the idea of it, see”) and thought she could rent out teepees in her back garden to holiday makers. There aren’t any holiday makers up here, though, and if there were, you couldn’t charge the much: Oliver and Helen, who used to run this house as a Casa Rural, went bust, as far as we can make out. You couldn’t realistically charge anyone more than a handful of Euros to stay up here – and that’s if anyone wanted to come up here, where there isn’t anything except a bit of rough walking and bird watching (hoopoes, eagle owls and so on). The teepees have disappeared, but Michelle still has six dogs (disapproved of by neighbours) and a satellite dish. She just stood there while I tried to hint I didn’t really have any plans to go to Vera today, feeling guilty, but really not liking the idea of sitting in the car with her for two hours. Sandy could drop her off the next morning (he had just left for Vera about an hour before she arrived). She said she yes, but the taxi back up would be very expensive, she didn’t know what she would do really. She doesn’t speak any Spanish, so that makes it worse for her; she has no real friends here. Part of me thought I ought to give her a lift – the idea of being without car or electricity up here is pretty appalling – but part of me was really pissed off with her, a) for being so useless in the first place –and b) for expecting me to sort her problem when we don’t even know each other. It’s not like borrowing a cup of sugar, going into Vera. In the end, I said I’d let her know if I was going in later on and she wandered off. Afterwards, I felt continuing irritation and guilt. If she had been Juana, whom I very much like, I wouldn’t have thought anything of taking her into Vera; in fact, I’d have enjoyed it. But it’s Michelle, who sits about in the same Vera market kaftan, looking like a lump. This is completely unchristian, since I well know the vicar would say that I get no Brownie points for being nice to Juana whom I like, only for being nice to Michelle, who gets on my wick. I thought about this, and thought the right thing to do would be to take Michelle to Vera. But then I asked Sandy and he pointed out that if I did that, she would keep coming back and expecting me to give her lifts. I told myself this was a good point, though it clearly didn’t make me any more in the right, morally speaking.

Later on, I killed about 20 wasps in the kitchen. It is late summer, and apparently they fly lower and are more intrusive just before they die off. Anyway, they keep coming in and stinging me: one was in my bikini bottom when I put it on in the morning and I got a huge and painful bite on the bum, much to the amusement of Sandy and the Adkins, who are visiting. I felt pretty vengeful to the wasps afterwards – and killed a lot in the way Sandy had demonstrated – wait till they settle on the one window that is not shuttered, then squash them with a wineglass. The amount I killed is nothing: when Edouard was here, he went on a mission to kill all the wasps in sight with the pool net (breaking it into the bargain). He laid them out in rows by the pool and we asked him if he was going to make them into a pie. I pointed out he could not kill all the wasps in Almeria, and he said in a mad voice that he intended to do so. Wasps get you like that. However, while I was massacring them and they were collapsing in heaps all over each other and crawling about in dying throes, I felt as if I were a Nazi in a concentration camp. It didn’t make me stop, but I did feel pretty appalled. I don’t really like killing things: I normally rescue spiders, beetles, etc, but I draw the line at wasps. No doubt this is bad, but what is more, I had this weird feeling that the rest of the wasps round the pool knew what I’d done: a few got very aggressive and swarmed round me in the afternoon, perhaps in revenge. I thought about Michelle, too, who was having a large bonfire out by her house in the dark, and wondered if she would have revenge of some kind. Maybe in the next life, all these things will come back to haunt me. I have to hope not. But the fact is, even though I thought all this through, it didn’t change anything. Christianity just does not account for the fact that some people are deadly dull; if you are just put on this earth to be good to everyone it is like the point of going to a party being just to behave well while you were there. In which case, you wouldn’t got at all, particularly not if there were wasps, and people like poor Michelle.

Learned Helplessness
I am driving faster and faster down the twisty road to Rambla Alhibe and am generally developing a new skill set: fixing things that break in the kitchen (previously done by the nanny), and so on. This is a good thing: while snorkelling at the Villaricos beach yesterday, I was thinking about how I had learned to dive despite being scared every time I went down. Even snorkelling is potentially scary, though you couldn’t keep me out of the water and I will stay in for hours: sometimes there is something spooky down there that makes you head for shore. But if you didn’t do these things, you would end up like Mrs Mercer, whose daughter Penny was at school with me. Rodney, her husband, did everything, including the driving: when she drove the car, she leaned forward and clutched the steering wheel, stopping if anything came on the other side of the road. Actually, my mother did drive rather the same way, holding on with a grim face and set teeth 1as if the car was a bucking bronco. It would be quite easy to get like this if you didn’t drive often and let your husband do it: in fact, before we lived here, Sandy always drove the car in Spain, mainly because he likes driving and I don’t. The first few times I did it, I thought it was hard; now it is easy. So you have to keep doing new things to avoid forgetting how: a lot of the women we know, in particular, have said they couldn’t come here on their own because it would be too hard to drive the car. No doubt men think things like that, but they are not allowed to say them, they have to get on and drive that car. I think about this whenever I feel wimpy about being out here; it sometimes feels strange, and I get a nameless anxiety that I will end up like Michelle, a fish out of water. Will I ever get the hang of all the things I am supposed to know how to do on the finca - like picking the prickly pears, which we did all wrong. We should have gone out in the morning, when the prickles are not so sharp; instead, Sandy got them all over himself and had to make Lara pick them out while he sat there like a large hedgehog. I had a long lecture from Juana on when to pick the figs: at one point for drying, another for bottling. The stem must twist right off easily if they are mature, they must be really mature to bottle, but can be "a punto" for drying. I expect I will learn this stuff by next year. Will I, more importantly, find a purpose other than picking fruit? Maybe, but in the meantime, least I won’t end up forgetting how to drive, swim, or ride a bike.

Jamon, the food of love?

Spanish ham

We went for a massive meal at La Tasca in Lubrín. It was not meant to be massive at the start, of course, but we were with six-dinner Sandy, who keeps saying things like “just a light lunch” and then serving up an enormous haunch of meat. It turned out to be very good, despite the line of silent old men at the bar, who all turned to stare at the obvious foreigners. There is a restaurant at the back, one wall of which is the wall of the rock behind, decorated with local rustic artefacts. The set menu was 15 Euros though we didn’t eat off it: Lara had a steak the size of her head, for instance, but the mistake was to eat the huge plates of garlic mayonnaise bread, tomato bread, and jamón, before embarking on the main course. Of course, the children have two stomachs, one dedicated to ice cream, so were not even groaning on the way to the car like me, and that was with my jeans undone. At about ten, after Sandy had said the place would be mainly for tourists as it was too expensive for locals to eat out, in came a group of local Spanish: the nice lady from the supermarket, who looks like a friend of Miss Marple, very smart, with a man and another couple. Ten is normal restaurant arrival time here: we are sometimes too hungry to wait though at home we often don’t cook till ten and eat around eleven. The food was excellent, including the wine, Ribera del Duera which is apparently a la mode, more than Rioja, for about 20 Euros, which is more than five times what we normally pay for nice supermarket wine, usually Albariño, from Galicia, which costs £8 upwards at home.

The point of all this about food is to talk about Jamón Jamón, so good you say it twice and with a capital, like the movie. Jamón seems to me to be close to the essence of what is Spanish, particularly when you compare it with Ham. I am not knocking Ham, but Ham is not a good word, for a start. In literature, oafish people have faces like hams, and fat ladies have legs like hams. It is fat and pink, making you think of Henry the Eighth, and large, arrogant noblemen riding through Yorkshire and exercising droit de seigneur on the local kitchen maids. It is a bit uniform: Jamón has streaks of meat in a lot of fat, particularly the best Pata Negra (black foot) jamón. The meat is dry and succulent at the same time – in fact, you are best to leave it out before eating as it often starts a bit dry but then starts to get greasier. I am making it sound revolting, but it is delicious.
In fact, Sandy has always been a Jamón man and in the past, used to smuggle legs to the UK in his suitcase, or sometimes in mine, hidden among the underpants. It caused consternation among people who visited, finding a large leg with a hoof in the larder, particularly when it had been there a while and was not so fresh.

Food has always been uppermost in Sandy’s mind. He was about three stone lighter, I would say, when I first met him, but he was already working on plans to get fatter. When accused of being fat, he sometimes agrees, and says he can get quite a bit fatter in the next few years, and starts pointing out people he views as targets, like the man on the beach whose wife had to roll him over, because he couldn’t do it himself. Other times, he denies it, and points out that his jeans (or his kilt) still fit him. I have pointed out that they are not the same jeans; they may be Levis, but they are not the same ones, and the kilt has an adjustable waist, or place where the waist would be if you had one. But Sandy just smiles complacently and says he is not fat. In fact, I have suggested to him he may have reverse anorexia, where you look in the mirror and think you are thin, even though you actually are very fat. I am sure he is trying to take me down with him: it is not easy when you are constantly made to eat “light” meals, but fortunately age has improved my metabolism and what with all the heaving stones about I am sure I have got thinner again since the “kilos” which Pablo and Juana pointed out I had put on. Either that, or I have got reverse anorexia too and soon I will be out of the jeans and into a housecoat (there is a nice selection in Vera market).

When Sandy and I got married - in Grand Cayman, which sounds romantic but was actually so we could spend the wedding money on three weeks’ diving – not very romantic although it does look it in the photos. Our two divorced diving instructors were witnesses and a bit unsure about the whole thing: Sandy had been deep diving on the day and was a bit high. I had been to the hairdresser, at the insistence of a Texan girl called Leanne staying in the hotel, and been given a plait like a poodle, which I took out under the shower afterwards, plus had had quite a few cocktails. I had also been marched to buy some “lingerie,” having admitted I only had a T shirt with “The bigger the Johnson, the deeper the dive” on it, Johnsons being the fins I used to use. “You got to get you some wedding night lingerie,” she shrieked (Leanne was a great shrieker and could whistle between her teeth: she also told me “if anyone comes on my land, I shoot ‘em). She made me get a kind of baby doll affair, very nylon, which was doomed from the start. The service was conducted by the Reverend Vernon something, who said in a heavy Caribbean accent that “Juliet and Sandy, love is a beautiful ting.” This is the only line I can remember, although Sandy always claims I promised to obey him, which seems unlikely and anyway I haven’t. We had the wedding ceremony at about 4 in a pretty sunset and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening drinking and dancing in hotels: I can’t remember much about this at all for obvious reasons. On the way back from the dancing, Sandy had realised he was hungry and started to moan about chicken. He was staring out of the windows, looking for a rotisserie, but everything was shut, and his moaning got worse and worse. When we got back to the hotel (the lovely, very Caribbean, Spanish Bay Reef (little huts, boardwalks, fans, but no mod cons and certainly no 24 hour food: you ate round one big table with the hosts and other guests), Sandy started pacing about like a tiger and said he had to find some food. He got the phone directory and started looking for a takeaway – ages later he found a pizza delivery place and ordered a huge pizza. Meanwhile, I had retreated to the bathroom and put on my lingerie, feeling rather ridiculous. “Quick,” Sandy said. “We have to go up to the front, in case the delivery man can’t find us.” I put on my rain mac over the top and we went and sat at the front. Sandy pounced on the pizza when it arrived, and soon after fell asleep with the relics on his chest. In between, I had opened my mac and demonstrated the outfit. “Yes, very nice suit, " he said. This set the tone for the future. Food has come between us, I remarked to Sandy, and if he gets fatter, it might in practice. But in fact, I do prefer a man to be quite fat; it is more reassuring and of course they can’t run very fast, though Sandy, with his military past, is deceptive – like those large animals like rhinos and hippos, he appears immobile but can suddenly move quite fast, particularly, of course, if food happens to be passing. The other day I looked at him trundling up the road on Alexander’s quad bike, with his new short haircut – his face has got round like a bear’s or a cat’s so that really he should have some whiskers, and he made me think of that story in the paper about the Russian circus bear who used to ride a bike and then escaped and then knocked a postman off his bike and rode off on it into the woods, never to be seen again. Anyway, the fat face is quite sweet, and actually I prefer it to the lean and hungry one he used to have.

It is not, however, more capital R Romantic, something that fooled me when I was young and stupid, or stupid-er, I should say. But all that is water under the bridge and it is quite a relief in most ways. What worries me is that it makes writing this quite boring; diaries are supposed to be about love. My last surviving diary (age 11 to 15) had plenty, even if large parts related to whining about having to play hockey in an aertex shirt, and I know my university diaries did: however I threw them out some time ago because they were too embarrassing. What is more, I couldn’t even remember some of the incidents, down to the names of the men or the events. On my nineteenth birthday, I got so drunk that I had to be carried home and I actually remember lying face down in a gutter. It was down to pina colada cocktail, which I have never drunk since. Now, I am lucky if I have two thirds of one bottle of wine, and then I have to lie down with my zip undone to recover, and I have Sandy, who will drink the two thirds anyway and leave me with a third, or perhaps a quarter.

But I can’t see that writing can be that interesting without any romance in it. It is that bright unpredictable thread running through the everyday fabric of life even though, it is all bound to end in tragedy. Passion only goes one of two ways: middle age or violent death: you either get poisoned and stabbed like Romeo and Juliet, or you end up sitting the dances out, like Mrs Bennett, and trying to marry off your daughters. I was worrying about this, as clearly I am still alive so must be Mrs Bennett (thankfully,
I have only one daughter and before we left for Spain, Sandy had already told the school we would not bother about secondary school but just apprentice her straight to Stringfellows, given Lara’s propensity to take the stage in skimpy costumes.) Rather depressing, sitting on the sidelines, with romance vanishing down the corridor like the last guest at a fancy dress ball.

Having said that, it strikes me that while I was not looking, I had been with Sandy for nearly 15 years, and something had happened that I had not noticed, which was not exactly either death by poison or being a wallflower in the dance of life. I hesitate to describe this: it seems rather like the tiger in the fridge – it vanishes when you open the door. The tiger in the fridge was often evoked by my father, who convinced me there was one in there when I was young and it seems appropriate for Sandy, who is certainly a tiger just outside the fridge. The tiger is part of the family, but always at the edge of your vision. It gets larger every year, from eating all that food in the fridge, and yet because the door is closed, you often forget about it. It’s a kind of passion, but I suspect you don’t notice it is gone, until it isn’t there.

Meanwhile, back to Jamón, as I am supposed to be writing about Spain. At one point in the film, Penelope Cruz (so famous here that she is just called Penelope in magazines), is marching down the road in the nightie-like outfit she seems to wear in most of the film, trying to shake off the man who is pursuing her, I think on a motorbike. The man works in a jamón business, and at various point, tries to seduce her by offering her ham – you know it is an aphrodisiac, he says, though Penelope brushes him off and is clearly in no need of ham to get her started.

Is it? Maybe. In any case, in the land of Jamón, I think there is probably more passion than there is romance, more death by poison than sitting out the dance. I am not sure Spanish women ever sit the dance out but carry on seducing younger men and doing what they feel, like the older woman in Jamon, Jamon. Only in a Spanish film would the climax be a fight to the death conducted with legs of ham, which is somehow not funny but dreadful, though too melodramatic and not real enough to be exactly gruelling.

We used to go to a beach near here at a place called Rodalquilar, where there is a weird pink hotel in the middle of the desert landscape. The other day, Sylvia told me that the story on which Bodas de Sangre, Blood Wedding, is based actually happened there, here in Almeria.: a dance in which fate and tragedy bring individuals to an inevitably, bloody consummation; people almost seem to long to die. Sylvia also suggested we go and see a bullfight in Madrid. I pointed out it might be rather cruel (poor bull) and she agreed, sort of though I am not sure she got the “poor bull” bit - but said in a matter of fact way that it was also very beautiful. There is only really art where there is blood: you just can’t imagine a Spanish Four Weddings and A Funeral: there would have to be at least a bit of violence and some explicit sex. Light and ironic though it may be, the wonderful Volver has a body in the deep freeze before long, and off goes Penelope, with that switching, get-away walk she does.

Meanwhile, locally in Almeria, there is plenty of drama. In Rambla Alhib e, there is the always sulky Vanessa in the bar, who looks as if she might end up battered to death by a leg of ham at the side of the road: in fact, the whole family are straight from Almodovar: Pepe with his, alleged, fancy woman in Mojacar and Virginia, angrily squeezed into her denim skirt, appearing breezy but harbouring a bitter grudge. If they don’t provide some entertainment, I shall have to look further afield or use my imagination, such as remains to me sitting here tapping my fan at the edge of the ballroom.

Don Quixote, being Spanish

I have been reading Don Quixote, in English, I admit, on the basis that I will read it in Spanish once I understand it, probably rather a Quixotic thing to do. I started it after we had driven through La Mancha, because Alain had told me you could only understand Don Quixote once you had done that. So once I had done the journey, I just had to read the book. Well, it is pretty long, but it turns out it is quite hard to put down, though I can't say why. From what I remember of Chaucer, it is a bit like Chaucer - the characters are ridiculous, but have great dignity and likeability despite it - like Chanticleer, or Basil Fawlty. It is not remotely like Dickens, which is what it says on the back of the book. I hate Dickens, really, it makes me think of those horrible Victorian cards of cats wearing bonnets, or Struwelpeter, cruel and cartoonish, though I did enjoy the TV adaptations.

Wondering about what Don Quixote might be like made me wonder whether Spanish and English have some deep similarities. After all, a lot of Brits live here (though not many Spanish in the UK and who can blame them, this is a much better place). The sense of humour here seems much fiercer, but there is a kind of persistent irony about the human condition which I recognise from Britain - seeing it as ultimately doomed and ridiculous, but still dignified. I am not sure the French would admit it was ridiculous at all, for instance.

The children's Spanish is beginning to take, interestingly. They have good accents, not yet Andaluz, which is probably a good thing since my tutor told me it was a comedy accent, and they are picking bits up. I am jealous, as I can see they will speak better than me, despite all my work. Being an adult is so hard, like not being able to bend. They say language is fixed in the palate by about age 7, I think; how unfair is that? You can change in other ways, but not in this. Does this mean I can't really be Spanish, but maybe they can?

I discussed this with Penny when she came. Is it because the Brits are white, or red, with dyed blonde hair and tattoos, that they look British? Penny thinks it is not just that; it is the way they dress and walk. My neighbour agrees: she has commented scathingly on the fact that all the Ingleses walk around in "tirantes" (straps) and shorts. Well, they think they are on a permanent holiday: they have dirty flipflops, etc. By contrast, the Spanish are smart, with the women's little feet in rather dinky decorated sandals, and fitted, frilly blouses, whatever their age. By contrast, the middle-aged English tourists in their floppy linen look drab and shabby, while the younger ones in their straps and red shoulders look what we in Shoreham would call pikey.

I have therefore made an effort to make sure I dress properly: I do not go out in shorts, but a skirt and sleeves. Also, in Vera, I went to the shoe shop intending to get some suitable shoes: there was a two for one offer, which meant you could get two nice pairs for about £50. I ended up buying Lara totally inappropriate silver glittery shoes, with a heel, which I pointed out to her she would never have been allowed in the UK. She said yes, but we are not there, are we? Good point. Children in Spain are spoiled, we know (hence the chaotic holiday camp, no discipline at all, not like Club Med, for instance, which is French and a bit like military service) and we are already caving in to it. However, I rather like the way they spoil girls. Everyone makes a point of telling Lara she is guapa, pretty, which I suppose is good for you in the long run. I dont know what the Spanish proverbs about bringing up children are, but I doubt they have "spare the rod and spoil the child" in any case.

Garden and house work, Heidi-style

Breaking stones

A couple of days with a spade and various sharp implements, trying to make a tropical shrubbery, ha ha. The earth is red, very red, and hard, with a lot of stones, more stones than earth, really. I had an idea in my mind of what I was going to achieve, but the stone moving took a lot of time and I misguidedly did it in a bikini, thinking I could improve my tan at the same time, and instead got a lot of scratches on my stomach, as usual. I was also rather aware that my neighbours would think I was mad: what I really need is a stout tabard of the kind sported by Juana.

The thing is, it is not really "gardening" in the English sense of the word: a kneeling mat from the Lakeland catalogue would not do you any favours here. Perhaps Spanish mountains are harder than Lakeland ones: the bit of kit I bought to try and solve the Spanish washing machine + "mala agua" (bad water) problem (clothes come out with same number or more stains) has not proved remotely equal to the challenge. It very quickly went fluffy (a bad sign, according to the instructions). Mind you, the Lakeland stairbasket did come with us: my neighbour was quite mystified as to what it was and had to prod it a few times to understand why you would want a basket that sat on the stairs. She looked at me as if I were a bit wanting, and I could see her point; I explained to her that our house in England was tall, and we used it to take bits and pieces upstairs at the end of the day, but she just shook her head and changed the subject.

Then I went to the Viveros (garden centre) to get some plants, which in fact were trees. Trees are good value: three large palms for 90 Euros. Two men with a pneumatic drill (confusingly referred to as a hammer, un martillo), came and dug holes for the palm trees; it took about two hours. The man commented that the earth was good, although hard, and he also tested the well water by drinking some of it and said it was good, although very hard. This is in fact true of everything around here, goats, people. I was told that I must water and water them: they need a lot of water at the outset, then they put down their roots, and no longer need water, because this is almost a desert, and they are desert plants. Well, the beginning is the hard part, as we know, weedy white plants trying to harden up and get stuck in.

Mother rang and asked what we were doing. I think she thinks we are doing interesting things, like sightseeing, but we are not. I am doing a lot of housework, which I quite like. Before I left, I had a lot of warnings from people, including old boss Peter. "What will you do? You'll be bored!" I was thinking about this at length, while doing the stones. It was not exactly fun, since it was hard work, particularly when I ended up heaving wheelbarrow loads of small stones from one side of the field to the other. You have to put down small stones, on top of plastic, to stop the weeds coming up in the winter. I know this, because Consuelo told me, in no uncertain terms. "Yo te lo digo!" she said, several times, which is, literally, I tell you it. I would say she was saying something like, you better believe it. If you don't put the plastico down, then the weeds, the mala yerba, the bad grass, comes up and comes up and you will never get rid of it, she said, very firmly.

Is this boring? I am not bored, though I suppose the job is potentially boring. I am not sure I ever feel bored, in fact. I was pretty bored at work, sitting in meetings, listening to people talk about the pension plan, or the tax charge. I would be bored on the train without a book, if I was not tired enough to go to sleep, but I am not sure I ever experience boredom during the day, if left to my own devices. (Unlike Alexander, who constantly approaches me and says "I'm bored.") I think my mother could be bored here: there is no culture whatsoever. But for me, this is a definite plus. Having been to China and interviewed the man from CITIC who had to break stones in the Cultural Revolution, I realise that I am about to say something massively insensitive and trivial if I say this is my little cultural revolution. I dont know how long it will last but for now I would much rather move stones in my field than have to sit in a company meeting, or for that matter go to a Van Gogh exhibition (Sylvia tried to make me in Madrid, but I wriggled out of it). No, I am not bored, not a bit. What is more, it is quite interesting housework: washing down the terrace like the pool boy, every morning, watering the plants, and running endless pool towels through the washing machine. Ironing has always been my least favourite job and it is not very necessary: if you peg things out tight they come out quite flat, and I have given up ironing bed linen or anything the children wear. There are different challenges: even with the mosquito net stretched on frames on all the windows, a lot of varied insects come into the house - hornets, wasps, beetles, huge woodlice - and large amounts of dust. They don't favour hoovers here - Isa, who came to help clean up after the builders, looked at mine with suspicion - but a broom and a dustpan on a stick. You have to wonder where the dust goes; I think it is just being moved from place to place, but I am falling in with the system; brushing is more therapeutic than hoovering, and a lot quieter. The next thing is to give up fizzy water: this is very English, I am told, and what is wrong with flat water? In this case, maybe flat is best.

Speaking of weedy, white people, I was reading Lara Heidi. We had a tear in our eye when she and Clara left Frankfurt and went back up the mountain to Grandfather Alp. Well, of course Clara was not going to get better in an international financial centre: enough to put anyone in a wheelchair. Now here we are, just like Heidi, down to the goats. I have always thought there was no point to a place without mountains and after all, what does "flat" mean?

So it's uplifting, though I couldn't say why, exactly. It's like what the man said about happy families: it's much easier to write about shit happening than it is about things being excellent, not least because it irritates other people to hear you are having a good time. I noticed a few relieved silences on the other end of the phone when I said I was leaving London: of course, this could just have been because people were thinking: thank God, that annoying cow is off. But I chose to think it was the feeling of the rats when one leaves the race. One less to compete with, and outstare across the maze. This was particularly true of the women rats, but there were a couple of male ones who made remarks like: "You'll still be doing something worthwhile, just in a different way," or in other words "Aha! That's you marked down to zero!" I care less about this than I did a month ago, and even less than a month before that. At this rate,my concern about not being employed in a job will be fully depreciated by year-end. After all, I was thinking as I moved large stones round the field the other day, this way my work directly benefits me; I don't even need to do yoga to make up for sitting at a desk, because I am not stressed. On the other hand, when I was in the office all day, it was sometimes hard to recall the relationship between the large pay cheque and all the mentally poisonous stuff Iike being polite to old men who put their hand on your wrist and say "Just a minute, dear," when you try to talk. Yes, you, you nasty old ex Company Secretary.

Having said that, being white and weedy was not easy either. Life in the office was like Heidi's when she went to Frankfurt: there was a reason, but it didn't in any way offset not being in the mountains. Now, even if I have to survive my selling my almonds (which I am due to harvest next month), I am not going back. I am in a permanent state of excitement and disbelief which I suppose I am susceptible to just because I find being abroad to exciting. I remember this when I went to Asia for Euromoney: hiring a car and driving into the rubber plantations around KL, or wandering round the Great Wall and buying a rabbit hat .This is not as exotic, and the hats are not as good, but I have constant butterflies all the same. Driving down the hill in the hot sun yesterday, the radio playing some kind of flamenco, I had to pinch myself again and say: this is where I live. I don't have to go back at the end.

Meanwhile, the cats are clearly extremely pleased with the extent of their territory, lying about like tigers. The space means they don't squabble any more - this does not seem to apply to the family, unfortunately, but maybe that will come with time.

Visitors from the past

The postwoman told me her great grandmother used to live in our house. She is therefore related to Remedio, whose mother lived here, though I am not sure how. Remedio's daughter is the one who walked round the house with me, telling me where the pigeons used to live, and where the almonds were dried, remarking on how it had changed. Everyone round here has lived in the house, or knew someone who lived here, but then, everyone is related. Sid, my brother-in-law, said all being related, either by blood or by being a godparent, etc. is a way of making sure people in small communities don't top each other - their interests are entangled. This is what we are doing when we give Pablo our old car, or advise the postlady on how to deliver a letter to someone with an English name: getting sufficiently entangled. I hope by the time my children are teenagers, their roots will be deep enough that they will not know they got transplanted.

Slow, slow, quick, slow, slow

Talking of tempo, it took me about 3 hours to publish my last entry. I have got used to walking away and doing something else while I wait for an internet page to appear, praying all the time. At first, it was pretty frustrating, but now I think to myself that I haven't actually lost any time. I am doing other stuff, even just thinking, or staring out of the window, while I wait. I dont know when I last did this: in London, about a year ago, there was a poster ad for the Economist magazine at train stations. The message was something like: you won't get anywhere by staring out of the window. I suppose the creatives sat around saying, hey, let's tap into the Calvinist guilt thing but in fact I am sure people are supposed to their best ideas in the bath, or staring out of the window, and not reading the Economist.

Time has changed. My first ever job at Platts, which was excellent, because a) it was well paid and b) involved one long day's work talking French to some oil traders, maybe half a day taking them to lunch and then sending a newswire late in the evening. What is more, our boss, a laid back Australian who sat with his feet up on the desk, did not take issue with the fact that all the recent graduates he hired did their job in one day and then spent the rest lolling about in the Dover Street wine bar or enacting fantasy soap operas in the office.

At that time, we had no email and I am not sure if we had a fax; we had a telex, which produced a lot of long strips of paper, and transmitted our market reports. Until about 9.30, when the post arrived, you didn't need to do very much: after you opened the post, you did your job and didn't write to anyone, or answer letters.

About twenty years later, in my last job, email had piled up by the time I got in at 8.30, and I spent most of my day trying desperately to clear my inbox out, having arguments with people by email or reading cross emails sent to people in my team. I am not sure I had much time left to do my job. I felt like Sisyphus, trying to roll the boulder of too much communication up the hill, but what has actually been gained by all this communication and everything going so much faster? I ask Sandy this question, since he is supposedly an advocate of technology, but he doesn't seem to have an answer. I expect it has made the UK more productive than a remote Pacific island with seashell currency, but we all, with the exception of some nutcases at Goldman Sachs, know where we would rather live.

Slowing down is not that easy. I still can't sit still for long, but I will keep trying. I just hope Spain doesn't change in the meantime: there was an item on RNE radio the other day about a campaign to get Spanish people to read more, specifically on the beach. Apparently, people here don't read as much as other Europeans, and it is true you don't find that many bookshops, nor do you see people reading, mainly because they are having a good time outside. I am not sure this ought to change: it is much better staring into space, and too much reading makes you anxious.

Love is blind

Love is blind and looking back on some of the boyfriends I thought were sensitive and talented when in fact they were just pillocks, I see that is true. Well, there is not really anything wrong with trying to see the good in someone, but you can take it too far, especially as there are shrinks for that. But now I suspect I am doing it again. Before we left the UK, I irritated Sandy by only playing Spanish music and watching Spanish films for about a year.

Me: How about this? Jamon Jamon, it sounds good.
Sandy: Silence
Me: Jamon is ham in Spanish, you know. You like ham.
Sandy: OK, if you like. Watch what you want.
Me: It has Penelope Cruz. (In a short nightie, most of the time: this is the movie that made her famous.)
Sandy: Silence.

Later on, Sandy suggests we don’t always listen to Spanish music.
Me: What do you want on – Queen, I suppose. Or Meatloaf. (These are the only 2 bands Sandy really likes, except perhaps the Doors, though he has been known, under my influence, to listen to some country music.)
Sandy: What is the world’s best selling album ever? (I know the answer to this: we have been here before).
Me: I don’t know. The Beatles?
Sandy: No.
Me: The Rolling Stones?
Sandy: No, it is Meatloaf.
Me: I don’t believe it. I don’t know anyone who likes Meatloaf.
Sandy: Well it’s a fact. It’s in the Guinness Book of Records.
Me: I don’t know anyone who reads that, either.


On the drive down to Madrid to visit Sylvia, and pick up the children, the garage attendant flirts with me. That is, he feigned astonishment at the sight of me, offered to come with me and banged on the window as I left to encourage me to return to the garage on my way home. I think this was flirting: it could be, given that I was wearing my 5 Euros top from Lubrin market (brown glittery chiffon), that he just thinks I am a tart. Later, when I arrive in her huge, tasteful flat in Madrid, Sylvia takes a breath and says: “Well, now you look like a Brit in Almeria!”
“That doesn’t sound good,” I say, suspiciously. I am not wearing shorts, for a start, though I do have something like flip flops on, and they are not particularly clean.
“In a good way, of course,” she adds quickly.

Well, I should have worn something more urban: Madrid is not San Jose, after all. But the point is, no garage attendant has ever flirted with me in the UK. For a start there are no garage attendants – in Spain they still generally fill the tank for you - and if there were, they wouldn’t flirt, they would say something like “you want to see to that oil, love, before you have an accident.” OK, so he was five foot tall and presumably not very successful but hey, I went on my way feeling pretty lively.

Other good things about Spain: space. Space, and no traffic. I drove for five hours non-stop (apart from the garage), and saw about 3 cars. There is nothing on the road: the countryside (except it is not countryside, it is really land) turned from the dry brown mountains of Almeria into the greener, huge boulder like rocks that rise out of flat land around Murcia, and then into the yellow, flat plains of Castilla La Mancha. I got by mistake onto the new toll road to Madrid: it was like entering a parallel universe. There was nothing but the road cut in the red earth and, I swear, about 6 cars in an hour. Then suddenly there was Madrid, appearing in the middle of nothing and nowhere and in some way seeming part of the huge nothing and nowhere of Spain. How unlike Paris, ringed neatly with peripherique, or London, merging outwards into suburb after vague grey suburb. Well, how could you not love it: it is somehow incredibly normal and at the same time, like the weirdest, most David Lynch road movie, set in mid-west America.

On Friday morning, I sat with Sylvia near the Plaza Santa Ana, eating a medialuna. The sun was hot, the houses around us were eccentric with balconies, frescos, pink bits, Moorish bits, bits of everything. It is not stylish like Rome, or grey and elegant like Paris, and it is not wacky and untidy like London, but there is a bit of all of that, and then it is Spanish. It seemed there was somehow both shouting and formality, chaos and manners. It beats my description, at least for now.

On the way back, I stopped with the children at the Parador in Albacete. It is a restful, ranchlike building, appearing isolated in the flat yellow fields. A smart wedding party gathered at about 11pm. It seemed as if they were following some well-oiled ritual as they emerged, in evening dress, the women patting their hair a bit, into the central courtyard, where flowers were floating in the fountains. I walked round the cloister with my small, dirty children: the clothes were not the smart clothes at a Brit wedding –bought for the occasion outfits with obvious labels or imitations – and tags saying something about wallet or personality. The people – well dressed older men and women in particular - looked to me like characters from a film, in costumes that expressed the occasion, and were therefore somehow impersonal, clothes that a director might choose for a classic matron, rather than something with a price tag. The elegance looked knowledgeable and experienced but not cold, like French elegance – and unlike the UK, nobody was remotely drunk. Sylvia says there is a hard side to Spain but I still refuse to see it; in these early days of my ignorance of where I live, what I sometimes see is something very old, very mature and knowing, like a middle aged woman after many lovers, that maybe could amount to being hard.

I put my foot down all the way back: nobody appears to observe the speed limit of 120 and most cars seem to be driving at around 180. This is a function of space, I suppose – like Montana not having a speed limit until recently: it is easy to feel you own the road. My heart lifts as I drive down the Autovia del Mediterraneo. There is Almeria, the hills papery brown and dry and hot, patched with scrub, and as I drive towards my turn off I feel more and more happy. The road climbs into the scratchy desert-like hills: the heat gets more intense. It is not at all pretty, but then, love does not really fall for pretty, for Austria, for instance, which is fine for skiing and then you get bored. We are nearly in Africa in Andalucia after all, and with its cactuses, its desert, its different pace and its big dominant spaces, it feels like verging on the times and rhythms of another continent.

Not that idols don’t have clay feet, or at least the odd clay toe. One of these is the paperwork here, which is quite something. I never thought of the UK as un-bureaucratic, but now I see it is. Nobody asks to see your passport, or indeed anything except the colour of your money, before you buy anything, but here, it is quite different.

A while back, still trying to get to grips with the paperwork and before I realised it is easier to let things slip through your fingers here than try to grip them, I called Inma, our lawyer’s very nice and patient admin lady, about our residency cards. It was like this:


Me: Inma, now we are living here, Pedro said I should call you about our residency cards.
Inma: Oh, residency. Well, you need that if you live here.
Me: We are living here.
Inma: Oh, are you? Well, She said, oh yes, you have to go to Almeria office.
Me: Do we both need to go?
Inma: Yes, you do. It is personal, you need to go by the office.
Me: OK.
Inma: You want me to fix a meeting for you?
Me: Yes, please.
Inma: Well, send me your NIEs, your name and surname, all that, which I’ve forgotten.
Me (thinks: surely Inma (her actual name is Inmaculata), knows our names?) And our passport numbers, do you want those?
Inma (as an afterthought): OK, give me those, send me everything.

After I got off the phone, I wondered about the NIEs. I looked through our official papers here, which amount mainly to the escritura (official documentation of the purchase of a property). In there, among a lot of legal language, were various numbers, including one that called itself a NIF. I rang Sylvia and asked: what is a NIF and what is a NIE? She said, a NIF is a Nacional Identificacion Fiscal and the other one is a Nacional Identificacion de España. Or something like that. She said we couldn’t have NIEs yet as we weren’t resident, but Sandy appeared to have one. I sent all the numbers to Inma and waited. After a while I rang her. Chulia, she said loudly and clearly to me, I will try to call the office in Almeria, I call you back. Eventually when I did, she said that the office was moving address, she was waiting to here what address they would be at. She would call me back. We didn’t hear for a while. With a rare flash of insight, I said to Sandy: I bet she fixes a meeting without asking if we can make it. Later that day, we, I got a message on my phone saying we had a meeting for Friday, a day when Sandy was travelling and I was in Madrid. It went like this:

Ima: You call me back tomorrow as this afternoon the office is closed.
Me: (next day) Can we ask for another meeting, maybe on a day we could do?
Inma: No, you can’t ask for a meeting. It doesn’t work like that, you can’t ask for a meeting, they give you one.
Me: Well, that will be hard if Sandy isn’t here.
Inma: Maybe Monday, Tuesday.
Me: He isn’t here, he’s travelling. He has to work, you know.. Friday?
Inma: Well, I’ll send a mail to Almeria and say Friday, or the next week, then I’ll have to wait and hear back.

I called back a few days later. The secretary said, as she always does, Inma has just gone out for a coffee, call her back. Can she call me back? No, she’s very busy, best if you call. When we spoke, it went like this:

Me: Inma, I just thought I’d find out about that meeting in Almeria.
Inma: Yes? I have sent them a mail. But it’s fiesta this week, on Wednesday in all Spain and on Thursday in Albox.
Me: Yes, that’s why I thought I’d check about Friday? When we requested the meeting?
Inma: Oh. Well, maybe they won’t have time before Friday, or perhaps they’ll give you the meeting.
Me: But how will I know? You’re closed, aren’t you?
Inma: Yes, maybe the police will be closed, and we are closed. Then maybe it will be the week after.
Me: (giving up) OK! Bye!

While I was in Madrid, Sandy cheered himself up by buying a quad bike, which is the thing to have round here. Clearly, it is not going to get him to Madrid, or even Almeria airport, but it evidently made him happy. However, before long I had the lady from the shop on the phone. She said they needed his NIE number before they could “matricular” the bike. I said I wasn’t sure we had it on an official piece of paper. I offered her the “empadronimiento” which is a different piece of paper, in this case issued by the Mayor, which says we live at our address. I think, from what Sylvia said, that it’s a kind of census document. We certainly managed to buy the car with it. She said she would try that, meanwhile, I called Pedro, the lawyer, and asked if he had anything with the NIEs on it. He was on holiday, but said he would look and leave something at his parents’ house in Vera. Meanwhile, the quad lady said no, the empadronimiento would not do, it was out of date, and we needed to get her a “hoja de trabajo” – an official piece of paper of some kind – updating it. It is fiesta, so no go until Thursday, when I will have to go and queue up at the Ayuntiamento again.

Meanwhile, I found a letter from September, which mysteriously turned up, having been lost in the post until now. It was from the insurance company, cancelling our insurance. I called them and asked why; they said the bank had rejected the direct debit for no apparent reason, meaning we have had no insurance since June. I rang BBVA (ring us with any inquiry, it says on our statements), to ask why. The call centre said, you have to go into the branch for that. Later, I tried to buy some new insurance. No, you have to go into the branch, the call centre said. Hmm, but as it is fiesta, that will have to wait. As Sylvia kept saying to me, sarcastically, “African rhythms, African rhythms.” She is half French, half Spanish, and a fast, clever ex- journalist, so she has her perspective. I also love her: she is like me, only more so when many of my friends are like me, but less so, which makes me feel like hard work. Sylvia knows the answers to things, or looks them up at speed on the Internet, and she is the first person, I think, who tells me what to do and takes over – because I am the foreigner, and she is the native, but she is also a native who has been a foreigner. It is excellent: I can do what she says and stop worrying. “Tu tranquila,” she says to me, on more than one occasion.

When I got back, the painters were still at work in the house. They seemed to have done one window, maybe two, in a day. I mentioned to Juan that at this pace, they would be living with us for months. He said yes, they have their rhythm, but they do a very good job, which they did: the windows were a work of art. The rhythm is slow at times: nothing seems to happen for ages. You feel out of control and want to push things ahead, but you can’t. Then suddenly, it all happens very fast. The fiesta is over, the workmen appear, they work like crazy and it is all finished. And then it slows down again.
I feel maybe I am slowing down too, just a fraction. Sylvia ticked me off for not being assertive enough on the phone. “You don’t sound rude at all in Spanish,” she said. She taught me to say “¡Es inadmissible! firmly, (which I did, later, with Vera Gas who had failed to deliver gas bottles on either of the two days they said they would deliver.) I thought about this: it is true, I am not as assertive, or rude, as I would be at home. But then, I am still in the courtship days, and astonished at my luck. I am surrounded by this intense landscape, saturated with light and heat – you can hardly expect it to work like Madrid, let alone London. I got up at 7.30 and swam in the pool, surrounded by the mountains, which at that time are already swimming in the coming heat, the vines and the olives and almonds already sunlit. I feel astonished, and also grateful. After all, it is their remarkable country. Nothing gets delivered when you expect it, but the delivery, when it comes, is often quite breathtaking. It is hard to be rude, when I feel I might simply be missing a beat, not catching the right rhythm of the dance.

Peace on earth and in Almeria

I went to Lubrin market with my shopping trolley today and met Pablo in the bar Tasca; basically, wherever I go, there he is. I suppose unsurprisingly, since there are only about 3 places to go in Lubrin. I felt the usual sense of regret driving down the hill; I would really rather stay up there, but I had to get catfood. Of course, there wasn't any in the Spar, or none the cats would eat, so I had to grit my teeth and drive the extra 20 minutes to Vera, but at least I met Pablo. I told him I was thinking of renting a little office space in town, where I could put broadband. This was Sue's idea: she said other people would use it, especially if we had coffee and also the old Tourist Information office was empty and the Ayuntiamento would likely welcome it being occupied. Pablo seemed pretty keen on the idea, as always, one of his cousins is the owner of the building and he said he would ask. Meanwhile we had an interesting conversation with the various old men in the bar about thyme, tomillo, but not tomilla, a female version with larger flowers, or something of that kind, until another chap came in, who Pablo introduced as his brother. Again.
"Es buena gente," he told me, as usual. Everyone is, I pointed out, and he laughed and agreed with me. There are no bad people here, he said, firmly, and all the old men nodded sagely.


In Vera, I trolled round Mercadona buying weird things like ironing water, which I never bought at home. My consumer instinct has been diverted but like an underground river, it must out, even if it means deciding between rose and lavender flavour ironing water - plus "sabores del mar" cat food and then went back. I still cannot quite believe the drive home. My drive home used to be alright, once you got onto the Shoreham road, through a pretty valley, but it is nothing like the miracle of my drive now. It starts in citrus groves, with oranges and lemons lying on the ground, and then opens into the mountains, completely lonely, with only one house, apparently always closed, on the drive up. Strangely, it looks rather like Scotland, only dry - vast moorlands with the hills in a ring round the road, till you hit the upper valley and Rambla Alhibe, where Pepe's bar is. The first time we drove up, I thought we must have gone the wrong way; in the dark, it feels like the back of beyond or, as the man on the industrial estate said the other day "donde Cristo perdío el gorro," where Christ lost his cap, I think, which means, roughly the same thing. We saw two large chamois, or deer, the other day, on the slopes, and there must be herds, but usually nothing moves. Beyond Rambla Alhibe, it climbs round the hill again, quite steep and nerve-wracking until you are used to it and have to compete with your husband to see if you can do it in less than 8 minutes. Then you reach the upper plateau, and it opens into the almond orchards, some olives, and the rather tumbledown houses of Los Dioses, then Los Herreras. It is, as my neighbours say, very tranquilo, like peace on earth. I used to think of peace on earth when I went into the Shoreham valley after Sevenoaks, with all its flipping roundabouts and Tesco, but it is nothing like up here, where space is enormous, and you could wander for miles on a track without finding anyone or anything much, except maybe Antonio's goat farm. Well, it is a long way to the shops, but that's the point. Also, the bread van comes up on Friday, and fish and frozen stuff every other Tuesday, so if I were efficient I wouldn't even have to get in the car.

However, tomorrow I am off to Madrid for a couple of days, to see Sylvia and collect the children. It will be strange, and I feel an odd foot-dragging, even though I do want to see Sylvia, my best Spanish friend, and go to a bookshop. Though amazingly, I found one in Vera that sold some good Spanish stuff: I got a Carlos Ruiz whatever his name is who wrote the Sombra del Viento which I read last year, and more interestingly, Heat magazine, which I was concerned about missing. Having said that, when I picked it up with glee I suddenly felt uncertain about whether I wanted it. The English headlines somehow looked flat and boring, like the old life, and anyway, how much do I need to keep up with Kerry Katona? Maybe she is not so funny when you don't come into work and have a bitch about her? I don't suppose anyone knows who she is in Spain, and certainly there is no Iceland. Well, I got Hola, which has a main feature about Princess Stephanie of Monaco's daughter, and somehow seemed more attractive, with minor royalty looking tanned in nice sequinned evening dresses, rather than pasty English people who used to be on Big Brother being sick with no knickers on in a taxi, but I did get Heat too, just to check, but have not opened it yet. I also bought El País, the first paper I have picked up in weeks, although I have listened to Radio National de España a lot; most of the radio headlines are about fires, road accidents, Liza Minelli singing in Malaga and the rubbish strike in Almuñacar which means I am thankfully none the wiser about world events, except for the Tour de France and a Liverpool football match of some kind. I have also not opened El País yet, though I looked at the front: maybe later. When I read it in the UK, I noticed how little, excellently, there was about the US; far more about South America e.g. Mexican elections, which you hardly read about in the UK media, except maybe on about page 20 of the FT after a lot of columns about hedge fund regulations, etc, etc.

I was going to bed early to prepare for my five hour drive (must not go over 120 km/hour, or overtake any lorries according to husband's instructions) but Juan Mañas was due to come round to talk to me about the building work. He said, maybe 9 or 10, which might have meant 11, so I felt bound to stay up till now, nearly 12, which is probably safe; now he will not come either till I call him again to ask him, or until he thinks of it, maybe next week some time, or when I am out somewhere. Peace, or what?

More marital discord

Maybe it was the storm, but I had to storm off from dinner the other day and scream in the bedroom. I screamed at Sandy, but I am not sure it was him I was screaming at: it could have been myself, my mother, or anyone. It made a change from Telefonica, anyway.

It was all Xtina's fault; she started it by saying Sandy should have whatever car he wanted (a Landrover of course) as "he's made so many sacrifices," she said. She and Edouard have been staying here, looking for sinks for the house in Spain (150 Euros from the industrial estate here, £650 in Fired Earth) and things have been a bit heated from time to time; everyone is tired, it is very hot. I drove around translating "limestone, without a plughole" even though I didnt want to; I wanted to stay at home as I usually do, and ended up having to talk to Clemente, the very nice sink man who insisted on taking us on a bar crawl, about how you had to live life for now in case you died of cancer like his brother, while standing in a crowd eating kidneys of a toothpick. Anyway, we had a few glasses of wine, and the discussion about the car started and then she says that. Sandy had been silent most of the day, having arrived late on Friday (fiesta night) from the US; of course the logistics had all gone wrong and the body language all day was "you made me come here and put up with having to get back to Almeria instead of Heathrow", or at least that was how I read it. The fact is, he has not come out with any thing like "this is nice," or "lovely day," for a long time, not that he says things like that, being Glaswegian, but you would think he could acknowledge the good side of being here, even if he is having to travel a bit more; it is only four hours to Madrid if you put your foot down, after all. The silent Sandy body language got to me all day: as a result I did not lie about on a lounger like Xtina and Eddie, but chopped up wood and piled it up, getting the usual injuries, hung out washing, cleaned the terrace, watered trees etc, getting more and more angry/tearful to myself. So when Xtina came out with this, it was the proverbial straw and I ran off. Sandy came after me; I had hidden in the bedroom but clearly not very well as I was just behind a box. I was a bit (a bit!) hysterical and said I had spent months packing and organising the move and it was not fair for him to imply he was a victim who had been sacrificed as he knew perfectly well I had not made him come here and it was not my fault he had not looked at the logistics properly, I was not lying about on a lounger, it was very hard dealing with Telefonica, what about the children and their better life, I wish I hadn't come, I wish he hadn't come back, I would get a job in town and then he could go back to the UK, etc etc, this went on about ten minutes non-stop; meanwhile Sandy was just looking at me and not saying much except eventually, to BE QUIET. He said he could not remember why we moved, which was no good. I said he had to be clear I had not made him do it and eventually he did admit that it was not possible for anyone to make him do anything, and also that he did not wish he hadnt done it, but all the same you got the feeling that he thought maybe I had drugged him with that date rape drug or something. It was the same when he got married the first time: whenever I asked him why he had married Stephanie if he didnt like her, he said she had arranged it all without asking him and then it was too late. Seemed pretty unlikely to me, but maybe this is how he sees it: he does nothing but agrees with things for a quiet life and then finds out too late what he has done. Anyway, we had a tearful kind of make-up, but I was still angry underneath and I suspect Sandy was still whatever it is he is being, sulky, perhaps. The next day I kept giving him ideas of what he could do (flat in Madrid, give up IBM, etc) none of which were any good; it was like feeding an angry tiger with little flies. He did admit in the evening that the stars were beautiful; I went to take the dustbins to the gate and the sky was spectacular, but when I asked him to go with me and look, he said no, he knew what they looked like and was reading. As a test, I asked him about six times, but he kept saying no, which just shows there is no way I could have got him out to Spain without him wanting to go, if I cant even get him as far as the bins.

Anyway, he seemed a bit more sanguine yesterday; we went to the Viveros (garden centre) and bought 3 palm trees, a sort of banana and 4 jasmine and bougainvillea trellises. This would cost about £1m in the UK, but here it did not: the jasmine and bougainvilleas, which were about 7 foot tall, were 7.5 Euros each: it was fantastic, like being in a tropical paradise and I got excited about the garden. Even Sandy stirred himself to buy a lemon tree. He has now gone to Germany and the UK but is back in 2 days as I am the one driving to Madrid to pick up the children. He has no confidence I can do this without an accident, but I am going anyway, to see Sylvia and have a break from all the household stress: the sink was blocked yesterday but thankfully I poured caustic soda in it, no doubt illegal in the UK, and it seems to work again, though possibly only in the way Sandy and I are working out the "living in Spain" argument, until the next blockage or, with the passage of time, a proper plumber.

Julia, la Inglesa

Trials by telephone

It has been a week of storms (thunder and lightning), and of dodgy technology, and if one is evidence of the gods, then the latter is almost sufficient evidence of Satan. Anyhow, as all other methods have failed, I have resorted to prayer as the only remaining way to connect to the Internet; it seems to have worked. It is an indictment of my faith that this was a last resort; but there you go, with religion, there are so many ways to fail.

About a week ago, I called Juanjo, the Telefonica engineer. Hallo, remember me, Julia, la Inglesa. A cautious yes. Well, the Internet here isn't working really, I said. Had I tried turning the power off? Yes, turning things off and back on again is about the only technology trick up my sleeve (as taught by my husband, the technology whizz). Are the lights on, he asked? I wasn't sure which lights; there are 3 sets. He said it was probably a question of power, if not. I said there was plenty of power in the house; the washing machine was on. Go and look at the little box, he said (I think it was "little box," but the "ita," "illa" endings can be confusing. The cat flap is a puertacilla, but the little wooden shutter on the door is a portigo, there is also a puertita somewhere about.) Well, I could have looked at the box, except that the phone goes dead when I walk in that direction. I said I would look at it and call him back, but he said, no, he would call me back. I forgot to ask when, not that there is much point here. Times are very vague, today can be tomorrow, and 2 can be 4, or even 2 tomorrow. Eventually I called him back. Hallo Juanjo, remember me, Julia, the Inglesa. Yes, he did. He had tested the line he said, there was nothing wrong with it. (I wonder why he didn't tell me this before I called, but this happens quite a lot.) It must be a problem with the computer. I said I had to work, did he have any ideas for fixing the Internet? He said he was very busy at present, but he would try and call by the house. Would he call first and let me know? I have learned this one - people like to turn up randomly when you are out. Of course, he said. So far, he has been once, when I wasn't here; Pablo called round yesterday (when I was in the bath) and said he had seen the Telefonica van come and go.

This morning and last night, the phone was very dodgy. I called Juanjo this morning, on the same number. A lady said they didnt know where he was and this was not his mobile (or something to that effect). Weird. I called Technical Assistance. They insisted, as they do when they hear an accent, on putting me through to the English speaking service, who speak worse English than I do Spanish. I sort of managed to report the fault. "Lady," she kept saying. "Lady, I report this. Give me your mobile number.," I explained that the mobile would not work in the house, meaning there was not much point in giving it to her. Aha! the lady said, you need to call another number; this is not the mobile technical assistance number. "I KNOW, LADY," I said, as politely as I could. "I don't want to report a mobile fault." Silence on the other end. "I want to report the fault on the fixed line, the one I am talking on." "OK, lady," she said eventually. "I report it, maybe somebody get back to you. Later. Goodbye!" Or something like that.

Telefonica is, apparently, the most profitable telecommunications company in the world, but it is hard to see why, though the way the ladies in the call centre appear to have a goal of getting rid of the call as fast as possible may have something to do with it. Meanwhile, our efforts to get wireless broadband have been thwarted: there is no signal in Saeti, our area, or not till Telefonica put in the long-awaited mast, definitely due this year, next year, some time, or never, according to everyone I have asked.

Fiesta

On a more positive note, it was the village fiesta on Friday. Pablo told me about this in advance: there would be a lady with an accordion and importantly, the food and drink, or most of it, would be paid for by the alcalde, the Mayor. In the event, it was a good do: the accordion lady, who looked a bit like Miss Piggy, with the tiny feet Spanish women often have, was done up in sequins, and did not look promising, but turned out well; her voice was massive, and she somehow sang and played various instruments and the accordion at once. There was a lot of meeting everyone's cousins and aunties, including all the people from Barcelona (there was a big exodus to work there in the 60s, but they kept their houses and land and come back at fiesta), and a lot of pasadoble style dancing, with skirts and heads held up very high. It went on till 5 in the morning, though I gave up after being exhausted in a kind of line dance which is apparently a standard fiesta exercise. I lay in bed at 4, listening to the music which by then was less Carmen and more the Birdie Song.

It is strange to think that not long ago, under Franco, the village - which is more or less one family, everyone is related - was divided. Pablo told me that his father and cousin had to run away across the fields and eventually to Madrid on one occasion, when the other side came hunting them; his mother was pregnant and told them they weren't there while they ran out of the back way. The cousin came back later and was shot. In my imagination, this time is coloured, horrifically, by the most frightening and nightmarish film I had seen for years when I watched it earlier this year: Pan's Labyrinth. I had nightmares afterwards, matched only by the ones I had after mistakenly going to the Saatchi gallery and got trapped in ghastly exhibits of headless bodies like Medieval hell. (Not that I like any gallery; the last time I went was in Madrid, to the Thyssen, where it gave me the creeps watching everyone walking around like a funeral cortege, muttering reverentially and staring at graven images in frames: most of them of powerful dead people, or tortured saints. Everything started to look like something on a butcher's slab: even the baby Jesus looked peculiar: much better to be outside, where there are some quite nice plants out the front. Anyway, I was hungry: I sat outside and then I thought of Walter Savage Landor lines I learned at A Level "Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art, only in my mind it was "Nature I loved, and next to Nature, food," which luckily was Sandy';s view too, so we went and stuffed a lot of tapas and recovered.) All the more reason to live here: there are no galleries for miles in any direction, except for the kind selling some Spanish town scenes by a local artist, probably a Brit.


Pan's Labyrinth, however, was good as well, and set in sierra not so different from this, now so peaceful and friendly it is hard to imagine the bodies that are, presumably, not far from the surface.In the same way, everything you read tells you there is a harsh, ruthless side to Spain, but it is hard to sense it; perhaps, having reached democracy late, they are determined to forget anything else existed.

I went round yesterday to see Antonio, the man in the wheelchair who brought me the tomatoes: I had a tin of Scottish Tartan biscuits , which I thought suitable exchange; however, he had gone out to see Consuelo so I was left talking to Juana, his wife (another Juana, another Antonio: everyone is related.) A lot of the discussion was about his illness; people generally like talking about illness here, but I suppose as most of them are retired, that is not surprising, but some of it was about her daughter, Maria Juana, but thankfully called Marie, whom I met at the fiesta. Juana said Marie had told her she had met the Inglesa (me) and she also knew everyone else I had met and spoken to. I said I would be pleased to get to know Marie, which I will. As I walked back along the rambla, I reflected on being "Julia, la Inglesa," clearly a different person from Juliet S, or Juliet A, both of whom I had been before. It is rather like the opposite of Cheers, "the bar where everyone knows your name," this is a village where nobody knows my name, or if they do, it is something like "Juli," or "Julia," (of course in Spanish it sounds quite different with the "ch" of "loch" for a J). I prefer it that way: it allows you to be anyone, or nobody - you are first and foremost defined by being the foreigner. I remember my great aunt Beate, who lived the last fifty of so years of her ninety six in a small village in Switzerland, telling me that the neighbours still referred to her, after forty odd years, or more, as "the foreigner:" now it seems I am somehow in the same place, and maybe always will be. Well, I know enough shrinkology to work out the appeal of that: after all, my other great aunt actually was a shrink, and everyone else in my family seems to have either been something like one, or else a mental patient. It is much easier not to have to live with the expectations of your society, peer group or family. This is why "only gay in the village" Neville told me he was only able to be gay when he left South Africa (well, not immediately, given that he was married to Moira at the time, but that didnt last and then slowly out went Moira and in came Jamie, black leather and earrings). It is a big relief not to have to be a success, earn a certain amount, look pretty - but only be a foreigner. It explains away a lot - basically, anything daft I do can be put down to the fact that after all, I am Julia, la Inglesa. And if spending an hour a week on the phone with Telefonica is the price I have to pay, then so be it; it is probably worth it.

Stressed - but in a good way

Tuesday

I am still not that tranquila. "Tu, mucho estres," Pablo kept saying to me. We were on the way to Albox, to have the ITV (MOT) done on the old Hyundai. I called the ITV centre in the morning to check my appointment and found out it was for 12, (doce) not 2 (dos). I dashed over to Pablo's - he was in the goat shed - and asked him if he could make the time. Sin problemas, no problem. But there were, of course. Just as I was about to drive round to his house, the Hyundai wouldn't start. This was despite the fact that I had left the battery unconnected (you have to, because the door warning light won't go off, and drains it). Pablo came round and asked me if I thought I would pass the MOT with "that"? Hmm. We jump started it and went across country to Albox - a nasty place full of ghetto British people. I explained to Pablo that I needed Consuelo, his daughter, to colour my hair dark so nobody would know I was English. He pointed out that I would still have an accent, so I said he'd better improve his teaching.

Amazingly, the car passed. The MOT cost 30-something Euros, and that includes road tax. It lasts for 2 years. A bargain. Pablo explained that the MOT centre in Albox is better than the one in Vera, which is state-owned. It is private, therefore more flexible. Excellent. There was no way I would have got through it on my own, though: you have to queue in the right queue and then follow a lot of instructions over a loudspeaker - though I might have been able to play the stupid Englishwoman card, of course. On the way back, Pablo and I had a drink in a bar - as usual, he knew half the people in there and they were all related to him. One old guy, Augustin, told me what great people the British were. I looked doubtful; afterwards Pablo told me he makes money selling them houses. But he does like them, he added, they are "buena gente." Everyone here is always "buena gente;" on the way back, Pablo explained that he was doing me a favour taking me to Albox, and that was because we were friends; it would not be friendship if he charged me for it. I agreed with this, and said maybe I could do him a favour, but I didnt know what. He laughed and said: take me to England. I said Sandy could do that any time, but Pablo said there were the goats to think of, and when I said I could look after them, he just laughed. I was quite persistent though; in a year or so, there is every chance I will be able to keep my eye on 250 goats.

The decorators, meanwhile, were finishing the ceilings. The four efficient Romanians from the day before had gone; they spoke good Spanish and also cleaned up with the mop and broom after themselves, something they told me the Spanish builders never did. Romanians are everywhere in Europe, they said - can't be bad, if they are all as smart as these. The Spanish lot did a beautiful job, but left a huge amount of rock on the floor. Maybe it's not the done thing for men to use the mop. I cleaned up till about 10.30, then sat outside on the terrace and listened to the animal noises. Something got Cheeky 2, the next door dog, barking all night.

Wednesday

Went to Lubrin market this morning but forgot my old lady wheelie trolley so had to trot back and forth from the car with my plastic bags of vegetables. This involves quite a steep hill up to the church from the main road. When I think of circling Sainsbury's car park to get close to the door! Met a few neighbours - Maria, Juana and Pablo's son's girlfriend from the Ayuntiamento and went into the legendary post office, where the lady always says there are no parcels, without looking. There was no parcel. I had a drink with Pablo and Maria from Los Fuenblanquillas, the next village- they entered into a long discussion about the guy who had tried to charge us 9,000 Euros for an hour of water, and how it was "una locura," crazy. The whole irrigation water thing is very complex: extra water for the land, as far as I can understand, is owned by individuals or societies and is bought and sold either with or without land. I want some - not that I'm going to irrigate anything, but it's a good thing to have; however, at 1,500 or 2,000 top whack, according to Pablo.

This evening, my neighbours Consuelo and Isa came round to look at the house and be friendly. They joked about having a glass of weak Lambrusco and how it would make them drunk, said I had to find Isa a "novio", boyfriend, and talked about the fiesta that's being held on Friday in the village; it is paid for by the Ayuntiamento and features a lady on an accordion and free drink. Absolutely, I will be there. They asked me to join the group of women that walks round the village at 8.30, chatting. Absolutely. I am very flattered. "That way, you'll learn a lot of Spanish," Consuelo said. She has already taught me something that evening: the teenage years are know as the "edad del pavo," the turkey years. Most suitable: at nearly 13, Alexander is just beginning to be a bit of a turkey.

Finally, the broadband man came up to day. Though Iberbanda is Spanish, it was an English guy that came up. He didnt even get out of the car to deliver his "no way, love," speech. Bugger - but later Sandy pointed out that if we go for 4 megs, we might get a big satellite and this could work. Not that I really care for me - I actually could go off the whole online thing and just read books, but Sandy is still suffering logistics stress, and if broadband makes him happy..

A little reflection

This is a big change from my old life, and it should be hard, but it isn't. Is this because it hasn't gone on long? Will I wake up one day and miss London Bridge station? Will I stop feeling happy just to be walking through Lubrin market with a trolley on wheels, shopping for tomatoes and chorizo? I can't imagine it ever wearing off, and if I could, I need only remind myself that my neighbours, who have always lived here, constantly say how good life is here. "It's a great life here," they all say: carpenters, builders, housewives, everybody. Who ever says that in the UK? Is the fact that they don't just the famous British understatement or irony - or do they mean it? In any case, they mean what they say here: it is good.

When we decided to come here, quite a few people said to me "oh, you're brave." Not really: I don't miss commuting under grey skies at all and doing what you want isn't brave. Anyway, I do feel scared, constantly. I was scared about the ITV test, scared about the flipping broadband. I'm a bit scared of driving to Madrid, but I'll still do it. I think I read somewhere that people mean by "brave" is not that you feel less scared, but that you are prepared to act rather than not act despite being scared and I suppose this is true.

Some things don't scare me: like ghosts. Consuelo said she was too scared to be on her own in the house, but I feel completely safe in this old farmhouse, in this remote village. The noises outside, whatever they are, are part of the landscape. What frightens me is newspapers and their terrible stories, depression and bad weather, and not Cheeky 2 barking at the old boar trundling through the olive trees, when it is pitch dark outside.