Don't you just love them.

There was a moment today when both grandmas were siting on the porch next door and competing to entertain the children with flamenco singing and clapping, the dog down the road was barking (not our resident dog Howie, he couldn't compete, but one brought from Madrid for the summer), a delivery driver had left his car running outside our gate and Sebastian and his companeros were cutting the grass at our neighbours below while passing each other instructions in the loud voices necessary to attract Sebastian who has a perfectly effective hearing aid but leaves it in the car, whilst preferring to wear an old one that has no battery (he has told me this. I am not making it up). It is a wonder that the workmen who have been digging up random bits of the road on and (fortunately mostly) off for the last 6 months now appear to have finished their work and moved on elsewhere.Auguast, as someone once told me, is the time when the Spanish live outside and annoy their neighbours. Only a week to go then.

That was the week...

Well, here we are, another week older and we still haven't solved the world financial crisis, found a cure for cancer or even found a way to persuade our gardener,Sebastian, to turn his hearing aid on before we start the conversation rather than half way through by which time half the neighbourhood is hanging on our every (loud)word. Speaking of which (the neighbourhood), there is a scandal brewing in our "communidad". A few weeks ago we got a round robin letter pushed under our gate signed by assorted names, none of them familiar to us, accusing "el presidente" of taking actions under his own initiative without consultation. "El presidente", whom we have met a couple of times and who seems a pleasant enough chap and not at all dynamic (we are unclear as to what these unilateral actions might be, since nothing happens here), has obviously been hurt by this because today Antonio, the community's "empleado", who sweeps up the pine needles and buzzes round the place on a noisy "moto", came round to give us the first of what we are promised will be regular "noticias informativas" telling us what's been done, what's planned and asking for our suggestions. There is a list of do's and don'ts including do NOT take the rubbish containers into your own gardens and when out walking DO pick up your dog poo-when I told Mike this he inquired as to whether we would be provided with a dog on leaving our compounds...!ho, ho! What it doesn't say is DO stop your dog from waking up your neighbours. With Howie in mind,I might send a suggestion to our new community email address. We are very up to date here!

Not much other news. Still meandering on with Spanish. Getting a bit stuck with my homework last week, I went and asked Sebastian and his two "companeros", who happened to be working in our garden at the time, about one of the questions. They gave me three different answers. No wonder we foreigners find it difficult. We went to a tapas evening at the school on Tuesday and out to Cadiz to a concert on Wednesday. The latter was in the cathedral square-very beautiful-and the music was good (Joan Manuel Sarrat, a Catalan singer-songwriter who upset Franco by refusing to represent Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest when he was refused permission to sing in Catalan)but we still, after all this time, have not got used to things starting at 10..00 at night and on finishing after midnight, even though we seem to have adapted to changed eating hours, second breakfasts and such like. Very sleepy for the rest of the week.

Now here's a turn up for the books. Before the concert we wondered through Cadiz, picking up the tickets and finding somewhere to have some tapas. On our route we passed a sports shop and Mike commented through gritted teeth, as he always does, on the ubiquitous Manchester United shirts prominent display... only to be stopped in full flow at the sight of an enormous Manchester City Banner draped in the middle of the window. Perhaps the future really is blue. Or at least more blue than the past.

That was then, this is now

When we first started to get to know Spain we used to say that the Spanish, unlike the British, don't drink to lose their inhibitions because they don't have any.I still think that is the case and it has its charming aspects. But there is also a downside to this belief that almost anything and everything can be done,discussed and shown without reference to context. This morning while we read the local paper and had our post-Pilates coffee and tostada we came across an example of a step too far. Turning to the back page, which usually has three or four photographs of major local and national news stories, we were presented with a photo of the precise moment when the Pamplona Bull gored to death a 27 year old guy who had been running, for reasons passing at least our understanding,in front of the bulls through the narrow streets of Pamplona in the annual festival. It is not something I want to look at again. Much less so, I imagine, his family and friends.

What do you thnk?

Is it possible that the person who called his shop in Cadiz, where we went walking this morning, Yellow Rat Bastard understood the meaning of the English words he was using? And, if so, what image do you think he was trying to project? Would I like this person?

Go Lance, go!

This afternoon Lance Armstrong, the American cyclist and ex-cancer sufferer, failed by an impossibly small fraction of a second to take the leader's yellow jersey in the Tour de France, a race that he won for 7 year's running until he retired a couple of years ago. We have always supported him and have a particular interest in doing so this year. It is not just that he is old -well, in cycling terms anyway- but also because the French health minister issued a "warning" before the race that he would be under very close scrutiny with regards to drugs tests. It is not that we have a problem with any cyclist being tested for drugs, given the shame that drug abuse has brought on the sport over the last few years (and probably before, if only we had known). What annoys me profoundly is the special attention given to Armstrong, who has never tested positive, and the fact that this is from a representative of a country whose own cyclists are hardly models of probity. Richard Verenque, anyone?

The French really need to come to terms with the fact that the Tour de France can be won by an American.

Oh yes, go Mark Cavendish as well!

We're walking....

It seems perverse to travel to the other side of the world to go walking and then to sit on our bottoms here, so, since our return and now that our summer stream of visitors is over, we have been trying to get out and about more.

A couple of weeks ago we did a walk that we have done before over the headland from Caños de La Meca to Barbate. It's a lovely walk although the terrain is very sandy and walking uphill on what effectively is a series of sand dunes makes it quite tough. On Friday we decided to do visit the National Park Los Alcornocales (the cork oaks) which is about half an hour south of here. We walked for about an hour and a half from the Mirador de los Ratones (although why the mice need a lookout point I don't know!) to the embalse (reservoir) de Barbate and some tombs from the Third Millenium BC. Then after a picnic, we walked back again.

A good part of the way during this second walk was along the old drovers road so, by comparison to Caños to Barbate, it was fairly easy going, but in all the time we were walking we saw only three people, a ranger and a couple of guys working on one of the fincas.Since we are now into high season here in La Barrosa and the beach, especially at the weekend, is tent city, the peace and quiet was amazing.

As well as wonderful views what we also enjoyed are the smells. On the first walk we came across a plant that has a very delicate curry-like scent and on Friday there was a stretch where we were able to smell wild thyme.....

Hablo, hablas, habla

When we were in South America we tried to speak as much Spanish as we could, even with the guides who were part of the meet and greet service that we organised through Journey Latin America and who had obviously been primed to talk to us in English. One of them, a charming young woman who took us from our hotel in Cusco to catch the train to Macchu Pichu, responded to our attempts by telling us that we spoke very good Spanish and then added, in Spanish, "and you don't have one of those annoying Spanish accents!" We hope this was because by this stage we had decided to drop the lisp on the "c" which is part of castellano in most parts of Spain. However, just to be on the safe side, we are now back in our Spanish classes. Mike is also doing a photography course and has joined a local photography group in order to get the most out of his new camera. So busy, busy, busy....more news soon.