Staying with the subject of break-inns, I think the Spanish have a funny Christmas decoration habit. They are crazy about hanging Santas on the outside of their houses. He hangs there on a ladder-like thing looking fake and silly.

On some streets you might have up to 20 santas hanging there, that must be a bit confusing fo the kids as we know there is only one santa.

It is funny celebrating christmas in another country. It is one of those things that are only right if it is like it was in your childhood. At least my mum is coming over this year so that will make it more real.

The streets are now lit up at night with Christmas decorations hanging between the houses. I’m afraid my pics are not that good as they were taken with my phone camera, which in turn makes them excellent considering they were taken with my…phone camera! It looks so nice when you walk around it the dark, although it is a bit funny seeing palm trees wrapped in lights. Palm trees + christmas= not sure. I need to go a bit further up in the mountains to look at some pine trees, they are definitely more Christmassy.

That sounds like some advert in a lousy magazine. But it is actually what happened to a friend of mine.

In the weekend El Hombre ran into one of our neighbors whilst out with the dogs. “Have you heard” she said “there are some robbers in the village”. No, he had not heard about it. Well, 2 girls had seen a skinny black man borrow Diegos, who lives around the corner, ladder. He then proceeded to break in to another house in the street and steal various items. Apparently this is what he does. Borrows Diegos ladder and then break in.

El Hombre thought that it sounded like a very disorganized thief and went on with his day.

Later we ran into our friend C. “I had a really poor nights sleep” he said,”you will never guess what happened. I had to get up and 2 in the night as one of the neighbors had forgotten her key and only realized when she got back from the local disco bar and 2 in the night. So I had to borrow Diegos ladder so I could crawl through one of her windows and let her in.”

And to be straight with you, C is not exactly skinny and neither is he black (are you “allowed” to say that with all the political correctness around?). So we had a really good laugh after discovering his thieving alter ego.

On reading this post musing over the stupid health and safety regulations in the UK and how you could go over the top, it makes me laugh living here in Spain.

If you could sue and actually get quite a bit of money out of it here in Spain, they would be bancrupt.

I have never (ok, that’s a lie, it was probably worse in Africa, Egypt and Vietnam,ha ha a bit of travel name dropping) seen so many potholes, stupid constructions etc. anywhere else in the world and I would certainly not want to be in a wheelchair in Spain.

You would, to put it bluntly, be fucked. Without additional help I doubt you would be able to leave your house on your own.

I wouldn’t mind knowing what the statistics for break-ins is in small villages. I am sure it can’t be very high, at least not for the houses in the center of the villages.

As I have previously written, there are always old men on benches scattered around town. Surely they must know everything about everybody’s whereabouts. About who lives where and who is away at work or on holiday.
The old Spanish men seem to hog the public areas such as squares, streets and bars where they gather together to play domino whilst maybe having one coffee in 4 hours.  I do wonder how some of these bars and cafes make any money if they are frequented by lots of old men, because they just hang out being noisy but spend next to nothing. Still, nobody ever seems bothered.

The old Spanish women on the other hand seem to only be in the shops, the market, their house and the street in front of their house where they can be seen frantically sweeping and mopping (yes, sometimes they do mop the actual street).

A few times I have arrived home only to be greeted by the old women in my street telling me that El Hombre arrived home a bit earlier. We joke with the fact that it would be impossible to ever have an affair as the old people would know.

I must be impossible to break in to a house in the center of the village. The old women would know if you were away on holiday, and they usually make it their business to know everything about your family as well, so no use pretending to be a cousin who forgot his key.

Maybe I should create a private investigation company solely hiring old people. They know everything and what they don’t know they will find out as they are so nosy. Sounds like a win win situation. Remember, this was the first time you heard of Private Geriatric Eye!

I’m sitting at my local square and it’s a lovely Sunday afternoon. The sun is out and is making me realize that I have completely overdressed, well for sitting in the sun anyway. It is fairly quiet here which is fine as El Rubio is sleeping in his pushchair next to me.
The square is almost deserted. Almost, because there is always a few old men hugging the benches and observing everything that goes on. They sit here at certain times of the day when there is sun on the benches. I think they must have an itinerary that they follow in the winter. One that leads them from bench to bench in the village depending on where the sun is.

El Rubio and I have been thrown out of the house as El Hombre is putting up shelves and the noise with the drill is far to noisy when El Rubio needs to sleep. He had a bottle, fell asleep and I took him and my laptop down to the square to sit in the sun and write a bit.
There is no wireless here (that would be great though to be able so sit outside and being online as well, but I can imagine we might have to wait a few more years for that yet…) but I can obviously still write and then just post it later.

Or just sit here with my face towards the sun

The other day I had to get up really early to drive down to a larger city down on the Coast. I was going to the Social Security office to sort something out and had be advised to get there an hour before they opened as it was very likely there would be a long queue.

So when I left my village it was still dark. I joined the convoy of white vans and a few other cars like myself winding their way down the mountains to work or do other business.

It felt quite peaceful. Because of the amount of cars, we were like one long convoys snaking our way down. No point in stressing or trying to overtake. Just slowly drive along.

The tops of the mountains had a lovely pink hue as the sun was rising and I was trying to just enjoy the whole thing and not think too much about the fake smell of coconut filling the whole car.
You see, we had the car cleaned and they seem to have a penchant for using fake coconut smelling products. Disgusting.

Well at least they didn’t leave one those horrible Wunderbaums hanging from the review mirror. You know, the smelly Christmas threes people seem to favor.

So apart from the smell of coconut, a really nice zen-like start to my day.

Ok, this one will be a bit tedious for the one who already know how to count in Spanish, but the rest of you might find it fun to learn how to count to ten. Here we go:

VideoJug: How To Count To 10 In Spanish