A week before the Fiestas

I could have driven home. I'm sure. After all I'm typing so I must be have some control of my faculties. But I didn't. It never crossed my mind. Till now. I left the car and walked past the ermita, up past Eduardo's, past the goat farm and the barking dogs and came home. I didn't see a single car. It isn't far, maybe 500 metres.

Tonight was the vecino's meal, the neighbourhood association. The chicken from Maribel's wasn't bad but, for the first time ever, I didn't have to to fall down drunk instead of talking. Not that I didn't drink but I didn't end up dead drunk, just drunk. What's more important, to me at least, is that I kept talking. I made hundreds of errors, I couldn't remember half the expressions I was looking for but I went around and I kept talking. Language we talked about, of course, but music, films, food, travel - normal sort ot things - Belgian beer and Tossa de Mar, stag nights and Gibraltar.

I was still there at 3am, talking. It was normal. Tables in the open air, a warm night, strings of incandescent bulbs hanging from the trees. All as usual except that I kept talking. I didn't retire into drink.

It's all Maggie's doing. She's the one who has forged the links with the locals by teaching them or their children English, by having a bilingual chinwag every week. She wasn't there so they made do with me as a substitute. They took care of me. The annual vecinos meal. Splendid. Best ever.