Poor poor me. I’ve had a nasty affair with the flu for 4 days. Cannot remember the last time I was properly ill like that, must be years ago.

It got better in general when I moved to Spain, but I am guessing that now El Rubio has started daycare (yes, I found an ok one and he has started. Completely forgotten to write about that. It is going well so far.) I expect there will be a lot more colds and flus coming my way.

So the bed mostly and the sofa a little bit has been my friend. I couldn’t even watch TV as it was too bright and noisy. Just give me a dark room and a hot water bottle. And Lemsip. Lots of  lemsip.  It is one of those things that brits abroad take with them. Unfortunately I was about to hurl after having had lemsip for 3 days and I was desperately trying to find out if someone in the village might have blackcurrant flavour as I had had more than enough of lemon.

No luck in other flavours, but someone had them as tablets rather than sachets, so that did the trick. And more!
Because it seems there was also quite a lot of caffeine in them, so for 2 night in a row I have been unable to fall asleep but dead tired in the morning.

Anyways, I am all better now and just about to brave the rain to take the dogs out for one last walk before we go to bed.

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.

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.

Eating too much chocolate? Want to cut down but don’t know how to?
I’ve got the solution for you…

Move to Spain!

The country of great wine, tasty Jamon Serrano, excellent climate and shit chocolate!

I spoke to a friend on the phone today and she was eating a Curly Wurly.
Cow.
 I looove Curly Wurlys. So not fair when what seems available down here is limited to the massive brands that are every where like twix, mars bars, nestle chocolate bars, kitkat and loads of Kinder Chocolate. The latter is probably so popular because there are too many stupid parents thinking it is healthy because there is milk in it. ‘Con Leche’ it proclaims with massive letters on the packs, and the parents fall for it like nobodies business. I have seriously never watched such a gross intake of sugary products anywhere else in the world. They are mad, but I do think they innocently believe a lot of it is ok and not the crap food is really is.

That was slightly beside the point. I wanted to tell you about by chocolate cravings and inability to fulfill them with quality chocolate. 

I feel really sorry for myself.

If you happen to work at a chocolate factory (and your name is Mr. Wonka, ha ha) then feel absolutely free to send me a large box of your chocolates.

I went for a really nice walk with the doggies today. It was slightly down a valley so the sun had not yet warmed the ground and I could feel the chill still in the air.

Made me miss proper winter when it is below cero and the grass is all crunchy when you step on it. Which you will only get rarely where I am in Spain and only really if you go a bit further up the mountains. Though we did have a very cold winter some years ago where it was -5 º for several days. Imagine how cold I felt going to the bathroom in the patio! I am not sure the villagers knew what had hit them. A lot of the elder women simply put a bathrobe like thing on top of their ordinary clothes. Very efficient to combat the cold, but absolutely not a pretty sight.

The doggies loved it. There was loads of shrub for them to hide in so they could play hide and seek with each other, which is a favorite game. Usually one of them will try to hide and then pounce on the unsuspecting other, huge chase ensues followed by wrestling, dragging to the ground and growling. I really don’t think I know of other dogs playing that rough with each other. They don’t play the same way with other dogs they know.

I got some pics on my phone of the lovely setting, the dogs and a little flower. I am fairly sure it is a kind of lavender, maybe just a Spanish kind or a wild kind, you can be the judge. But it didn’t smell of much.

There is a horse in our back garden. A brown and very friendly horse just wandering around and eating grass and whatever else it is that horses eat. It is here by arrangement.

That sounds funny. “I have arranged to have a horse in my garden”.

It is the neighbors’ horse and it is there on a mission. A mission of getting rid of all the green stuff.

The garden is completely overgrown and in need of some tlc, so we brought in a horsey expert to do the hard work and I must say he is very efficient. He even leaves little poo piles here and there which is great for the garden (or the weeds maybe?)

Summer gone it was looking just as overgrown as it is now, but everything was yellow and dry rather than green and juicy. If there is such a thing as juicy grass?

Because of the high risk of fires in the campo (countryside) in southern Spain our neighbor wanted us to put poison in the garden to get rid of it all. I was not keen. They are too bloody keen on chemicals in Spain. Being it bleach to clean your home or weed killer.

But now we have arranged this horsey gardener with the neighbor and it is brilliant. And a pretty sight. I will see if I can get a picture of him before he finishes work.

Don’t worry, I’m not going bonkers and it is not standard procedure for me. I simply did it because it made things easier.

You see, we have signed up to a new adsl line. And even getting connected to the internet in Spain, let alone getting a decent adsl connection in Spain can be quite a challenge. At least I am in the centre of a village which makes it a lot easier. But this post is not about getting adsl, I will save that for another time, but about me, moi, yours truly lying through her teeth and pretending to be a man.

I received an sms from our new adsl company stating that the person on the bill of our telephone line had to call to accept the new adsl line. That was not me, but el Hombre.

As I really wanted to get things moving avoiding too much manana syndrome and with El Hombre being out all day, I thought what the heck.

So I called up pretending to be him. I probably sounded a bit weird and rather gay and I had to really get a grip quite a few times as I was about to piss myself.

But I managed and now el hombre will be now as the gay sounding guy at our adsl company. He he.

The old lady next door, the one that gave me eggs for a lift to the market, wants a gun.

I was walking the dogs and she was out in the garden when she stopped me. Her hearing is not too good so she wanted to ask me about something El Hombre had said to her the other day when he was in their garden rescuing their chickens from our cat. He was ready to pounce probably feeling he had graduated enough on mice and rats to go after bigger prey.

So she stopped me and said that he had asked her if she wanted a gun. I assured her that he had said no such thing and that she must me mistaken as I was feeling slighly embarrassed that she would now think we were the type of people having guns and trying to sell them to old ladies.

Shame, she said, because she wanted to buy one.

I almost dropped El Rubio in surprise.

But don’t worry, she continued, she wasn’t going to kill anyone. She wanted it to chase away dogs that were going for the chickens. Last year all her chickens had gone because of stray dogs preying on them.

“I couldn’t even kill a cat” she proclaimed. Well neither can I and I consider that a fairly normal thing. One doesn’t really go around and kill cats, eh?

I told her again we didn’t have any. Not for us and not for her, and that I thought it was a bad idea if she got one.

What if her grand daughter got hold of it? And the old lady has arthritis so she might not be able to hold it completely still and shoot someone rather than a stray dog?

She didn’t seem bothered but I sincerely hope she never gets hold of one. Crazy old bat.

During the midday meal or la comida, the Menú del Día or Menu of the Day is generally offered and is the most economical way to eat at a Spanish restaurant. It normally includes a soup or salad, main course with a side dish and dessert – all for one price. It’s a great way to taste some traditional Spanish food and it will probably include dishes that you would not have ordered if left on your own.

In my area you can often get a menu del dia for around 7 euros, but don’t order it if you afraid of fat as they can be a rather greasy affair sometimes. Spanish people and their olive oil…But one thing is for sure: you will not leave the table hungry! It is available at spanish restaurants and ventas and will include a drink which could be some spanish wine, water or maybe a beer at the same price.

Unfortunately since the menu changes daily depending on season and what is fresh on the market, the choices on the menu are often not written down, but presented verbally by your waiter. Who will then proceed to let your know your choices in a quick fire way prompting you to make him repeat it up to 3 times…some people are not very good at understanding what it is like to be a novice in Spanish. Rather than speaking clearly and slowly, they think just repeating the same thing but louder will make it much clearer to you. NOT.

Just writing about this is making me hungry, so I must go. Lunch is waiting in the kitchen, only one course though, and not very Spanish.

So we have now moved into our own house after the reform and to tell you the truth it feels like Christmas morning every morning at the moment! I am so happy waking up there every day.

One of the reasons is that it is so nice and warm in our new old house is the log burner we got. I seriously didn’t think that it would make that much of a difference, but it has! My previous winters in Spain have always been fairly cold, even if the Spanish winter weather is nothing compared to northern Europe. But you see, here they build the houses as if it was summer all year round and as if winter comes as a surprise year after year.
“What? It’s cold? That’s a surprise. Really didn’t expect that even if it did happen last year. And the year before that. And the year…”

The always keep the main door open here in the village, so even if the houses were warm, it would all disappear out in the open. Instead they keep coals in a special coal container under the tables and the sit around the table with the extra thick multi layered table cloth tucked around them. I cannot imagine anything worse on those long winter evenings than being forced to sit around a table with the whole family (3 generations of course) the whole evening just in order to stay warm.

After I had El Rubio I had to do a tour-de-neighbour to show him off and was also squashed in between them around their table with the thick table cloth nicely tucked around me. Without sounding too arrogant I felt I was 40-50 years back in time!

But our log burner…I tell you…it is literally heating up the whole house! I have been walking around in a t-shirt and flip-flops when my usual attire is a massive jumper and boots and even a blanket wrapped around me when I sat in front of the computer. Just like an old lady.

This winter I will be dancing around the house enjoying the fresh cool air outside instead of being miserable. Bring on the snow and the frost, because for once I am prepared!

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…

Before I got pregnant I was working in an office in another town. Because I was working at a foreign company we didn’t have the usual Spanish lunch hours of 14-17 but kept it to one hour.

I was quite pleased with that as it meant I would be getting home earlier in the day and for me it just felt…ehm…normal to do it like that.
This meant I would usually bring a lunchpack with me to work instead of going out for a Menu del Dia which is the norm when you are working in Spain. Every morning I went to one of the local shops to buy a little baguette or chapata so I could make a sandwich to bring with me. And how frustrating that was! You just never knew how long it would take you, as buying something in a shop in Spain is not as straightforward as just buying something. Nooo… you have to talk a bit about the weather, and how is your cousin and did you hear what so and so did yesterday. Obviously this gets worse when you live in small village and everybody knows each other and are probably related as well. So I would patiently stand there waiting and waiting whilst they chatted away whilst inwardly cursing and starting to think of excuses for why I was late for work.

That is until they realised I was going to work and not a house wife. All of a sudden I got pushed to the front of the queue every morning I went there, amongst murmurings of “She is going to work, she is going to work (They like repeating themselves here in the village)” and from then on getting that lunchpack done every day was not such a hassle.

I guess finding a job in Spain is not a priority for a lot of the women. Especially up here in the smaller villages there are a lot of illiterate people who have been used to living of the land. I just don’t think I could ever NOT work. Of course it would be nice to work less, but to do nothing at all (of course there are always things to do when you have kids) but make me depressed and feeling inadequate.