The Old Post Office

Back in November, when Jeanne and David asked if we’d housesit for the summer, it didn’t take us long to make up our minds. They were in no hurry for an answer, but over Christmas, Julian and I talked about it and agreed it would be a lovely thing to do. Early in the new year we told Jeanne and David that we’d be happy to look after their house and dog for the summer.

I had spent much of the summer of 2017 alone on the Rio Guadiana. The girls were in Ireland and the UK and Julian was working long hours at the beach bar in Alcoutim, so I saw little of him. My time was divided between Carina, upriver on a mooring, and Alcoutim, where I managed an Air B&B property and spent a good deal of time in the property’s downstairs flat. But what little I saw of Sanlúcar, I enjoyed. I came across the river a couple of times during Cultural Week and had a few evenings out with friends.

Sanlúcar, usually quiet (with the exceptions of fiestas) was abuzz during the summer and the village seemed to come alive after dark, with children playing out of doors until all hours and the bars packed with families eating supper. There was an easy-going summer feel about the place. I thought it would be lovely for my family to experience this too, so Jeanne and David’s offer was perfect. Besides, the house itself, beloved of so many locals and foreigners in the village, would be a joy to live in for a few months.

El Correo Viejo is quite probably more than 300 years old. For over 240 years, prior to the late 1970s, it was the village post-office and trading post. Indeed, Juan, the lovely old man who has kept us in fresh tomatoes, onions, watermelons, cucumbers and figs all summer, was the last postman here, and lived in the house as a child when his father was the postman. Jeanne and David, an English couple, have preserved much of the old feel of the house, with exposed stone walls in places, old frescos revealed and restored with care and the old cistern still providing a water supply. Comfortable old furniture matches the house’s architecture and the walls are decorated with an eclectic mix of art old and new, British and local, created by friends or artists unknown. The Moorish architecture of thick walls and high ceilings make the house a cool haven from the extreme summer temperatures outside. The first thing most people comment on when they enter the house is the pleasant change of temperature.

House-sitters are required for two reasons for the three months Jeanne and David are away each summer. The first is Vinnie, a big old black-and-white one-eared dog, who is perhaps the most easy-going and relaxed dog I have ever met. We had been living in the house for almost a month before I heard him bark for the first time, and a pretty half-hearted bark it was at that. It would appear that only two things get Vinnie’s heart racing – food and the prospect of someone taking him for a walk. At the sight of me putting on my trainers each morning he gallops around the house, sliding into doors, toppling over himself in his excitement to go sniffing and peeing his way around the village and beyond.

The second reason for looking after the house is that its owners generously run it as a semi-open house. The first room inside the front door – the hall – houses an English book exchange and, apart from six bookcases packed with books, one can also choose from an ample collection of DVDs, magazines, and even exchange jigsaws. My job was to keep the shelves tidy and find homes for newly arrived books. I have to admit there were advantages to the job, as I took first dibs on the best books!

A small selection of olive oil, natural soaps and greetings cards made by local artisans are also displayed for sale here and there’s a handy noticeboard with some useful information for newcomers to the village. A sign near the pontoon directs newcomers to this wonderful resource and Jeanne and David have gained a reputation as helpful founts of wisdom on all things Sanlúcar.

The house also serves as a postal address to those of us who don’t have permanent addresses in the village. For yachties, owners of small-holdings and temporary visitors to the Rio Guadiana, it is comforting to know that our Amazon orders, spare parts for engines, birthday presents from grandparents to our children, and who knows what else, are in safe hands. As ‘post mistress’ this summer it was my job to sign for the occasional parcel, check the post-box or the hall table to see what the village post woman had delivered, sort through the post and occasionally contact people who had asked in advance to be contacted once their parcel had arrived.

All of this resulted in a very sociable summer, with friends dropping by regularly to check their post or restock their libraries and newcomers dropping in to browse the book exchange, or to ask for advice about the best place to shop, eat out or go for a walk. Visitors coming to use the service often ended up joining us for the terrace with its stunning view over the river for a glass of wine or a cup of tea and a taste of Lily’s home baking. Parcels and packages were often excitedly ripped open in front of us as their owners shared their excitement with us. It has to be said, however, that is more often occurred for such items as harmonicas or galangal root, rather than new engine gaskets.

Being in the village all summer provided us with wonderful opportunities. For a few weeks, Lily and Katie went to summer camp in the mornings and dance practice in the evenings. We all stayed out late, eating and drinking and enjoying good company in the village bars. Our nearest bar is right outside the door, so if Lily and Katie tired of grownup conversation and there were no children around to play with, they simply went home.

We have a little over two more weeks in the old post office. It’s been a delightful, busy, hectic and, above all, sociable summer. I haven’t even told you about the fruit trees growing in the garden, the pool, the sleepovers and the stream of visitors, all of which added flavour and depth to our wonderful few months here. I am extremely grateful that my family had an opportunity to experience summer in Sanlúcar from this unique perspective.

Not quite to plan

As the summer holidays rolled around towards the end of June, I had all sorts of plans. With all that time on my hands, I planned to prepare to take the B1 Spanish exam, write like a demon every day and plough through a large pile of books. I had Lily’s and Katie’s summer mapped out too. We would work together on two educational projects. The first, an Iberian geography project, would involve the construction of a 3D map of Spain and Portugal, which, over the course of the summer, would become populated with the peninsula’s rivers, mountains, regions, coastlines and major cities. We all need to improve our geographical knowledge of our adopted part of the world and this would be a fun way to do it. The second project was to be a learning-by-doing bread project. I thought of how fun and educational it would be to learn about the history and culture (no pun intended) of bread and to try making different breads together.

I’m sure you can all anticipate the big ‘but’ that I’m to drop!

Of course, we did none of these things! I haven’t opened my Spanish books since mid-June and my plan to take the B1 exam moves further and further into the future. The first half of the summer holidays was mostly writing free too (regular blog followers will have noted the absence of new posts and all other writing also failed to materialise). Since early August I’ve been writing again, and feeling all the better for it. And as for that pile of books? The pile grows higher, but I’ve read very little. Wolf Hall took up most of the summer, not because of its length (it’s long) or its complexity (it’s complicated), but because I simply didn’t have time to read. I fell in love with Thomas Cromwell and spent my days wondering what would happen next, but only managed about 20 pages a day, if I was lucky.

And the educational projects? Well, let’s say that once I got over the guilt of not getting them up and running, I realised we were better off with a more organic approach to the summer holidays!

My summer has mainly been work-filled. I didn’t intend it to be this way, but that’s how it worked out, and if you’re a freelance editor/writer/teacher, then you take the work when it comes your way. I hadn’t expected to teach any English between June and October, but instead (ironically) I’ve been preparing some local teenagers for B1 English exams (my first student received her results today…she passed!!), and having regular conversation classes with adults and children, all adding up to nine or so hours of contact time each week.

My editing work usually dries up during summer as well and, although it’s been a little slow, I’ve been sent more work than I was expecting. On top of all that, I was offered two new online jobs, one of which has been keeping me busy as I learn some new skills in a field completely new to me.

But what a summer we’ve had. We’ve been house-sitting in a very old and much-loved house in the village (subject of a future blog post, I promise), looking after an old and much-loved dog. The spacious house provided a great opportunity to invite family and friends to visit, and a full month of the summer has been taken up with visits from some of our nearest and dearest. Friends from Ireland and a friend from the UK brought their children along, and Lily and Katie had a wonderful time having week-long sleepovers with friends.

In the absence of my organised educational projects, Lily has taken to the kitchen and baked her way through the summer, following recipes, experimenting with alterations to recipes, inventing her own recipes. She’s in the kitchen as I write, making lemon sandwich biscuits of her own invention. I blame her entirely for the half stone/7lbs/3.3kg I’ve gained this summer. I can’t imagine my organised bread making would have been half as successful as her own self-taught summer in the kitchen, where she has learned how to work with ingredients, count and measure, enhance and embellish. She’s made baking her thing, and has been teaching her sister and all her guests from overseas and the village how to bake too. She’s a far more patient teacher than I am. Sure, her washing up skills still leave a little to be desired, and the pots and pans she’s ‘washed’ often need to be washed again, but at least she understands that cleaning up is all part of the process.

We’ve swum a lot this summer. My two sacred parts of the day all summer have been siesta and after-siesta. A curse be upon anyone who interrupts my siesta! Very early mornings, very late nights and the oppressive heat of the middle of the day, mean that taking a siesta has been an absolute necessity. We go swimming most days after siesta, sometimes to the beach in Alcoutim, but more often to the public outdoor swimming pool in El Granado.

My friend Rosemarie gave Lily a lesson in diving at the start of the summer and she has spent the summer perfecting her technique. Katie made up her mind at the start of the summer to learn the front crawl and has been working on that, with a little technique help from my friend Sarah when she came to visit from London. Katie is a loner in the water, preferring to be underwater, and constantly working on extending the length of time she can stay below the surface. The swimming ability of both girls has improved immensely over the summer, once again, with minimal input from me. I just take them to the water!

For three weeks both girls practiced five evenings a week with the other children from the village for a dance performance during Cultural Week. The performance was delightful (if you happened to be a parent of the performing children, that is!) and since then the girls have been choreographing their own dance moves and putting on little shows for us in the garden.

With only ten days until the start of the new school year, I could look back and think about all the things I failed to do. But instead I choose to look back at all the unexpected things the girls have done – the baking, the swimming, the dancing – and the unexpected and interesting work opportunities that have come my way. I still can’t tell you the name of the highest mountain or the longest river in Spain, but do I really care? Now, where’s Lily? I need another cupcake!

That unmistakable sound

‘What’s that sound?’ Katie asked in a fearful voice.

We were walking home from the village shortly after 9pm. ‘Home’ at the moment is a tiny house and caravan on a plot of land by the river, with Carina moored about 100 metres away. We’ve been living here for over two weeks, taking care of a cat and living off the fat of the land while the owners are away. Our lives are lived mainly in the little house and out of doors, but at night we sleep in the caravan, which is about a metre away from the fence that marks the boundary between this and the neighbouring plot of land. Juan tends the vegetable patch next door, while Niño keeps a small flock of sheep there. Most of the ewes wear heavy bells around their necks and our time in the caravan is accompanied by the tinkling of bells that I always associate with my very first afternoon on the Rio Guadiana. It is a sound that I love. The ewes noisily make their way through the long golden grass throughout the morning and evening, bells ringing as they munch their way through the field. Most mornings when I wake up the first living being I see is a sheep, not much more than a metre from my window, grazing near the fence. In the past few days a couple of skinny little lambs have appeared, bleating loudly when their mothers don’t pay them enough attention.

So when Katie asked what the strange sound was as we walked home from the village, I was pretty sure I knew what it was. The sound of a mother giving birth is pretty unmistakable! ‘I think one of the sheep is giving birth’, I said. ‘Come on’. We walked quietly onto ‘our’ plot of land. The flock of sheep was divided into two groups, both standing towards the bottom of the steep slope in the neighbouring plot, looking up the hillside to where a lone ewe was lying on the ground making guttural moaning sounds.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ Katie asked. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her’, I said. ‘She’s having a baby’.
‘How do you know?’ Lily asked. ‘Well, it’s a sound mothers make when they’re in labour’.
‘Did you make that sound?’ Lily asked, wide-eyed.
‘Something like that’, I laughed, omitting the part about yelling at Julian to ‘stop playing that f***ing piano’ as he entertained the midwives in the dining room while I was wracked by contractions in the living room. Ah, such fond memories!

I told the girls to keep quiet and not make any sudden noises. Remembering the piano incident (Lily) and the ‘now’s not the f***ing time’ incident when Julian was regaling the midwives with stories of his adventures in Antarctica as I passed from the second to third stage of labour (Katie), I knew the ewe needed to be as undisturbed as possible while she was going through this. She let out a pitiful moan, stood up, and the head and shoulders of a lamb appeared from her rear end. ‘Are you crying again, Mum’, Lily asked, rolling her eyes, used as she is to her mum’s bladder being far to close to her eyeballs. ‘Maybe just a little’, I croaked.

A couple more pushes and the little lamb was born. The mother lay down, making a new sound, almost a cooing sound, that I’ve never heard a sheep make before. Mother and baby lay there for a few minutes, the lamb soon trying to lift its head off the ground. Once the head was up, it then tried to get its legs going. The ewe was up now, licking her newborn all over. She had given birth on the steep slope of a hill and with each attempt of the precocious little lamb to stand up, it slid further down the hill. The ewe continued cooing and licking. Before long, the little back legs were shakily off the ground and with a few more attempts, the little thing, less than 10 minutes old, was standing up and nosing its way to it’s mother’s udder for its first meal.

Lily and I were moved by the experience. Katie, only one thing on her mind, insisted we go into the house so I could make her supper. She’s heartless, that one.

One day in the life of …

by Julian

Wednesday 23^rd May 2018. Sanlúcar de Guadiana, Spain

This was not a special day on the Rio Guadiana. Normal weather, no fiestas. But I had agreed to work for Manuel, an old gentleman who wants to run boat trips in a large motor boat that has seen better days. He is short and perfectly spherical. Manuel cannot see very well and needs someone to drive and do other tasks that he no longer has the dexterity or fitness to do. I have been working for him on and off for the past few weeks. Martina had decided to go shopping in Villa Real and had left just before the girls got up and I had to get them ready for school.

Normally, getting Lily and Katie ready for school is a gargantuan task, which inevitably involves repeated commands and some screaming. However, when on my own, I think the girls realise my general lack of competence and get ready without expecting an adult to assist them. So it was that the girls were ready a full 20 minutes before we had to leave the boat. This was good because I had to take them to Reme’s shop before school to buy an exercise book which Lily needed.

Less than a minute after dropping the girls to school I am standing outside Manuel’s house. He tosses me the keys to his aging Mercedes. “Donde vamos?” I ask.
“Isla Cristina.” I wrestle the heavy, four geared vehicle, along the steep spaghetti roads leading out of town. Isla Cristina is 44 km away and Manuel and I have been there several times. I take Manuel to the usual spot, near the chandleries and fishing boats. But instead of going into a shop, Manuel whips out a business card and starts asking people for directions. We drive on, periodically stopping along all manner of strange, one-way, semi-pedestrian streets, to the sound of the honking horns of frustrated drivers and the fist waving curses of Manuel as he asks anyone and everyone where the heck this place is. After driving around the whole of the town we end up back where we started. We take a turn down a side road, barely wide enough for the Mercedes. It does not look promising and ends in a dead end. It turns out to be the street mentioned on the business card but there is no sign of any business, or really anything. I leave Manuel talking to some people in a carpenter’s workshop on the next street. I return to find they have been joined by one of the most eye-catching men I have ever seen. He is nearly my height, with a tight black top which displays his enormous muscles to good effect, skin tight ripped jeans, dark skin and a well-groomed beard. I start to mentally refer to him as “The Rock.”

We walk back to the car. The Rock follows us. “Venga!” states Manuel and we get into the car. Disturbingly, The Rock climbs into the back seat. “Sanlúcar” orders Manuel. What! For what purpose are we bringing this mass of human perfection back home to our tiny village.

I drive the 44km back to Sanlúcar. We take The Rock down to the pontoon and he inspects the wooden bench we have constructed over the previous few days along the back of Manuel’s boat. The men who work at the zip wire office, with their gym crafted bodies, stare down at him, with obvious muscle envy. After 20 minutes, the three of us climb back into the Mercedes and I drive the 44km back to Isla Cristina and back to the anonymous side road, where The Rock produces a key and opens a large grey metal door. We all walk inside. My jaw drops as I stare around the workshop. Broken chairs and settees surround us. The Rock is an upholsterer! Manuel leafs through a samples book and selects an outdoor seat cover in pink. The Rock explains that this is one of the more expensive materials, but they both seem to agree that it is worth the money. Then the haggling starts. Not about the cost. Manuel wants the job done tomorrow. Not possible! The foam and the cover would have to be ordered. Friday? No there is other work to do, it would have to be the end of next week. Manuel counts the days on his fingers. No good, too long. The Rock is getting exasperated, but Manuel will simply not back down. “Where do we get the materials from?” he asks.
“Seville.” Comes the reply, with a shrug emphasising the impossibility.
“Only Seville!” Manuel is beaming “Now if you’d said Barcelona that would be different, but Seville, easy!” They both turn and look at me expectantly.
“But I can’t … I have to be in Sanlúcar at two o’clock … pick my daughters up from school … make lunch … Martina is in Portugal … I have a Skype interview for a teaching job in England at three o’clock … I can’t do anything until at least four.” The pair of them discuss this. I don’t understand a word they are saying. Manuel and I climb back into the car and drive back to Sanlúcar once again. It is a quarter to two. “I’ll meet you here at the bar at four” says Manuel “The earlier you can make it the better.” Damn! The pressure is on big time.

I phone Martina. “Hi darling, have you had a good time?”
“Yes, I’m sitting in a lovely Italian restaurant with pizza and a glass of wine. I’ve finished all the shopping.”
“So, you’ll be back on the early bus then?”
“Yes.”
“Great, that means the kids will only be on their own for half an hour. I have to go to Seville.”
“!!!”
“I’ll put them watching a movie. They’ll be fine.”

A pile of salami and salad rolls are hastily shoved in front of the children. “Daddy’s very busy … You can eat the strawberries … Any rolls you don’t want put in this bag and have them later … There’s the computer … The hard drive with the movies … Yes, you can watch anything you like … Here’s a jug of water … If you need me I’ll be in the beach bar until four … Mummy’s back at four thirty … be good … don’t hit each other.”

This might be classed as irresponsible parenting but this is a very small village. Lily and Katie know everyone and everyone knows them. Within certain boundaries they have freedom to run around the place with their friends. I will be able to see them from the bar where I will be taking my Skype call. Rosa is always available as an adult point of contact for the short period when we aren’t in the village. But really, the village is full of responsible adults, many of whom have had our children round for lunch, or even a sleep-over, and vice versa their children with us.

I quickly pull on a shirt. Skype won’t show up my paint covered work shorts and sandals. I go up to the shower block. Great, my beard isn’t too bad, no need to trim. Clean my teeth, splash some water in my face, comb my hair. I’m in the bar with ten minutes to spare. Five minutes later I still cannot get the internet connection. Shit, I’ve got no time. I run to Jeanne and David’s house and ask if I can use their internet. They have changed their internet provider, I need the new password. Jeanne warns me the internet is very slow. Just in time, three o’clock, the Skype call comes through. I answer. I am extremely anxious because this is an important interview. If I get the job it will be my first real professional level employment in years. I need to show I can be bright, enthusiastic, intelligent, can be trusted to teach adults and children. I cannot see or hear the interviewer. A text message comes through ‘Can you hear me?’
“No.” I reply.
‘I’ll try and call back then.’ The call comes through, I answer again. I can see her, but fuzzy and moving jerkily. “Hello.” She says. “Nice to meet you.”
“Hello, pleased to meet you.” I reply. We begin the interview, then it breaks up again. I cannot see her. I hold up my phone and then type ‘If you like we can do this by phone, my number is ……’ After a couple more attempts at Skype she finally calls me. It is nearly 3:30 pm. I am extremely anxious because I know Manuel will be fretting around somewhere. However, I am pleased to be able to leave the house and go somewhere private to talk. I have to tell her I am sorry, I only have half an hour. I did have an hour but because of the Skype thing I am pushed for time. Thankfully she is very sympathetic and tells me we will just have to talk quickly. The interview goes very well but the clock ticks round to four o’clock. I can see Manuel shuffling down the street to find me. I tell her this. I think she finds it amusing and tells me she will email me a job offer. Phew! Manuel tosses me the keys, we climb into the car. “Isla Cristina.” He says.

I am a little puzzled. I thought we were going to Seville. It all becomes clear when we arrive at the upholsterer’s workshop and The Rock climbs into the car. The Rock is coming with us to get the stuff! “Vamos!” I am instructed. I catch snippets of the conversation as I drive as fast as I feel safe to do. Manuel is now in full Spanish mode, talking rapidly in some ancient Andalucian dialect and I struggle to follow him. It seems we are going to some place called Pilas first to pick up the foam, then on to Tomares to get the covering. The Rock’s phone speaks in a clear female voice “Tome la calle a la derecha” (Take the street on the right).
The Rock then tells me “Tome la calle a la derecha”.
Manuel then says loudly and slowly, “la derecha.” As we near the turn he repeats this anxiously. I keep quiet and turn to the right. A little way down the street the phone speaks again in Spanish “Take the third exit at the roundabout.” The Rock says this, followed by Manuel. This is going to be a very long couple of hours.

Getting through Pilas is a piece of cake, and with the foam stuffed into the boot of the car, we head onwards toward Seville along more minor roads. I am reasonably confident we will get this done and back home before the shops close at nine. Then, all of a sudden, a policeman steps out and stops the traffic, two cars in front of us. From a side road, a tractor pulling a decorated wagon pulls out ahead of us, then another and another. “Rocio” Manuel says singing a bit of some Spanish flamenco. Of course, these are returning from the famous Romeria of Rocio, near Seville. A sort of gypsy fiesta where people dance, sing, ride horses and generally do risky, wild things somewhere in the countryside. Some of the carts are full of people. Men in tight grey boleros with wide brimmed hats, women in flamenco dresses with flowers in their hair, singing and clapping in time. After about one hundred tractors have pulled onto the road in front of us the policeman waves us through. We continue in first gear, pain just beginning to shoot up the back of my right leg from the awkward angle of my foot on the throttle. After thirty to forty minutes of crawling along and regularly stopping we manage to lose the tractors and speed down the road. The magnificent city of Seville can be seen sprawling beneath us, in a light haze of smog. How I would love to see Seville one day, but once again I find myself here for some purpose other than tourism.

Arriving in Tomares we find ourselves in an industrial estate of sorts. Every type of furniture store and workshop can be found lining the many roads. The Rock leaves us and, pointing to a couple of shops, says we can go and have a little coffee whilst we wait. Manuel and I cannot find the café. There is a large shop called Muebles Mexicanos, it looks like a taco restaurant. Manuel starts asking people where the café is. A woman points to the taco store and says “No, look it says ‘Muebles’ it sells furniture.” Eventually I look down the next street and see the café. I signal to Manuel to join me. Coming from the other direction is The Rock with a roll of pink material under his arm. We wait for Manuel to arrive and the three of us enter the building.

Now, it is difficult to describe the appearance of the three of us entering the café. Manuel is short and built like a snowman, with a round head atop a round body, he cannot see very well and has failed to shave properly. I am a tall unkempt Englishman wearing sandals and blue swimming shorts. We are accompanied by The Rock, who really would not look out of place in an American WWF wrestling match. Yes, people are staring and staring hard. It is a fine wooden lined room, built by someone who really knew about interior furnishing, with jamons hanging all around. An espresso for me, a beer for The Rock and hot milk with decaffeinated instant coffee powder for Manuel (descafeinado de sobre). As my Portuguese boss used to say “The Spanish really don’t know how to drink coffee.”

The day is nearly over. Just a two-hour drive back to Sanlúcar via Isla Cristina. We fill the tank with diesel and I say goodbye to Manuel at around 9:30 pm. “Las ocho por la mañana.” What! I have to meet Manuel again at eight o’clock in the morning to go and fetch The Rock again, so he can upholster the seat on the back of the boat. That night I recount the events to Martina and she seems very keen to get a look at The Rock tomorrow.

Wednesday 23^rd May 2018. Coventry University Hospital, England

While I am driving in Spain, my mother is under general anaesthetic in an English hospital. The surgery team bustle around her, removing one of her kidneys and the ureter connecting it to her bladder. This contains a tumour. The surgeon also removes two enlarged lymph nodes. She now has a three week wait to find out if the enlarged lymph nodes are linked to the tumour.

Wednesday 23^rd May 2018. A courtroom somewhere in England

Meanwhile, in an English courtroom, a man is sentenced for murdering his wife. He gets life with a minimum of seventeen years in prison. The murdered woman’s son reads a victim statement to the court. I haven’t seen the son since he was around eleven years old. The woman was my dad’s ex-girlfriend. Only thirteen years older than me. They lived with dad for a while. Although, circumstances have meant that I haven’t seen her for eighteen years, I regarded her as a friend. She was a very loving person.

A final thought

The world is a crazy place. Anyway, I now have some work for a few weeks in England and it is near the homes of my parents. I will see them in two weeks time. I will be keen to learn if Manuel does manage to run some boat trips, but that is not going to be part of my story this summer.

Unusual weather

While my mother sent me photos of increasing amounts of snow in her garden, and told me about Ireland coming to a standstill, here in southern Iberia we experienced some extreme weather of our own.

It all started on Tuesday of two weeks ago, to coincide precisely with the start of the children’s five-day weekend. We were forecast heavy rain and high winds for ten days. And did we get it! The same weather system that was causing extreme warm weather in the Arctic, and extreme cold and heavy snowfall in northern Europe, was coming to us as westerly winds bringing rain in off the Atlantic.

The rivers and streams, dry for far too long for the lack of rain, were soon running with vigour. The river bed, where for almost two years we have enjoyed picnics and barbecues on the river bed, was not turned into a fast-flowing river. There were waterfalls and cataracts down previously bone dry fields, and the streets of Sanlúcar were turned into torrents of run-off.

But the rain wasn’t a problem. With virtually no rain since last April, the land has been crying out for moisture and sheep farmers have had to make harsh decisions about the lives of their animals, as the cost of feed over such a prolonged period becomes impossible to meet. No, the rain was a godsend and, after two weeks, the land is verdant and lush.

The problem was the wind. I had planned to move Carina off the Sanlúcar pontoon on the 28^th of February and onto a mooring a few hundred metres downriver. But on that morning, those of us who were due to leave were advised to not go anywhere, as conditions were too nasty. I had spent the night before wide awake, as Carina was tossed and dashed against the pontoon, the noise of straining lines coming between me and sleep. With Julian away for a couple of months, the girls have been sharing my bed, and twice that night I snuck out past them, got dressed and went out in the howling wind and driving rain to check the mooring lines, check both dinghies were secure and protected by fenders, and to make sure there was nothing lying about on deck that might fly away. The next day all we could do was look out at the dire conditions.

The next morning, the 1^st of March, we went by car to Ayamonte, because the girls both needed new shoes. Down at the river mouth, Ayamonte lacked the protection that Sanlúcar enjoyed, and we struggled to walk back to the car, which was parked close to the marina. The boats in the marina were being tossed around like toys as waves crashed violently over each wooden pontoon. I was glad Carina was twenty-two miles upriver.

When we returned to Sanlúcar at lunchtime the wind had whipped up into a frenzy. The west wind, an unusual wind direction for these parts, pushed the boats hard against the pontoon. When the gusts came, which they did frequently, the seven yachts on the pontoon were pushed precariously on their sides, so their decks almost touched the pontoon. The pontoon itself bucked and swayed and the gangway from the land down onto the pontoon eventually broke, the rope holding it in place shredding under the strain, and calling for a hasty repair job by Tony, our neighbour on Holy Mackerel.

I put extra mooring lines on Carina, but worried about the neighbouring unoccupied boat – if her lines didn’t hold, she might bash into Carina. I was grateful for Tony, who patrolled the pontoon, checking lines, moving dinghies and canoes that were at risk of being squished by the yachts and pontoon they were sandwiched between. Curious, I turned on our electronics, so I could keep an eye on the wind speed. I read one gust of 35mph, and Katie read one of 40mph. I believed her, because when she called ‘40’ down to me, Carina felt like she was being flattened.

I had to take Carina off the pontoon. I had paid for 25 nights, and this was now night 26 and someone else was waiting to take our space. There was no chance of me getting onto the mooring in these conditions and, besides, the mooring itself had become fouled by someone else’s anchor due to the strong wind. When a brief lull in the wind and rain descended as darkness was falling that evening, I made a dash off the pontoon and across to an empty space on the Alcoutim side of the river.

A bunch of people helped me across the river. Lily and Katie did their bit. Linda from Holy Mackerel and Ray from Tinto crewed for me, Tony followed in his dinghy to nudge Carina into the tight space if needed, and Hazel and Katie from Ros Ailither waited on the Alcoutim pontoon to take the lines. Light was fading fast as we crossed the river and, after the stress of the weather, the sudden dash across the river, and the tight space I had to squeeze into in front of two rafted boats, I was a bit of wreck. I temporarily broke my ongoing alcohol-free New Year’s Resolution and invited all my great helpers up to the bar for a beer and had a couple myself!

I hoped, in a day or two, to go on the mooring. But the wind and rain continued apace, with no sign of let-up and the mooring remained fouled with no-one willing (understandably) to untangle it for me in those conditions. On Sunday there were tornados along the coast, causing damage along the Algarve and Huelva coasts. And still the rain and wind continued. Collecting the girls from school and then returning across the river to get to my English lessons was fraught with anxiety, as the wind gusted and the rain reduced my visibility.

We’ve had a slight reprieve since then. My mooring was eventually untangled. It took six people three hours to sort it out, and I finally moved on. The mooring hasn’t all be plain sailing either, but I think it’s sorted out now. We’ve had some bad days since then, with more wind and rain. And there’s more bad weather due later on this afternoon. I’m looking forward to the day when I can sit in my cockpit again. I feel I deserve it!!!

Food movement

I get a message on my phone from Narciso, asking if I’d like a pumpkin. I immediately reply in the affirmative and the next day Julian and the girls set off to meet Narciso at his vegetable patch. They return home with a monster – green and orange and so massive the girls can barely get their arms around it. With some difficulty, Julian slices it open, gives a third to Clare and a third to Hazel, our nearest neighbours on the pontoon that day. He keeps a third for ourselves and makes enough pumpkin soup to last us three meals and with plenty of pumpkin to spare to roast for dinner. He roasts the seeds for snacking on.

Spike appears and asks if we’d like some oranges. Yes, please, I say, and he returns to his car and brings me down two crates of big juicy oranges from the trees on his land. I give half of them away.

At school one morning, Sawa practically begs me to come and take some lemons from the tree in her garden. The tree is getting too big and they want to cut it back once all the lemons have gone. The next morning Julian takes a bagful.

When we’re down to the last four or five of Spike’s oranges, English Diana knocks on the side of the boat. She hands me a shopping bag full of oranges from the trees on her land. The next morning there’s a message on my phone from Kate, informing me that she’s left a bag of grapefruits in our dinghy. There are far too many for our meagre needs, so I share them with Clare and with Andrew, who I happen to bump into on the pontoon.

Clare knocks on the boat to ask if we’d like some coriander. Pablo, at the market, gives it away free with every purchase, and he’s given Clare too much. We love coriander and are delighted to take it.

Spanish Diana comes down to the boat. She’s been given a glut of fruit and vegetables by Luis Jose. Can I come to her house and please relieve her of some of them. I grab two shopping bags and she can barely get in her door for the bags of produce stacked outside. She gives me two massive cauliflowers, twenty or more oranges and a giant shopping bag full of spinach. I return to the boat, giving Clare one cauliflower and a quarter of the spinach as I walk past. I send Hazel a message, asking if she’d like some spinach too. She takes another quarter.

Julian forages most days and returns with chard, asparagus and alexanders. On this day, he returns home with a large bunch of asparagus. I’ve only just shared the cauliflower and spinach with Clare, and now Julian’s knocking on her boat and giving her asparagus too. ‘We’re going to have to invite more people round to dinner’, Clare laughs.

Narciso sends me another message. Do I know who has the key to the gate into the plot of land next to his vegetable patch? I don’t. The land is untended and supposedly owned by some ex-pat who doesn’t currently live here. The oranges are falling off the trees and rotting on the ground. Someone should be going in there and getting the oranges, Narciso says. I tell him I’ll try to find out whose land it is and who has the key.

That’s all happened in the last ten days. ‘The food movement’ sort of takes on a different meaning here on the Rio Guadiana!

Nothing too serious

I’ve always been a small-town girl. A country girl. I love rural life. I love that everyone knows everyone, people stop to say hello, people remember things about you and ask after you and your family. Of course, that can make life a bit claustrophobic at times, a bit like living in a fish bowl. But I’ve never had a craving to live anywhere other than in small close-knit communities.

A minor accident recently tickled me about just how small and close-knit we are on the Rio Guadiana.

Mammy came for a five-day visit on New Year’s Day. Late in the afternoon on the 2^nd of January, a misstep in the cockpit of a friend’s boat (carrying my laptop and not looking where I was going) led to a twisted ankle, the pain of which caused me to faint (I’m such a wuss). The next morning my ankle was purple, painful and had swollen up like a balloon.

As I hobbled up to the shower block to take a shower, old Manuel was sitting on his usual bench, contemplating the river. ‘What happened?’ he asked and told me to go to the doctor immediately. He said the health centre would be open for the remainder of the morning and sang the praises of our lovely GP, Umberto.

Taking Manuel’s sage advice, I hobbled, post-shower, the 200 or so metres from the shower block to the health centre (Sanlúcar really is tiny). Along the way I met, if memory serves, five people. And, because Sanlúcar is so tiny, I knew them all. Each one gave me a concerned look and asked what happened. I gave each a brief account as I hobbled on my way.

At the health centre I was first in line and had only sat down when the door to the consultation room opened, the previous patient departed and I went in. Umberto confirmed a sprain and ligament damage, but was confident my ankle wasn’t broken. He recommended not walking for up to five days and keeping my foot raised. ‘Sit back and watch lots of TV’, he advised.

Walking down the corridor to check if the nurse was free to strap up my ankle, he left me sitting in the consulting room with the door open. The health centre had suddenly grown busy. An old man, to whom I’ve spoken once or twice, poked his head round the door. ‘Happy New Year’, he said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’, and I described my injury, grateful that I wasn’t in for treatment for an embarrassing rash, or the morning after pill or to be tested for an STD!

Moments later a friend’s mother-in-law saw me sitting there. ‘We’ve all been ill over Christmas’, she said. Only her 90-something year old mother had not succumbed to the flu that had laid low every other generation of the family. ‘And what about you?’ she asked. And for, could it be the eighth time in ten minutes, I recounted the fall, the sprained ankle, my mother’s few days of relaxation now jeopardised by having to wait on me hand and foot as I rested my swollen ankle.

When called, I hobbled down to the nurse, who bandaged my ankle from toe to knee. The size of the bandage seemed excessive, but would certainly look the part as I lay around for the next few days watching movies while I was served cups of tea and slices of Christmas pudding!

Before I left the health centre I met one more woman, who I knew from a Spanish conversation class I used to attend last year. Once again I recounted the episode and could now add the GP’s diagnosis, the size of the bandage and the recommended recovery method.

Stepping onto the street, I heard Julian’s unmistakable voice in the shop next door, so I popped in to tell him the GP’s diagnosis, and in so doing had to once again recount the whole tale, this time to Irene, the ever cheerful and lovely octogenarian shopkeeper.

Hard as it is to believe, I met no-one on the short walk back to the boat and, indeed, saw no-one other than my immediate family for the remainder of the day.

Late the next morning there was a knock on the boat and four friends boarded with bottles of wine as they planned to help me drink my ankle back to health. We drank, ate cakes, and Roy (my sailing partner from last summer) confiscated Katie’s guitar and he and Mammy sang together.

I had planned to take Mammy out for lunch that day, but given my incapacitation, she decided to take Lily and Katie out for pizza to the beach bar on the other side of the river. The three of them took the ferry across the river, from Spain to Portugal, walked to the beach and into the bar. And what was the first thing Rogerio, the proprietor, asked when they walked in the door? ‘How’s Martina’s leg?’.

You just have to love small town life!

(P.S. My ankle remains stiff and sore. Walking makes it feel better. Not moving for extended periods makes it feel worse. Inclines and steps hurt, sitting seiza or crosslegged is painful. I’m still wearing an ankle support 24 hours a day. Lesson learned: watch where you step!!)

In the olive grove

Around a bend on the narrow track of the old smugglers route I came face-to-face with him. Huge and jet black, he was square-backed and sturdy. In amongst a grove of olive trees, he was at home and I was the interloper. My mind played tricks for a second that felt like eternity. His blackness was so complete I couldn’t make out what he was. A black bull? A cart horse? A burro? He stood stock still, regarding me, not giving an inch of his ground, or a clue to what he might do. The second passed and the landscape around him fell into its correct proportions, allowing me to see his height, his breadth, beneath the squat olive trees and to recognise him for what he unmistakably was: a wild boar.

I had seen evidence of boar throughout the morning: recently planted trees, in a garden where I joined the trail, dug around and uprooted; hoof prints on the muddy path following the previous day’s rain; a wide expansive field of mushrooms snuffled and dug, deep pits in the dark wet soil amidst half-eaten fungus.

We were twenty, thirty metres apart, no more. ‘Hello’ I said, as is my fashion when meeting a wild animal, whether bee or hedgehog, polar bear or duck. ‘How are you?’ He stared at me steadily. He was easily the same weight as me and likely at least twice as strong. I took a tentative step forward. He did the same. I took a second step. He did likewise. Unlike other parts of the trail where hillside rises sharply on one side and falls precipitously on the other, this was a more levelled out place, with the olive grove ahead and a less used path leading up and around the rocky hillside. ‘I’m going to go this way’, I told him. ‘I won’t bother you’. I took a step onto the path to my right, watching him out of the corner of my eye. I saw that he watched me too.

He came on, claiming the path as rightfully his own. I carefully made my way along the other path, sleeves and trousers snagged on thorny undergrowth, the path quickly losing definition. I turned around and watched him continue on his way, his back to me now, huge grey testicles the only part of him not jet black. I started to take my bag off my back, to take a photograph of him, but thought better of it. Enjoy this moment, I told myself. Enjoy the privilege of the encounter, enjoy the knowledge that this place belongs to him, enjoy the great wild stark beauty of him.

A second more, maybe two, and he was gone. I don’t know where. Maybe he watched me as I clumsily made my way back onto the main path, and carried on, now more aware, more alert, more watchful. Maybe he didn’t give me a second thought. Maybe how little I affected him was the inverse of how much he affected me.

Roots or routes?

In early May, Sanlúcar de Guadiana and its neighbour El Granado held their annual Romería. It was our third Romería, and a few days after the fiesta, as I uploaded my photographs onto the laptop, I decided to take a look back at our two previous Romerías, in 2015 and 2016. Each year we have known more about the festival and have, thus, been able to participate in it more deeply.

Spectators in 2015

In May 2015, we had been up the Rio Guadiana for less than two weeks when we came ashore one Saturday at lunchtime to watch this colourful local spectacle. We weren’t sure what it was all about or where everyone was going in tractor and mule-drawn trailers. We were hot and thirsty and, after taking a few photos and watching the procession set off, we returned home to Carina.

In May 2016, we knew more about this two-day event during which the people of Sanlúcar and the people of El Granado come together in a field mid-way between the two villages to eat, drink and party into the night. Lily and Katie dressed in their cheap tourist-shop flamenco dresses and we walked the road to the festival. But we went too early, overtaking the procession which went by a different route, and had eaten all our food and drunk all our water by the time the procession arrived. We stayed a little while, visiting the caseta of one family we knew a little bit.

In the thick of it, 2017

In May 2017, Lily and Katie wore proper flamenco dresses, we rode in one of the trailers for the four hours it took to cover the three or so kilometres from Sanlúcar to the site of the Romería, singing and dancing, drinking and eating along the way. In advance of the festival, friends from both Sanlúcar and El Granado had invited us to eat and drink in their casettas. The girls and I set up camp with some English friends, where we had our own picnic, and then, as Saturday evening progressed, we did the rounds of the casettas to which we had been invited.

Four hours of singing in the tractor-drawn trailer

Looking back over those three sets of photographs I realised that what had once been, for us, a colourful local festival in a quirky village filled with strangers had become a part of our annual calendar in our adopted village filled with friends and neighbours. Zooming in on those photos from 2015, it dawned on me that those strangers were now Lily and Katie’s schoolmates and their parents, the friends I chat to in my favourite bar, my English language students. These strangers are now people to whose houses I have visited, who have invited us to birthday parties, First Communion celebrations and Christmas dinners. They are strangers no more.

Dance break by the side of the road!

Yachties frequently ask each other about their sailing plans. It’s the nature of living on a boat. There are times when I am envious when I see our sailing friends set off down the river. I want to set off for destinations unknown too. Our good friends aboard Pelagic are now sailing in the Pacific, having left the Rio Guadiana in spring of 2016. I read their blog and tell Lily and Katie about the wonderful adventures of their friends Ana and Porter  in places I’ve never heard of with names I can’t pronounce and part of me wishes we were out there too aboard Carina. Maybe someday we will.

But there is also something wonderful about staying put, about getting to know a place and its people, about getting below the surface of those colourful and strange traditions  and about strangers becoming friends.

Maybe we will still be here for next year’s Romería. Maybe not. Getting to know a place takes time. Understanding a community and its people takes patience. If we are here next year I am sure I will look back on May 2017 and marvel at my naiveté and lack understanding and my presumption at what I thought I knew!

Cancel school?

When I stepped off Carina at five to nine on Thursday morning to walk the girls to school, I thought to myself, ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think there’s snow in that sky’. The clear sky of the coldest night so far had given way to a warmer morning with flat featureless grey cloud cover.

We were almost at the school gate when it started to snow. I was walking from the direction of the river with my girls, Charo was slightly in front of me with her daughters, her sister Macu was coming from another direction with her son, and Charo’s brother-in-law, Reuben, was getting out of his car with his son and daughter. The realisation that it was snowing hit all four of us simultaneously and we all looked at each other, at the snow and then at our children. ‘¿Está nevando realmente?’ ‘It is really snowing?’ Macu asked. She and her sister, both women in their thirties, hugged each other and laughed like children, and I had a huge and almost painful grin on my face, as we and our children all starting talking at once, exuberant in the presence of such a rare meteorological event.

In the school playground, ten-year old Alejandro ran around, calling out ‘It’s snowing. Cancel school, cancel school’. Parents, teachers and children were all in the playground. Even the 13-year olds, who start school half an hour earlier than everyone else, had abandoned lessons and were outside, the boys self-conscious with their hands dug deep into their trouser pockets, the girls twirling in the snow, laughing and chattering.

Adults and children were enraptured, the children with hands and tongues outstretched to catch snowflakes, gazing at snow on each others’ hair or jackets, laughing as it landed on the bald head of Fran, the music teacher. Parents took photos of their children and themselves, and everyone laughed and talked at once in a frenzy of excitement. Even the self-conscious teenage boys grinned.

The snow lasted all of three minutes. But those were three minutes of sheer abandoned joy in the presence of such an unexpected and rare treat.