032 - Feet, Hooves, Paws, Trotters
31 January 2005 - Orgiva, Andalucia, España
¡Hola, todo el mundo!
Necessity, the proverb tells us, is the mother of invention. Add to necessity a dash of creativity and season liberally with eccentricity and what do you get? Well, obviously, Heath-Robinson-esque gadgets such as the 'Colli-Sieve 300' and the 'Danni-Flow 2000'. Yes, that pioneering spirit of having to make do and adapt (and the need to avoid linguistically complicated exchanges in local suppliers as well, perhaps) had gripped Mark and Becky so tightly that their highly successful inventions were going up in the world and being named.
Thus, the Colli-Sieve 300 - a plastic colander lashed to the end of a long, stout pole - was Becky's answer to the problem of festering poultry remains which needed to be sieved out of the stream (hence the device took on part of her surname); the Danni-Flow 2000 was developed as Mark pondered the problem of a customised connection from the old well pump to a temporary tap.
Dave, thrilled by this status elevation of home-knitted, context-specific inventions, immediately re-launched some of his own favourites, under product labels like the 'Lupti-Meter Pro' (his answer to checking the condition of the electricity supply on Campings) and the 'RevPol Lupti-Connect XL' (a device for correcting reverse polarity on the aforementioned electrical supply, if dodgy). Such was the productive cross fertilisation of ideas to solve specialised problems, that joint inventions began to spring forth in abundance. The Lupti-Coll ThermoWrap 100, a simple yet effective combination of silver reflective car windscreen shield and multiple bungees, was Dave and Becky's answer to the overnight freezing of gas bottles standing outside The Lorry. The Danni-Lupt Kneeler Mark 1 (Mark! Mark!! tee hee!) was Mark and Jeni's de-luxe pad for the protection of knees when on ground-based work duties … and so on … all these highly patentable of course. We missed our vocation!
Feet, hooves, paws, trotters ...
Reviewing the last Bulletin from the hills of northern Andalucia, here at Mark and Becky's, we realise that there was a lot of stuff about creatures - great and small, canine and feline - and that's before we got onto the porcine and the (um ... ?) goat-ine. This being truly rural España it's quite hard not to talk about animals, live and dead, when describing our day to day activities.
Pigs, for example, featured strongly - at least their smell and noise did. You may remember we mentioned that Mark and Becky had spent quite some time cleaning out the old pig stalls at the end of the house to reduce the overwhelming whiff of old pig poo. They managed to considerably reduce the noxious odour, but there was still an awful lot of encrusted pig shit all over the concrete walls and cobbled stone floors of the pig pens. This quite extensive area - part indoors, part open courtyard - had been identified as an ideal dog pound to coral the lively Pointers to prevent a repeat of the coming-home-with-a-broken-leg-after-daring-escape episode. However, it was obvious that more cleaning needed to be done to remove the disgusting remains of the previous occupants before it could be transformed for canine use. And this is the point that those of you who read the last Bulletin avidly (yes, both of you!) will say 'Aha! Those two batty Fruitbats had offered to do anything they could to help out at Cortijo Dos Arroyos!'
You're quite right of course, we did end up, face-masks in place, trowelling and scraping and brushing and scrubbing the very, very niffy walls and cobbles of the pig house. Well that's a first for both of us! Can't say we'd be at the head of the queue for a repeat run, but we did spend a day of, thankfully pretty effective, hard labour in one of the most bizarre and smelly Fruitbat activities ever. Not sure we'd ever recommend taking up pig farming, put it that way (and how on earth does it get so high up the walls?!). See some pictures here ...
Alas, poor piggies
This being November / December in rural Spain, many of you will know that the 'Matanza' season would be in full swing. This is the traditional slaughter of the fattened family pig or pigs, where the whole extended family (and often most of the village too) go along. A lot of families keep pigs. Even if they live in a village or small town and they can't keep the pig(s) there, many of them still have an old family farm (Cortijo) out in the country where animals are kept. Anyway, at the Matanza, piggie gets slaughtered by the men, then the women all set to processing every part of the pig - turning it into black pudding (blood sausage), sausages, chops, trotters, joints for dried hams - everything gets used and frozen, stored or cured in some way. The lore is that one substantial pig can keep a family nearly a year in pork products. And of course, the Matanza is another great excuse for getting everyone together and having a social event round the, to us somewhat grizzly, tasks of the day. The eating, drinking and catching up on the gossip is an essential element. Spanish people are so good at that!
Rafael, Mark and Becky's neighbour, did invite us to his Matanza, but Becky declined, explaining we wimpy Brits couldn't bear to see animals killed, much to Rafael's astonishment. Rural folk are, of necessity, just not sentimental about their animals in the same way that most of us ex-urban Brits are (although Rafael's relationship to his goats does border on the slushy, we noticed). In some ways, we would have liked to have gone to the Matanza to have observed the custom, but there's no getting away from the fact that it would have been smelly, bloody and very, very meaty! Not ideal for the non-meat-eater in Team Fruitbat! So maybe it's just as well that Becky declined on our behalf. Jeni didn't quite get to the stage of liberating porkers destined for the Matanza, though at one stage she was threatening snatch-squad raids on local pig-sheds.
We heard Rafael and his sons loading the squealing pigs into trailers in the early hours of one Saturday morning to take them off into the village to meet their fate, and that was bad enough. José, another near neighbour, took his pigs off the following weekend - and they certainly didn't want to go! Much clattering and squealing drifting across from the opposite hill for half an hour or more.
One of Mark and Becky's (English) friends had a bit of a shock one Saturday morning around that time when he was walking the dog in his village and saw blood running down the gutter. This was the first he knew about the Matanza, so was somewhat taken aback. As indeed you might be if you were just out for your unsuspecting morning stroll with the faithful hound. (Not that most of the blood would be 'wasted' like that - it would be used in the morcillos [black pudding type blood sausages] - this was probably the sweepings from the yard which he saw, as they cleaned up after the event.)
We did notice a poster in the nearby village of Iznajar which suggested that if you've gone soft and can't face slaughtering 'Babe' yourself, help is at hand. It looked at first glance rather like a 'Matanzas-2-U' service - a home visit expert pig slaughterer. Now there's a service to offer! Actually, we gather that this also likely to be about the vet making sure the animal is appropriately killed and having the resulting pork analysed, as lots of people seem to do these days (and are certainly supposed to), to ensure it's free from disease and organisms that would make it unfit to eat. But we rather liked the concept of a domiciliary Matanza service for the more squeamish or the less agile!
Nueva palabra, Rafael ...!
Most late afternoons, towards the end of his working day with the animals and in his olive groves, Rafael would wander over the land with his small herd of wonderful goats. It was also his chance to see if anyone was around and fancied a bit of a chat - he, Mark and Becky were getting on brilliantly, and he was helping them to expand their Spanish by the day. Jeni was naturally keen to join in with these impromptu language lessons, though it took some time to tune her ear and adapt her accent to the strong Andalucian dialect. It's bad enough struggling with a limited vocabulary and in confusion about the complexity of the verbs, without then adding the layer of dropped 'D's and 'S's (which is the speciality of this regional variation).
Rafael told Jeni one day that he was really distressed when his late former-neighbour's family finally decided to sell the farm, as he worried about who might buy it. But in the couple of months since Mark and Becky had moved in, he declared himself thrilled about his 'nuevos vecinos' (new neighbours) - they were friendly, always helpful, interesting and wanted to learn all the tricks of living in rural Spain. And their Spanish was coming on a treat! You'll understand that this exchange took some time, lots of mime, using alternative simple words when Jeni was baffled and much stopping him saying 'Nueva palabra para mi, Rafael - no entiendo!' ('new word for me Rafael - I don't understand!'). And of course some of the nuevas palabras turned out simply to be familiar words in a heavy accent.
A slight downside for Rafael regarding his nuevos vecinos was that he simply couldn't get his tongue around Becky and Mark's names. After much patience on both sides we did manage to get him fixed on nearest versions - Pesk-ee y Marco! We decided that would do fine.
Such were the many and long exchanges over the time we were there, but we all seemed to enjoy them hugely. Another favourite was starting out with 'Una pregunta ...' (a question), and this might come from either side, since Rafael constantly wanted to know about us, our lives and the mysteries of England (did we really not grow olives?! Did most people really not keep goats or a pig?! Was there really not enough warmth to grow oranges?! Did people really travel two, three or more hours a day round busy motorways or on trains to get to and from work?! It was all quite a revelation to him, living as he always had done, deep in the heart of the Spanish countryside).
Attención! Obras!
Rafael was impressed by Dave's ability to turn his hand to so many things - plumbing, electrics, general labouring. Despite Dave's still very limited command of the language, he and Rafael managed to communicate very effectively about the 'obras' (works) with which Dave was helping. That international language of pipes, cables, tools and hard slog overcomes mere verbal communication barriers every time!
The installation of the parabolica was the catalyst for getting the plumbing sorted in the garage/outbuilding next to the well (where the washing machine was already installed - after a fashion, since the limitations of the pump required standing over the washing machine with buckets of water ready for appropriate moments in the cycle). The arrival of the parabolica had also necessitated digging a trench between said outhouse and the main dwelling to lay the aerial. So this in turn stimulated the upgrading of the electrics to the garage for the various appliances, the laying of a new water main … and so on. An organic work programme you might say.
The track between the outbuilding and the house leads up behind to the rear, upstairs animal shed entrances and thence on up to the old threshing circle behind the house. Part of it is also a right of way into some olive groves belonging to other near-neighbours, so from time to time a land rover or tractor would rattle up the track. Naturally it was necessary to warn anyone wanting to use this through route that it was temporarily impassable due to the hazardous trench, while materials were awaited to finish the job and fill in the hole. A quick Dave-esque cartoon road-sign attached to a handy large pumpkin and The Lorry's £5.99 set of Early Learning Centre fluorescent roadwork mini-cones did the job nicely, with a pedestrian bridge fashioned from an old metal animal shed door - bingo! (Surely the Coll-Lupti-Dann European Deluxe Trench Set 200? Or perhaps not!)
Work and Play
So lots of hard work was going on - with the domestic tasks taking at least twice as long as usual because of the constraints of collecting water, hand filling the washing machine, standing outside admiring the view (and having long conversations with Rafael) whilst washing up in buckets and generally doing the chores the primitive way. Every couple of days we'd do a trip into nearby Rute or Iznajar for supplies, to check messages on the mobile phones, which you may remember didn't get a signal out there in the wilds.
We'd also collect and send post and, it must be said, make multiple trips to the vet with poor Hoppy Poppy, the broken-legged Pointer. Then there were the occasional trips further afield to the big supermarket at Lucena or pricing up hormigoneras (cement mixers!), remolques (trailers), estufas (woodstoves) and other necessities of daily life. And you think we're not busy?!
Our social lives weren't being neglected either, and we were being introduced to a lovely bunch of Becky and Mark's friends, with meals out, socialising in a local bar and even music making. We heard a rumour that there was going to be a jamming session, Spanish style, in a bar in Iznajar one Friday evening, so Dave was easily persuaded to take drums and his 'hang' to join in. Only it turned out that it was one elderly Spanish guy with his guitar, Graham and Annie (a couple of accomplished musician friends of Becky and Mark's) and us. But we had a ball anyway - Dave's bass drum and a couple of small djembes we took were the perfect accompaniment to the two guitars, and the 'hang' - as ever - caused a great deal of interest. Even if it wasn't the ideal complement to flamenco-esque guitar! (You may remember the 'hang' featuring in our account of the last didj fest last August - an amazing instrument, resembling a cross between a steel drum and a wok!)
Then of course there were all the Spanish friends as well, though we confess to getting slightly confused about who was who and where they fitted in. This was principally down to our feeble grasp of names and relationships. There was Young Antonio (who dug the fossa septica), Old Antonio (who lived up the hill), Antonio Antonio (who ran the bar), Juan Antonio (who was the person to ask about the community electricity supply ... or was he the one whose brother-in-law had the building supply depot?), Antonio José (now his cousin used to … oh, no, what was the connection?), José Antonio … and that's before we get onto the womenfolk! However, everyone was warm and friendly, and whatever they might have said behind our backs about our paltry grasp of the language and local accent, they were immensely open, welcoming and hospitable.
Out Santa-ing Santa
In the midst of all this, we had a few days back down at the coast, in Torre del Mar where we'd previously stayed, in order for Jeni to get full and unfettered internet access to finish off a bit of work in which she'd been involved. Our Normandy friends, Steve and Sheila, were on their winter travels and had pitched up at the same Camping, so we wanted to see them too while they were in the area.
But how weird it was to be back to side-by-side, packed in pitches, loads of people and - oh, worse and worse - a rash of gaudy festive decorations on every other pitch. Argh! You know those suburban British streets where you can walk at dusk and see the neighbours trying to outdo each other in bad taste rooftop santas, reindeer and sleigh in flashing lights and hideously illuminated cascades of pseudo-icicles? Well, we regret to say that this vice is all too present on these continental coastal Campings too - with the added value of specific national variations on the theme. Eurgh! Having a dog gives additional excuse for nocturnal perambulations round the site to observe and comment in a condescending fashion on such excesses - and so late evening Chippy strolls came into their own. But oh how superior we felt with our discreet, permanent, fairy-lights-are-not-just-for-Christmas interior décor from last year and a tasteful sprig of fir tree behind the tasteless cow slipper on the front grille of the Lorry.
After a few days, when Jeni had had her internet fix, we'd done some serious socialising with Steve and Sheila, Alan and Beryl, etc., and were sick to death of pre-festive decorative overkill, we were more than ready to escape from the throbbing metrolops and get back to the quiet life in the hills. Only there was an initial hitch as we came to land at Cortijo Dos Arroyos in some deep mud - there having been a couple of days heavy rain in our absence - and we had to appeal to Rafael, José (another neighbour), a heavy duty land rover and a quantity of tow rope to move us onto a less boggy piece of land. Ah well, we should be getting used to that by now … but apparently it provided a good topic of conversation in the nearest village for at least a week afterwards!
It was at this stage that we decided to hire a car, as it wasn't really practical to up-camp every day and take our prospective visitors on jaunts around the area in The Lorry. We did a fine deal with Crown Car Hire at Malaga Airport and took delivery of a Ford Escort diesel (later upgraded to a new Fiat Punto hatch back, for no extra charge, when one of the Escort's brake lights failed!)
So it was that we swooped back into Malaga airport to collect our visitors.
New Arrivals
Our visitors were our Senior Gorgeous Grand-daughter, Sorrell, who had special permission for a bit of extra time out from school to visit, and her Auntie Wendy, Dave's older daughter, who was chaperoning her journey and bringing some urgent bits of business post and things for signing etc. Great excuse, she thought, for a few days in Spain.
What fun we had, all crammed into the Lorry for a several nights! It was decidedly cosy, and we did have a bit of a giggle. Wendy and Sorrell both squeezed into the Secret Squirrell bed (the little sofa-conversion which is Soz's bed when she visits us) so from time to time during the wee, small hours there would be pillow fights and tussles with the duvet when one of them had more than their fair share of the covers. The Lorry is technically a six-berth motorhome, but we couldn't imagine how six people could possibly co-exist in the space and remain friends. We have careful choreography when there's just two of us normally and it gets pretty crowded when we have two and a Soz, but six - goodness!!
We did a bit of touristy stuff while Wendy was with us, to show her round this fascinating area and to give Soz a sense of the place into which she'd landed, slap bang in the middle. But it feels like that's another story … so hang on in until the next episode, folks, for the low-down on, amongst other delights, the Immaculate Confection, a Town Called Goat and the legendary Senora in the tourist office who can't be persuaded to part with her leaflets!
More soon folks (the next Bulletin will really be posted with a much shorter gap, honest!).
Keep well and keep warm and keep eating the fruit,
Love and hugs,
Jeni y Dave
xxxx
p.s. Newly available! Due to the recent nocturnal cold snap, the Lupti-Coll ThermoWrap 100 has now been upgraded and we can offer you the Lupti Thermo-Snuggle De Luxe - suitable for both Repsol and Cepsa gas bottles, - and incorporating a down-filled sleeping bag, checked plastic laundry bag and pallet for elevating from the chilly ground (in addition to the original reflective screen cover and bungees) ...! You probably have to have been there ...!
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