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.