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This week began with a trip to Burriana Beach with my friend and her daughter, luxuriating on the sunbeds with the thick mattresses under coconut parasols. This was perfect preparation for a diversion into Nerja town for my shopaholic companions to get another fix. As a shopaphobic, I stationed myself outside a central café/bar overlooking the church square, indulged in some delicious hummous and pitta bread and browsed through a magazine between eating and people watching. There was a feeling of something imminent by an increased police presence, some of the square cordoned off and some young band members tuning (well tooting) their instruments! Anyway, the church clock chimed 8 p.m. and out of the church came a Madonna in muted gold, on a plinth festooned with fresh white lilies, holding toddler Jesus’s hand. Unlike the Puente Madonna who was carried along supported on people’s shoulders, the Nerja Madonna was being held up high with outstretched arms, by some very muscular, tanned Spanish men, wearing medals around their neck (not sure if they were in recognition of their strength, but they deserved them to be!). Outside the church, the men continued to hold the plinth at arms length and sway in rhythm to the now familiar female Spanish wailing music. The article I was reading was about mindfulness, but I couldn’t even concentrate my mind on it enough to finish it – everything was far too exciting. Exploding rockets were being set off at irregular intervals from a roof somewhere, and a troop of dancers, ladies dressed in electric blue dresses with full skirts and white petticoats and men with trousers like matadors were swinging themselves and eachother around using castinets trailing multicoloured ribbons. The crowd were clapping and cheering, a cameraman was filming for the local cable t.v. and all the time the strong muscular men were swaying Madonna from side to side.
Eventually, the singing stopped and the band formed on the street playing the same strange tune as the Peunte parade. The Madonna men finally rested her plinth poles on their shoulders and set off on their march around the tiny, crowded streets of Nerja, followed by a crowd and saluted by frequent rocket explosions.
My friend, having missed the performance, returned laden with many bags accompanied by her terrified daughter, who has an intense fear of fireworks!!!!! That had to be about the worst place for her so we quickly sought refuge in a delightful Mexican bar where the live music drowned out the noise, and there was much to offer for the vegetarian palate.
Having a speedy change over day with my friends departure followed by the arrival of a group of 8 young Australians saw Alex and I going off to our first house party over here, totally exhausted. At the friend’s 60th there was lots of delicious food and drink, a backdrop of lake vinuela and mount maroma from their veranda and comparing of notes with lots of other ex-pats. Pictures were passed round of a fire which had taken hold on the other side of the hill across our valley where one couple lived. They showed how the Spanish fire fighting helicopter had hovered over their next door neighbours pool, scooped water into its dangling bucket then precariously tipped the chopper to cascade the water directly over the flames. The fire was contained within two hours – about how long it took them to empty the pool which had probably taken the owners 24 hours and many euros to fill!
Meanwhile, back at Casa Alejandro it was very satisfying to find our guests having a wonderful time playing water volley ball in the pool – and actually keeping score (girls were winning of course). In the water they had the most ingenious contrivance which they have promised to leave for me. It is an almost conical shaped inflatable with a fat, ring shaped base with several cup holders around it. The top of the cone shape lifts off and inside you can keep your cans of beer on ice!! Well if that’s not a floating bar, then nothing is!
This week has seen the arrival of my son Rob and his girlfriend Sophie.Its like meeting folk from Rivendel going to meet them, as they are both so pale, tall and willowy, him with his long dreadlocks and her with her long silky dark hair – taking all the hassles of air travel in their strides, shrugging off any inconveniences, young ones’ style.
Whilst on our travels, to my delight, Rob found a tapas bar at Burriana beach which had a whole page of vegetarian tapas on the menu (eating in Spain is difficult for him, being a vegetarian who doesn’t like eggs!!).We decided to order all six options and share them, expecting that this was likely to be too much, but hey, it is their holiday.The bowls of olives were delicious, particularly the ones filled with jalapeño peppers and the raw strips of veges to dip in the spicy whiskey dip were delicious.However, these portions were rather small and the three little lettuce leaves filled with yoghurt and three manderine oranges were not really very tasty and the tiny dish of roasted potato cubes didn’t go very far, so we were really looking forward to our roasted vegetable skewers! Little did I think that such a dish could be prepared and delivered nouveau cuisine style! The first skewer came with four lonely pieces of vegetables at intervals on the stick – a bit of aubergine, a mushroom, some pepper and a third of a slice of one sleeve of an onion – the brown design on the plate by some drizzled sauce did look pretty, but pretty isn’t filling!!The vegetables on the cheesy skewer were just as lonely but at least had toasted cheese on them!Still being very hungry I ordered the champagne and lemon sorbet from the desert menu only to be presented with a lemon drink with a white blob floating in it.I have to say it tasted delicious but did nothing to reduce my remaining hunger.Straight from there to the icecream parlour was the only solution.Rob said he had enjoyed it all so that was good!
Friday night we walked to the local Italian where I knew Rob would be certain of getting something vege and we all had a lovely meal.At the other end of the block to the restaurant is a bar where a live band were expected so we all went there after our meal.Sure enough live music began so Al and I left the young ones there at about 2.30 after I had found myself doing a bit of head banging, urged on by a Scottish woman, and began walking home with our torch, both very merry and probably not shining it too evenly.As we were meandering along the track near the main road, admiring the perfect half moon which had just risen I suddenly became aware of a big spotlight heading towards us and a Guardia Civil (police) car stopped on the other side of the road.A deep Spanish voice shouted some enquiry we couldn’t understand and continued approaching us with his big flashlight so Alex, in his pigeon, drunken Spanish explained that we were English and we were going to our house whilst I shielded my eyes from the beam! It certainly made our torch with dimming batteries seem very dim and flickery. Anyway, this seemed to be what he needed to know as he uttered something which had reassuring tones, then returned to his car!Subsequent images in my mind of what we had looked like from his perspective kept me amused for the rest of our journey home.
Rob and Sophie had a good night mixing with local Spaniards communicating by gesture, odd Spanish words, a bit of French and drawings, returning home at 0700 to the delight of all the neighbourhood dogs who had been having such a boring night until then!
Before Christmas the builders started to build a trench along our road-to-be and bury the red concertina tubes inwhich pipes and wires are protected. The trench ended about three feet beyond the entrance to our driveway, so to leave our house it was necessary to leap over a gap about two feet wide and about three feet deep!
Whilst doing this work, they traumatized our sewer pipe, leaving it with a gaping hole! Having done this they then disappeared. Being here on his own, Alex felt that he couldn’t use our loo and had to leave the house in desperation each morning to breakfast in a café! When it became apparent that the builders were not about to return before the Christmas holidays, in desperation he fashioned a repair himself using building materials lying around the development. By the time we arrived for Christmas, it was working well and thankfully all loos were useable.
The trench however, filled with rainwater, creating a moat for us which we bridged with a couple of scaffolding platforms. Having spent previous visits where the only access was to cross a neighbouring field to get to our house, being able to pull the car up to the drawbridge was quite a novelty.
Worrying about any seepage from the sewer leak, we dropped a chlorine tablet for the pool in the moat which cleared the water and seemed to keep mosquitoes at bay. It had a little floating piece of wood in it and one of the sides wasn’t steep so the stray frogs were able to escape quite easily.
Finally, 6 months later, last Friday morning, we awoke to the sound of a JCB beavering away at the end of the driveway. Wishing I had some small children to take with me and discuss the virtues of “diggers” I wandered down to watch the excavations. Throughout the morning, Alex and I took turns to follow progress until just before lunch he came in to tell me they had completely severed the sewer, removing several feet of the pipe, then were finishing for the weekend and we couldn’t use water until Monday! Horrified, in my leopard skin sarong, I marched down to the boss builder to insist that this must not happen, to be reassured that he meant we just couldn’t use water on Monday morning. Gazing down at the severed pipe, Alex and I both looked at each other in horror!. I tried to ask in pigeon Spanish about flushing the loo and Alex did an excellent mime of sitting on a toilet, complete with grunts, as only a man can. The builder reassured us that it was ok to use the loo and showers etc. just waving his arms dismisslively as if we were making a fuss about nothing, but that on Monday morning we couldn’t use water and then he left.
In disbelief, every time something was drained or flushed we would rush down to the trench to see if anything was visible. Eventually of course, water trickled out, followed by gushing water and we knew what the weekend had in store for us!! At 7a.m. on a Sunday morning, there are no breakfast places open near here! Sure enough the trench started to fill with disgusting water and unthinkable contents! We kept adding chlorine in the hope of preventing the spread of disease and spent as much time away from home as possible, preparing our plan of action, photographs and speeches at the town hall if they didn’t return first thing on Monday.
Happily, before we had even woken up, the JCB had returned and some brave builders were down the trench removing remnants of old pipe. We left them to it and returned home in the afternoon to a good solid, brand new sewer pipe running along the bottom of our trench. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, later in the day they returned and completely filled the trench, compressed the ground and left us with renewed vehicular access to our driveway. Obviously we had to crack open the bubbly and celebrate!!
We (Alex and I, my two sons and sister Jenny) arrived to a rainy, muddy, roadless house with no power, so it was quite disappointing especially as we were hoping for an improvement on the previous Christmas when had arrived to find the water mains severed and had no water. However, we soon got a roaring real fire, some candles and even brewed up on the emergency gas cooker and had a really lovely evening. The wine started flowing and just all being together was wonderful.
The next morning Alex sorted out the power cut by visiting the local pylon and finding a mains switch! DIY in Spain is in a completely different league to England, not your usual tiling and shelf erection but mains water, sewer repairs and mains electricity!
Christmas eve was glorious sunshine and we were able to have our breakfasts outside on the back patio and we all just jollificated our way through Christmas having food, drink and being merry in the plenty. The boys and Jenny even had a swim in the pool, but this was more of a dare than a pleasure and happily they survived without suffering hypothermia. The video is like a comedy sketch. Alex got a remote control submarine for one of his presents so he has been playing with it and his yatch on the pool (ooops sorry, not allowed to say “playing” –using his submarine and yatch!), I have just enjoyed looking at it!
Saying goodbye to the boys was quite emotional as I felt like the mother who abandoned her children, but they were both so lovely and reassured me that they were actually very happy for me!
The remaining three of us went to Malaga city to see the Christmas lights which were really beautiful, even trees had been wrapped in light netting and the atmosphere was very jolly.We were amused and entertained to see an electrician repairing some lights on the huge artificial tree in the square, observed by many onlookers until he completely disappeared inside the bottom of the green conical foliage – worryingly followed by some curious children! Once he switched them on again, everyone was agog with admiration and oo’s and aa’s until smoke started billowing out from between the branches and a policeman dived into the bar we were sitting outside and grabbed a fire extinguisher, also disappearing into the foliage of the tree. Fortunately he re-emerged in tact, smoke died down but the tree remained in darkness!
New year’s eve was great as we spent the day on the beach, had a lovely Chinese meal on the sea front then came home and partied. Spanish New Year tradition is to eat a whole grape for each of the twelve bongs at midnight. Jenny managed to eat hers soaked in cava (the grapes, not Jenny), I nearly managed it but Alex had loads left. After much singing, drinking, phoning and watching all the fireworks across the valley we tuned in to English t.v. and celebrated all over again. We extended our celebrations to 4a.m and spent our first of January, much the worse for wear.
Well, it doesn’t seem like we’ve actually moved here for good yet, we have just been partying all the time. I expect it will start to sink in once Jenny has left and we have checked our bank balances! Before then we have the Spanish Reyes celebrations which is when the three Kings come in the night and leave presents so we will obviously have to participate!
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