I consider we live in a reasonably rural situation so I was a bit surprised when, this morning, a Guardia Civil car, ablaze with lights and horns, shot past our house. The dirt track peters out another three or four hundred metres up the hill so I went to see where they were going. The car did a left foot/handbrake turn about 200 metres past our gate, sped past the house again, going the other way, and did a sliding turn to the left. Sixty seconds later they were back. They roared off to whatever it was that they didn't know how to find.
It made me ponder the things that pass our house. A couple of weeks ago we had a small lorry, with a hydraulic platform on the back. The driver assured me he wasn't lost. Too early on Sunday morning a very clunky bucket excavator trundled up the track in the thick mist presumably to root out the de-branched apricot trees. Cars and vans, homeowners and their friends, service providers, farmers and farm workers, tractors, harvesters, grape pickers, pickers in old cars, water mains repairers, bin men, Sapesa van drivers (possibly having a crafty fag), the road grading tractor, Witnesses (but not for ages), melon sellers, burglar alarm vendors, the bread van (only in times of pandemic) and walkers all pass by from time to time. The cyclists always amaze me; what do they still have to talk about after miles and miles and how is it they still have the puff anyway?
We went to see a very Spanish film yesterday called el Agua. It wasn't bad though it wasn't exactly exciting. If you want something similar but better see Alcarràs. El Agua was set in Orihuela, it reeked of Alicante. I noticed that whenever the young people went out after dark (it was set in summer so after dark was lateish) they only ever drank rum and coke type drinks - spirits and mixers. I thought how true it was. Drinking beer late at night isn't very Spanish. It's like having paella in the evening. Not done.
In Calasparra, looking for a place for the earlyish morning coffee. We made a mistake and ended up in one of those slightly seedy bars with lots of bandits and other electronic betting games. A woman came in. She was shouting and shouting. It's not that there was a problem. That was just how she talked. I often wonder why so many Spanish people speak so loudly.
I heard Yolanda Dominguez on the radio. She was talking about totos and narbos (penises and vaginas). Those words are pretty tame. I was reminded of them when a couple of young women, within earshot in a bar, were talking chochos and chichis (vaginas again). I'd had some sort of Q&A with an online tutor about pichas and vergas (penises). She said verga was quite "polite". It says vulg. in the WordReference dictionary. A Vox councillor in Madrid was complaining by ridiculing a text book which was full of similar words. It's a while since I've heard this topic of conversation in English.
We were in Jávea, or Xàbia if you prefer on a Sunday. Eateries seemed to be few and far between but we found a trendy looking tapas place. The individual dishes were sometimes good and sometimes indifferent but it was, at least, interesting. The service was generally fine but as savoury food gave way to puddings the service slowed. It often does. I sometimes wonder why table service disappears when you want/need to pay.
I went for flu and Covid jabs. Last week I forgot that funcionarios, local government employees, get the puentes, the days between bank holidays and the weekend. I collided heavily with the locked door. The next working day the bloke on reception told me that I needed an appointment but, if I timed it right, I could just get the jabs without waiting. He sent me away to come back the next day on the chance. I didn't challenge his dodgy logic. I went back, as instructed, the next day, to make an appointment/get a vaccination. I was told they'd run out of vaccine and I should come back next week. I went in yesterday, next week now being this week, and got an appointment. I went in today at the appointed hour and got served in, around, two minutes. So I have a tale of woeful organisation. If, on the other hand, my first visit had been yesterday, and my jabs today, my tale would have been one of sparkling efficiency. There is only a hair's breadth between one sort of bureaucracy and another.
