Breaking Radio Silence

It's not that nothing is happening. The footie is a huge media and bar event. I sit, drinking coffee, and watch the world go by in bars and log away little incidents and forms of behaviour. At work I get lots of stories from my students that give me an insight into life here. I listen to stories from friends and acquaintances of redundancy, closures, cutbacks. I feel the collective holding of breath as we await the collapse of the old continent, overseen by a group of uncomprehending and powerless politicians, whilst everything continues with its usual banality.

Not much to report in Culebrón though. The big events of our weekends here are collecting the post or having a coffee with some British pals. I would be happy to write about the delights of our visit to Consum yesterday if the most exciting thing hadn't been that we bought boquerones but decided against the red peppers as they were a little soft. I could tell you about Carlos's book, of which I read the first draft pages yesterday, except that I am sworn to secrecy about it's content. The weather is always a good topic but I've told you before about the weather here and, at the moment it's uneventful. The weather log would read  - sunny and warm: high 31ºC, low 18ºC. The farmers are up early - collecting apricots and maybe cherries - and they finish when the light goes at around 9.30 - just like they did last year. The goats and goat-herder seem to be in fine form but I've written about their belching and farting before. The swallows in our garden are noisy but the cuckoos are less noticeable than a couple of weeks ago. That's the thing - Life in Culebrón is calm and cyclical.

I could, of course, write about anything I like but I'm a pretty disciplined sort of chap and the tag line of things that happen to us and around us sort of rules that out. So I have nothing much to say.

But I thought I'd prove we were still breathing.