Tales from Elsewhere - The Spanish Villa - (2 of 3)

On the urbanización where my parents spent their retire-ment near Valencia in Spain (above), there were no sewage pipes so each house had its own cesspit (pozo negro, or black hole), the cause of regular dramas.  About once a year these would have to be emptied, and a tanker with huge hoses would lumber up to the gate.  For the next hour or two we became pariahs as the air turned thick with the stench of human waste, and all friends and neighbours kept well clear of us. 

Some days it seemed my father thought of little else.

“You women, always washing and flushing...” he would mutter as he paced up and down the corridor.  “The pozo negro is getting full, you don’t need to run so much water...  why do you need to wash your hair every single day?”

When friends and relations came to stay his neurosis would increase.  The lid of the hellhole was unfortunately positioned outside quite near to the window of the guest bathroom and no doubt they could hear the clank of the cover and his ominous muttering as with wrinkled nose he lifted the lid and peered anxiously within.  To our great embarrassment he would then warn disconcerted guests who thought they were safe in the toilet by calling through the locked door that they shouldn’t use too much water because the pozo negro might overflow. 

The anxiety was catching and as we contemplated the prospect of this awful occurrence, our imaginations would go into overdrive.  It took years of this routine before I learned to ignore it.

But in July when the fig tree was full of ripe fruit and they were so sweet and juicy that you couldn’t help but stand there gorging yourself, you inevitably found yourself spending more time in that particular room of the house than you might have wished, and if you were a first time guest, you would have been curious to note the old post-it notes stuck to the mirror and maybe were too polite to ask why they were there, putting it down to the family’s eccentricities.

They remained clinging to the mirror for almost the whole of their 15 year sojourn in Spain.  My mother was anxious that guests should be aware that the tap water was not for drinking. She had therefore put up a notice on a yellow post-it note, helpfully advising us in both English and Spanish large capital letters –

The Spanish version said – and it translates well:

DO NOT DRINK RUNNING WATER                (NO BEBER AGUA CORRIENTE)

To which someone had added underneath
 “...  wait for it to stand still”...                 (esperar hasta que se pare...)

... and another guest had added later
 “... or sit down.”                                       (...o se siente)

The English post-it note originally said:

DO NOT DRINK TAP WATER

Someone had added a comma and a few words at the end, which made the sign now read –

DO NOT DRINK TAP, WATER IS BETTER FOR YOU.
.

Childish stuff perhaps, but it amused my parents no end, and they left the two post-its there for the duration.  The ink gradually faded as did the yellow paper, which curled at the edges and the glue became ineffective as it acquired more dust – but they would not take them down.   Remembering an entry in the ‘Humor in Uniform’ section of a sixties’ copy of Reader’s Digest which my father quoted for years, where a senior army man had put a sign on the recruits’ bathroom mirror which said “THINK!”, to which a new soldier responded by putting another sign further down with an arrow pointing down and to the right, on which he wrote “THOAP!”, I should not have been surprised that he enjoyed this little exchange.

From time to time there was further entertainment to be found in the bathroom.  Reminiscent of elephants remembering their ancient route across the savannah, when recently erected villages in its way were merely an obstacle to be trampled through, the ants in the house had a collective memory relayed in their genes down the generations, and every year or two you could watch an impressive procession of ants making their way determinedly across the china in the kitchen cupboard, through an infinitesimal hole in the wall and into the bathroom, proceeding from right to left along the edge of the bathtub, climbing perilously to the window, and disappearing to the exterior of the building through some further invisible hole.  No attempts to deal with them had the slightest effect, and as they marched across the bathtub they probably regarded people having a shower as a mere annoyance. 

Another cohort had more suicidal tendencies, as they proceeded single file from one end of the swimming pool to the other, under the rim.  My partner John, easily entertained, could be found hour after hour hunched over them trying to follow where they went…

For us of course the swimming pool was a blessed relief in the scorching summer months, and it enabled my mother to have regular exercise in comfort.  The job of keeping it properly chlorinated fell to my father, who enjoyed scooping up samples, testing them, calculating how much chlorine was required and mixing it in afterwards.  The local feral cats didn’t seem to mind drinking this powerful cocktail, and we made sure we never got in during this procedure. 

As the years went by however and Dad became increasingly unsteady on his feet, he lost interest in the endless demands of a sparkling swimming pool, and Mum wasn’t too bothered – as a young girl in rural Argentina she had been quite used to swimming in Australian tanks where water for cattle troughs was stored and you could find yourself sweeping the slime aside as you swam, making sure you kept your mouth well closed.  So what if the water was slightly less than jewel turquoise?  But Noli observed this with horror through the hedge next door, and took action without their knowledge.  I don’t think they ever knew that she would lob chlorine tablets over the fence – quite a feat for a five foot little lady and a 12 foot pine tree hedge followed by a distance of some 15 ft (5 metres) to the pool's edge.

There were many feral cats in the area, with no attempt at neutering them, and I inevitably fell in love with a succession of adorable kittens over the years.  Mum always had a scientific curiosity about animals, but except for certain special dogs which had entered and exited her life at various points, she never allowed herself to get sentimental about them, particularly cats.  She refused to feed any of them, and it had to be recognised that it would have been an all day job, for there were so many beautiful felines struggling to survive.  

Dad was different though, and one feral young cat which was braver than most and ventured into the house when my mother was out, won his heart, and he started sneaking food to her whenever he could.  He called her Vicky, and she was indeed a gorgeous creature.  By the time Mum realised what was going on it was too late, and Dad got stubborn about it; so it was that Vicky achieved the unheard of luxury of being accepted into the household. 

Vicky

She knew who her friends were though – Dad was the only person to whom she would go and by whom she allowed herself to be stroked, and whose lap was in constant demand.  I consider myself to be as irresistible to cats as humans are ever likely to be.  I know the gentleness and quiet voice they like, not looking them in the eye, and about being generally soothing and non-threatening – but with Vicky I got absolutely nowhere.  She only had eyes for Dad.

It was a sad fact of life however that getting her to a far off vet was just not possible, and a conjunctivitis she picked up when no one in the family was around except them, meant that she went virtually blind, and we heard later that she picked up another infection that caused Dad to ask a neighbour to take her away and  have her put down.  He grieved for a long time and thereafter left the feral cats well alone.

(To be continued. 
Next time - why daughters feel embarrassed by their fathers...)

-oOo-

Photo Finish

- from Lonicera's non-digital archive

Fuerteventura, Canary Islands

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Tales from Elsewhere - The Spanish Villa - (1 of 3)

My parents retired to Spain from Argentina in the late 1980s and lived in a garden suburb near Chiva, a village ten miles from Valencia on the Mediterranean, towards Madrid, until my father died some fifteen years later.  Eighteen months after that my mother moved to England and died in early 2007.  

It brought to an end what had been for the most part a very pleasant sojourn in Spain and I retain pleasant memories of visiting them twice a year with my partner John – for my birthday in mid June and at Christmas.  I therefore regularly saw that region of Spain during the tourist season and in the cooler winter when the citrus trees, heavy with fruit, awaited harvest in the brilliant winter sunshine...  

 ...and Spaniards would return to their families for the most important religious festival of the year.

As a bilingual family we were fortunate to communicate easily with neighbours, friends and shopkeepers; we all made many friends there, and seven years later we are still in close contact with the Noble family, my parents’ kindly former next door neighbours.  Noli and Nico Noble are in their fifties now and their daughter Blanca in her early thirties.

They were a young couple when my parents first went to live there.   One evening Mum and Dad were having dinner with my visiting sister, brother-in-law and niece, and they heard screaming coming from next door.  One of them immediately got up and went to see what was the matter, and found a little girl of six or seven hanging onto the bars of the locked gates which led through the front garden to the darkened house.  She was crying in distress. 

When they were able to make sense of what she was saying between hiccoughs they learned that her name was Blanca, that her parents were at the club and she had been at a friend’s house nearby.  When she decided she wanted to go home by herself she had expected them to be home when she got there but when she saw the house with no lights and locked, didn’t recognise her way back to her friend’s in the dark and didn’t know what to do.   She knew my parents by sight, so let herself be persuaded to go next door to await the return of the Nobles.  My niece was two years older and took her under her wing, chatting to her to calm her down, until twenty minutes later they heard Noli and Nico’s car pull into the drive.  The child had been told to await collection at her friend’s, which Blanca had forgotten, and all was resolved.

This was the start of a firm friendship with the Nobles, and they were to become essential in my parents’ lives as they aged. 

Despite the small age difference the girls naturally gravitated towards each other when my niece visited from London.  There was a memorable occasion when the club was hosting a fancy dress competition for the younger members, and they both presented themselves done up to the nines with as much makeup on as they could get away with.

Noli and Nico referred to their house as the ‘chalet’, or weekend home, for they had a flat – and jobs - in the city of Valencia.  It was in typical modern Spanish style with pretty red roof tiles and wooden shutters, a large garage on the ground floor, terracotta steps lined with ornamental tiles which led up to a large cool and airy verandah where we enjoyed many an al fresco meal.  There was a carved wooden front door which opened into a large house with gleaming tiled floors, ample rooms and a light, minimalist décor. 

At the front the garden had been mainly laid to gravel, with some hardy shrubs which could withstand the intense summer heat, helped along by a more modest version of the irrigation system used in the citrus plantations – half-buried, black hoses with minute holes in them which ‘leaked’ drops of water.  This was switched on during the week when the property was empty.  At the back they had the paellero, an ornamental tiled shelter with a fireplace large enough to accommodate Noli’s paella dish measuring almost a metre in diameter, next to a tiled table and benches protected by an awning – another superb setting for balmy evening meals soaked in sangría.

By contrast, my parents’ bungalow was an uninviting square, concrete structure, (picture above) whose stolid appearance was relieved slightly by the swimming pool at the end. 

(Photo by Shane)

From the pool you could climb onto the flat roof via a large, ugly metal fire escape.  Once up there, you would have been surprised to notice that it had lamps on metal stems positioned at regular intervals round the perimeter, crowned as they were with football shaped glass globes because, we were told, the previous owners had used the area for parties.  They looked odd when you were looking up at them from street level, and the social use they had once enabled did no good at all to the roof, which always had to be patched up so it wouldn’t cause leaks below.

Some of the globes had been removed by the time this picture

was taken.  John in the foreground looking, as he would call it

"fonzed and brit".  (He loves spoonerisms...)

The garden area was a testament to my father’s determination to recreate his childhood memories of humid Buenos Aires, in the dry desert conditions of Valencia.  Blue hydrangeas turned pink despite the acid soil mulches, then withered and died anyway; thanks to the use of the Nobles’ watering method of hoses with small holes partly buried under the soil, the rose bushes survived, producing small blooms with little scent and small leaves.  At Dad’s request I brought over plenty of daffodil bulbs one winter, and carefully dug them in around the mud patch outside their kitchen, where they would see them and remember to water them regularly, but the hot sun was too much for them, and I only saw them once, the flowers hanging limply on their stems. 

Worse still were the sweet peas, which made me wince with foreboding even as I carefully planted them and put up sticks, held together with string.  He longed for the delicate petals and the sweet perfume to remind him of his mother’s garden, but no amount of watering could do it – they shrivelled as soon as the hot air swept past them in the summer months... as did even the sticks.

But the fig, orange, tangerine and lemon trees thrived, as did the succulents in the heavy shade, and the bougainvillea rioted all over the fence.  In the evenings the sprinkler would pick up the aromatic scent of the geraniums – but Dad was always disappointed that he couldn’t bring back the bygone days.

Further afield the citrus groves surrounded the cluster of garden suburbs or urbanizaciones, as they are called.  The owners had long since yielded to the inevitable in establishing the rule that if you wanted to walk through his groves you were allowed to carry away with you any fruit that you could fit in your pockets, but bags were not permitted.  Noli would laugh at this, and evening walks with her usually involved a shopping trolley, as I would glance nervously around, imagining armies of angry fruit growers bearing down upon us wielding big sticks.

Back at the urbanizaciones, the (mostly) pretty houses still do not have mains gas or sewerage today, as residents fear the expense of such major installations.  The very heavy gas cylinders – bombonas  - were delivered by the bombonero on certain days of the week, and he would leave them at the front gate, with 12 steps still to climb to the front door.  While he could, my father valiantly struggled with them unless we were around, but in the end they had to depend on neighbours or the goodwill of the delivery man.  The cooking was done using these cylinders, and there were many times when the preparation of meals – a Christmas lunch once – was brought to an abrupt halt, and recriminations liberally sprinkled with dramatic exclamation marks would follow –

“The bombona’s finished! The turkey isn’t ready!”

“Well put another bombona in then!”

“There isn’t one!”

“Well you order them, don’t you?”

“Why is it always my fault?”

“When is the next delivery?”

“After new year!”

“Oh my God!”

(Later, after Dad had gone next door...) “Noli says we can finish it off on the paellero – we can’t use their oven because they’re cooking stuff for their family party tonight!”

“The paellero?  Are you MAD?  How can we cook a turkey on a paellero?”

“I don’t know!  It’s your fault anyway, if you had ordered a new bombona...”

...and so on.

(To be continued.  Next time - the cesspit...)

-oOo-

Photo Finish
- from Lonicera's non-digital archive

-oOo-

"Iolanthe" production - the pictures

It's been such a busy few weeks that I haven't had time to do what makes me happiest - write a story.  Health issues, busy shows, happy weddings, sad funerals - and not enough time to look at the screen and think.  So for this week I'll show you my dress rehearsal photos of this year's production of the Bristol Gilbert & Sullivan Operatic Society - Iolanthe - with comments.

John as one of the lords, looking pensive

(and very hot under that crown, apparently)

Another lord, with as it happens, his father (in real life)

in similar role standing behind him. 

Two of the fairies - they claimed the wigs they wore were even hotter!

The Queen of the Fairies

This fairy had disobeyed a fairy law and had been sentenced to

live at the bottom of a river for 25 years,

hence the green hair...

This fairy was going to find it difficult to walk about the stage so they arranged a wheelchair for her, suitably covered in foliage.  In her right hand she holds an ear trumpet (all the better to hear with) and in her left is Philip the corgi, normally carried around by the Queen of the Fairies (an innovation this year which went down very well with the audience).  Philip was a glove puppet, and was therefore able to react wonderfully to what was being said.  He almost upstaged the Queen...

The love interest - singing how they feel about each other.

End of Act One

The "very susceptible Chancellor". 

(He makes all his own costumes - isn't it beautiful?)

A close-up of the Queen which shows off her adorable "crown".

In all Gilbert's plots there are simpering 'young ladies' being coy with the men before trapping them into marriage.  In this case the women were fairies who never aged, and the men were lords in Parliament.  He was clearly trying to tell us something about the times - or how he saw women...

The sentry outside the Houses of Parliament

The Finale

-oOo-

 Photo Finish

- from Lonicera's non-digital archive

An outing to Wells Cathedral with a visiting school friend

-oOo-

LapBand catch-up

Funny how things work out.  In the post before last I told you how over-restricted I felt, and the uncomfortable physical consequences.  I booked myself an appointment at the bariatric hospital in Taunton where I had had the lapband fitted, to have a partial unfill.  That was for Wednesday 21st March, and by the time I attended the appointment it had become even more important that I have it done.

About a month ago I felt a grey patch rise from the outer corner of my left eye, through which I couldn’t see, but after blinking nervously a couple of times it dissolved and went away.  I forgot about it until a few weeks later when on the Monday of the week before my appointment it happened again as I was getting dressed. 

This time I did worry (vaguely) and made a telephone appointment with my doctor, though they couldn’t fit me in until Tuesday 20th.  I was at work when she rang, and as I was telling her about it her voice sharpened and she fired a lot of questions at me, then thoroughly scared me by telling me I might have had a mini stroke. 

In no time at all I found myself booked in to see a stroke specialist at another Bristol hospital, by which time I had been to Taunton and had 0.75cc removed from the band (after a lot of discussion as to how much it should be – in the end I followed their advice).  All the tests in Bristol proved I had not had a mini stroke, but that there had been a partial blockage of the vein leading to the eye, which was probably diabetes related.  I’ve been put on all sorts of pills ever since and for the foreseeable future, and dire warnings about controlling my diabetes.  I thought I did, but apparently from now on I must test myself several times a day.

Enough of the boring stuff. 

I realise that my over-restriction may have been the cause of all this, because I know I was eating too many sweet things.  So having more removed from the band has worked well – I can now eat the meat-and-two-veg I had craved for the last 2 years, and the temptation to eat sliders has remained just that:  a temptation, rather than my brain demanding food, ANY food.  The other discomforts have almost disappeared, except when I ate too fast recently, which proved to me that there was still restriction there.  The other added benefit is that I can now swallow pills relatively easily. 

At the moment I’ve found it reasonably easy to steer clear of sweet junk food because a consequence of my eye episode is that I’m not allowed to drive for a month from the day it occurred.  John is therefore giving me lifts when I need them, and mostly I don’t, because I’ve used up some holiday and I’m at home.  So no chance to get near a sweet shop! 

My requirement of insulin has gone right down, a good sign, but I shall be back on wheels after Easter, and need to continue to resist sweet things.  From now on I have to remind myself that I don’t want to end up blind or having a stroke.  I also have to remember to be calorie-aware with the food I can now eat. 

I may look back on the unfill as being in the nick of time for my general health.

-oOo-

Photo Finish

from Lonicera's non-digital archive

The spring...

...is sprung...

...the grass is riz...

...the bird...

...is on the wing.

But that's absurd!

I thought the wing wuz on the bird...

-oOo-