Pueblo Girl

2011-12-25T21:58:00.000+01:00

I've been remiss.

I usually am.

Although I belong to the "Bah! Humbug!" category of Christmas celebrators, this is no reason not to wish everyone else who reads this a happy celebration, or happy holidays. So, best wishes to you all.

In other news, Significant Other has just this minute suggested that we invest our money in a bar named "Ayi!" (the Spanish equivalent of "ouch!"), which has remained unsold for 35 years since the previous landlady was arrested for chopping her clients up into little bits.

Severe weather warning: turbulent learning curves ahead

2011-12-14T10:30:00.002+01:00

Oh lord. I think I would have fitted in quite nicely with the Neanderthals, actually, or any other early version of humankind. They went millennia without changing the latest invention. The stone hammer that had suited their forebears 10,000 years ago was good enough for them. I can see the charm in that.

Pressure has grown for me to update my spiral bound notebook kept beside the computer for noting difficult-to-translate terms and other things I need to remember, like how I translated something five pages back.

I’m not entirely convinced that this new software which is taking hours to download and has cost as much as my bloody computer (even with a 40% discount) is going to improve my work, but it’s the first question new clients ask me now, “Do you use Trados?”

For someone who recently had to ask what an iPod was, the future looks grim: I will struggle to understand what I need to do to install the damn programme, let alone use it. I try and encourage myself: the first translations I ever did for money were written out long hand, and there’s no doubt that using a computer has improved both the work I do and my working life, I tell myself. This will, too, once I get the hang of it. That ‘once’, however, encompasses a huge void.

I would be hard pressed to say who I envy most: the Neanderthals, sticking to the old ways, or my nephew’s generation, for whom using computers is like swimming in tropical seas.

Pander me: tell me your technology frustrations.

Sometimes it's win-win

2011-11-28T19:30:00.004+01:00

Sometimes life throws weird coincidences at you. Back in March 2010, I wrote a short post about buying a horrible coat and asking my ex to buy my half of our jointly owned house. Nothing worthy, literary or memorable. Except that, in two days' time I finally sign the house over to my ex and receive a lump payment, and today the coat I was originally looking for but didn't manage to find or buy back then finally arrived through the post. How can coats and houses be so connected?

In other news, the 10-day old (more or less) kitten I adopted back in August and amateurishly hand-reared has survived my clumsy maternal non-skills! Here, have a picture:

In fact, have two: she's achieved her ambition here, which was to oust the dog from his bed.

She's a demon live-wire, utterly unafraid of anything or anyone, ripping up wherever takes her fancy. She's already driven my other, previously dominant cat to peeing under the bed in fear, as she simply doesn't know what hissing means. You should see her doing her tiger's elephant hunting jump onto the dog's hindquarters. Luckily, he's quite good about it.

Things I like about north Portugal

2011-11-24T16:43:00.001+01:00

Even if you don't manage your planned 9.30 am start but instead set off closer to 11 am, it's still only 12.15 when you arrive at your destination because Portugal is an hour behind Spain. Likewise, after a leisurely lie in the next day, when you do finally get up it's still relatively early in the morning in Portugal for the same reasons.

As you cross the border, you sweep past the best named village I've ever come across, Feces de Abaixo. It doesn't actually mean Lower Faeces, but it's pretty damn close, even in Portuguese.

Portuguese conversations don't seem to be set to the voice projection default they are in Spain. Consequently, I do not have to shout to make myself heard in public places, or constantly cry "what?", "what?" to my companion due to surrounding noise. What's more, because I don't understand Portuguese very well, I am not an unwilling party to the contents of others' conversations.

The Portuguese are a nation of gardeners. Everyone has a garden. But most heart-warming of all is that they only plant flowers once their crop of cabbage is assured. The Portuguese love cabbage with a passion. Everyone plants cabbage, even if they only have two square feet of garden. Witness these photos of tiny houses in the middle of the city, with tiny borders in the front garden. What do we see? Salvia, marigolds, pansies? No. Strangely tree-like cabbages. In the middle of the city.

Even the Municpal Gardens have cabbages planted in their flower beds.

In the country, if you see a cabbage you particularly like the look of and the owner is standing in his garden admiring it in the company of his (well-fed) Siamese cat. he will probably sell it to you for a euro, and give you some free, incomprehensible conversation into the bargain, leading to that lovely sensation highly sought after among tourists and anthropologists of having made contact with the natives.

Many main Portuguese roads in the north have not been straightened, widened, de-tree-lined or otherwise riuned. They wind through the countryside offering cobbled rest areas with fresh water and beautiful views of late autumn instead of garish service stations offering over-priced plastic food. This one is on the main road between Chaves and Braga.

The Portuguese don't bother too much with road signs. Thus, you can discover unexpected delights in the opposite direction to the one you had intended to take.

Portuguese cities are small, friendly, colourful and quaint. The buildings in the centre are full of exquisite detail and the dimensions are generally human.

A lazy day is sufficient to see most of what the city has to offer tourists. With a smattering of Spanish, Italian, French or English you will get by, and people will be eager to help you. With a little linguistic effort, two people can eat a T-bone steak and an excellent hake steak, with a bottle of good vinho verde and a few salt cod croquettes as appetizers, for 23 euros at this charming little place in Chaves.

You can buy delicacies unavailable in Spain, such as this little beauty in the still life below:

It looks like a cheese, but it isn't - it's a solid lump of smoked pork fat (known as 'unto'), an essential ingredient in the ubiquitous 'caldo portugués', a hearty comfort-food soup of white kidney beans, cabbage, potatoes and smoked pork bits, highly recommended if you're not too fussy about cholesterol and/or weight gain.

The Portuguese like animals. You will rarely see a picture of a dog with a red line drawn through it at parks or on bar doors. Nor will you accidentally step in dog shit because they seem to be responsible pet owners. Any cats you see will probably be well fed and friendly. The first thing that crosses the Portuguese mind on seeing a cat is not to bend down and pick up a stone.

You can come home refreshed, with a relaxed and happy dog, make 'caldo portugués' with the correct ingredients, wash it down with a light slightly sparkling white wine that cost 1.25 euros, and go to bed happy, dreaming of moving to Chaves.

Torta de Casar

2011-11-07T20:54:00.000+01:00

Whilst waiting for personal storms to pass overhead, food seems like a safe topic. Today I would like to discuss a wonderful Spanish cheese that I feel probably doesn’t have the international recognition it deserves, the ‘Torta de Casar’.

I was first introduced to this cheese by some younger, upwardly mobile friends for whom I suspect I was their street cred downwardly mobile friend. Whatever, I was invited to their country house for supper. At one point, the man took a faded yellow Tupperware box out of the fridge and peeled back the opaque white lid under my nose. “What do you think of this?” he asked, presenting a round, yellow skinned cheese and respecting my reputation as a good cook (he had eaten at my house many times). I knew him well enough, and unfortunately had sufficient personal experience, to reply that it smelt like a dead sheep that had been lying in a stream for two weeks.

Taken aback but not discouraged, he urged me to dip my bread in the liquid centre. It was divine. I find tastes are impossible to describe, but if you like a ripe camembert (the ones that smell like a chicken coop that hasn’t been cleaned out for a while), you will like the Torta de Casar even more. It isn’t bitter or acrid, but is very pungent. The best ones are very young, when the centre is still liquid enough to scoop up with a piece of good bread (preferably sour dough bread). At first, I mistakenly thought that, like camembert, the cheeses got more liquid as they got older, but the reverse is true and they are just as tasty and more fun to eat when youngest. It’s like a ready-made fondu, and makes for fun communal eating with a nice salad (my favourite at the moment is curly endive and pomegranate).

The best ones are sold in a little wicker basket so that they keep their shape whilst you scoop out the centre, and then later, when you’ve eaten all the cheese you can stomach, you can make a delicious (high calorie/high cholesterol) meal by filling the shell with the stuffing of your choice and baking it, because the shell is made of completely natural ingredients. Mushrooms, celery, rice and ham are nice. Vegetarians might be pleased to know that the coagulating agent is vegetable.

Be advised that this is not a cheese to buy when facing a long journey home, unless it is vacuum packed. I will never forget a night in a tent with an ex-boyfriend and a ripe, unpasteurized camembert, spent in suspicion (thinking ‘his farts are insufferable, and he’s denying it’) and discomfort. A Torta would be ten times worse. A friend has told me of a time when, given one as a leaving present, he felt obliged to throw it out of the car half-way home. Presented to my mare once, when I still had her, she flung back her head and cantered away. More subtle friends have commented, ‘You do like strong cheeses, don’t you’ as they took a cautious nibble. But be reassured, its smell is far, far worse than its bite. If you like strong cheeses, that is.

I had one in the house the other day, bought for some friends who came to stay, but the time never seemed right – would we all suspect each other of farting but be too polite to ask? Or worse still, would they suspect me of some serious housework lapse/crime? In the end, they probably just thought that I hadn’t cleaned my fridge in the last decade.

To summarise, to really enjoy the Torta de Casar experience, you need to like strong cheese, buy it young, like communal eating and have total self-confidence when you serve it.

Translation tales

2011-09-23T14:42:00.000+02:00

Whilst the majority of my translation clients are pleasant people, always respectful and appreciative of the work I produce, you do get the odd one from time to time…

Last week, a client complained that her article had been rejected because of the poor standard of English. Glancing through, it quickly became evident that she had continued to add paragraphs here and there to the completed translation in her own very unique style of English (one of the many varieties of Spanglish). I suppose she was hoping I wouldn’t notice, and would revise the article for free.

Another client also complained because his article had been returned due to poor use of English. The reviewer complaining about the standard of English in the paper had also had these choice comments to make:

· There is useful to add a sentence to making generalization from results that obtained this study in abstract.

· I drown regression line from means R2 degree is bigger than you.

· Because there is other meaning this word that saturated with rain.

· It was be a term very generally, is it need?

· Is...unfortunately it aren't understood clearly.

· this term needn’t sufficient...

· ...you should be controlled regression line for this character.

· ...probability of significant is low.

· It should be useful with make to regression analysis.

· There is useful to added these terms.

· How meant replication?

No wonder he had found the English difficult to understand. I revised the article unwillingly, explaining to the author that this reviewer was unlikely to change his opinion until he’d had a few more years learning English himself and was currently in no position to judge use of English.

Then there was the author who sent in her own English translation for “correction”. She had clearly used Google translate, which can be hilarious if you aren’t being paid to correct. I was surprised at the frequency with which the word “hosiery” appeared in a text on earthquakes. It didn’t take me long to realize that she was referring to “statistical means” (both “medias” in Spanish – context is all).

Today I am translating an article where to save money (translations are usually charged by the word) the author has removed all bibliographical references, statistics, titles and proper names. She will probably save herself 25 cents in the long run; meanwhile, I do not know whether to use he, she, they, it, this, these…She will also probably copy and paste poorly constructed English in unsuitable places and then complain when her translation is returned.

Perhaps my worst though, was a long article which had been lifted almost in its entirety from a seminal book in English on the subject. By chance, I found said book on the Internet whilst searching for some obscure term. As I worked through the Spanish text, it became increasingly clear that the “author” (plagiarist) had read this book, translated the passages he wished to use into Spanish himself, and then sent the resulting rubbish for translation. I struggled with my conscience and increasing irritation, but when I came to a passage where he had translated “scarce” in English (from the seminal text) for “sacred” in Spanish, I cracked, and sent the article back unfinished. My choices would have been to translate the gobbledygook he had sent me, in which case it would be returned for inaccuracy and poor research (which authors in my experience always tend to blame on the translator for not understanding their gems of wisdom sufficiently, or being incapable of translating them accurately), or to use the seminal text to correct his worst errors, thus becoming guilty myself of plagiarism. Fortunately, this particular text had arrived through an agency, so it wasn’t me who had to explain to the author why his text had been returned incompletely translated. Shortly afterwards I received another, much shorter text “written” by same “author”, through the same agency. This time he had lifted his text from Wikipedia…

Ageing

2011-09-13T21:13:00.006+02:00

I’m not sure if this means that I have definitively entered old age, or if once a hippy, always a hippy. Then, there’s always the possibility that I was elderly in my youth.

Whatever, we have once again extended the car pool to buy a campervan.

Since my life is never straightforward, this wasn’t either.

The van that Significant Other had fixed his gleaming eye on was not close to home. In fact, it was 500 miles away in the south. In addition, we had only just adopted an unweaned kitten, who would need to travel with us, in a car, to the extremely hot temperatures of the south. Plus the dog, but he goes without saying.

People reading this who have bottle fed a kitten in a petrol station at 9am in the morning in 35º heat, after a 10 hour drive, then stimulated its orifices at the other end, and then walked a frustrated whippet through adjacent olive groves, keeping it at bay whilst having a piss oneself, will sympathise.

The people selling the van were somewhat surprised when we all stumbled, sweaty, dirty and variously barking and wailing, from the car. Have you ever sold a car to people who carry a week-old kitten and a dog with them when test-driving the car?

The deed was done, the van bought. Then, because it had been tame so far, we drove the vehicles home through driving rain at night on a motorway under continuous reconstruction with flashing lights and lane changes the entire way. Bliss. It gave us the excuse to stop halfway home and sleep in the new van, surrounded by the toilet paper of those who had been before (joyfully retrieved and either chewed or offered as presents by the whippet).

All in all, a good omen for future trips.

Fail

2011-09-10T21:31:00.001+02:00

There are times I wish I had a camera on my mobile phone. But I don’t. I have a dog-chewed phone set to “easy” mode that enables me to make and receive calls, period.

I usually try to avoid making stereotyped judgments about people, but failed miserably yesterday.

Times are changing in my local city, once a reserve of the traditional and the hidebound.

1) Walking along the street, both Significant Other and I were struck dumb by the enormous bottom wiggling in front of us. The woman was unable to walk easily. But this was not obesity, this was plastic surgery. The poor (refer to “judgments” above) woman had had plastic surgery to insert two beach balls into her buttocks. From behind, she has the exaggerated hourglass figure of porn fantasy. As we passed her, it was evident that there were more beach balls in her breasts, whilst her lips could have been used as ergonomic wrist rests. I wish I could have taken a photo, though I’m not sure why. I don’t usually try to take photos of human frailty. I wish I had had an articulate feminist analysis running through my head as I gave her what I hoped were covert glances; sadly, my only thought was “poor woman, it must be impossible to find clothes that fit”.

* 2) Walking along the street, I was astounded to see a woman striding past on what appeared to be space age stilts, all steel and black carbon*. I hurried around the corner to get a better look (I’ve lived here too long, I’m going native) because I’d recently read about an athlete who competes on some kind of carbon prosthesis. Her shoes looked liked prostheses, but were attached to complete legs. They lifted her a good two foot above the rest of us, but I can’t imagine they were easy or comfortable to walk in (or to put on or take off). Sadly, my pedestrian thought processes ran along the lines of pondering people’s need to call attention to themselves and the sad (see “judgmental” above) ways in which they do it. I could choose to stand out for a lot of things, but not my shoes (which I rather like, but really…).

So I monumentally fail to bring you photos of these two strange visions, and equally monumentally failed to celebrate human diversity yesterday, or to have intelligent thoughts on the subject.

I offer you my monumental failure.

*Edit: I found a link: this is what the woman was wearing.

"Little" injustices that don't make the news

2011-09-04T17:52:00.000+02:00

I thoughtthe small farmers around here had it bad.

Take mylovely neighbours, for example. Enriquethe cacique developed the same backproblem as me about 2 years ago. He’sin his late 50s. Having seen what I waslike after my operation, and how long it took me to recover he decided, notsurprisingly, to avoid the operation at all costs. Among his various reasons was the fact thathe and his wife had a herd of 30 dairy cows, and no children to lend a hand. Although farmers in Spain are now entitled tosick pay (only a percentage of their earnings), there is no provision forsomeone to come and look after their animals while they are sick (whichobviously the farmers cannot pay when their own earnings barely cover theircosts, much less provide money to employ help). Uncared for dairy cows quickly die. And then the farmers are prosecuted for cruelty to animals. In fact, their entitlement to sick pay countsfor nothing without back-up help. Ergo,dairy farmers cannot be sick. So howwould he have coped with one year at least off sick? Plus, his wife was kicked in the knee by acow some years ago and despite three operations since then, has never been ableto walk properly again (no work-related accident compensation here for farmers,let alone back-up help), so she would not have been able to cope with lookingafter a disabled husband and a herd of dairy cows on her own.

Theyrefused our offers of help, knowing that our ignorance of dairy farming wouldprobably result in more problems rather than less.

So hedecided to take early retirement.

Although Ihad seen the injustice of the sick pay situation, I was astounded by thecruelty of the retirement system for small dairy farmers. Enrique applied primarily for the right to retire, rather than retirementpay (though that as well). Now, you andI can say “I retire” whenever we wish, down tools and find a way tosurvive. Not so dairy farmers, whetheror not they are also applying for a pension. There’s their milk quota to be reallocated before they can sell their cows,and until that quota is reallocated and their cows sold, clearly they cannotretire. It took Spanish bureaucracy ONE YEAR to reallocate their milkquota. ONE YEAR of being forced to continue working every day of the week,milking cows, feeding cows, leading cows out to pasture, bringing cows back inat night, ploughing and fertilizing and sowing fields and harvesting forage forcows, storing forage…All extremely painful and harmful activities for two physicallycrippled people.

They arenow retired, and finally enjoying a cow-free existence. Enrique’s back problem, however, was nothelped by an extra year of enforced labour, and he suffers a lot.

So Ithought that small dairy farmers in Spain had it bad.

Then I readthis post about tenant farmers in Scotland at FrenchLeave, this one at GentleOtter,and this one at St.Bloggie de Riviere. I am appalled. How is it possible that in a supposedly firstworld country in the 21^st century, landlords are not required tomaintain the properties they rent in hygienic and habitable conditions? How is it possible that their tenants are penalisedfor their landlords’ negligence?

If thisbothers you, you can write to Alex Salmond here, here and here.

If youthink that this doesn’t affect you, consider this: gadgets, cars, clothes andeven economic crises are unimportant compared to unpolluted air, water andfood. I think we tend to forget this,and the inexorable move towards agro-industry and away from small-scale farmingis unlikely to ensure any of these.

I'm not sure this was a good idea...

2011-08-17T17:33:00.000+02:00

My first dog was exhausting: she demanded constant attention but no matter how much you gave her, it was never enough - it just served to make her demands more frenzied. Adopted from an animal shelter, I never knew if she had become neurotic because she had been abandoned by her previous owner(s?), or if she had been abandoned because she was neurotic.

About 10 days ago, one of my cats was killed on the road. This week, I found an abandoned, approximately 10-day old kitten near my home. I found it because it had been squealing non-stop within my hearing for the previous 12 hours or so. Its little tummy fell in baggy, empty folds of skin where it should have been bulging with milk. It is now in my home, being hand reared.

Again, I will never know if it squeals so much because it was abandoned by its mother, or if its mother abandoned it because it squealed so much. I'm starting to suspect the latter.

June blooms

2011-06-09T19:42:00.000+02:00

No time to post! Just some June beauty in the fields out the back. I haven't managed to upload these pictures very well, but I don't think they need much commentary:

Love it

2011-06-07T22:21:00.000+02:00

I’ve left it a bit late to take a picture of this plant; it looks better in May.

But it’s not so surprising that it looks a bit raggedy – it’s had a rough life.

I first met it maybe 15 years or so ago, when I was still living in the mountain village; in fact, not long after I had moved there. We only had one direct neighbour, that is, one neighbour who could keep an eye on our front door and time her exits with ours. We saw a lot of her.

One day, she and I got to talking about the enormous leafy green plant that grew close to her front door in the summer, but died back to the ground in the winter. In summer, it must have stood 1.5 m tall at least. She told me that it had originally been planted by her grandmother, and also that it was a medicinal herb, reputed to be good for cleansing the blood. Since her husband suffered from kidney failure and needed dialysis once a week, she used it a lot. She gave me some to try. Eaten raw, it was bitter like most herbs, but cooked, it was the most delicious seasoning I’d ever come across. Imagine something like a smidgeon of marmite crossed with very strong celery and the slightest touch of aniseed, and you’ll probably screw up your face in disgust. But that would just testify to my failure in describing it properly. This is my favourite herb ever.

Now it just so happens that for years I was fascinated by medicinal herbs. Or any herbs come to that. Rural romanticism. Later, I concluded that ibuprofen solved most things. But at the time I was enchanted. A medicinal herb! That is lovely in cooking! Planted by her own grandmother! I used it a lot, pulling off a few leaves whenever I wanted (with her permission), for cooking.

Then, Progress Arrived, and the Council Decided We Needed Pavements. Everyone’s tiny little garden in front of their house was demolished in favour of clean, hygienic concrete. The typical village complex about plants/animals = dirt and backwardness. I myself had a long conversation with the mayor in order to save my front garden. Having initially threatened to knock my house down, he finally conceded me half of my garden, with plenty of muttering about how there would be other mutters of favouritism. Favouritism? How could this be favouritism if the Great Leap Forward was Concrete, and I was only going to receive half my allotted share?

Be that as it may, the tall herb was for the chop. But my neighbour was out the day the workmen arrived, and worked with them as they dug into the soil, saving the roots of her precious plant, to plant elsewhere. She gave me some of them, because they were like a bundle of carrot roots which separated easily. I planted two sections in my garden, and they thrived. My ex-partner began to develop a strong dislike for the taste, which he said appeared in every meal.

When I left the village some years later, I dug up one of the roots and took it with me. I moved to a tied cottage – free, in return for looking after the (large) garden - and planted the roots in a dark and unused corner of the garden, telling the owners where and what it was. The situation didn’t really work out for lots of reasons. One vile day, at the climax of not working out, when I had handed in my notice and was due to move out within days, I walked out onto one of the lawns in tears, and found my beloved herb ripped out by the roots and left in the sun to dry and die.

I rescued it, and put it in a bucket of cool water out of harm’s way in my house.

I moved out to my present house, split the roots and planted it here in two different spots, one sunny and dry, one shady and a bit wetter.

The one planted at the wetter site does best. It’s still not as tall as its mother plant, but on a good year it gets to over a metre high. I still love it, and it’s still my favourite seasoning herb. I try to use it sparingly when cooking for Significant Other, so as not to spark off the inevitable reaction. But he’s not keen.

So when he’s not here, my spring treat is a one egg omelet made with grated cheese (Cheddar or San Jorge), a bit of chopped cooked bacon or ham, and some finely chopped lovage.

2011-06-01T22:45:00.001+02:00

Aeons ago, my then lover brought me to the shores of Spain and the house of one of his ex-lovers.

I was introduced to Spain, a whole new set of people, and a whole new way of relating at the same time.

Exes were friends, people lived in tumble down country houses, mountains were higher than I’d ever seen, and music was not rock, but folk-classical.

Of the many powerful memories of that first three-week stay that would change my life, possibly the most decisive is of sitting in a large brick walled kitchen with an open fire around a small round table listening to Javier Sáinz and friends, playing, amongst other things, music by Emilio Cao.

I was entranced. I had never sat around a kitchen table listening to people playing the harp, violin, bagpipes and hurdy-gurdy before.

Later, against all advice (of said musicians), we went walking in the Picos de Europa. Against all advice because it was June and there would still be snow on the tops and who knew where else, and the weather was still not stable. We were lucky. The weather held, and we walked amongst flowers (columbines, violets and orchids stand out in my memory) that I had never seen growing wild in England, thanks to pesticides and agro-industry. And amongst mountains and wildlife and human geography that equally I had never seen the like before.

I was hooked. I returned to an English July where it rained every day, and vowed to return. To live.

Later, I discovered that one of the Emilio Cao tracks that had been played was called something like “The messengers come from the north” and another had something to do with horses (but I can’t find the tape at this precise moment, to check), and everything seemed preordained (north, horses) for a move to Spain. The messengers had come, and I responded.

Javier has just released a new album (“E con la harpa d’Orfeo”). I have no idea how you go about ordering it or any commercial details, but I am proud to know him and forever fond for the (unwitting) part he played in my life turnaround.

A complete turnaround

2011-05-21T21:36:00.000+02:00

At university, I went on many CND rallies. Later, I joined protests against the nuclear facility at Sellafield, previously known as Windscale. Later still, I was at Greenham common. My last year in England was largely taken up organising a local Reclaim the Night movement and event. I attended anti-Iraq war demonstrations both in Spain and in London (not simultaneously, you understand). To name some of the better known movements I used to be involved in.

For years while I was teaching English here in Spain, I was astounded and disheartened by my Spanish (university) students’ passive attitude to politics and politicians. Yes, they considered all politicians corrupt and all political parties irrelevant, but they felt that all protest was utterly pointless. They themselves would say that their only interest was surviving within an imperfect system. And by surviving, they invariably meant: get a job, buy a home, get married and have children, in that order.

I am delighted to see that they appear to have had a change of heart*. This past week, young Spanish people have been protesting. What started in Madrid has now spread to most of Spain and beyond. They are fed up of this (from South of Watford, my primary source of Spanish news), and are demanding this.

And where was I, once such an active member of what was frequently described in the English press as “rent-a-mob”?

I am less delighted to see how things have turned around. Last night, when demonstrations were being held all over the country, I was at home watching a DVD, totally absorbed in my own little world. I realise that I, now, concentrate on surviving within an imperfect system. Thus I missed the cacerolada (an appropriately noisy form of protest for Spain) held at my local town.

Whilst I am not proud of my present passivity, I am, at the same time, glad that young Spanish people are finally shaming me with their more dedicated involvement. Tommorow I will vote in the local elections: I wish these young people more luck with effecting democratic change than my vote or activism have ever had.

*Possibly because it is no longer possible for them to survive within an imperfect system, thanks to the economic crisis. Also, I am rather simplifying here – political activism among younger people has been steadily growing in Spain since the inception of the anti-Iraq war and anti-globalisation movements here.

Green fingers

2011-05-10T22:55:00.001+02:00

It only took a week.

I hadn’t touched the garden since last October/November, when some half-hearted leaf-raking took place. That’s a long time to let your dog shit in the garden without clearing up afterwards.

But I took the week off last week, and buckled down to business. First, my beloved neighbour, Enrique the Cacique came in with an agricultural mower, because the grass was far too high for my lawn mower. Surprisingly, for a six month or so period of total neglect, there didn’t seem to be that much dog shit around. Obviously, the snails in my garden have been busy, and I should thank them. I think I’ll thank them by not eating them, seeing as I now suspect what their principal diet consists of.

I’ve been a bad gardener. The grass didn’t get mown (thus allowing the snails to get on with the important business of recycling waste), the trees didn’t get pruned, the roses didn’t get pruned, the unholy hedge of world-conquering Lawsonia didn’t get pruned.

But hey, maybe that’s been a good thing. The pear trees certainly seem to think so.

The plum trees, which have only borne fruit twice since I’ve lived here, are ecstatic.

And this is this first year I discover that I have five plum trees, as only two have ever borne fruit before.

The apple trees are laden.

The ornamental cherry turns out to have more than ornament on its mind this year.

The mulberry is pushing out fruit almost before leaves.

The goldfinches nesting here are damn glad I didn’t prune the hedge.

The peonies don’t seem to mind that I didn’t manure them this year.

The roses are going great guns, except they block out my view of the garden (from underneath the unpruned vine canopy…).

Maybe a little bit of tender loving neglect isn’t such a bad thing? I’m working on this argument for presentation to SO, whose second name is High Maintenance.

Here it comes again...

2011-04-27T21:34:00.001+02:00

You ever get that feeling? Suddenly you feel an emotion, and it reminds you of when you felt it last, but your language doesn’t have a word for it? And it’s almost physical, because you can’t put a word to it, so you’re obliged just to experience it, and muse on it?

Low today. One of the nastier sides of feeling low is that it saps you of the energy to do the very things that would make you feel better. Or at least, that’s how it works for me. Still, the blogging world helped: hardly anyone I read regularly had written anything, so the computer offered no distractions. I forced myself to go out for a walk, something I haven’t had time to do in a week.

It was sunny. After the winter’s silence, I could hear…storks clacking their beaks, nightingales (Spanish nightingales are a sub-species of the European nightingale, largely distinguished by their habit of singing during the daytime as well as the night), blue/great tits, the occasional cuckoo. No hoopoes yet, which is strange.

And then it happened. I got this physical feeling in my chest which was an emotion for which I don’t really have a neat definition. It’s not depression, anger, happiness. I wonder sometimes how limited we are in our understanding of emotions by our native language. Consider that whilst English has a word for children who lose their parents, there is no such term for parents who lose their child(ren). There ought to be. We have one word, love, for a range of connections we might feel for people, animals and places.

But I also find it curious, that when you don’t have a word for a feeling, the experience is much more physical, somehow. Like words distance us from our feelings. I know what I’m saying is contradictory.

So I was walking along a track, intending to lose myself in some woods somewhere, but not sure which ones, when it happened. A kind of heaviness in the chest, which was also tinged with sweetness. Sadness and nostalgia were present, as were panic and fear. But also a feeling of holiday and almost, but not quite, relief. The sadness side of it made me feel very small and insignificant, but precisely because of that, also part of and connected to what I was walking through. I needed to sit by a stream, and lo and behold, I found a stream. I sat there for a while, by a tiny fall of water, no more than a twelve inch drop, and tried to let the sound of the water soothe me. I think it did, a little.

I climbed the hill opposite, following animal tracks, and found some magnificent old oaks. I sat under them for a while too, looking across the valley. The feeling continued. I tried again to define it. A mixture of fear, sadness, relief and connection with my immediate surroundings, together with this strange sense of being on holiday. I know when I last felt this: it was when I first moved here, fresh from a relationship breakup.

When I got home, I finally started work on the garden, for the first time this year. I have missed a lot of things about my old life.

*The sound track to this post, you must imagine, is Annie Lennox singing “Here comes the rain again”. Wish I knew how to embed videos.

Obsessions part II (nobody dies)

2011-04-21T11:11:00.000+02:00

Mushroom hunting was one of the things that fell by the wayside as a single woman.

My only wild mushroom acquisition at this time was the famous Caesar’s mushroom. Shortly after the spectacular arrival of an unknown, foreign, single woman (me) in my present village, a most obnoxious (married) man visiting his parents in the village offered to take me to where he knew these mushrooms grew. At the time, newly single, I was practicing trying to suppress my innate “ick” responses to people and to be open to everyone (phases you go through), and accepted his invitation. But I had my innate intuition that he was obnoxious confirmed when it became highly (even outstandingly) apparent that he was expecting rugged sex in the hills in return for this highly valuable information and a basketful of Caesars. Caesar’s mushrooms, for which sex was not paid, are also best sautéed and then simmered in wine with a pinch of Spanish paprika for 20 to 30 minutes. Final dash of cream optional.

When I met SO*, he showed the typical urbanite’s enthusiasm for and ignorance of the countryside. He was fired up by the idea of finding mushrooms, so I resumed my mushroom hunting activities in his company. However, I now spent most of my time saying “put that down”. It seemed impossible to persuade him that I knew what I was talking about, and that although the mushroom he had picked might smell nice, it was not necessarily a good idea to eat it. Finally, I decided that experience is the best teacher, and didn’t stop him eating some field mushrooms which are mildly toxic (the yellow staining mushroom); it seemed to me a necessary step in his education.

A brief bout of gastroenteritis later he was undeterred, desperately seeking the prize which had so far evaded me, the Saint George mushroom. These are very highly valued in Spain. People pay a small fortune for them on the markets, and nobody who knows where they grow will let you in on their secret. I’m convinced that this thing about collecting mushrooms early in the morning comes from the desire to collect your mushrooms before anybody else is up and about, in order to maintain your secret.

He used to come home with all sorts of indistinguishable greyish-brown mushrooms, convinced they were Saint George mushrooms because he had found them in the spring (this species only grows in the spring, around St. George’s day, hence the name – and the reason I know when St. George’s day is, the only saint’s day that I do know). I would demur and duly present them to my neighbour Enrique for examination and final adjudication. And he would shake his head and chuckle about the ignorance of city folk.

As I said, more than any other wild mushroom, nobody will tell you here where Saint George mushrooms are to be found. They aren’t scattered around, they grow in circles and one circle might yield 3 or 4 kilos, but there won’t be another circle within a kilometre. I remember once abusing my position as speaking examiner for Cambridge English exams, when it was still possible to formulate your own questions (these days, we use a rigid script so that everyone has the same exam all over the world). My victim mentioned that he liked looking for mushrooms, and I then proceeded to question him closely on exactly where he found them. He was in agony. You don’t reveal this information, but a) it is hard to lie in an exam in a foreign language, and b) he thought I might pass him for giving me the information (Spain works like that).

Neither Enrique nor his wife likes mushrooms of any sort but, although as a farmer Enrique knew where to find his mushrooms, even he wouldn’t tell me where to find them. Still, finally taking pity on SO and his fruitless efforts and perhaps worrying that one of these days he was going to be driving us to the emergency department at the not so local hospital, last year he knocked on the door with a plastic carrier bag full of Saint George mushrooms, 3 kilos at least. SO was delighted, because this meant feasting big time, and I was delighted because this is the kind of thing that really teaches me how to identify a species. I studied them carefully, new ones, older ones, battered ones, pristine ones, before cooking them. So far, my best recipe for St. George mushrooms is to dice them, sauté them you know how, add a generous splash of white wine and cream, a pinch of Spanish paprika, salt and a little pepper, and then add them to pan fried chicken breast or steak strips. Serve with rice or noodles and call it stroganoff.

I’m sure it was no coincidence that within a week or so, we had found two of our own St. George circles. These are now our private mushroom grounds, and I’ve been checking them regularly recently. Not so private, it turns out. I’ll be lucky if the wild boar leave me as much as a half-chewed stem at one of the sites. Hah! I’ll sort them out.

* Just as I was thinking I’d like to get rid of this ridiculous way of referring to my beloved and give him a (false) name, I came upon my blog open on his computer, translated by Google. I doubt he understood much, given what Google translations are like, but even so, I think I’ll keep SO for now, as Google translation is unlikely to know how to translate it and that might just protect him from the knowledge that I talk about him behind his back.

** After writing this, Chris reminded me of another mushroom that I “acquired”, way back at University, this one, which predated my interest in edible mushroom for culinary pleasure. They grew on the playing fields, and every autumn would find crowds of people walking slowly over the fields, heads down, looking like extras in a zombie film. My only recipe for these is don’t. Or more specifically, don’t take a whole heap of them together in your late teens and then go out on the town, because it will end in tears and an expensive taxi ride home.

Obsessions part I (because there's a part II)

2011-04-16T23:28:00.000+02:00

One exceptionally warm and wet autumn in North Yorkshire (was there any other kind, I now ask myself), I strolled out into the fields and found my very first wild mushrooms. The pasture was full of grey saucer sized field mushrooms, and I went mad picking them. Mushrooms on toast, mushroom ketchup, mushroom lasagne, stuffed mushrooms – we* ate mushrooms for weeks. That was before I learnt to look closely for maggots, or I might have eaten less of that first crop.

But that was it, for me. I got the mushroom hunting bug. There’s something so essentially satisfying about food for free. In fact, my ex, who at the time was still an ex-in-waiting, had a book of the very same title, “food for free”, although much of what it contained I wouldn’t have eaten if I’d been paid to.

Fired up with enthusiasm, I bought several mushroom field guides. They weren’t immediately useful, for I almost never found any wild mushrooms other than field mushrooms in the UK, with the exception of ink caps, which were never popular with me due to their incompatibility with alcohol. Although there was the famous time when we found two morel mushrooms growing on a remote footpath. Because I can be a sickening goody two shoes at times, we only collected one of them, something I regretted as soon as it had been cooked (sautéed in butter and garlic) and eaten, and in fact ever since, as I’ve never found one again.

But the guides became useful. An autumn trip through France and Spain introduced me to the parasol mushroom, first collected and cooked for me by a good friend. Diced and sautéed in butter, shallots and garlic, and served on buttered toast, the parasol is still one of my favourite mushrooms. France and Spain proved to be far more productive hunting grounds for mushrooms. After the parasol mushrooms, my next acquisition was the saffron milk cap.

I think of each of the mushrooms on my “I can identify this” list as an acquisition, because I’ve always had a healthy distaste for the thought of dying a painful, lingering but certain death from mushroom poisoning. I need to be very, very sure that my identification is correct before that mushroom gets anywhere near my kitchenware, which usually involves a lot of studying conflicting pictures and if I’m lucky, consulting an expert. But once sure, I never forget. Thus, many of my acquisitions come with nice memories.

So one autumn, walking in some pine woods in France, we met a man with a basket full of orange coloured wild mushrooms, and in our broken French asked for full details, which he provided at (incomprehensible for the most part) length. Saffron milk caps got added to the list, which I like best sautéed with a little finely chopped onion and garlic, then simmered for about 30 minutes in red wine seasoned with Spanish paprika, a bay leaf or two, salt and pepper. Slap in a bit of cream at the end to thicken the sauce and serve with buttery mashed potato.

Field and wood blewits were easy once I was living in Spain, as they’re as common as dirt, and easy to identify because of their thick blue stalks. Plus, they grew in my orchard and field, which made life easier. These are not my favourites, because their taste is so strong, almost perfumed. If I have time, I slice them thinly and then thread them onto a string and hang them up to dry, because a little dried blewit crumbled into any stew is as good as or better than a stock cube. But I don’t seem to have that kind of time any more. These days, they get sautéed in, yes you’ve guessed it, butter and garlic, and frozen. Used sparingly they make a good addition to any pasta dish – blewit and spinach lasagne is very nice. The only other dish I find edible when used as a main ingredient is sautéed blewits between layers of fried onion and sliced potato with plenty of freshly ground pepper, drizzled with half a carton of more of cream once assembled, and baked in the oven. You’re probably starting to form the (correct) opinion that I am at peace with my cholesterol levels.

Fairy ring mushrooms were equally easy, and get treated much the same way – preferably threaded whole on a string and dried, but if not, sautéed and frozen. Again, they’re nice for adding flavour to stews.

I was starting to add a new edible species a year to my tried and tested list. And then we went on our camping holiday to the French Pyrenees. Camping in the loose sense of the word – we slept in the back of the car. To backtrack a little, when we moved to Spain, we walked here. Part of that included walking along the Pyrenees on the GR10. Such frustration as I have never known before or since – we were there in autumn and saw a wealth of wild mushrooms I had never seen before at that point. With no cooking equipment, and no strength to add another ounce to our already overweight backpacks, these delights had to be left for others to collect, and collect them they did. No matter how remote we were, it was almost impossible to crap behind a bush in peace without being disturbed by a Frenchman carrying a walking stick with two metal prongs at the end for gently shifting fallen leaves, in search of fungal bliss. The French seem to appreciate wild mushrooms almost as much as I do.

So anyway, we decided to go back one year to the Pyrenees, with a car, a camping gas, frying pan, butter, cream and garlic. Mushroom hunting and eating was our holiday plan, and it worked: hardly a day passed without a wild mushroom meal. I picked ceps beside a quiet lake (don’t like them much – too slimy for my tastes), horn of plenty in a wood beside a tiny winding lane (sautéed you know how, and finished with a grind of pepper and drizzle of cream – my favourite), parasols in farmers’ field, saffron milk caps among the pine trees…

Back home, we added the king oyster mushroom to our list, a kind of oyster mushroom that grows on thistle roots. And the day I found a giant puffball was a total celebration. Dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, shallow fried until golden and served with tartare sauce, it was a delight. Slippery jacks, on the other hand, were a total disappointment, for all they appear to be related to the highly prized boletus family. Naturally for a disgusting mushroom, they are extremely common but not worth eating in my opinion. Slimy and tasteless, their only virtue is that they do not kill you.

And then we separated.

*"we" refers to my ex.

Butt what were they thinking?

2011-04-11T15:33:00.000+02:00

Well, look’ee here….I’d say someone was overcompensating for not taking her dog out for a walk every day, wouldn’t you?

Echoes of my mother’s voice, guilt tripping me to eat up because there are starving children in Africa, come to mind. How obscene is it for my dog to have so many toys when there are children in the world who don’t have any?

Well, it depends what you call a toy. When I think back to my childhood, for many years my favourite toy was a blue mop. She had a white mane, and a chipped blue wooden handle, and was my grey mare. I even remember what I called her, “Patience”. I untangled her mane every day (once I’d rescued her from my mother, who worked her mercilessly every morning) and rode gymkhanas on her in the garden. Toys don’t need to be bright bits of plastic to be fun. Toys are whatever you decide is a toy.

So whilst the whippet’s toys are indeed partly there to salve my conscience about “no walkies today, my pet”, they are also there to distract him from the other things that he has decided are toys (tv remote control, the scouring pad, socks, a sheepskin rug…).

What’s that, you want to look closer?

Yes, it is a bit strange, isn’t it? I swear I bought this in the dog toy section, but I don’t know if that’s better, or worse.

Flowers open, crabby old woman stays shut

2011-04-08T21:22:00.002+02:00

I haven’t been out much this year. When I haven’t been working, it’s often been raining and I threw away all my waterproofs when I moved to Spain: in a country where it doesn’t rain 366 out of 365 days a year, I decided that the best waterproof was to stay indoors when it was raining.

So poor whippet has had a lazy, boring winter curled at my feet while I work, occasionally going out into the garden to dig holes in what was never a lawn to start with, but is much less so now.

But today, the unseasonably hot weather brought, I am told, courtesy of Africa, encouraged me to take a break and wander off into the hills. I like mooching through the woods, even though they all look the same. You never know when you might find a pretty little clearing, or an exceptionally old tree. I went to a part of the woods where I know the local miniature daffodils (Narcissus triandrus) grow, and sure enough there they were in flower.

Which made me think about this blog, because I’ve already written about them, last year, just as I’ve already written about seeing deer (which I did again today), so I can’t write about them again.

And I meandered about, thinking about what I could write about, and about walking.

Walking used to be something I had in common with my ex, and it took me a long time to get used to walking on my own. I missed having someone to say “look at that!” and “how lovely/horrible!” to. Like there was no point without someone around to register my reactions (I deliberately do not say “to share with”, because I’m well aware this was not sharing).

I didn’t really start walking again until I got a dog, and then all was well again. Until I got another partner. Because the unexpected consequence of learning to go walking without (human) company is that now I prefer walking just with a dog.

Whippet does not ask for a cigarette break 10 minutes into the walk. He’s always happy to go just where I want to go, and never makes any unwelcome suggestions about taking the path I had just decided I didn’t want to take. He never wants to go home before I do. He never asks me if I know where I’m going, and doesn’t go ominously silent when I am lost. He does not require a packed lunch and refreshments. He has no interest whatsoever in what I am thinking, or not. He is the perfect companion for a totally self-centred walker.

It’s a strange turn around for me. I, who used to complain that my ex shut me out, have in turn become hermetically sealed as the result of living alone for years. Walking is just part of it.

And I also decided that if I had absolutely nothing else to write about, I could at least write my nature notes…

No news to report

2011-03-29T19:32:00.001+02:00

Absence has its own dynamic, making return more complicated. For some time, I swore that the next post I wrote would be meaningful, with some incisive insight about something or other. Note continued silence. So that didn’t work. Then I thought I ought to give some substantial reason for silence. None comes there, just little bitty everyday things combining and piling up into an untidy mess.

It feels strange to return to posting as if there had been no interval, to begin again with nothing particular to say and no meaningful insights.

But if there’s one limitation to insights, for me, it’s that they don’t change anything. For that, they need to be coupled to resolve, a quality in which I am sadly lacking except in terms of acquiring new pets. Fortunately, what little resolve I have is counterbalanced by SO’s common sense, and attempts to buy a sad but friendly parrot and another whippet have been foiled (so far).

I am however very good at making resolutions. So good, I make them nearly every day. Often the same ones.

It remains to be seen whether this particular resolution will get much further.

Observations for today. I read the news for the first time in a long time the other day*. What to make of the fact that the Spanish government that rode to power on the crest of opposition to the Iraq war is the same government that is now participating in war against Libya, accompanied by an almost deafening lack of protest? The only difference I can see between the two wars is that in the case of Gadafi, the west actually knows that he has arms of mass destruction, because the west sold them to him (joke currently circulating in Spain: “How do we know that Gadafi has arms of mass destruction? Because we have the receipts to prove it”). I am finding it hard to adjust to the multiple and rapid changes in official attitudes to Gadafi, who not so long ago received the “keys” to Madrid as an honorary citizen, but who the (same) authorities now tell me is a dangerous thug. Neither do I recall either Britain or Spain being especially grateful when overseas groups funded their own rebels (IRA or ETA).

I’m sure that neither the world nor politics are any worse now than they’ve ever been; I’m just becoming increasingly irritated at being blatantly manipulated to engage with renewed vigour each time in the same-old-same-old patterns and arguments. Which is why I generally avoid reading, watching or listening to the news.

Anyway, apart from reading officially expedient propaganda, I was astounded on the same day to be informed that 5 people had died in a helicopter crash in Spain. Whilst I’m very sorry for their families and realize that personal tragedy is not defined by numbers, something like 12 people a day die in road accidents in Spain. Naturally, I wouldn’t like to be reading about daily roadkill figures, but it did make me wonder what criteria editors use to define “news”. What lists do they tick? Here’s my guess:

Politically expedient disinformation;

Morbid interest (unusual deaths, titillating crimes, very fat people);

Displacement activities (aka, sport);

Light distraction techniques (a swingeing generalization would be fashion and beauty for women, sex and gourmet lifestyles for men);

Heavy distraction techniques (drummed up issues such as savage dogs, immigration figures, school standards);

Affirm and consolidate your readership (“opinions” tailored to the paper’s demographic)

and

Stimulating materialism, otherwise known as the economy (publicity disguised as objective consumer guides).

Throw in a few adverts for prostitutes, loan sharks and exclusive offers for miracle products and you have your blueprint for just about any Spanish newspaper you care to name.

* Reactions based on reading the ABC, Público, País, BBC and Guardian websites.

Where did it go?

2010-11-18T22:59:00.001+01:00

For reasons best known to Blogger, my most recent post appears before my last one, if you see what I mean...

Evening entertainment in the village I

2010-11-11T22:43:00.004+01:00

In autumn, autumn is my favourite season. Colours, sun, blue skies, cold air.

But it’s also the season when wee beasties seek refuge for the winter. In the village, this means mice in the cupboard under the sink, turning up in the morning sucked to death by the ping-pong cat (and casually left on the whippet’s kitchen bed; no, there’s no antagonism between them...), and “moscas cojoneras”. These are the flies that buzz lazily around your head, settling on your hair, hands or nose but always too quick to swat. We get lots of these. I don’t know how they get in, but there’s a limitless supply.

City people often ask me if I don’t get bored and lonely in the village as the nights get longer. They don’t take Significant Other into account.

Significant Other is ingenious in many ways, and has turned fly rage into a game. With his patented device,

somewhat battered and blood stained after a year of use, we spend many a happy evening competing to see who gets the highest score for dead flies.

Here I demonstrate how it’s used, with a fly I prepared earlier. And yes, the ping-pong cat is allowed to sit on the kitchen table.

Beats video games hands down.

The tractor man cometh

2010-11-09T10:57:00.008+01:00

Well, WHOO HOO, and yes: we finished the wood chop yesterday. All of it, chopped and stacked. Since I am firmly determined NEVER to do this again, I took photos of bringing the last load down from the woods. The tractor man cometh....

And the loading begins. The last load was mainly thinner wood, but it's still tiring work, heaving it up, trunk by trunk onto the trailor. Hint: always park the tractor downslope of the wood pile.

The pile grows in the tractor. As you can see, not all the wood was spindly.

And Enrique trundles off into the sunset, with our last load of wood.

One last look. I won't be doing this again.

As blogger won't let me load more pictures in one post, you are spared (for the time being) of yet another picture of the final wood stacks. But they are as beautiful as art to me, and I have been finding pretexts to go into the garage today, to feast my eyes.

It's sad to acknowledge that I can't do this any more, and that I will never again (I hope) have the satisfaction of looking in the garage and seeing 30 cubic metres of firewood logged, transported, chopped and stacked by my own fair hands (with, ahem, a bit of help). But it's been a nice send off. Despite being an absolute killer, I'm glad to be bowing out on a good haul rather than a disappointing one, and one where we were saved by a neighbour's good will. Enrique is a pearl among men. It leaves a good memory behind, in spite of the suffering.

Chopos for Ellie

2010-11-08T15:37:00.005+01:00

Ellie said she liked poplar trees. We have quite a few around these parts...The ideal non-labour-intensive crop for retired farmers who don't know what to do with their land.

Looking south, this is my local "town". It has a lot of retired farmers.

And looking north, this is my village, with autumn poplars immediately behind and snow-capped mountains in the distance, away in the next province. Plus my local mountain to the left. I climbed it once.

This is the track we've been driving up and down to get to our plot of wood, with the valley plain (full of poplar plantations) in the background. The wheat-coloured fields are not wheat but sweetcorn for animal feed - mainly the wild boars. The whippet flushed one out of a field the other evening, while we were out for a walk along the valley floor. I was not amused.

And a last picture, valley poplars at dusk, after an afternoon spent loading the last trailer load of wood and bringing it down to the village.

Chopos for the chop

2010-11-05T01:16:00.003+01:00

From my upstairs office window, I hear a car pull up outside. If you’ve never lived in a quiet village of 35 inhabitants in the back of beyond and worked from home in total isolation, you probably don’t realize that this is sufficient stimulation to snap all senses into a state of alertness.

The car door slams, steps move away. Not for me then, but strange that someone should park outside my house. I do not return 100% of my attention to my translation.

Steps, accompanied, return. My neighbours Enrique and Cleodora appear, together with someone I don’t know. They stand in the road, looking at the pair of poplar trees growing outside my other neighbour’s house.

Proof that I’ve lived in a village too long: I immediately know what this means. Neighbours do not look at trees for the joy of it. Although particularly beautiful today with bright yellow leaves catching the sun against a clear blue sky, these trees will not survive the time it would take to shed the rest of their leaves. They are for the chop.

Proof that I’ve lived in a village too long: I immediately try and think of ways to casually, as if by accident, appear in the street, to find out more. Cleodora doesn’t bother with such niceties, she just appears and looks expectantly, waiting to be told what’s happening. I still have a way to go before integrating fully. I stocked up on firewood for the day this morning, but it’s stored in the garage across the road, and getting more is an excellent excuse for appearing innocently in the road. I grab the little trolley SO has made for me so I don’t have to carry the logs, and rush out.

We enter into conversation, and naturally, the topic of the trees takes all of, ohh, five milliseconds to arise. As I thought, they are to be cut down. They cast shade, pollen and dead leaves, and there is a suspicion that their roots may be blocking drains. This latter is a spurious claim, covering up the real reason, which is that villagers equate clean (leaf-free) streets with civilisation, which they are keen to be seen as belonging to.

Proof that I’ve lived in a village too long: rather than defending the trees’ right to live and grow old, contributing to our oxygen etc. etc., I agree. The leaves and pollen (white fluff) they cast fall mainly into my garden. I shall be sad to lose their yellow leaves against the blue sky in October, but not sad to have less leaves to rake up every autumn. I have become (almost) immune to the beauty of nature when it interferes with my convenience, a true village trait.

Possible consequences of living in the village too long: The synthetic fibre, floral wrap-over apron beckons. This is the traditional dress of Spanish rural women everywhere. Image from here.

*“Chopos”: Poplar trees

Wood chop whine

2010-10-25T13:41:00.003+02:00

Thanks to everyone for your heartening comments to my last non-post/wood chop whine. It really made a difference to my feelings of being overwhelmed.

Because my life is dominated right now by firewood, this non-post will also be about wood.

This is what we managed to load onto a tractor trailer, bring down from the woods, chop and stack this weekend. This is one and a half trailers' worth.

That just leaves this entire trailer load to chop...

and the third trailer load, half of which we managed to chop and stack directly from the trailer, until it got too dark to see, yesterday evening....

Not forgetting, of course, the remaining trailer load still up in the woods, which we will be bringing down next weekend...

Naturally, I am behind schedule on my 40,000 word translation, and more keep coming in...

Should I ever find a moment to myself, I might write a post about the dynamics of help in the village. But I wouldn't like to give the impression that all is gloom and doom. My lovely neighbour, Enrique el Cacique, village president, is lending a hand, despite having exactly the same back problems as me.

Empty promises...

2010-10-18T21:36:00.003+02:00

I’m so tired.

My work is going well – too well. It never lets up, and yet if it did, I would worry. The joys of self employment.

Me and SO have just come through (I hope) our first major crisis. Crises are exhausting and all-consuming. And if that weren’t bad enough, they often leave behind other problems in the shape of things that weren’t seen to in their day as a result of focusing all energy on resolving the crisis.

So the winter’s wood didn’t get cut in the spring because we were too busy giving each other a bad time to do anything useful, and we’re doing it now, frenetically, before the winter rain starts. Naturally, this year, when our act miserably failed to get itself together, we have an enormous plot about twice the normal size with at least two year’s wood (I reckon there’s around 8-10,000 kilos of firewood at least). There is no-one else available to do it for us, and the punishment for taking a plot and failing to clear it is not being given another one ever again (which might be a blessing in disguise).

I have fucked up my back working too hard, too long, moving huge tree trunks around in order to cut them up with the chainsaw. I am worried that I have done permanent damage when the operation had been such a success. It depresses me to think that for the sake of some winter wood I am now going to have to live with residual pain when before there was none. I have dusted off my old brace and put it on….

The gutters haven’t been cleaned and the roof still hasn’t been patched, so a beam has rotted and needs propping up before the roof falls down. The builder contacted almost a year ago has yet to turn up - we'll be doing it ourselves. My VAT returns are almost overdue, and of course, there is more wood to cut and be brought down from the hillside.

Those are just some of the urgent things. Non-urgent would include repairing the things (doors, chairs, cupboards, tables, etc.) the dog chewed months ago when still a puppy, rescuing the garden from its state of total abandonment, storing garden furniture, getting dressed right now. Oh, and taking care of our relationship, which whilst no longer marked urgent, should definitely go in the priority category.

I miss writing here. I miss reading and replying to your comments. When I read your posts, I miss feeling like I have anything worthwhile to comment. But tiredness consumes everything in its path, and leaves me brain-dead.

Tomorrow, next week, next month will be better…Empty promises I tell myself...

Enchanted Autumn

2010-09-15T22:30:00.004+02:00

A fantastic evening spent changing the dressings on Zen cat’s flea bite induced dermatitis wounds, picking fleas and a scuttling tick the size of a housefly off the dog, swatting endless dozy flies buzzing around the lights, and disposing off not one, not two, but THREE man-eating spiders. All this after meeting two, yes that was TWO, vipers lying across the path on my walk today, in different spots. Oh, and let us not forget the daily treatment for the dog’s ringworm, picked up at the kennels. I love September, month of ripening, harvests and insect and fungal madness. And sleepy snakes. Soon, like in tomorrow, the wasps will start attacking the grapes outside the back door, and I won’t be able to go out into the garden for a fortnight or so. Right now, nasty rustly insect limb/wing noises are emanating from the window frame, as other unidentified insects try to force their way in.

See those giant wasps in the picture there, on the panel telling me nice facts about the walk I had just done yesterday? That I couldn’t read, because there was no way I was going anywhere near those wasps, all getting together and preparing to swarm to my grape vine. My camera has a good zoom, for moments like these.

More wasps today, when I went to investigate an interesting hole – badger set, I thought. Badger destruction, more like – an underground wasp’s nest under repair following a badger attack, full of very angry wasps. I got attacked by a wasp’s nest once – well, the wasps in it – and I’m in no hurry to repeat the experience. Still, I have learnt to move away very, very slowly.

I have treated the dermatitis, crushed the tick between my fingernails, dropped the fleas into a glass of water to drown, stepped cautiously around snakes whilst cleverly distracting the dog at the same time because my previous dog got bitten by one once IN MY GARDEN and nearly died, and kept my distance from wasps.

As for the spiders, one spider was in the bath. Easy-peasy, I add Ping-Pong cat to the bath. End of spider. The other was in the paper bin BESIDE MY LEG. I’d been hearing rustling sounds all morning and wondering what it was. And then P-P cat arrived and nearly tipped the bin over in his enthusiasm to catch it/eat it/generally draw my attention to the source of rustling noises. Sadly, paper tissue content prevented me from experimenting with an idea mentioned by a commenter at Here in Franklin’s blog, namely, igniting hairspray. That, and a lack of hairspray, but I would have been willing to improvise with oven cleaner. I opted for tying the bag tightly shut and throwing it out the window (into my own garden, I might add, that will shortly be off limits to me. Let nature deal with her own). Third spider in one day (on the wall of my office), and I was getting confident. Confident enough to hold a lighted cigarette lighter underneath it and burn it. Brave, huh? It might have fallen on my hand.

I am not a prime candidate for Buddhist enlightenment.

Memoir of a bookworm

2010-09-13T00:03:00.001+02:00

One of the great things about being a fast reader is that you never have to commit anything to long-term memory, because the book’s over before you’ve had a chance to lose anything from short-term memory. Or perhaps I’m a fast reader because I don’t make the effort to lay anything down in storage. Anyway, another advantage is that once the book is finished, I remember nothing more than a vague outline of the plot and perhaps some of the characters’ names. And even that generally fades over time, leaving me nothing more than a memory of whether I liked the book of not. And so I can recycle books. Like someone suffering from Alzheimer’s, I come across new books every day, in my very own home. Just today, hunting through the shelves on the off-chance, I was pleased to find a book that I had no recollection of reading and that looked interesting. However, after a few chapters, certain events and turns of phrase are starting to give me a sense of déjà-vu. But I can’t remember any details, so it won’t really spoil my pleasure in reading the book, possibly for the second or third time.

I have phases with reading, where something captures my imagination and I stay on the subject until something else comes along. For a while it was quantum physics, the part of physics that attracts most people who know nothing else about the subject, with its echoes of magic, science fiction and parallel dimensions. That spun me off in the direction of Philip Pullman’s excellent children’s book on, well, magic, science fiction and parallel dimensions, and from there it was a short step to Harry Potter, which took me to Terry Pratchett, and then...a change of tack entirely as I’d exhausted my interest. I took up with some new (to me) post-colonial fiction, and re-read “To kill a mockingbird”. Twice in succession.

Possibly my best Christmas ever was spent alone, two and a half weeks of uninterrupted solitude devouring the complete works of Dickens. Post-colonial literature has been a constant, fading in and out over the past 10 years or so. After completing my literature degree, I embarked on what was to be ten years or so of only reading literature written by women, in reaction to three years studying for an English literature degree at university which hadn’t included a single book written by a woman. Feminist theory occupied another few years, overlapping with and followed by psychoanalytical theory. I read quite a lot written in Spanish the first ten years or so of living here, which was when I once again consented to read books written by men.

I have books for moods, too. I reach for detective novels when my brain is overloaded, and recently read the entire 12 “Miss Marple” novels in three days, at the rate of one omnibus a day. Likewise, I signally failed to draw out my reading of the “Jeeves” novels, something I’m regretting now, when light-hearted, purely escapist literature would be my salvation. When all else fails, I turn to the Larousse gastronomique, or “The diary of a provincial lady”. Pepys is also good for a brain that is incapable of concentrating normally. All provide short undemanding entries that nevertheless carry you along. When falling in or out of love, I rediscover my sense of connection with poetry – rapidly abandoned once emotional recovery is underway, fickle bookworm that I am. There are times when I want something long and meandering, and in this mood, I once got through two thirds of “Remembrance of things past” before my year working in a library was up and I had to return the third volume unread (something I regret to this day – I have the complete edition in French, and pick it up about once a year, but rarely get past page 18). Other times, I want something that grips me so much it blocks out the rest of the world – John Le Carré or, perhaps surprisingly, Dickens, for example .

At university, I read mainly short stories, so as not to get so involved in a novel as to be unable to do the work required of me; Alice Munro, Eudora Welty, Katherine Mansfield, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Saki... This was, of course, an act of massive self-deception, and I simply ended up reading enormous quantities of short stories and leaving university work to the last minute. Just before my Finals, I read through a friend’s entire and extensive collection of Marvell comics, in a heroic act of procrastination in the face of impending revision for exams.

I rarely get rid of books, unless they’ve really disappointed me, and almost never lend them. Since I so rarely remember anything about a book, if I didn’t keep them around me, I would have no idea that I’d ever read most of them. More than once I’ve bought a book I already had. Having them around me reminds me of them; sometimes, of the stories they contain, but more often of the feelings they evoked. I may forget their contents, but for me my books are the equivalent of a cosy cashmere shawl on a chilly day – entirely comforting in their presence. When asked, I can rarely rattle of a list of “books I have enjoyed”, but as I look around my shelves, they light up gently for me: “The corner that held them”, “The four-gated city”, “Nights at the circus”, “Skating to Antarctica”, “Nervous conditions”, “The poisonwood bible”, “The country of the pointed firs”, “Death comes for the archbishop”, “The awakening”, “A piece of mine”, “The portrait of a lady”, “Blue highways”, “Housekeeping”, “The spire”, “Pentimento”, “My brilliant career”, “Out of the woods”, “Cold comfort farm”* and so many others… Their titles are a soothing mantra for me. Books have always been a source of comfort and refuge.

Some things have changed. I used to like to keep my books pristine and would back them in adhesive plastic as soon as I got them home, to protect them. Now, I quite like the dog-eared look. I wish this reflected a growing ease with the ravages of ageing, but doubt it does. I never used to leave home without a book – who knew what boring delays would arise, leaving me tortured by inactivity if I didn’t have a book? Boyfriends and partners have fumed at the sight of me whipping out my latest book as we drove into petrol stations. I don’t know why this is so universally annoying, but it seems it is. These days I am less likely to carry a book – largely because I have downsized my handbags since my back operation. But which books to take with me on holidays or trips is still an agonizing decision. I usually overestimate my ability to absorb weighty tomes on serious issues, and never get past the first chapter before I’m raiding my companions’ holiday reading. This month I visited a friend without a book in my overnight bag – and came back with two.

Which all brings me to my plea. I am desperately in need of comfort and refuge in the form of books at the moment, and for all I can recycle old books, new books are a delight too. But I have run out of new books to read, and have no inspiration on what might be interesting. If anything I’ve mentioned here has made you think “she would enjoy...”, please tell me. I’d love some suggestions (no romances, please)…

*I’m not linking – if you’re reading this, you have Google.

Insatiable appetite for space

2010-08-24T01:15:00.004+02:00

“So it looks like we’ll more or less live separately but continue to see each other”, I tell her, “I’m fine with that, in fact, it’s always been my fantasy although I’ve never said it to any partner, and now it just looks like it’s going to happen without fuss”.

We’ve just rented a flat in the city 30 mins drive from my home in a village, ostensibly for nights out and a place to stay for Significant Other after a particularly exhausting shift in A&E, but it’s real purpose is quickly becoming apparent.

“Funny how that’s a fantasy for so many women”, she replies.

Is it? I’ve known quite a few women who nodded in absolute agreement whenever I’ve mentioned it, even a few women who managed to achieve it. Is it a woman’s fantasy? Actually, I have tentatively suggested this possibility to previous partners. They always took it badly, as rejection. It doesn’t seem to be a fantasy among the men I’ve lived with up till now.

I love SO, but living with him kills it stone dead. There’s endless resentment about who does what in terms of chores. Conflicts about how to organise the house. Sleeping and energy level incompatibilities between one who works shifts and another who has no imposed timetables. Endless directions on how to do things I’ve been doing fine for years without his help.

“He told me how to cut sellotape yesterday, and I just snapped”, I told another friend. “Do you think it’s a particularly Spanish trait?” she asks me, as her Spanish partner tells her unnecessarily how to drive to a particular street in a city she has lived in for 20 years.

I feel suffocated. I can’t even wash salad without unsolicited advice. For someone whose husband has been unfaithful, this probably sounds like small fry. In my case, my previous partner was violent, but even so I am in no way thanking my lucky stars right now to have found someone who limits himself to advising me on how to cut sticky tape.

Once you’ve been through it once (or more), separation becomes just another chore. But there’s also the loss of flexibility, in my case, at least. Been there, done that, ain’t ever going to do it again for anyone. But unfortunately, that anyone isn’t part of the process, the process predated them. So they just meet a wall rather than the pair of us slowly working out a compromise.

I have no idea how this is going to work out. I feel guilty because this is not “for better or worse”, it’s trying to take the good side only. And it’s very much pandering to individualism rather than trying to find common ground. And it’s a solution that depends on income*. But for now, I’m just grateful for a little space. And I’m sick my resentful thoughts about the day’s conflicts smothering my sexuality. This is new. I have hope. On the other hand, hope has always been my worst enemy in the past.

* The flat is very cheap because it was filthy and abandoned beyond belief, and that’s where the last three weeks of my life have gone.

Opposites attract?

2010-08-02T18:45:00.004+02:00

Not naming names, but…*

Silence versus endless stream of consciousness?

Tidiness/hygiene versus chaos/grime?

Independence versus do-everything-together?

Urban versus rural?

Technology versus nature?

Aggressive versus defensive driving?

Open house versus my-home-is-my-castle?

Light sleeper versus heavy sleeper?

Negative versus positive reinforcement?

Too many cooks spoiling the broth?

(Multi-) Functionality versus aesthetics?

Impulsiveness versus organization?

Yup.

I used to have a list like this of similarities: it’s slipped into insignificance. How much longer do you give us?

*Audience participation exercise – guess which is me (traits not always listed in the same order).

Silence

2010-07-29T17:06:00.004+02:00

It’s a stereotype for men to complain that their female partners and companions talk too much, but Significant Other complains that I don’t talk enough. I like silence. In fact, I adore silence. And although you may not be willing to believe it from reading this blog, I rarely open my mouth unless I feel that I have something relevant to say.

My neighbour has been back this month, with two female companions, Scratchy Voice and Hoarse Voice (most Spanish have ragged voices due to a lifetime of shouting in conversation). Speculation runs wild in the village about sleeping arrangements, but due to faulty insulation I am party to most of what goes on, and know that no fucking has taken place. They talk endlessly, from dawn to dusk, and what with the lack of insulation and the fact that the Spanish talk several decibels higher than Anglo-Saxons, I am party to most of their conversations. I am astounded by their ability to talk for hours on end about nothing whatsoever. Typical conversation, held in the garden:

Neighbour: This is the life!

Scratchy Voice: Yes, it’s healthy.

Hoarse Voice: Healthy and clean. This is the life.

Neighbour: Yes, healthy and clean. And the air is pure.

Scratchy Voice: The air here is really pure. This is true life.

Hoarse Voice: It’s a good life here, with pure air. It’s healthy and clean.

Neighbour: This is what life’s about.

Scratchy Voice: It’s a good life here, healthy, clean and pure.

Hoarse Voice: It’s the pure air that does it.

Neighbour: Wonderful air, so clean and pure.

Scratchy Voice: This is the life!

I’ve run out of inspiration, but they didn’t and things carried on in this vein for almost an hour. Of course, they didn’t take the polite conversational turns indicated above, but all roared over each other. Significant Other was envious. He longs for this kind of phatic communication to waft over and around him, encircling him in a gossamer wrap of intimacy and illusion of communication throughout the day. I think it’s a very Spanish need, and skill. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t even do it in my head and then suppress it. It simply isn’t there.

Perhaps the Nordic/Anglo-Saxon/Northern way is a bit brutal for Spaniards. I communicate needs, wants and reflections I feel to be relevant. I refrain from talking about things I think the other is uninterested in. I try not to repeat myself. Most of my thoughts remain private. I am silent for much of the time. I don’t even answer sometimes if I feel I have nothing to say, although I’m learning to say “I feel I have nothing to say”, which although unsatisfactory at least indicates that I have heard.

But here, in the absence of anything to say (Anglo-Saxon judgement), you simply rinse and repeat your previous pointless statement. Ad infinitum.

I live for DIY

2010-07-19T22:48:00.004+02:00

Well, I’ve just had the best vacation any pueblo girl could wish for.

Having been too busy to make any plans with Significant Other, I discovered to my horror that he had made plans for me. DIY plans (note to self: never make this mistake again).

So my two weeks have been spent buying a ladder, fitting a TV aerial, holding tools while SO rehangs a door, hovering around with those white plastic things that go in walls and hold screws in place and oh my god I've been here too long and can't remember what they're called while new lights are installed, holding the soldering iron steady, shining lights into dark corners, helping calibrate monitors, providing moral support for hours while he shops for incomprehensible little cables and connections, and generally having a bad time. None of which, except for the last, can be done without extensive web forum consultations in which I am expected to participate (and often translate). You try reading web forums on ladders for your summer holidays before you accuse me of being petty.

What is it about the Spanish? I scream to a long-suffering friend and partner of another Spanish DIY/techno freak on my only day off from this nightmare. Why on God’s good green earth does he need me to stand by while he does things I can’t possibly help with and would prefer to pay someone to do? What is it with the Spanish need for company? Even before I have finished speaking, her partner does something identical (can you get…, do you know where…, can you just hold…) and she shrugs her shoulders. There are compensations, she assures me.

We have a major culture clash. If I see something that needs doing that I can do, I get on with it. He finds this individualistic and exclusive (I call it maturity and independence). He wants to do everything together (except, ahem, the housework). I call this needing to be wet nursed (he thinks it’s an example of sharing and solidarity). Deadlock.

I am reminded of the old joke about how many Californians it takes to change a light bulb (1 to change the light bulb and X amount to share the experience). Multiply the number by extended family to the power of 10, and you could substitute Californian with Spaniard.

We are not, currently, in a good space. But I am relieved to be back at work, and will be even more relieved when he is, too.

The best men won

2010-07-12T01:43:00.003+02:00

I got my wish. I got to see the bar explode.

This evening, Spain played against Holland in the World Cup Finals, and won. It was the first time they had ever played in the finals, so obviously, also the first time they had won. The bar exploded. Champagne spraying everywhere, hugs, shouts, songs, kisses, tears, vuvlzelas, fireworks and car horns.

I had woken up this morning to the sound of vuvuzelas in the village. I thought about the Spanish team, about how they would be feeling. Exams and tests scare the life out of me, I can’t stand the tension. They must be used to it though, it’s their life after all, one competition after another. I wouldn’t survive two weeks. No thank you. I don’t like adrenalin.

I don’t have much idea of football. I don’t know the basic rules. The names with which I am familiar include Gordon Banks, Bobby Charlton and George Best. Kevin Keegan is still a newcomer to the game for me.

But I wanted to see this game, and I wanted to see it in the bar.

The day passed quietly.

We went down to the village bar an hour early to be sure of having a good seat. There were more people this evening, many wearing or painted in the colours of the Spanish flag. The atmosphere was good, although I, as usual, aroused curiosity. It’s the summer, and the summer people arrived this weekend. Not used to me, they ask local residents “Who’s that?”, and I get to overhear a garbled version of my life history.

The game started. There was more tension this time which rapidly increased as the Dutch team’s tactics became clear – clear the decks.

Even I, with my scarce knowledge of football (11 men per side. One ball. Two goals), can recognize a foul when I see it. The Dutch played an indignantly dirty game. I lost count of the number who got yellow cards, although only one got sent off. They deserved to lose. They spent so much time kicking the Spanish team in the chest, behind the knees, pulling on their shirts, tripping them up, stamping them on their feet and tripping them up, they hardly had time to play football as well. I was amazed and delighted that the Spanish team did not allow themselves to be provoked, and simply continued to play football.

I was reminded of a film I saw in early adolescence, “Rollerball”, and felt nervous every time a Spanish player had the ball, waiting to see what the Dutch players would do to him. I tell you, the Spanish would have benefitted from full metal jackets. Animosity at the bar to the opposing team became palpable.

The game dragged on and on without any goals but plenty of fouls. Into extra time. Finally, the Spanish team scored a glorious goal with about 2 minutes to go, making it unnecessary to go to a penalty shoot-out.

I had been prepared for the Dutch to win – I was surprised to discover my fatalism engendered by the world we live in, the conviction that the dirtiest players will win. I was surprised to discover that my British brainwashing in fair play almost made me leave the match in disgust. And also, that my sneaking prejudice against Latin Europeans as corrupt in contrast with northern Europeans who were somehow more honourable died a death: the Spanish team put the Dutch to shame.

A suggestion for FIFA: if we can see the playback of a foul, why can’t the referee? Also, in a draw, wouldn’t it be a good idea to award the match to the team with least fouls, rather than go to an arbitrary penalty shoot-out?

Spain goes through to the World Cup finals

2010-07-08T12:14:00.000+02:00

Even I watched the football last night, Spain in the World Cup semifinals for the first time ever.

I have a profound dislike of football. I’ve always been a light sleeper, and when I was a child sent to bed at the ridiculously early hours that English parents send their children to bed, I would be woken up and kept awake by my father’s vocal following of the game on the TV.

In a TV oriented, one-TV household, I got to watch a lot of football (my parents believed in the family doing most things together, even watching football). I hated it.

As in so many other things, I’ve lightened up on football since I came to Spain.

Although I would still rather stick hot pins under my fingernails than watch football at home, here I am in good company. Football isn’t football in the privacy of your own home. Everyone goes down to the bar to watch it in company, and it’s the company that turns watching football into a different experience for me.

I have no idea if this is the same in other countries, but I’m not making comparisons here, just trying to describe one of the things I like about Spain. Everyone’s there – all ages (no nonsense about children needing to be in bed), both sexes. Watching is a communal, communicative exercise. The audience howls at the missed goals, and expresses their conviction that their grandfather could do better. Everyone is a tactical genius, yelling at the trainer on the TV screen to do this or that. Fouls from the other side provoke bellows of indignation, but so do fouls by Spanish players, for being stupid. When the other team approaches the Spanish goal area, there are cries of intense anguish, followed by cheers when the danger is averted. A goal for Spain has everyone on their feet cheering and hugging the nearest available person. No animosity is expressed for the other side. The running commentary provided by the TV station is rarely audible, but nobody hisses “ssshhhh”. Spain wins, and suddenly fireworks are being let off, and can be heard too in the distance, in other villages. Car horns can be heard for hours afterwards.

So bathed in the pleasant warmth of a July evening, yesterday we sat under plane trees in the beer garden with 50 or so other people from the surrounding villages watching the match, and I enjoyed it.

You are what you own

2010-06-29T23:42:00.014+02:00

When I was a child, I collected some pretty crap figurines made in what was laughably referred to as porcelain, from a “collection” known as “Wade Whimsies”. They had about as much porcelain to them as my complexion. Every time my family went on holiday, for example, I had to seek one out and buy it as a keepsake. This was an activity that my parents strongly encouraged, even started. I’m not sure why, but perhaps because my mother was given one on her 21st birthday by a nurse, when she was in hospital with appendicitis and complications (they sewed up her intestines at the same time, with disastrous results).

It’s a little figure of a cobbler, which now sits on the kitchen shelf in my house in “Cobbler’s Street” (I’m not kidding).

That would only explain the choice of what to collect, though, not the initial encouragement to collect something as a (substitute for a) hobby, which still puzzles me. Looking back, it was like an introduction to the materialism which enslaves.

I remember that the first one was a corgi dog (we were on holiday in Wales),

but the only one that has survived since then is this little mouse,

which sits on an iron beam ledge (yes, how observant, covered in dust and cobwebs) as a substitute for the real mice which don’t dare enter thanks to my vigilant cats. Which is a pity, as I now discover that they are “collectable” (the figurines, not the mice). That is, when they were made, they were cheap shoddy items intended to introduce children to the world of pointless materialism and empty objects of desire. Now that they are no longer manufactured, they have acquired value as “unique” items of limited availability. Nothing whatsoever to do with intrinsic value, of which they have very little.

Nowadays, I reject the idea of “collecting”, seeing it is an attempt to seek uniqueness through material objects, which are never unique, and never hold their emotional value for long.

Which is all very noble, and kudos for me, but the other day, gazing in peace at my garden, I was forced to recognize that I collect garden furniture. In a garden of barely 800 m², I have no less than three benches, four tables, six chairs and a hammock. And that’s only what’s been put out. There’s more in the garage and the shed. Anyone looking at my garden would think that I was unable to walk beyond 10 yards before resting. Furthermore, if I open a certain drawer in my bedroom, out will tumble innumerable cashmere jumpers from here. I don’t call it collecting, but I have bought a million bags in the quest for the “one” that would suit all occasions. Add earrings/shoes/skirts/dresses to that.

I obviously learnt my lesson in objects of desire.

UB made me think about this.

Whippet again

2010-06-24T00:33:00.007+02:00

This blog is over a year old now, which means that some of the seasonal things I wrote about last year shouldn’t really be repeated, no matter how true they remain.

Like, June is my favourite month for the garden and the weather, but my worst month for work. Non-stop work, plus the delight of tax returns, nearly occupies my every waking hour.

So instead of writing, here are some pictures of L.Whippet, taken during a break from the computer.

You know one of the things I love about this dog? In motion, he reminds me of horses.

Poised for take off...Please notice the "bowl of beauty" peony on the right, in flower for the first time this year (four years after planting).

Off he goes...This photo reminds me of when my mare used to try and buck me off (good times).

And a friend has a horse who launches into a trot or canter like this, which is a problem if you're not expecting it.

Rounding an obstacle (the bush to his left)...Look at those muscles! That chest! He might not scare burglars at night, but this dog is all about muscle power.

And a bit of self-revelation - the whippet proudly displaying his single testicle, and me, looking like a hippy no matter where I shop...

I'm 5' 7" (170 cm), to give you an idea of how high he's jumping.

And International Misunderstandings...

2010-06-14T14:10:00.006+02:00

Of course,having laughed at our candidates’ shaky grasp of English, it’s only fair to mention some of the Oral Examiners’ gaffes, in that terrible first year of coming to live in Spain.

At the bar, we shared our memories of some of our more outstanding moments:

At the (crowded) butchers’. What she wanted to say: “I want a big chicken”.

What she said: “Quiero una polla grande” (translates as: “I want a big penis” –chicken should be feminine, right? Oh, so very wrong).

At the wholefoods store. What she wanted to say: “Does this have preservatives?”

What she said: “¿Tiene preservativos?” (translates as: “Does it contain condoms?”)

At the grocery store. What she wanted to say: “I want some whipping cream for a sponge cake”.

What she said: “Quiero crema para mi gato” (Translates as “I need some ointment for my cat” – special twist in the use of French (gateau) for cake).

To a surprised father-in-law What she wanted to say: “I’m hot. Let’s go inside”.

(in the garden). What she said: “Estoy caliente. ¿Vamos dentro?” (translates as: “I’m horny. Let’s go inside”).

Signing off a letter to a friend. What she wanted to write: “hugs”.

What she wrote: “embarazos” (translates as “pregnancies”, but to a confused mind, sounds very similar to the correct “abrazos”).

At the garden centre. What she wanted to say: “The slugs ate my bulb” (talking about an expensive lily).

What she said: “Las babosas comían mi bulba” (translates as “slugs ate my vulva” – b and v are pronounced the same in Spanish, and those a/o, feminine/masculine endings can lead you into to all sorts of trouble if you don’t get them right. Flowers may be feminine, but that doesn’t mean that the bulbs they come from are too).

To a neighbour. What she wanted to say: “Poland was great! The fields were full of poppies”.

What she said: “Polonia fue estupendo. Los campos estaban llenos de amapollas” (translates as: “Poland was great. The fields were full of cocklovers”). Similarly, “These shoes give me blisters” sadly became “Estos zapatos me dan amapollas” (translates as “these shoes give me cocklovers”). Amapola, ampolla, amapolla, what’s the difference? Hint – do NOT use the last one.

Only the last two of these were mine.

Doing my bit for International Understanding

2010-06-13T13:34:00.002+02:00

When I’m not contributing to International Understanding and the Global Exchange of Knowledge about sewage sludge and similar, I bark questions in English at nervous Spanish students. In June, I am what’s known as an Oral Examiner.

So yesterday, I was Orally Examining.

What did they want to say?*

- “The people are in a shitty park”

- “It’s hard to fuck us in the classroom”

- “I’m going to talk about the photo in her bottom”

- “The man is in the chicken dust”

- “We must be very concentrated”

Conjectures in the comments, please.

*It helps if you speak Spanish and have experience of teaching English to Spanish speakers.

You have magical powers...

2010-06-10T15:29:00.003+02:00

I actually read “The selfish gene” when I was a teenager, and my mind was blown away by the concept of memes. Who would have guessed that they’d end up being little quizzes on blogs? So, I’ve been tagged by Here in Franklin, and just when I was wondering if anyone (me included) could bear another post about walking the dog…

So instead, I get to answer her questions (thank you Franklin), think of 10 more, and tag the next 5 people.

Here goes:

1. You have magical powers and can go back in time to the concert of your choice. Who is it?

Well, I might as well start out by showing my age and my roots. When I was about 17, Led Zeppelin played their last UK concert at Knebworth (although we didn’t know at the time it was to be their last). I desperately, but desperately wanted to go, and my Mum wouldn’t let me. And it probably would have been crap, watching ants on a stage in the distance, listening to wildly distorted music and coping with enormous queues for filthy toilets. But then, I’ll never know, will I?

2. You must choose between two candidates to be Ruler of the World. One is a cat. One is a dog. Who do you vote for and why?

It would have to be the cat. At least they only lick their own bottoms. And I’ve never caught any of mine eating shit.

3. Mountains or beach?

Mountains, always. No sand in my food, clothes, hair or bed, no people, no radios, no need to be undressed in public, no parking problems, but shade, peace, space.

4. Are you interested at all in the local politics where you live, or do you only pay attention in national elections?

Local politics here means debating where to put the park bench. I follow the local politics, but I’m not an activist (I didn’t get involved in the great Park Bench Debate, for example). I follow national politics too, in a kind of disgusted way.

5. You have the opportunity to tell off the person you most despise without any repercussions. Do you? Who is it?

I’d love to, and then some. But the person I most despise has really good defenses (he needs to), so it would just be a waste of breathe. I’ll go instead for having the power to create itchy bites. Oh, and with the host of excellent candidates there are in the world, it would be my old boss.

6. Do you have too much stuff or not enough stuff?

I have just the right amount of stuff. My house, however, contains too much.

7. The house is on fire. What do you grab first (excluding people and pets)?

A stiff drink (or ten) and a packet of cigarettes. It's going to be a long wait in the garden before the fire engines arrive.

8. What place in the world would you visit again and again?

You can never step in the same river twice. I'm not much of a one for going back.

9. Do you ALWAYS answer the phone, or just let it ring?

I only ever answer the phone when I feel like talking, I feel like talking to the person who’s calling, and I’m not in the middle of a conversation or a meal. I changed phone company 6 months ago, and still haven’t gotten around to setting up the answer phone.

10. Does your family know about your blog?

I sincerely hope not. As far as I know, the only person who knows about this blog is my partner, and he can’t speak English.

And these are my questions:

1. What music/tribe defined you as a teenager?

2. Urban or rural?

3. How old do you feel inside? And how different is this to your real age?

4. Worst relative story, please.

5. What are you reading at the moment?

6. Who/what pushed/inspired you to start blogging?

7. Are you a learner or a teacher?

8. What is your pet hate?

9. Your word is law. What is your first decree?

10. Swanky bars, or sawdust on the floor affairs?

So, the idea is you answer the questions, think up 10 more, and tag 5 more people. No big deal if you’re not into tags, don’t like my questions, or don't want to think up your own, but for what it's worth, here are the people I pass the tag along to:

Fly (you’ve been a bit quiet recently)

Sarah (the writer's perspective)

Mwa (if you have the energy, what with all that child growing and raising and crèche hunting…)

Chesapeake Bay Woman (for when you get your internet connection back)

Mondraussie (hoping it will encourage you to write a bit more...)

And hey! I'd like to know everyone's answer to question no. 6. Also, why don't some of you silent readers (hate the expression "lurker") out there have a go and let me know?

Still life

2010-06-08T21:48:00.014+02:00

The garden onslaught has begun. Work is starting to slacken off, so I thought I'd take the day off today and cut the grass. I think we can all agree it needs cutting, no?

But it rained. So no gardening. Later on, in the evening, I thought I'd go out and take clichéd photos of roses with raindrops. Hah! As if. My life is nowhere near so romantic. Heading for my Zepherin Drouhin rose, I saw a snail. Usually (guilty secret) when I find a snail, I chuck it into my neighbour's garden. But then I saw another, and another. I went back indoors for a plastic bag.

So instead of roses with raindrops, I bring you a still life:

And a close up.

I must have collected more than a kilo. These bastards ate my dahlias last year. I hope any that are left think twice about lunching here again.

----------------------------------------------X-----------------------------------------------

In other news, I have been tagged by Franklin. You can look forward to a post that is related to neither the garden nor the dog in the near future.

Food is indeed, part of the cacophony of love*

2010-06-05T00:59:00.012+02:00

How would you feel if you picked up a menu, and the first thing that greeted your eye was “MEAT”?**

This happens so often when I’m asked to translate menus.

“Octopus”, the menu says. You can’t say that, I tell them. Give me an idea of how it was prepared, what went into the dish, what the diner can expect, other than a boiled octopus in all its glory and rigor mortis on his/her plate. If you want to sell it, that is.

This is so typical of Spanish food. There is one way to prepare each main ingredient, so obvious that it doesn’t need stating. It’s the default. Only the traditional regional variations will be noted (as in “blood pudding”, “blood pudding from Burgos” – with rice - or possibly the least appetising of all, "blood pudding from León"). What is possibly the national dish literally translates as “cooked”. Look hard and long at that dish (double click to enlarge), and be grateful for McDonalds.

My first introduction to this mindset was at a meal years ago when the hostess turned to me and asked “and how do you prepare lentils?” Lentils are the mainstay of Spanish cuisine, the comfort food par excellence. I was a vegetarian at the time, and could have rattled off a hundred lentil recipes at the drop of the hat, except I was struck dumb by her obvious belief that there was only one way to prepare them, and she was asking me about my slight variation on the canon.

Not surprisingly then, food is something of an issue in our house.

First, we have to take into account the fact that I cooked gourmet vegetarian meals every day for 17 years of an unhappy relationship as an act of appeasement. When I left to live alone, I couldn’t face cooking (even eating was a trial), and I lived happily on tuna fish salad for years.

Enter Significant Other. If there’s one redeeming quality about him (and in fact there are many), it’s the fact that despite liking his food, he didn’t run away squealing when I first cooked for him. I’d forgotten how to, and of course, had never learnt to cook meat in any case. We chewed thoughtfully and politely for a while on our prime sirloin steaks, and then he followed my example in giving the disgustingly overcooked-on-a-low-heat lump of rubber to the dog.

Then there was the honeymoon phase, when I recovered some of my cooking abilities and SO was happy to eat them. But my style of cooking relies heavily on India, Mexico, Italy, China, Japan…Came the day when SO broke down and revealed that he would like to eat something that a) he recognised, and b) wasn’t spicy hot.

This is an example of what he might recognize. If you go to the link, you might be amused, as I was, by the fact that it is “normally consumed, covered with a sheet”. You would want something to cover it, so you couldn’t see it.

It’s been a struggle since then. He cooks Spanish style (this usually involves frying) and I fume about the smell in the house, the grease accumulating on the beams and the need to install an extractor fan, or I cook and he plays “let’s identify the ingredients”.

Still, I no longer feel solely responsible for depleting tuna fish stocks.

* There is actually a lot of Spanish food that I like. I just don't mention it here.

**This will (almost) always signify beef. The Spanish associate beef and meat to such an extent that, as a vegetarian, I was frequently served pork, ham or chicken as a vegetarian “alternative”.

I packed it away in the move, and now I can't find it.

2010-06-03T15:22:00.004+02:00

I hope this is just a transition time.

I spent the last year and a bit waiting to get my life back; to be operated on, to recover from the operation, to move back to my home.

Well, it’s all happened now, except that life doesn’t stand still, and what I’ve come back to is not what I’d left. I have at least stopped expecting the routines from my old life to come back, but I’m still not really clear how to structure this new one.

I no longer have a horse. That’s a lot of structure gone from my day (carrying water and feed twice a day, grooming, checking the electric fences/moving the horse to a new field).

I’ve changed jobs. I no longer work for peanuts a few hours every day spread out over twice the actual working time or more, in a sick environment 45 minutes away from my home. I now work from home, at no set times, whenever I have work (which is most of the time). That’s more structure out of the window – I don’t have to drive anywhere at set times of the day to put on an act for people whose linguistic abilities ceased to interest me years ago, or even shower and get dressed. I don’t have weekends, or working hours or public holidays – or holidays at all. I just have occasional, random days when miraculously, there is no work waiting to be done.

My garden is so overgrown I can’t bear to even begin to get to grips with it, and the bitter winter followed by endless spring rain hasn’t helped, either. The structure of gentle, seasonal-based gardening has been replaced by the need for a long and intensive overhaul.

Friends have moved away, physically or emotionally. More structure gone.

I no longer live alone, and adapting to someone else’s structure inevitably means renouncing some of one’s own. Also, my partner works shifts, so there’s not much imposed structure there for me to adopt second-hand.

I do have a dog again, and taking him for his daily walk gives me just about the only structure I have in a day. Yesterday, I got lost again. Only this time, I knew where I’d come from, but I didn’t know where I was going. I never got to find out (and I do hope this won't turn out to be an omen) because a huge thunderstorm forced me to turn back the way I’d come.

So, today’s keyword is STRUCTURE. I can’t find mine (it’s probably packed away in a box somewhere). Anyone got a spare?

The excitement is killing me.

2010-05-28T02:31:00.012+02:00

This was today's destination. A small hill standing alone which has always intrigued me but yet I've never visited. I tried to the other day, having got bored of hunting ducklings with butterfly nets at Significant Other's instigation (typical country past-times), but sheep were grazing, and sheep here come attached with huge, aggressive mastiff dogs. Alone, they don't bother me - you hunker down and up they run, all smiles and wagging tails, to be made a fuss of. It's a different matter though, when you have a trembling weedy whippet by your side who is acting like a magnet for dog agression. Sticks, stones and loud curses become the order of the day, not to mention avoidance. So I tried again today. No sheep.

It's a hill crowned with gorse, with two clear rings around it. As I got closer, I could see that the rings were actually banks. I got all excited about discovering an ancient fort, as you can see from the next picture, which has no interest whatsoever except to prove my theory that these were once defensive banks, and not simply the result of terraced farming.

This was the windswept view from the top. A clear 360º view of the surroundings, perfect for a hill fort - or a midsummer night camp out.

Naturally, having decided that I'd stumbled across an iron age fort, I interpreted these stones as walls and paving. The fact that these hills are practically entirely composed of glacier rubble has nothing to do with it.

There was even mistletoe growing on an old, twisted hawthorn, and everyone knows that mistletoe was a sacred plant in ancient times, no? Incontrovertible proof of my theory.

The flowers below are just here (in this post) because they were pretty. My mother calls the first one a rock rose. She may be right. Anyway, she always get annoyed and at the same time, excited when she sees them here because they apparently cost money in the UK, and she has paid good money to plant some in her garden. Whilst here, they are as common in spring as weeds.

And this one is a type of lavender, endemic I think, to Spain. It's name here is "cantueso" (and in Latin, lavandula stoechus). It doesn't smell like lavender until it's dried, or burnt like incense.

So, I obliged the whippet to follow me as I explored the gorse, views and flowers on the hill top. Sadly, I found no remains to confirm my theory, but I shan't let that bother me. What did bother me was the whippet striking this pose:

Very photogenic and all that, but this is a "what the fuck is that?" pose, which quickens my pulse, and not in a nice way. Boar? Where? Are there any trees I can climb nearby?

You might by now be wondering if I ever do anything apart from translating (sewage sludge today!) and taking the dog for a walk. And the answer would be no. I don't. Sadly. I'm still adapting (not very well) to working from home. Earlier this week, I had uncontrollable cabin fever, and so arranged with Significant Other to meet him in town when he came off his shift at 10 pm. The idea was to try out one of the restaurants that his new colleagues had recommended. Being the incredibly together people that we are, neither of us remembered that it was Monday, the day when most bars and restaurants in town are shut. So I put on my glad rags and drove into town. It started raining as we walked from one closed restaurant to another, finally ending up in a pizzaria I've been going to for 20 years. When we got home, the dog had destroyed half the house in an attack of separation anxiety and we had a lively conversation about different approaches to dog rearing techniques (his and mine) to round off the brilliant evening.

Life without handrails*

2010-05-26T02:17:00.024+02:00

I live near this:

Walking it was one of my first experiences of Spain.

Visitors from England can’t understand why it doesn’t have handrails.

I think England is starting to miss the point about life.

*From a comment by Chris. The scenery is better without them (sorry to insult you: metaphor, for life).

Village gossip

2010-05-22T22:58:00.012+02:00

In general, Significant Other is starting to settle down here in the country. It's been a long hard winter though, and not just because of the weather, but I think we're coming out of the tunnel.

One thing he still finds difficult, being capital city born and bred, is the lack of anonymity. It's hard to describe really, but not much goes unnoticed (and uncommented on), and he hasn't really got a handle on it yet.

Yesterday, coming back from a walk, we saw a car parked along a track:

SO: Do you think someone's been watching us?

Me: No, the real snooping goes on on the street corner, at the church or in the bar, when they all get together to compare notes and compile information. It'll be a hunter, someone checking his crops, or someone collecting wild mushrooms.

Sure enough, a figure emerged in the distance, carrying a white plastic bag, the sign of the mushroom gatherer. I'm sure he was cursing us for snooping, because the location of wild mushrooms (at this time of the year, the highly prized St. George mushroom) is a jealously kept secret around here, and we'd just rumbled him, and his secret site. We'll be going back to investigate...

Not that SO's experience of the local grapevine has been traumatic in any way to date. The neighbours congratulated him on being transferred here before he knew about it, for example, but nothing awkward or embarrassing has happened.

I had a far more uncomfortable introduction to life in the country. The landscape seems so empty, but it's an illusion. When I first came here, I wasn't in the least bit sensible about the sun. Released from 30 years non-stop rain in the UK, I was out in the sun from dawn to dusk. My first house had an orchard attached, surrounded by an armpit high stone wall, and beyond that was our field, about one and a half hectares. No-one overlooked us. Privacy, I thought. In my first year there, I used to take a blanket out and sunbathe nude in the orchard. I'd hear children's voices from far away, but thought nothing of it, secure in my privacy. No-one in the village ever said anything. I heard that I was being watched and was the scandal of the region from a friend in town, 50 km away, who had heard it from her friend, who had friends in a village two villages down from where I was living, who had heard it from....you get the picture. I'm surprised I didn't read about it in the paper. Since then, I've been acutely aware that no matter how private or devoid of people the landscape seems to be, it isn't.

It doesn't bother me really. I have a wholesome face and manner, which excuses a variety of sins, and whilst the villagers may talk among themselves (and they do, as a friend in the next village down told me...), they never say anything to me directly, or openly disapprove. So I don't care. It bugs the life out of SO, though, that he can't move without attracting a crowd to see what he's doing.

*Can anyone identify the flower in the picture, please?

Flower power

2010-05-19T23:15:00.020+02:00

My beloved has obsessions. They go in cycles. We have come back to the camera obsession, subdued since last August, and he has bought yet another camera (don't ask, I've lost count. Am dreading a resurgence of the car obsession). Thinking to please him, I took him to see some of the spring flowers I've discovered recently, so he could take close-ups. A long, dark, rainy winter has produced the most amazing abundance around here. I took my lovely DMC-TZ5 that he bought me last time round, to take my own photos. Just as well, seeing as it turns out his fancy-pants new camera doesn't perform all that well with macro shots. It's gone back to its maker as a result of today's walk (a strategy suggests itself to me here).

This was the star, totally new to me. I've managed to identify it to the ophrys family (kind of orchid), but no more. Yesterday, I found a patch of them in a corner of gorse. I bring you this post punctured to pieces by the spines I had to crawl through and kneel on to take the photos.

After the previous orchid, these hardly seemed worth looking at. Humble cousins, quite rightly in the shade.

Of the various different types of daffodil that grow wild here, these will always be my favourite.

Hawthorn is nothing new of course, but I love it. I've never been one for weddings, but there's something about this that screams "bridal bouquet" to me. Curse weddings for reducing my imagination to cliches.

Another variety of orchid. Yawn. These are everywhere.

Unidentified. How about the flower from Mars?

Whereas this orchid is the insect's version of a blow-up rubber doll. Seriously. Their pollination strategy is to be fucked by misguided insects. Have you seen the eyes (hint: double left click)?

But this little guy just wanted a drink.

Angry, or "Garzon, amigo, el pueblo esta contigo"

2010-05-14T18:36:00.016+02:00

I have an idea I'm not supposed to do this, lift entire news stories. The report is from Reuters. The rants in italics are mine.

(Reuters)

Controversial Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon was suspended on Friday pending his trial on charges he exceeded his authority by ordering an investigation into mass killings during the Civil War, court officials said. Although they didn't mind him investigating mass killings in Chile... Double standards, anyone?

"It was unanimously agreed to apply a temporary suspension due to the Supreme Court ordering the said judge to face trial," Gabriela Bravo, spokeswoman for Spain's top judicial panel, told journalists.

Visibly moved, the silver-haired Garzon was hugged and cheered by a throng of supporters chanting "Garzon, amigo, el pueblo esta contigo" as he left his High Court chambers following the suspension.

Garzon, who won fame for trying to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on human rights charges, has sharply divided Spanish public opinion. Strangely, public opinion wasn't so divided when he investigated human rights abuses abroad.

Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets to support him, saying the case is a politically motivated ploy by the right wing (Garzon was simultaneously investigating widespread corruption within the conservative party; even the party treasurer has had to resign and there are suspicions that the party has been receiving funds illegally for a decade or more. Not only has damaging attention been diverted from this corruption investigation by the case against Garzon, the investigation itself will face serious difficulties without the person who has been heading it for maybe 2 years) and that his trial amounts to granting impunity for mass killings (impunity was granted long ago - this trial is an attempt to keep it that way).

Conservatives say he is reopening old wounds (conveniently overlooking the fact that the only healed wounds are theirs, as the victors of the civil war) and diverting attention from Spain's deep recession and attempts to contain the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis. He started this process long before "hedge fund" became a word we are all familiar with. Also, they forget that they thought he was the bees-impartial-knees when he investigated and condemned the left wing government for using illegal force against ETA terrorists.

Garzon faces two other Supreme Court enquiries: one for bugging corruption suspects linked to the opposition Popular Party, and another for dropping an investigation into the head of Spain's biggest bank Santander after receiving payments for giving courses sponsored by the bank in New York. Also accusations made and cases brought by private, right-wing groups, I believe.

"I face it (the trial) with calm, the calm granted by knowing one is innocent as charged," Garzon said on radio and television on Thursday.

MANY VICTIMS UNACCOUNTED FOR

He was ordered to face trial on Wednesday for proceeding without jurisdiction to probe alleged crimes committed during the Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship of Francisco Franco. A debateable point; which has priority, an "amnesty" granted under pressure to quell threats of a right-wing coup d'etat following the death of Franco, or an international agreement to investigate crimes against humanity? Garzon, who has proved his impartiality by conducting deeply damaging investigations into the left-wing party, says the international agreement. Right-wing groups and their supporters, whose history, after all, is what he has tried to investigate, say the amnesty. No date has been set.

An estimated 100,000 people who disappeared during the 1936-39 Civil War are still unaccounted for, including Spain's best known 20th-century poet, Federico Garcia Lorca.
Garzon opened the investigation at the request of victims' relatives in October 2008. He didn't dream this up - there has been a growing "Historical Memory" movement in Spain for years now, which has privately funded the search for mass graves, exhumation and identification of the bodies on the request of relatives. Whilst I find it a bit strange that people yearn so strongly for the bones of relatives murdered 70 years ago, I recognise that I come from a dysfunctional family culture, and Spain is very family oriented - probably more than I appreciate.

Most of the disappeared were supporters of the Republican government against which Franco led a military uprising in 1936. Thousands of Franco supporters who were also killed have long since been tallied and commemorated. Any clue here to who's wounds might be healed and whose might still be open?

Garzon passed the case on to regional courts amid claims (by the people who perpetrated the crimes, or their direct descendents and successors) that the crimes were covered by a 30-year statute of limitations and a 1977 amnesty law passed during Spain's tense transition to democracy.

His trial stems from a lawsuit brought by the small rightist Manos Limpias union (unfortunately for them, this translates as "clean hands" and quite rightly evokes images of Lady Macbeth) and the far-right Falange party, which was a mainstay of Franco's dictatorship but is now marginalized. Both of which groups were informally helped to compile and present their accusations by the judge in charge of case. Impartiality, wherefore art thou?

(Writing by Martin Roberts, editing by Tim Pearce, photos from associaciones de memoria histórica and rants in italics by me).

Smoke

2010-05-12T21:27:00.003+02:00

I never told him this, although he asked.

Why did I leave? As in, what was the final straw?

It wasn’t being pushed down the stairs, it wasn’t having him break down doors with a sledgehammer to get to me, it wasn’t having to be operated on in order to put right sustained injuries, it wasn’t having him try to strangle me.

Funny how the mind works.

It was the day he came into my room and said angrily that the only thing that stopped us having a loving relationship was the fact that I smoked (out in the garden, I might add, never in the house or in his presence. Also, that the “garden” was 1.5 hectares big).

And I remembered that nearly all the above things had happened during the 15 years or so previously when I didn’t smoke, because he “forbade” it. And the last bit of hope/delusion drained out of me. I had sorted out alternative living accommodation within the week.

Regrettably but understandably, smoking has remained as a sign of freedom. PUR-lease don’t lecture me on all the ways it isn’t. Without smoking, I might not be alive today.

Letting go

2010-05-02T17:12:00.005+02:00

Late nights at home alone often lead me astray.

The last one, I decided to have a look at Facebook. Apparently, I joined.

Now I have requests arriving in my email from people I haven’t heard from in years, to be my friend. Sweet. Not so many years ago I’d have been pleased and excited at the prospect of being back in touch.

But now…I balk.

These are people who have known my email address and telephone number for years without making the slightest effort to use either. Apparently, they want me to open still more lines of communication for them to ignore.

I think one of the biggest things I needed to learn in the process of leaving my ex-partner was how to let go, and life made a big effort to make sure I learnt my lesson. It took me longer than it should have for me to leave him, and this was largely because I loved the house we had bought together so much*. We’d bought it ten years previously, a big old rambling stone farmhouse with a cobbled patio, a walled orchard and a huge wild field – a hillside really, full of wild flowers and trees - and then spent the next ten years restoring it. It was clear from the time there was a bad accident with a broken bottle during a fight, leaving me in hospital for a week and unable to walk for 4 months, that I needed to leave (actually, it was clear long before then, but you know, some of us are slower on the uptake than others). But it was another three years before I accepted that a house isn’t worth dying for, whether we mean dying inside or physically, and left.

I left for a job as gardener/general dogsbody with house thrown in, and I quickly learnt to love the new house. At first it felt like a refuge, a safe harbour after the storm, but it wasn’t. The owners were pretty unbearable and abusive, too, yelling at me, entering the house and taking things, blaming me for their own stuff. It was like a paler imitation of what I’d just left behind, and within 10 months I had to decide to leave all over again. That was when I got this idea that until I had some things clear, I was just going to find myself in the same situation over and over again. When it became necessary to leave my current house for my own welfare, I left without a murmur.

I thought that by simply avoiding getting into a relationship with another man, I would escape the doom of abusive relationships. Not so. The woman friend who gave me most support at that time gradually became more and more possessive and domineering, whilst at the same time less and less respectful. Here we go again. So a year after leaving the person who, however bad for me, had actually been central in my life, I made a stand over something really quite trivial with the person who had come in some ways to replace him, and that was the last I saw of her. I try to be more careful about who I let into my life now.

OK, so that’s two houses and two significant others down. What else? Oh yes, the job. Nice enough job, foul boss, but I put up with it because that’s what I do, put up with things. So then my boss decided to try and get me fired. Although he didn’t succeed, in some ways he did, because he made me realize that the job was another thing I had to let go. Again, it took me a couple of years to get my escape plan set up, but I left. I work for myself now, and a client who lets me down is a client I don’t work with again.

And what has all this to do with friends and facebook?

Realizing that you have to let friends go, too. I have a friend I would have rated a good friend. We go back 25 years or so. But in the middle of the last 6 years of chaos and moving and losing and letting go, I began to realize that it’s always me who phones, always me who visits. This year, I’m dipping my toes in the water of letting go: I haven’t phoned for months now, and suspect that I won’t be hearing from her anytime soon. And these people who’ve crawled out of the woodwork on Facebook? I’m letting you go, too.

*Times change. I took Significant Other there once. While he was oohhhing and aahhhing about the beautiful house, situation and land, I just got nasty scene replays everywhere I looked.

Getting in touch with my inner child

2010-04-30T12:01:00.001+02:00

Spring has been a long time coming. There were plenty of messengers: first the storks, then, in approximately this order, hoopoes, bats, cherry blossom, cuckoos, daffodils and tulips, swallows, pear and apple tree blossom and bee eaters, but they appeared false for a while.

Now it’s finally arrived, and the last herald of improving weather is here – scratches and bruises on my arms from weeding among the roses, bruises along my waist/ribcage as the lawnmower suddenly hits a thick clump of grass and my momentum carries me smack into the handle, burst blisters on my hands from excessive use of gardening tools, scabs around my ankles from scratched mosquito bites, bruises on my legs and skinned knees and shins from roses, pruning, and walking into the wheelbarrow as I distribute manure around the garden…

Significant Other is taking me out to lunch today. I will look like a six year old let out from the playground and forced into adult clothes.

Sorry for dumping

2010-04-27T00:25:00.001+02:00

Conversation at the local post office today.

I wanted to send a giro, and handed over a copy of a previous giro for the details to be copied. PO Bitch starts entering the details on her computer. She gets to my foreigner ID number.

PO Bitch: I can’t send this. You’re not registered as a resident*

Me: ???

PO Bitch: You’re not on the computer, so I can’t send the giro.

Me: Why do I need to be “registered” to send a giro? This is the post office, not the immigration office.

PO Bitch: (not replying to my question) Give me your ID card.

PO Bitch: That’s why. It’s out of date**. I can’t send the giro.

Me: Can you explain to me then, why the PO in the capital (left unsaid: as opposed to your poxy village branch) had no problem sending a giro for me last week, the copy of which you are holding in your hand?

PO Bitch: (Looks put upon, and completes the transaction) This isn’t right, you know, I shouldn’t be doing this (hands over the form for my signature).

Me: You’ve entered the details wrong.

PO Bitch: Is this better? (rips up her earlier effort, together with the previous giro I’d given her with the details to copy)

Me: You’re tearing up my receipt. Please stop.

Later, at home, I notice that the copy she gave me has “null” written at the bottom. She took my money and cancelled the payment.

Entirely unsatisfactory transaction. COW.***

Still looking at the map.

*Actually, I am. Registered as a resident that is. She just didn’t know how to use her computer, but then, who am I to cast stones at the computer illiterati?

**Spain, in her eternal wisdom, stopped issuing resident’s cards a couple of years ago. We could all carry our own national identity cards. Except, ahem, the UK doesn’t issue identity cards. So I have a sheet of A4 paper testifying to my identity which would last about 2 days of shopping/post office visits. Hence, I use my old ID card. She’s the 2^nd person in 3 years to notice it’s out of date.

***Also, I really like animals. I wish English had better insults. I particularly like gilipollas (pronounced approximately “hillypoyas”) in Spanish

Were those the scales of justice that just fell from my eyes?

2010-04-24T23:58:00.003+02:00

Normally, I bumble about relatively unperturbed in my little rural bubble.

Yesterday, though, I was ruffled.

Significant Other brought home a film he thought was excellent, and we watched it, and it was. The story of Salvador Puig Antich, the last political prisoner to be executed under Franco.

There were all the aspects of Spain I do my best to avoid – the swaggering, repellent policemen (brilliantly parodied by an excellent Spanish actor here), the botch job approach (they executed him in the store room, for fuck's sake, using a device they knocked together the same day and which didn't work very well), the callousness, the brutishness. The corruption (he was executed for the murder of a policeman, but the evidence that this man had actually been killed by the ricocheting bullets of his colleagues was suppressed).*

I was overwhelmed by a wave of hatred for the rancid, tawdry side to this country. Because right now, the people who have continued to keep the right wing flag flying here (often literally direct descendents of the Franco regime, as in sons, nephews) are crucifying one of the best judges in Europe – for investigating crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship, such as the execution of Salvador. Baltasar Garzón is perhaps a week away from being suspended for 20 years as a judge. This is the man who nearly brought Pinochet to trial. Who investigated the socialist government here years ago for using illegal force against terrorists. And who was, until recently, investigating a huge financial scandal within the right wing party as well as starting to investigate crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship. Although Spain has an amnesty for what went on during the dictatorship, the country is also a signatory to a European Treaty to investigate war crimes. Garzón used the latter to open his investigations; the extreme right has used the former to challenge him. Quite a few people believe, in order to stop the investigations into huge financial corruption within the right wing party (as well as not wanting to have the muck raked over).

Not much has really changed here. I’m studying the map.

*Not that I come from anywhere better: remember the Birmingham 6, the Guilford 4 and the Maguire 7?