My neighbour has got some chickens. Well, actually they have got quite a lot of animals, but lets just focus on the chickens in this post. Antonia is the old lady living there, and some of her eight (!!) children and her granddaughter. My guess is Antonia must be later seventies/ early eighties by now with a life involving a lot of physical labour. She is now not too steady on her feet due to an operation in her leg, arthritis and generally just being old.

I don’t know for sure, but I am quite sure that she still does most if not all of the cooking at home. After all she is the woman and I have a feeling that her sons wouldn’t have a clue. You must remember I live in rural Spain, and unfortunately equality has quite reached these parts. I better make sure I hold on to my boyfriend as he would be quite a catch: he can cook, clean, look after the baby, tidy up and be a handy man at the same time.

Anyway Antonia wanted to go down to the weekly market this week, but it is at the other end of the village and quite a walk away. I was leaving in the car with El Rubio going to the next village on our eternal hunt for good, well priced, not fully booked, close by nurseries so Antonia asked if I could give her a lift to the market.

She insisted on giving me 5 euros for the trip which I refused as that was just plain silly. As we drove down there she turned around in her seat and handed the 5 euro note to El Rubio who was in his seat in the back. I nervously tried watching the road whilst keeping an eye on him the review mirror as he repeatedly had a little taste of the note. I guess he’s got a taste for money!

Anyway, I managed to get the note of him and hand it back to the old lady. So later that day I received 5 very newly laid eggs from their own chickens. I shall enjoy that as they are generally not big on organic free range stuff here in Southern Spain.

If I am lucky I might get some more another day, that is if my cat or two dogs haven’t killed the chickens before that…