When he approached a service station on the outskirts of a neighbouring village, he decided he should fill up with petrol. Checking behind him in the mirror, he turned left and swung onto the forecourt without bothering to indicate as there was no other traffic on the road.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t looked carefully enough. He’d failed to notice the police motorbike tailing him. Worse still, Joe’s left turn and lack of signal had forced the policeman to brake violently.
On the garage forecourt, Joe switched off the engine and waited, head drooping, for the inevitable. The policeman drew up alongside, killed his engine and angrily pulled off his crash helmet. Joe looked at him sheepishly.
“Dangerous driving,” announced the policeman. “You failed to signal when you turned off. You have broken the law and you could have caused an accident. I need to see your ID, proof of insurance and the car’s paperwork.”
Glumly, Joe produced his passport, which was all he had with him. The policeman glanced at it, then patted the pockets of his own leather jacket and checked his panniers for something.
“You need to produce the rest of your paperwork within one week,” said the policeman, scribbling Joe’s name and registration number on the back of a cigarette packet. Obviously his official notebook had gone missing, or perhaps he was off duty. “Take them to the police station, or you will be fined.”
Tucking the cigarette pack back into his pocket, he replaced his helmet, turned the ignition key and roared off up the empty road.
“We’ve got a week,” said Joe gloomily when he came home and told me all about it. “A week to pass the ITV or get a new car.”
“There’s no way we can get an ITV, so I guess we’ll have to buy a new car, even though we don’t want one.”
“And what do we do with the old car?”
“I don’t know. Just park it in the village somewhere for now. Ask Paco what people do with old cars. Perhaps there’s a car scrap place we don’t know about.”
It was a depressing thought to abandon our perfectly good car to rust amongst crashed and broken vehicles in a scrap yard.
The following day we started looking in earnest for a replacement vehicle. In the city, we parked at the first car showroom and started browsing the vehicles on display on the forecourt. We were so engrossed we didn’t notice when a tall, skinny man with fair curly hair strode up to us.
“Joe! Vicky! How are you?”
“Kurt! Good to see you!”
Kurt was the German estate agent who had found our house in El Hoyo for us, nearly ten years ago.
We exchanged chitchat. Kurt and his Spanish lawyer wife now had two children. Selling houses was no longer a profitable career, but Kurt had fingers in numerous pies. He was active in local politics and also had an interest in the restaurant in the next village. We told him about our year in Bahrain and life in general.
“Are you looking for a car to buy?” asked Kurt.
“We are,” said Joe, “although we don’t really want to part with our old car. Are you looking for a car, too?”
“Ja, I promised my vife I vould look for a fun vehicle ve can use to pull our little boat to the beach in the summer. A small RV vould be good, perhaps.”
Joe and I stared at him.
“Like that one?” Joe asked, pointing to where our vehicle was parked.
“Ja, exactly like that one.”
To cut a long story short, Kurt loved our car. The fact that it didn’t have an ITV certificate didn’t bother him at all as he was a man of many contacts. He didn’t mind that it was a right-hand drive, either. We shook hands on the spot and Kurt was pleased with his purchase, although being German, he wasn’t one to rave. He had secured a bargain for 1,000 euros and we had sold a car we thought was un-sellable. He found us another car in another garage, a rather boring Volkswagen Polo, but it suited our needs.
The next day, we sealed the deal and drove our new car home. Kurt, delighted with his acquisition, drove away in our jeep with a tiny smile on his face. I was sorry to see it go.
“What luck!” said Joe for the millionth time.
Now we needed to take all our paperwork to the police station in the next town, a job neither of us fancied.
Finding the police station was the first hurdle. We asked at the supermarket and were directed to a shabby-looking building down a side street. It was all locked up so Joe knocked politely on the door.
15. Owls and Kittens
Judith’s Easy Lemon Curd
‘Your baby is now the size of an onion and can yawn, hiccup, roll, twist, kick, punch, suck and swallow.’
“Knock again,” I said. “Perhaps they didn’t hear you.”
We could hear voices and laughter through the door. Joe knocked again, a little harder and the door swung open.
“Good morning, we’ve brought all our car’s paperwork as requested,” said Joe.
The policeman looked blank. I could see past him into the police station where his colleagues were playing cards, seated round a table.
“Anyone know anything about an elderly English couple bringing in their vehicle’s paperwork?” the policeman called over his shoulder.
“No,” chorused the uniformed card players from within.
“But we were asked…” began Joe, but was halted in mid-sentence as the policeman waved us away and firmly shut the door.
We stared at the closed door and then each other.
“Well!” said Joe.
“I guess that’s that, then?” I asked.
“If they don’t want to check it, that’s fine by me,” said Joe.
We turned away and walked back to the car. I didn’t like the new car much, but at least we were no longer breaking the law.
We spoke to Kurt a couple of days later. I asked him if his wife liked our old car and approved of the purchase. Kurt was not known for his sense of humour, but allowed a little smile to cross his face.
“Ja, I told my vife, look at this picture of a car. Do you like it? Then I showed my vife the photo on my phone. My vife said she liked it very much, then she looked at the photo again, very exactly. ‘Isn’t that our garage?’ she asked. ‘I can see our boat there and the toys of the children.’ I said, ‘Ja, I haf bought this car as a surprise. Come to the garage and meet our new car.’” Kurt’s face split into an uncharacteristic grin.
“Oh, I’m pleased it’s gone to a good home,” I smiled.
“Ja, my vife likes it very much and the children, they like it very much. And ve all laugh very much at the little prank I made.”
Joe and I, as well as the villagers, accepted that Maribel Ufarte had left with the children. Although Lola and Papa Ufarte were now a couple, I don’t think anybody believed theirs would be a lasting relationship. Sometimes we heard raised voices through the walls and the sparkle seemed to have left Papa Ufarte’s eyes. He still sat on the doorstep strumming his guitar, but the exuberant flamenco music was gone, replaced by long, sad, haunting melodies.
Then, one day, we saw Papa Ufarte leaving. His car was parked outside their house and he was loading it with clothes, shoes and personal paraphernalia. When I saw him carry out both his guitars and stow them in the back, I knew he wasn’t planning to come back anytime soon.
“I don’t know where he’s gone,” said Carmen when we discussed it over a glass of coffee and churros. “Maribel told me she wouldn’t have him back.”
“Perhaps he’s found a place of his own in the city,” I said. “Or perhaps he’s moved back in with his parents?”
“Claro, very possible,” Carmen replied. “A great pity. But you mark my words, that girl, Lola, won’t stay single for long.”
Lola left the village soon after and the house was closed up, as empty of life as it had been when we first moved into El Hoyo so many years before.
Spring brings many wonderful things, but perhaps one of our favourites was the scops owl. We’d only seen one once as it sat on a wall at the roadside in broad daylight. Scops owls a
re tiny and if it hadn’t swivelled its head as we drove by, we probably wouldn’t have noticed it. We stopped the car and Joe and I stared at the beautiful little bird. Not to be outdone, it stared back at us. In fact we all stared at each other for a full minute before it launched, sweeping away into the valley on silent wings.
Although it’s rare to see one, hearing scops owls is a nightly occurrence. Usually there would be just one trying to attract a mate, but some nights two or three of them would compete.
Scops owls don’t say “Twit-Twoo” like owls are supposed to. Scops owls are perfectly happy with just a “Pooo” every 20 seconds or so, repeated over and over again. So the conversation went rather like this:
Scops Owl #1, “Pooo.”
Scops Owl #2, “Pooo.”
Scops Owl #3, “Pooo.”
Our valley resembles a Roman amphitheatre. Even the smallest sound travels and can be heard by all, particularly at night. The bark of a fox or the grunt of a deer sounds as though the animals are mere yards away when they are probably on the other side of the valley.
Joe and I loved to stand on our roof terrace at dusk, listening to the owls trying to out-pooo each other.
Joe is not a good mimic. Whenever he tries to copy a foreign accent it comes out sounding Pakistani. However, he is very good at imitating these owls and his ‘pooo’ is almost perfect. Three scops owls in the valley was an opportunity too good to miss.
“Pooo,” said Owl #1, from somewhere high in the valley.
“Pooo,” agreed Owl #2, his voice echoing from our far right.
“Pooo,” added Owl #3, somewhere to the south of us.
“Pooo,” said Joe, beside me.
Utter silence. What? An interloper! A gatecrasher competing for the attentions of a lady owl? Oh, horror! We giggled as we imagined all three owls’ expressions as they swivelled their heads, trying to work out where this uninvited upstart newcomer might be perched. I imagined them ruffling their feathers in annoyance, their yellow eyes piercing the gloom in an effort to see this cheeky infiltrator.
Having got over the shock, the owls pulled themselves together and resumed their hooting. But so did Joe. Now we had a quartet, all in perfect time. Occasionally a fox would bark, but the four performers refused to be distracted. The three owls took turns to hoot, leaving time for Joe to chime in at the end of the sequence.
“Pooo,” said Owl #1.
“Pooo,” said Owl #2.
“Pooo,” said Owl #3.
“Pooo,” said Joe.
I left them to it. I had supper to prepare and I could rely on Joe to carry on with the good work.
Half an hour later, I called a reluctant Joe inside.
“Two of them gave up,” said Joe, triumph in his voice. “It was just me and the southerly owl left.”
“Eat your supper,” I said, “before a lady owl comes knocking on our door looking for you.”
Of course spring meant that new litters of kittens were being born all over the village. Tiny mews could be heard from ruined cottages and nooks and crannies. As the bolder ones emerged, it was obvious that Black Balls had been busy. Where many of the previous generation of kittens had exhibited Siamese traits, the vast majority of this year’s kittens were coal black.
We suspected that Sylvia had a litter stashed away somewhere, but we didn’t know where. So it was with some surprise that we saw her daughter, Felicity, who was barely a kitten herself, carrying a kitten into our garden. She climbed down the trunk of our vine and dropped the kitten on the ground, staring at us with huge green eyes.
“Joe! Felicity has brought a kitten into the garden! She must have stolen it!”
“Perhaps she’s taken one of Sylvia’s?”
“What shall we do?”
The little black kitten, eyes still closed, squirmed and mewed.
“Well, we can’t interfere. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Perhaps Sylvia will hear it and come and collect it.”
I watched Felicity all that day through the kitchen window. First she stashed the kitten behind a pile of flowerpots, then she sprang up the vine again and vanished.
“Joe! She’s abandoned Sylvia’s kitten and gone up the vine!”
“Leave it, let’s see what happens next.”
Felicity reappeared at the top of the vine. The vine leaves were young, not fully grown yet and we could easily see what she was carrying. Another kitten.
“Oh no, she’s bringing another one!”
Felicity climbed down and deposited the second kitten behind the flowerpots with the first. Now both kittens were howling.
“Look who’s coming,” said Joe, pointing up the garden.
Sylvia was walking towards the house. Surely she must pass the kittens’ hiding place? She would most certainly hear her babies yelling.
“Good, she’ll rescue them now,” I said, hugely relieved.
Sylvia did hear the kittens. Unhurriedly, she walked over to the flowerpots, had a look and a sniff, then turned her back on them. Joe and I stared at each other. The truth dawned on us at the same time.
“Those kittens aren’t Sylvia’s, they’re Felicity’s!”
“I didn’t think she was old enough!”
“Well, she obviously is!”
During that day, Felicity tended to her two offspring, only leaving them briefly to gobble the scraps we left out.
“Looks like we have more cats in the garden,” said Joe, “and what if Sylvia brings hers, too? We can’t look after all those cats.”
“I agree. We can’t have them multiplying in the garden. But what do we do?”
It was a problem we had faced many times. We’d taken in the Siamese family a couple of years before and had been lucky enough to find homes for them in Germany. However, we were fully aware that finding homes for Spanish feral cats was next to impossible. The Spanish don’t like cats much and even their pet cats are rarely neutered. Thus the feral population continues to expand and multiply.
In this case, the problem was taken out of our hands. Felicity changed her mind about her babies’ nursery and carried the kittens away during the night. She didn’t take them far. She decided that the cavity behind the air-conditioning unit on the Ufartes’ roof would make a suitable home. As the evenings stretched longer, Joe and I could sit in the garden at dusk and watch the two kittens grow and chase each other around the Ufartes’ chimney, silhouetted against the orange sky.
As spring swung towards summer, countless shades of green smothered the mountainsides, interspersed with dabs of multicoloured wildflowers. The village kittens grew larger and bolder and began to show themselves. Flushed out by the fish van’s hoot, they scampered after their mothers to crowd around the van in the square, hopeful that a fishtail or a scrap might be flung their way.
Uncle Felix tethered his mule in a different place every day and she feasted on lush new growth. Sometimes I caught sight of Uncle Felix’s tiny frail figure early in the morning, leading her to pastures new. He’d stay with her awhile, watching her crop and giving her an occasional pat. Then he’d make his slow descent back down the mountain.
Visitors began to arrive. The crafty cuckoo’s call echoed around the valley. The swallows and house martins returned and refurbished their nests under the eaves of the cottages.
Joe and I also welcomed our own visitors, a stream of family and friends escaping from the UK’s dismal weather, eager to bask in the Andalucian sunshine.
Since returning from our year away in Bahrain, we’d managed to do a fair amount of decorating. We’d repainted most of the interior and outside, using gallons of white paint. I wanted everything looking nice before the next batch of visitors arrived.
Joe strained his back, so much of the decorating rested on my shoulders. He also managed to scrape his knees when kneeling on the roof, bruise his thumb by trapping it under a plank of wood and gash his finger changing a light bulb.
Yes, everything looked wonderful, ready for the summer, except for the ch
icken house. The chicken house was badly in need of sprucing up and we still had an unopened tub of paint. Joe pulled the lid off and we stared at the paint in dismay.
“That doesn’t look right,” I said. “It looks pink!”
“Just needs a stir,” Joe said and tapped the lid closed.
16. A Sandwich
Broad Beans with Ham
‘Your baby is now the size of a small pineapple and all five senses are in working order.’
Buying paint in Spain is not difficult as there is very little demand for any colour except white. Having an old, traditional house, we were very happy to follow our neighbours’ example and paint everything white. It always looked fresh and there were never any colour-matching issues.
When we removed the lid of the last 5-gallon tub of paint, Joe grabbed a stick and started stirring. Much to our surprise, it still looked pink.
“Perhaps it’s just separated,” Joe said, stirring even more energetically.
“It’s most definitely pink,” I said glumly.
And the more he stirred, the pinker it became.
“Well, I’ve had enough,” grumbled Joe. “I’m not going down the mountain to buy more paint. The chickens will just have to put up with a pink house.”
I opened my mouth to argue but something unexpected stopped me in my tracks. A small tractor was passing our house, heading for the farmland above. That wasn’t unusual. These reliable little work-horses were a familiar sound as they chugged up the steep hill past our back gate, pulling trailers carrying farming paraphernalia and produce. But the next event was unusual.
CRASH!
Startled, our chickens shrilled their alarm call while Joe and I froze, listening. After the initial crash we heard a series of loud thuds, then rolling sounds, followed by the tractor braking, then a torrent of Spanish curses. After a brief pause, the tractor continued on its way with the farmer’s curses fading as he turned the corner at the top of the road. Joe and I opened our back gate to look outside.
Two Old Fools in Spain Again Page 11