A new life in Andalucía

Figged out

It seems that in my recent blogs I have focussed entirely on negative aspects of life here in Spain: rude bar owners, lack of suitable and affordable houses, threats of quarries opening, rubbish dumping, underage drinking and cruelty to animals.  I don´t want anyone getting the wrong end of the stick though: I don´t hate it out here but it has to be said that, pretty much as expected, it´s not all sunshine and laughter and there are moments when you question your initial decision to emigrate.  These moments do pass (especially with the start of a new school year looming back in Blighty).  So, because I´ve been so doom and gloom of late, I shall make this blog entry a happy and cheerful one, I promise. 

Even though the countryside is not at its most picturesque at the end of August (after several months without rain – I know you guys back in the UK must find that hard to believe – the land is very dry and barren), this is the time when the figs and the almonds have finally ripened and are ready to be picked. It´s been great to observe the growing process over the past few months, especially as far as the almonds are concerned – from gorgeous white and pink blossoms to furry cocoons which have now burst open to reveal a light coloured almond shell.  When I lived in England I never had the time to pick fruit that had grown in our garden and I dread to think just how many apples, blackberries, pears, plums, gooseberries etc… simply fell off the trees, hedges and bushes and rotted away over the years.  What a waste. 

Now things are different.  Over the past few weeks Ian and I have been picking tons of figs (hence the long silence since my last blog entry).  Initially we ate them off the tree (it must be the biggest fig tree in southern Spain), then, when the novelty had worn off, we picked big bowls full which we somehow managed to cram into the fridge.  Eating lots of figs is not a good idea though (I won´t go into details), so we started giving them away to our neighbours (those without a fig tree of their own: the others, who have their own supply, not surprisingly, didn´t want to know).  Everytime somebody visited us, they were not allowed to leave without taking several kilos of figs home with them.  After a few days (when nobody had been to see us for a while; word must have got round that figs would be dumped on you whenever you go and see the Wilkinsons), I proceeded to make several kilos of jam, so unsuspecting visitors were given jars of fig jam on top of carrier bags full of figs (the jam jars also make great gifts when you´re invited to a dinner party).  When it became clear that we would never be able to eat all the fresh figs (nor give them away), we started drying them on a large table, over which we had draped a mosquito net, so the wasps couldn´t get anywhere near them.  I am pleased to say that this has worked a treat and we have currently got our second batch drying outside in the Andalusian sunshine.  Looks like we´ll be eating dried figs well throughout the winter and probably the next one also.  We have even found a use for the figs that have already fallen on the ground and are half-eaten by insects and the ones that have gone manky on the tree.  We collect them in a big wheel barrow and pass them on to our neighbours who feed them to their sheep.  In exchange they´ve given us some of their excellent tomatoes and they´ve also let us borrow a net we now place under the almond trees, so we can simply hit the tree branches with a big stick and gather the almonds in the net rather than having to wait until they fall onto the ground and then pick them up again.  Luckily almonds  don´t need to be processed straight away but I have a feeling we´ll be running out of containers to put them in before too long. 

Our friends Pat and Sue are here again at the moment and they´ve been helping us to harvest and process our figs and almonds.  We are now the proud owners of a grinder which they have bought for us in the village yesterday and Sue has just filled a big plastic container with ground almonds.  Earlier today, Sue and I made some fig chutney and compote which smells divine. 

So, as you can see, it´s not such a bad life after all.  Incidentally, if anybody has any more ideas as to what I can do with the figs (and also how I best go about storing the ones we have dried), please leave me a comment; I´d be most grateful.

Fig anyone?  No?  How about an almond?

Lovely fi(n)gs

Nuts about almonds

The house of horrors

One has to admit that house-hunting (or shall we call it area-hunting, as we´re still none the wiser as to where exactly we want / can afford to live) in the heat of August is not the most pleasant thing to do. However, as the clock on our present tenancy is ticking, we have no choice but to keep looking around.  So it happened that we found ourselves, yet again, packed into some estate agent´s car on Thursday with the initial intention of looking at three houses further inland, about an hour´s drive northwest from where we are at the moment.  Much to our chagrin, our fairly modest list of three definite maybes was soon reduced to an even more modest one, as one house was already under offer and another  turned out to be semi-detached (a fairly important fact that must have somehow slipped the agent´s mind when she was putting together the accompanying blurb to describe the property – easily done).  Of course the agent had come up with a few other possibilities of her own, so off we went, to ascertain if nothing else whether we actually liked the area and could contemplate living there.

The cortijo we had chosen to see immediately turned out to be a definite no-no.  Just by the side of the main road, it was utterly characterless and very shabby.  It might have had a fairly new roof (as the agent was quick to point out) but what it certainly lacked was potential. Strolling around the admittedly quite impressive cultivated land at the back of the house, where we found various fruit trees and vegetable patches bursting with produce, Ian took a look at the water deposit which – according to the agent – could have so easily been converted into a pool (for terrapins maybe) and that´s when I spotted ´it`. A term I am deliberately using because at first I had no idea what ´it` was.  I found myself gazing at some dark, straggly-looking creature which was chained to the branch of a tree.  A sheep?  I immediately alerted the others and as we approached the tree, we identified the creature as a dog.  The animal was standing with bowed hind legs, most of its fur had fallen out, revealing bare skin covered in sores and ticks.  A filthy rope was tied tightly around its skinny neck and the chain that was attached to the tree branch was so short that it restricted the dog´s movements to an absolute minimum.  Amongst the faeces and clumps of fur on the ground was a pile of stale bread and a bucket of murky water.  The dog, who was dirty and not very fragrant to say the least, didn´t bark, he simply looked at us with the saddest eyes I have ever seen and after I had recovered from the initial shock of this sorry sight, I burst into tears. 

You read about these acts of cruelty against hapless animals in the papers but nothing prepares you for the sheer devastation you feel when you actually stumble across a real case of such neglect and abuse.  How anyone can be capable of treating an animal so badly beggars belief.  Shock and sadness turned into anger (if the owner had come home that very minute, I don´t think I could have been held responsible for my actions) and then practical thinking took over as we wondered what we could possibly do to help.  One thing was clear from the word go, leaving the dog there was not an option.  We untied him with great difficulty and  managed to heave him into the back of the car. 

It was nearing 2 o´clock and we didn´t hold out much hope of getting the dog to a vet´s before siesta time.  The agent phoned a couple of vets but one had gone to Sevilla for the day and the other one was about to have his lunch.  Luckily we managed to find a supermarket which was still open, bought some yoghurt and a tin of dog food and took the dog to a house, which belonged to a friend of the agent, where we fed and watered him.  I have never seen a dog relish a pot of yoghurt quite so much.  He wolfed down half the tin of dog food too and we let him wander about a bit.  He was very weak and unsteady on his feet.  Eventually, we made him comfortable in a shady corner where he had access to a big bucket full of fresh water and the agent took him to the vet´s evening surgery at about 6:30pm when we were making our way home to meet our friends who were coming to stay the night with us. 

Apparently the vet had never seen a worse case of neglect in her life.  The prospects are good though and it looks as if the dog can look forward to a much brighter future.  He is now getting daily injections of vitamins, antibiotics to sort out the sores and he´s also been put on a diet of raw liver and meat due to the fact that he is severely aenemic.  The ticks have been removed and he is getting a ´haircut` this weekend.  The agent is keeping him in her office for the time being while he is recovering from his ordeal, then she´ll be doing her utmost to find a permanent home for him.

I just wish there were something we could do to ensure the dog´s former owner is punished and stopped from keeping animals ever again but apparently this is not that easy here in Spain.  Animal rights are still very low down on the list of priorities.  I must admit, you do start to question the desirability of living in a country where this is the case.

Needless to say we never actually took a look inside torture cottage.  We might not have found our Shangri-La yet but we´ve helped to save a dog´s life and that sounds pretty good to me . 

Our gruesome find.

Happy New Year

I have been humming and singing the song Feliz Navidad for the past few days, much to the annoyance of my husband.  You must know it: Feliz Navidad (x 3), Prospero Año y felicidad.  I wanna wish you a Merry Xmas …  Yes, it´s a Christmas song, so why is it on my mind in the height of summer, you may well ask yourself?  I can explain:  Ian and I have just returned from cute little Bérchules (the village in the Alpujarras where we lived for six months until we moved here to the Sierra de las Nieves in April) where they celebrate Noche Vieja (literally old night but it means New Year´s Eve) on the first Saturday in August, therefore they call the fiesta ´Noche Vieja en Agosto` and it has made Bérchules quite famous, probably more on a national basis though. 

The reason they have two New Year´s celebrations a year is that, back in the winter of 1994, the village suffered a massive powercut which meant they had to see the New Year in by candlelight which, of course, for Spaniards is not romantic but a sheer catastrophe.  They need lights, lots of them, the brighter the better.  They also need music, so loud that the bass notes swallow all the lyrics.  So, no blinding illumination and no deafening noise equals no fun.  After this disaster the villagers were determined that their Noche Vieja would never be spoilt again and decided to have two celebrations – one in December and one in August.  I don´t think that they had quite expected this fiesta to become so popular and I´d be surprised if they ever thought it would attract thousands of people from all over Spain – but it did.  You see, Spanish people love anything wacky (like running along the streets in front of bulls, throwing tomatoes at each other – you name it), so the news that there was this little mountain village somewhere high up in the Sierra Nevada which celebrated New Year´s Eve in August, spread like a bush fire.  And so it happened that every year on the first Saturday in August several tens of thousands of people flocked into the tiny village, renting every room or donkey shed available and even paying good money for a space on somebody´s sofa or floor.  The village which normally has a population of well below 1000 souls found itself inundated with visitors and their cars. 

Well, that, we had to see for ourselves and as it also seemed a good opportunity to catch up with our chums and former neighbours rather than having to visit them all individually, Ian and I found ourselves in the church square in Bérchules just before midnight last Saturday night.  Clutching a little plastic bag, containing 12 grapes (you are meant to eat one grape with each chime of the clock), we watched artificial snow being thrown from the church tower just before an impressively colourful and loud firework display filled the warm air.  Some people were wearing red Father Christmas hats and many were dancing and singing.  People hugged one another, wishing each other Prospero año nuevo and bottles of bubbly were shaken vigorously and sprayed into the masses.  Throughout the day, there had been competitions as to who had the prettiest crib on display outside their house, the three Kings had paraded the streets, throwing sweets to the kids and there was a street market where all sorts of Christmas sweets were available to buy.  The night continued well into the early hours with more dancing (each square in the village had its own live band playing) and we finally made it back to our friends´ house, where we were staying, at around 4:30am. 

On the whole, good fun and worth seeing – once.  It seemed that the village was packed with mainly youngsters from other parts of Spain whose only aim that night was to get completely rat-arsed.  I was quite taken aback to see so many people walking up and down the streets with litre bottles of spirits and carrier bags full of mixers whilst many locals had stayed at home and only surfaced the next day.  We got the distinct feeling that the villagers weren´t really that keen on the whole thing.  Throughout the entire day on Saturday the water supply had been seriously affected by the sheer volume of people in the village. By the time we wandered around the village Sunday lunchtime, most of the visitors had disappeared again, leaving the mountains - as well as mountains of rubbish - behind. 

I think next year we will not bother with Noche Vieja en Agosto but we´ll join the villagers when they celebrate St Marcos and parade the streets with all their animals or the St Pantaleon fiesta where they carry a statue of their patron saint around the village. 

There was at least one happy berchulero though - the owner of one of the local supermarkets who proudly told us that he had sold 275 bags of ice cubes at a profit of €1.50 each.  On this note, I wish you all a prosperous New Year!

Snow in August (with a bit of imagination you can actually see it)

Waiting for midnight

Happy New Year!

Drenched in cheap bubbly - but happy :)

The next morning - peace is restored, at last

A load of rubbish

Last Sunday Ian and I borrowed Chica, our neighbours´ dog, for the day and went off to some lakes about half an hour´s drive away.  It was a gloriously sunny day, the water was clear and refreshing and we had no end of fun splashing about with our rent-a-pooch, watching her trying to dive for stones which we had lobbed into the lake.  We were surrounded by families who were either swimming or enjoying picnics in the shade and laughter could be heard all around.  You can picture the scene, surely.  Idyllic springs to mind.  Well, almost. 

To our horror, all the bins on site were full and there were lots of carrier bags, stuffed with rubbish, which had been placed next to them.  Of course it would have been too much to ask for people to take their litter home with them but at least they had made some effort to clear up after themselves.  For others, this was far too big a task, so they had simply decided to leave all the debris behind under trees, by the water´s edge, … – wherever you looked there were rusty coke cans, smelly tuna tins, greasy crisp bags and even glass bottles, a lot of them smashed, so that many shards of glass were lurking dangerously in the sand.  I hate to point the finger of blame at the Spanish but I´m afraid I must.  Spaniards still have not learned to respect or look after their environment.  They think nothing of littering everywhere from streets to beauty spots like these and have an amazing tolerance as far as pollution is concerned – they simply don´t care.  I have often witnessed Spanish kids coming out of a shop, unwrapping an ice cream or chocolate bar and chucking the paper on the floor, the nearest bin virtually within their reach.  When I´ve told them to pick up their litter and throw it in the bin, they have stared at me in disbelief (together with their parents) as if I had asked them to give my shoes a quick polish.  So, yet again, I decided to pick up the glass at least, as I was worried about the dog injuring herself.  (It wouldn´t have worried me if the culprits, who had dumped the rubbish in the first place, had cut themselves, but alas – poetic justice like that never happens, does it?)  Two girls gave me some peculiar looks but I didn´t care.  Next time, apart from our towels, two folding chairs and a cooler box, Ian and I will bring a big bin liner and gloves with us.  What a sad world we live in.

The beautiful lake from afar :) ...

... and from close up :(