The rest is silence

It's quiet in Culebrón. The wildlife makes a noise it's true but the chirping of the birds hardly constitutes noise pollution. On the other hand it's not quiet in the centre of Cartagena where we lived until just two days ago.

Oddly though I've noticed the noise here in Culebrón much more than I did in Cartagena. In town the passing crowds produce a constant background hum. Occasionally there are shouts and bangs but, generally the noise level is pretty consistent and almost unnoticeable.

Culebrón doesn't really have background noise. Culebrón is still and quiet. We haven't got our summer cicadas yet. I was outside the other night enjoying the warm evening air possibly with a brandy and a cigar to hand. Peaceful. Then a car passed, making a right racket, then another. Next the dog at the farm down the way went guau, guua, guau (Spanish dog you understand). An insistent and unpleasant bark. Our neighbours dog answered.

Time to get back inside and watch the telly I thought.

Oops! Ha, ha!

I seem to have started to say uuf! when something goes wrong. This is a difficult word to spell. It's not the same as pah! or oops! It's more like a phew!

Spanish cockerels go kiri kiri kiri. Obviously no Spaniard has ever heard a cockerel. If they had they would know that cockerels go cock a doodle doo. It's the same with the strange half words, half grunts that we, and they, use to express surprise, to explain away a small mishap to be sarcastic and the like.

PG Wodehouse knew that we Brits made specific noises under specific conditions. I remember the books emphasising HAH!! when the hapless hero was caught out by the stern and  haughty aunt long before his final salvation thanks to Lord Emsworth, the Port and Lemon or Jeeves. It is only in the last few days that I've caught on to the fact that Spaniards emit different non word sounds to us.

This explains why one of my colleagues often seems to dismiss most of my humorous comments as mere tomfoolery with a half mouthed, half nasally blown khah!

Up to now I'd thought it was because she thought I was a fathead.

Lavatorial humour

Sorry to be indelicate but imagine we are in the toilet. No, not we, you or I, separately, apart,  in different but similar toilets. The sit down toilet, not the stand up one.

This toilet is in Spain and on the wall there is a notice which says "Do not throw the paper in the toilet" - well it says it in Spanish but the translation is good. Now paper, papel, is a bit of a multi purpose word. For instance the car parking tickets are often papeles and you can use it for receipts and other things made from paper. The very first time I saw it I thought ah, they mean paper towels and the like but no, alongside the stool was a wastebasket full of soiled toilet paper.

Now Spain is a country blessed with an interminable supply of flies. Unsurprisingly they are attracted by this copious quantity of food. The original concept of  the waste basket isn't particularly pleasant but add in a cloud of flies and it becomes decidedly nasty.

For years I presumed that this was because of dodgy plumbing especially as there are fewer and fewer of the notices nowadays. A few sheets in the pan and the resulting flood could be even more disgusting  than the piles of soiled paper. However, the other day, I was in a high tech building, the sort where the lights are controlled by motion sensors as you walk past yet there was the notice. Surely modern Spanish plumbing can deal with modern toilet paper designed to more or less dissolve in water?

All I can think is that the notice was there because that's how we do it. Not me I hasten to add.