A lizard rejoices

Weather: High 30s, heaven help us

" 'It's great out here, hot and sunny every day. Hot and sunny every day. Hot and sunny every -' excuse me, what are you, a fucking lizard? Only reptiles feel this way about the weather."
    - Bill Hicks

You can tell how long someone has been living here by how they react to tourists who complain about seeing the odd cloud. Long-term citizens will treat them with utter disdain - only people from more Northern parts of Europe could not rejoice at seeing a cloud, or a UFO, or anything that provides a few seconds respite from the sun. I've only been here for six months, and I feel like slapping those people in the face.

You cannot understand how hot it is here, unless you've lived here. Oh, it's fine when you're on vacation - wandering around the beach in swimming trunks, sipping a beer. But try worrking here. First you have to be dressed for work, and only Ukranian prostitutes are allowed to take their tops off. After that, the sheer wall of heat that permeates every nook of this place begins to cut into you. I can't lift an ashtray without a quart of sweat dribbling down my brow. Carrying trays is a nightmare, because I don't have a free hand to wipe it off, and it gets in my eyes. And seriously heavy work, like lifting a keg, well, let's just say how everything becomes 5 times heavier in this weather.

Which is why I have no time whatsoever for the thousands of whiney tourists who complained about happened this evening. It was so exciting, the missus rang me in a state of panic, and told me to go look outside.

It was raining.

Cold, huge, glorious rain. Gigantic drops splashing on the streets and on my skin. Something that was a daily pain in the arse in Ireland, but out here in the almost-desert, seemed like nature's greatest miracle. I stood in the street and let it soak through my shirt. I could see my poor, asphyxiated plants breathing deeply. The tourists on the terrace ran inside looking glum, and a few locals ran out into the street, laughing. I began packing up all the chairs and taking them in, partly to keep them dry for when the rain stopped; mainly because a grown man needs a decent reason for running about in the rain.

The second I finished packing up the terrace, the rain stopped. "What the fuck did you do that for?" asked a superstitious, disgruntled local, "the second I saw you packing up them chairs, I knew the rain was going to stop."

"Ah," I replied, "but I caused the rain in the first place."

"How you reckon that then?"

"I watered my plants an hour before it rained. Sod's law, innit?"

That statement seems to have been enough to confirm me as the town's official Rain God. People are offering me money now to dance.

The Usual Suspects

Weather: Gradually getting hotter. We will miss the wind when it stops next week

The winter season is on its last legs now. Up until now, I've been pretty much running the night shift by myself (the missus being responsible for the mornings and the general stopping-the-bar-falling-into-disrepair stuff). The big Fiesta of the year happens next Friday though, and so I've reluctantly had to agree to share the bar with other people. Here's a brief run-down of our staff.

The Barman: That's me. I'll be working from 7pm until everyone gets chucked out, and doing the evening cleaning, which basically means I won't get to bed before 6am any night before October. I am incompetent, inaudible and lazy. However, some people in this town have taken a liking to me for my willingness to stay up drinking (and serving drinks) until dawn, my ability to debate toe-to-toe any pretty much any topic with any customer (although I dread the day that a genuinely intelligent customer shows up my ignorance) and general refusal to be a gossipy opinionated prick, like a lot of the bar owners in this town.

The Missus : Has three main irreplacable talents, of which she can only sadly ever use one at a time. She's a brilliant organiser, keeping everything in the bar ticking over. She speaks Spanish on level that surpasses my English. And she makes one hell of a Mojito. After long consultations, we decided the one thing that nobody else can do is make a cocktail like her, so she'll be spending most of the season with her back to the bar shaking drinks. I don't think she realises how often she's going to be called on to translate, but time will tell

Ivy: A Scottish woman in her sixties who has been working behind a bar since some time before the Crimean War. Also a mean cook, so in the mornings she'll be running the show and dishing out fresh tapas (I've just had a plate of her meatballs, and they rock). The only concern we've had about her is the fact that she can be a vicious gossip, although in fairness she always seems to be completely unaware of how cruel her tounge can be. We've laregly kept her in check though, and she's actually turned out to be a very sweet woman

Dottie: Crazy hippy/punky girl who lives on the sofa above the bar, so we've asked her to come work with us. She's pretty, mental, charming, and has a reasonable grasp of Spanish, which makes her the perfect waitress. Also doubling in the role of best friend for me and the missus, partly due to the fact that she's great, but mainly due to the fact that this place is short on people under the age of 30 whose personalities haven't been rotted by cocaine.

SUPER-SUB 1: Angela: Woman who lives next door to the bar who would like to work a few nights with us, because she can leave her kids alone safe in the knowledge that she can just run across the road if she's needed. I want to employ Angela just to talk to everyone. Seriously, this woman has the most gorgeous, soothing voice you've ever heard. No matter how stressed I am, I just hear her say "Hello, barman, how are you?", and all the stress just melts away. Unfortunately, the missus doesn't think it's worth paying someone to whisper in the staffs ears. I'll continue to fight my corner on this one.

SUPER-SUB2: Steve/Poppy: A local couple who live round the corner, who I get on with famously. Both have offered to be our fifth man if we fall short. They're most noticable for their absolutely adorable daughter, who the missus babysits and teaches Spanish to (the missus is very happy with this arrangement: she keeps saying, "my new best friend is five years old!")

With this crack squad, we cannot fail.

God help us...

Last Year's Love

Weather:Improving. Gently building up to a scorching summer

“Computers,” was Desmond’s considered opinion, “are shit.”

This was about two months ago. He’d come into the bar with a very pleasant Belgian woman, and the three of us had locked the doors and got about the business of getting as drunk as possible. His friend had asked me to start looking for some Belgian pop music on the web, and I was having no luck, which is why he felt it the right time to express his lack of faith.

He started to be a little impressed when I did start finding some very obscure (and, it must be said, awful) Belgian pop. “So what did you do? You just typed the name of the band into you little thingy?”

More or less, I replied.

“Can you find anyone on that?”

Probably not. I tried to explain how I could only find people with some kind of web presence.

“Try searching for –“

Desmond gave me a name, a Finnish name, which I searched for. 0 hits on google.

“So she’s dead then?”

I explained to him that this may not be the case, and demonstrated by googling for him. 0 hits again, but, I said, I was pretty sure he was alive.

Desmond thought about it, and didn’t say any more.

A couple of weeks later, he came back with a piece of paper and a scratched 45”. The person he was looking for was an obscure Finnish jazz singer from the 1960’s, who he dated for a long time, lost contact with 20 years ago, and had always missed since. He wanted to find out if she was alive, “and if you can get me her phone number as well, that would be great.”

With a bit more information, I was able to dig up a little more information. She did exist, was possibly alive (although it was hard to tell because most of the pages were in Finnish) and appeared to have been reasonably famous in Finland. Being familiar with how the web works (and the mind of the average geek), I immediately spotted the link that was most likely to get us more information, which was the website of some Finnish jazz nerd who was desperately searching for some records by this person. I sent him a quick email, asking him for some basic information.

The next day I got a huge response, a long and detailed biography of the jazz singer, complete with a confirmation, that yes she was still alive. This cheered Desmond up no end. There was also one gem of information in the pile – the singer had a daughter. A daughter who was in a jazz band. And the band had a website.

The website had two phone numbers for members of the band, and one email address. I decided not to give Desmond the phone numbers, because if he called they’d probably decide he was a nutter. So instead I sent a very polite email.

Nothing happened. Desmond came in one night last week, and finally said, “don’t worry about this anymore, I’ve given up all hope.” I felt really sorry for him – he’s a big man, and ex-squaddie and trucker, who seemed broken and beaten and wearing his full 70 years. So I decided to back down and give him the phone numbers.

Desmond called them on Monday, and got through to one guy, who confirmed that the singer was still alive, but unavailable because she was traveling at the moment (which cheered me up – it shows that she’s not a senile, invalid 70-year old rotting in some home). He took Desmond’s number and promised to pass it on. “That’s weird,” he said once he had the number, “how come you don’t have the UK prefix?”

“Because I’m in Spain,” replied Desmond.

“Well there you are then. We’ll be in [a place very near us] next month. Why don’t you just come see her there?”

And so, that’s the story of how Google and email reunited two lovers who hadn’t seen each other in 20 years. I do a lot for my customers – matchmaker, paramedic, ethical consultant. I really should raise the price of my drinks.

No good deed goes unpunished

Weather: Windy. The wet weather seems to becoming to an end, before the oppresive heat of summer

Can't discuss much more about the events below. Suffice to say, the doctor mentioned below sent another doctor up to be tonight to say that I will be sued for slander if I continue mouthing off about her.

Fine by me. I don't want to set up a kangaroo court of public opinion to try her in. Why should I, when I can complain to the GMC, which is something she can do bugger all about?

Follow-up to the last post

Weather: Raining. And you can't imagine how great that is


I do have some strange customers. Like Tom, the world-renowned heart surgeon. Tom is one of the most amazing human beings who has ever lived, the only person I've ever met who's been stiffed for a Nobel prize and holds a chair in an major American university (I didn't realise this, but when you're awarded a chair, they actually give you a chair. Tom keeps his in his bedroom.)

So I asked Tom about the doctor in the prvious post. On a scale of 1 to 10, I asked how bad her actions were. Tom replied that he'd rate her at 10 to the power of some ludicrous number, and would complain her to the GMC.

So I did!

Now I've dealt with the GMC before (they were actually a big part of my last job) and I know they would never censure a doctor for a minor offence like, say, breaching 8 of the 14 points of the GMC code of ethics. But I've complained anyway and sent an SMS to the offending doctor to let her know, So hopefully she'll sweat a little, and maybe even reconsider her own actions.

The dumb samaritan

Weather: Stormy. Around me, at least.

Last night I had what (I hope will be) the most disgusting experience of my life.

One of the hardest things about running a bar is knowing when to say "sorry mate, you've had enough". Some customers can drink all night and stay relatively sober, but then one drink tips them over the edge and they become monsters. This happened last night with four English women in their late thirties, who were doing fine and then suddenly started falling over. By 5am they were wrecked and no how much water and tonic I gave them, had completely lost the ability to walk the 5 kilometres back to their house. One of my Spanish customers - who had only drank 1 gin and lots of water - kindly offered to drive one of the girls home on his moped and then drive back in their car to take them home. I agreed, for my part, to walk the girls down to the football pitch to jump in the car.

Walking them up there was difficult. I had three girls: one who looked like Ellen Degeneres and I figured for a lesbian; one very sweet woman who had spent most of the night crying because she had embarrased herself by falling on her arse (hugely ironic, as it turned out; and one fat blob, whose ability to walk had been replaced by a raging libido that was driving her to shag her mates. The most drunk of the three was the fat blob, so I ended up carrying her most of the way. Which was hard, she must have weighed at least 20-stone.

They thanked me all the way down to the football pitch, and I said de nada, because the escort service was included in the price of the drinks. It isn't of course, and neither is the cost of the hernia operation I'll need after picking up the fat blob 20 times whenever she collapsed. I didn't mind though - I've got a bit of a Knight-In-Shining-Armour complex, and like to help people in distress.

I picked a bad route back to the football pitch - it was short, but involves walking up a large hill then down a steep incline. Ellen and falling on arse girl beat a path ahead of us, while I slowly dragged fat blob up the hill. When we finally crested the hill, I couldn't believe what had happened. Falling over girl had fallen again, but this time she hadn't landed on her arse. She'd landed on her head.

I dropped the blob and ran to help. Falling down girl was completely unconcious, blood streaming down her face. Now, I've been meaning to take a first aid course, as my entire knowledge of medicine comes from watching Scrubs. But I jumped into action anyway, reciting everything I'd ever heard about head traumas - keep her airways clear, get her as close the recovery position as possible and, for fuck's sake, do not move her head.I knew it was probably going to result in nothing worse than a bad headache in the morning, but decided that we couldn't risk it being worse, and had to act as if she had a skull fracture, or spinal injury, or blood clot, or any of the other millions of things that can go horribly wrong when you fall down a hill and land on your skull. Once she was stable, I got Ellen to take over (which took a lot of shouting, and almost involved some physical violence) and ran for help.

I sprinted for the football pitch, and I swear to christ, I was like goddamn Indiana Jones. The road we were taking wound past a building site and back around the other side. I didn't have time for that, so I launched myself off the wall at top speed, jumped 10 feet, landed heavily on a pile of sand and ran onto the road as fast as my legs would allow. The football pitch was the key - we had her other friend who was vaguely sober, a car, and the ace in the hole - someone who spoke Spanish and could negotiate with the emergency services.

Except they weren't there.

I tried calling but couldn't get them. Fine. Focus on what needs to be done. I sprinted back to falling down girl and rang the missus while running, telling her to get an ambulance, pronto. Back at the scene things were getting worse. Using my phone as a torch, I could see that she had a large swelling on her forehead, a possible broken nose, and was still unconcious, but what was worse was that she was now vomiting incessantly. I moved her head to keep her airways clear, which I really didn't want to do, but it didn't matter at that point because while I was gone her friends had decided that the bast thing to do was to violently shake her head and say "come on, wake up". (At least, that's what Ellen did. Blob was, and I swear I'm not making this up, feeling falling down girl's tits)

I did my sand jump thingy again and flagged down the vehicle. Turned out it wasn't our ambulance, but the local cops. They came and helped, and at first seemed more worried in getting ID than helping. Now, I speak very poor Spanish, but I spoke a lot more than the English women, so I told them what happened. One of them grudingly drove off to fetch an ambulance, while the other (much nicer one) stayed to help in case things got worse. They both seemed more worried about getting ID off the women than the actual situation, which pissed me off at the time (although later on I figured out why they were like that).

While they were trying to communicate with the women, I got what I had been hoping for - a call from the fourth girl, who was down at the football pitch. I sprinted down to meet them again, hopped in the car and explained the situation while we drove. When I got to the bit about the cops, though, the driver hit the brakes hard. "Are there police there?" he asked in Spanish.

"Yeah."

"I can't go, I've done a lot of coke tonight."

I wasn't that pissed off at him - lots of people out here do coke, and I recognised that he was willing to do pretty much anything to help, but was worried about being arrested. So I said okay, wait for ten minutes and see if we need you. The cops didn't know where I was going, so they wouldn't come to talk to him. He agreed. Then I asked her friend to come with me.

"No," she said, "she's fine. She's just pissed."

"She's not pissed," I said, " she's got a head injury, a definite concussion, and god knows what else."

Then she started to whine. "God this is so embarrassing. Thanks for your help, and I'm sorry you've been dragged into this, but probably the best thing now is if we all go home."

I totally lost the plot when she said this. "Look", I said, "I'm fucking in this now, and your friend needs help, and if you won't help, I will." I jumped out of the car and ran back, not looking to see if she followed. She didn't.

I got back, and as calmly as I could said, "you're mates at the football pitch. For various reasons, they can't come up here, and your friend is refusing to come help". I guess I expected the same outrage I felt. What I didn't expect was for the blob to jump up and say, "okay then, well, I'm going to get a lift home, I'll see you tomorrow". Me and Ellen watched her stagger off towards the car in disbelief. We didn't think about her too much though - at this point, falling down girl had regained some conciousness. Not enough to talk or move, just enough to start crying.

While we were waiting for the ambulance, falling down girl started shivering violently. I asked the cop for a jacket, but of course his jacket was in the car with the other cop. So I took off my t-shirt and wrapped it around her to keep her warm. It wasn't cold, but I did get bitten to death by mosquitos. No problem though, I thought, it's a fellow human being in need, and I'll do what I can to make her comfortable. Eventually the ambulance arrived, and the paramedics swept in with the reassuring air of professionals. They put her in a neck brace, injected her with something, put her on a drip and stretchered her away. Ellen wanted to go with her, but didn't have enough English to negotiate her way into the ambulance. I used my few words of Spanish to get her in and watched them drive away. Then I did what I knew what I was going to do all along - I started walking after them. If nothing else, they would need some kind of translator, and I wanted to be there when they did.

Walking down was strangely tranquil. It was 7am by now, and the village was getting to work. I walked past builders and breadmen, and watched the sun climb over the hills. I wasn't sure what to expect when I got there - worst case scenario is that I would be turned away for not being a relative. I just knew that there was a chance I could do something useful, and I wanted to be there if I could.

About 20 yards from the hospital, I saw two women walking towards me. I though I was hallucinating for a second, but then I realised that no, it really was Ellen and falling down girl walkikng towards me. How could this possibly be, I wondered. The only thing I know for sure about head traumas is that they will always keep you for 24 hours observation in case things deteriorate. Then as they got closer, I realised that they hadn't been discharged. Falling down girl still had a large plastic tube hanging out of her arm.

"What the hell are you guys doing."

Ellen looked at me earnestly. "We were waiting for ten minutes in there."

"So?!?"

"That placed killed my father!"

My CPU was totally overheating, and I just couldn't get to grips with what she was saying. "I couldn't give a fuck about your father! Your friend needs medical attention!"

"I'm not leaving her with those butchers"

"Listen - I just sat with you for an hour, I got an ambulance, I ran down here after you, - "

"Yeah, thanks for that. But we're leaving."

"If you don't turn around and go back right," I said, barely hanging on to my sanity, "I'm going to call the cops this second, I swear."

"They killed my father!"

I switched attention from Ellen, who I decided was obviously nuts, and grabbed falling down girl by the shoulders. Her eyes were a storm of confusion - she didn't know where she was, who I was or what was happening. "Listen, you've just suffered a head injury. You're probably fine but you need to...what the hell is that?"

Just then a car pulled out next to us, and a Moroccan guy jumped out of the passanger seat, revealing the driver who was smirking at me like she'd just arrived at a dying party with a crate of vodka. "Fancy a shag?" said the fat blob.

Let's just recap on two things: 1 - I was already as angry as I've been in my entire life and 2 - I hate drunken drivers more than Hitler. Two hours ago, this girl hadn't been able to stand or finish a sentence, and now she was behind the wheel of car.

I can't even remember what I said to her: something about going to the hospital; something about calling the cops; some threats that possibly involved petrol, bricks and axes; the words "fat cunt"; and the phrase "don't you ever fucking set foot in my bar again". They relented and agreed to take her back. I stormed off in the other direction. About 100 yards up the road, I thought better of it, turned around, and stopped to read her license plate. While I was doing that, she zoomed past me, giving a cheery wave and a toot of her horn, and was gone. That's it, I though, pulling out my phone to call the missus so she could call the cops. Of course, being that God is a bastard and all, that was the exact moment that my phone ran out of battery. I checked for change so I could use a payphone, but I was cleaned out. So I set off towards the village.

Now, walking up the hill to the village is a challenge, one that I've often felt required professional mountaineering equipment. But I stormed up there, fists clenched, occasionally kicking things as hard as I could, and reciting the licence plate over and over at the top of my lungs. One or two cars almost stopped to give me a lift, but pulled away again when they saw that I was a lunatic. I arrived back in the bar 20 minutes later to find the missus had been up since I called, cleaning. I screamed at her to call the cops, which she did, then I had a gin to calm down, and then exhaustion took me and I just kind of passed out.

Two follow-ups to that:

1) Next day we went to the cops to follow everything up. They had tracked them down, decided they couldn't prosectue for drunken driving (which pisses me off), and discovered that falling down girl had been re-admitted to hospital that afternoon. Apparently, she's doing fine.

2) Although I try not to discuss customers in my bar, I couldn't shut up today. Someone who knew them told me something about the fourth girl. The one who wouldn't leave the car to check on her friend. She's a doctor. A fucking doctor, who took the hippocratic oath to do whatever she can to help people in medical emergencies. A doctor who was happy to make a diagnosis of "she's just pissed" from around the corner, without ever seeing the patient. My faith in the human race is deeply shaken.

Coda: (i've written this much, I may as well do a final thought) Perhaps I got a bit dramatic during all this. Falling down girl was probably fine. It was probably nothing serious. She probably could have taken two paracetemol, gone to bed and been fine the next day. Probably. But there was a chance that something worse had happened. I don't know about you, but if there was a chance that something bad could have happened to one of my friends, they would have to tear me off them with a crowbar until I was 100% sure that they were okay. To see this girl's friends just leave, or make her suffer for their own paranoias, fills me with the deepest contempt. The next time I see her, I'm going to tell her to quit her job, pack her bags, book a flight to the UK and get these cancerous people out of her life. And that will be kinder than anything I did for her last night.

A life in the day of

9am - Get woken up by one of the cats stepping on my face
Two months ago, when I still lived in Ireland, I would have described myself as a resolutely anti-cat kind of guy. I learned quickly that you don’t have that luxury in the village – there are literally hundreds of stray cats wandering the streets here, each with their own personality and charm. The father-in-law, who grew up a doggy man, has a little entourage of about 11 cats who hang around his house, and if I didn’t put my foot down, the missus would have adopted about five cats already. At the moment we’ve only got two: a brother and sister called Tommy and Lucretia. They sleep on our bed because they’re both extremely ill – neither one could ever find their way back to their original homes (the father-in-law’s house) because they were both on the brink of coma when they were brought over to our apartment. They’re a bit perkier now, although not well enough to return to the street, and truth be told, we’re kind of hoping they’ll stay with us. We spend a fortune on food and drugs for the cats, but they provide an important service for us, which is making sure that we never sleep too late. They usually do this by demanding breakfast at some time between 9am and 10am, which normally involves them standing on my face.

10am - Have breakfast
Sounds simple, but like everything else in the village it’s part of a big ritual. We usually go to the Junkie Drop-In Centre, which is just around the corner from us. This serves two purposes for us: the coffee produced by the Russian girl behind the counter is great, plus we get to see who we should refuse to serve that night, because usually they’re in the Drop-In Centre drinking Brandy at 10 in the morning.

10.30am - Tend to the hell hounds
On New Year’s Eve, somebody got five puppies, wrapped them up in some plastic bags and threw them in the “river” (we live in a desert, so there’s only actually water in the river two months of the year, the rest of the time it’s just mud). Two of them ended up living with us. Briefly. Before we realised that they were Satan’s own dogs, and we gave them to the father-in-law who keeps them in his living room above the bar. Tending to them involves walking into the living room and surveying the damage they’ve done. Normally that would be knocking everything off the tables, biting it until it’s shredded (they love biting paper, but they’ve been known to play with anything up to and including broken glass). The dogs will then lunge at us and chew our shoes until we distract them with puppy food. After that they’ll take a big shit on they floor (they hate crapping outdoors) and then try to eat their own excrement unless we grab them and take them for a walk.

11.15am - Phone Telemoronica
Telemoronica being the Spanish telecoms company who never quite got over the death of Franco, and who are still refusing to send us out our ADSL kit (which is why there haven’t been any updates to this blog since November). Best excuse so far: “we were about to send it out, but you called up and cancelled it, because you wanted a fixed IP.” Us: “…no we fucking didn’t, you muppets.”)

11.30am - Marvel at how late it is
Seriously, breakfast and animals take up about a third of our day.

12pm - Do stuff
Cause neither of us can drive, we have to get the father-in-law to chauffer us around to the nearby shops and villages. Most of this time is spent sitting in the car listening to the father-in-law recounting tales of people he’s shafted and the people who’ve shafted him, which is a lot more fun than it sounds – the father-in-law is actually a fascinating, travelled and brilliantly intelligent man. Most of the village hates them, and this is largely because he’s about a thousand yards smarter than all of them, and has an acerbic disdain for the delicate class system constructed by the English-speaking ex-pats in this place (he resolutely refuses to speak Spanish, mainly because he has the ability to transcend language through sheer force of will).

2pm - Stop doing stuff
Despite the best efforts of the British and the EU, this country still works around the siesta. At 2pm, all of the shutters come down, and even on the busiest tourist days, the village becomes a ghost town. We have no such luxury, being occupied with the starting of a new business, so usually at this point we head back to the apartment, feed the cats and do paperwork

4pm - Watch German pop music and have dinner
The first couple of weeks here we watched The West Wing resolutely during siesta time. Unfortunately, there are only 88 episodes on DVD, and we’ve watched them all twice, so instead we’re stuck with our crappy cable channels. The missus, who speaks Spanish, watches TVE, but I can only tolerate CNN and Viva, the German version of MTV. It’s unrelentingly, transcendentally awful. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard “Pirates Of Dance” by DJ Bobo (apparently, pirates come from outer space – I know this, because all of the songs are in English).

5pm - Go to Spanish class
Ironically based in the most English bar in the village, The Dog & Duck, on Wednesdays and Saturdays (the other days I either read Spinoza, or annoy the missus by talking about how everything in the universe, including German pop music, relates to Spinoza). Spanish class is run by Rosita: brilliant, fiery local woman who runs the bar around the corner from us, and doesn’t speak a word of English. She set up the classes for the benefit of her English boyfriend who, judging by his tattoos, is either an ex-squadie or did a bit of time. Either way, he hates Irish people, which makes it things a little tricky, because Rosita comes to our bar all the time, and things aren’t made easier by the fact that he struggles with basic stuff while Rosita pats me on the head and calls me “muy intelligente” (I’m her star pupil, because I can pronounce vowels and conjugate regular verbs. In the present tense. I haven’t explained Spinoza to her yet, but I will as soon as I figure out the Spanish for “extended substance” and it will blow her mind)

7pm - Go to work
We begin prepping the bar around this time, just general grunt work like mopping and dusting which, hopefully, will be passed on to our staff as soon as we get round to hiring staff.

7.45pm - Feed the Bat
The Bat (=Bar Cat) is a great wee animal. It’s a stray cat that hates other cats, and loves us because we don’t let any other cats into the bar. Unfortunately, it sits in the lounge and refuses to let any customers sit on its chair, which may be a problem come tourist season.

8pm en punto - Open the doors
I try to get the bar open at the exact time of opening regardless of whether we’re ready to serve or not. The missus tries to keep the doors closed until everything’s finished, even though I keep telling her that Spinoza backs me up on this one.

8.02pm - Start playing Championship Manager
I’ve stopped this now, and made the missus hide the Championship Manager CD, because I know the time could be better spent cleaning the bar, or writing this blog, or reading more Spinoza to annoy the missus with (seriously, he’s a genius).

9pm - Deal with the first customers
It used to drive me mad back in Ireland when people refused to go to the pub at sensible times, like 5.45pm. In Spain, people don’t hit the bars until after 10.30, except for a few locals who are mainly British. They come for a drink, but they expect a conversation with it, which suits me, because it gives me a chance to talk about the influence of Spinoza on British rugby, or the influence of Spinoza on New Labour, or why everyone in the village (except me and the regular in question) are total bastards.

9.00pm & 30 seconds- Field the first question about Bill Bailey & the malignant bitch
The previous owners (sorry, I mean “tenants”, that’s an important distinction) of the bar were a big, drunken, English Bill Bailey-lookalike and his extraordinarily malign Canadian wife. For some reason, they were hugely popular in the village, so our usurping of them created quite a bit of resentment among the villagers. But that’s for another blog entry. For now, let’s just say that the missus and me are sick to the back teeth of saying that no, we don’t hate them, and no, we don’t think they’ve organised a boycott of our bar. They did, but it ended after the first two weeks, and now people are boycotting us because our drinks are too expensive. Which is fine because the people who can’t afford an extra 5 cent on a glass of wine are exactly the kind of people who like to round off a night out by throwing a stool through a window.

10pm - Listen to the father-in-law try to control the puppies
This is normally a sustained period of barking followed by an exasperated scream of “SHUT UP!!!!!!!” from upstairs. The customers find this hysterical.

10.30pm - Practice my appalling Spanish
The first week or two I kept the missus by my side at all times so she could handle the Spanish customers. These days I work behind the bar alone a lot (a fair trade – she needs a rest after her day, something which I may document here some time), but the Spanish customers make me look stupid on a regular basis. It took me a fortnight to figure out that “ghotabay” is J&B whiskey, and when people ask for “kkkhhhheeeeeeeeeeeenebrrrrrrra” I still blink at them (the appropriate answer to that is “Larios o Beee-fee-atarrrr”, ginebra being Spanish for gin)

11.30pm - Prepare to pack up
During the close season, we’re only open for 4 hours, which makes people think that we have it easy, although usually at this point I’ve been working for 13 hours.

11.45 - Groan as more customers arrive
Although they usually have the good grace to buy me a drink, so I can sit on the fridge and have a chat.

12.30pm - Pack up Hopefully.
My record so far though is closing a 5.30am. As long as the bar isn’t keeping the neighbours awake, there’s no legal requirement for us to ever shut, really.

12.35am - Till out
I studied mathematics at a university level. I understand calculus. Yet our till is an absolute mystery to me, and if the money in the tray agrees with the final total, I always regard it as a Fatima-esque miracle.

12.40am - Try to convince the missus not to clean up tonight
A lot of the missus’ day consists of trying to convince me of the value of performing basic tasks (like cleaning. And showering. And not reading Spinoza so much.) Every single night I try to talk her into shutting the doors, turning off the lights, going home, and cleaning up the next day

1.30am - Finish cleaning
I never win, though.

1.45am - Get home
Home is only around the corner (like everything in the village, which seems to have been designed as a rebuttal to Euclidian geometry) but we normally stop for a few minutes to look out at the sea. Seriously, words can’t describe the beauty of this place. Even photos are an understatement. At home, the missus tries to give the cats eye drops, which sounds difficult but is really much, much harder. I have something to eat (a duty to which I haven’t been attending much, which is why I’ve lost tons of weight over here).

2.30am - Go to bed
Takes a while, because the missus has to put bandages on the wounds sustained from the cats (they have claws that could cut through diamonds). My last thought before falling asleep is usually something like “dear god, please don’t let her wake me up at 9am tomorrow”.

4am - Wake up
If it’s not the wind (our apartment is overlooking some kind of wind tunnel) or a dumper truck (waste collection is every day at 4am, and very loud), then a cat standing on my face usually causes this event. Even when they don’t need anything, they like to let us know they’re still there, just in case we get complacent. 9am - Get woken up by one of the cats stepping on my face Usually followed by the missus telling me to get the hell out of bed. I always argue, and she always has a good reason for me to get up. I’m as tired as hell these days, but it’s all part of the job, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. And anyway, after one coffee in the Junkie Drop-In Centre, I’m usually right as rain.

Bienvenido

Weather: mild, a little overcast, light breeze, about 17 degrees


Welcome back. We´ve had to change the URL of this, for reasons I won't bore you with, but normal service shall now be resumed.

The new URL is an incoherent, not very funny gag on my mild disdain for the British out here. Please note that I'm actually a bit of an Anglophile, but I just can't stand a lot of the fish and chip-munching, beer-swilling, Daily Mail-reading Little Britainers that seem to be overrunning Spain. Although I love them, really.