The recycling truck came to town yesterday and wreaked more than its usual degree of havoc.
Somehow it caught itself in the thick braid of electrical cable that swags from post to post down the camino. A great concrete post sheared itself in half and smashed to the ground. A streetlight went down in a shower of glass, and the cables and guttering on the front of Marina´s house clattered to the pavement alongside. Moratinos was plunged into darkness.
Well, semi-darkness. It was a bright and sunny day, and thankfully nobody was passing nearby and Marina hasn´t arrived yet for her summer stay. No one had lights, and because the water system runs on electricity, no one had water, either. The businesses closed their doors. The street filled up with big noisy trucks from the electric company, the street light guys, the giant concrete pole supplier. They cordoned-off the camino. The job took several hours. It all happened at the busiest intersection in town, so everyone gathered in the shade of the plaza to watch the show and re-direct the pilgrims to the safe alternative along the two-lane road.
It was only a little inconvenient. Everyone made lunch from what they had on the counter already, or they hiked over to San Nicolas for a menu del dia. They talked about what Moratinos was like 50 years ago, before electricity arrived, before the streets were paved, when everyone used paraffin lamps and candles, and cooked over wood- or coal-fired stoves. They were almost all kids then, but they remember. (Manolo and Angel still slow-roast their winter lunches in a stoneware pot on the hearth.)
In the afternoon I walked with Julia over to the spring to fill water jugs. The spring is hidden away under massive ash trees, nestled between the N120 two-lane and the big new autopista beyond. Julia treated it as a revelation, she thought I had not been there before, she loves showing me new things. It is a beautiful, quiet little spot, the water that flows from the stone is shockingly cold and sweet.
The lights came back on just as the sun went down. A pilgrim arrived, a young man called Alisdair, from Cambridge. He was here last summer, he said. I had brought him home from the church and repaired his bad feet. And it´s true, I did that.
He told me how meaningful that foot-repair was to him, how that act of kindness grabbed his attention. It slowed him down and utterly changed how he walked his camino afterward.
I was flattered, of course. We asked him to stay over. His face lit up. He dropped his bag in the salon and headed out the door. He went all the way back to the labyrinth, where he knew another pilgrim was sleeping rough, and brought him back to our house. Paddy fed them on three-egg omelets and fried rice. They are young men, smart and educated and unemployed. They don´t have many prospects, but they still are full of hope, even joy.
Late this morning I sent them out the door and on their way. At the same moment a man rolled up on a bicycle. His name was Jesus. I knew him right away. Jesus Buzarra. Jesus Buzarra was one of the very first pilgrims ever to stay at the Peaceable. He slept on the floor of the little kitchen then, and he would do it again, he said, if that´s all we had.
He stopped to say hello, to see how we were, to say thanks. Thanks again, seven years later, for a space on the floor. He is biking his way from a hospitalero assignment in Navarette to another one in Samos, giving up a month of his vacation, giving something back to the camino.
And this evening, on the patio out back, I sat and thought.
I thought about how the accident knocked out our lights and brought our town out to talk with one another. I thought about Alisdair and his bad feet last year were the same feet that brought him back to us this year. And how he then blithely added another kilometer to his day´s total to ensure another pilgrim had a bed. And I thought about Jesus, too, riding from one hospitalero assignment to another,.
I thought about how overwhelmed everyone is by the injustice in the world, how protesters shout for change and voters vote for new policies and programs, and we all wonder if our leaders can discover some new "ism" to save us all from ourselves.
And I wonder if the answers are not right here under our noses, in our houses, on our streets. We can come out of the house and talk to the neighbors. If someone is in pain, patch him up. Stop in and check on somebody, see how they´re doing. Show someone where fresh water comes out of the rock. Say thanks again for some kindness done in the past. It costs nothing. And if everyone did such things just once a day or so, the benefits would be incalculable.
A policy won´t pick up the candy wrapper on the sidewalk. But we can.
Saturday, 29 June 2013
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Moratinos Makes the Scene!
Moratinos made the local news a couple of weeks ago. They did a short piece for the evening newscast, and this for the hardcore, late-night audiences, and maybe for you who are studying Spanish.
You can see the local news is kinda slow-moving, but hey -- we all can´t be X-Men. (Except maybe Modesto.) Me and Paddy appear at about 3.55, but Julia and her brother Pin are really worth seeing. And Bruno, toward the end, with his "Templar Pizza..."
http://youtu.be/jkzZUTfwpaM
You can see the local news is kinda slow-moving, but hey -- we all can´t be X-Men. (Except maybe Modesto.) Me and Paddy appear at about 3.55, but Julia and her brother Pin are really worth seeing. And Bruno, toward the end, with his "Templar Pizza..."
http://youtu.be/jkzZUTfwpaM
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
What Happens When You´re Gone
 |
| MoMo, before I left. The patio in order, more or less |
I was gone for two weeks. It was an odd holiday, set out in five parts:
+ a big shmooze in Santiago de Compostela,
+ a long walk down the beach and across the water to Portugal,
+ Lisbon and Sintra with three wild women,
+ the beach down south with Filipe and Dick, and
+ two days in Madrid with Patrick.
I traveled the first four with Kathy, my perrenial hiking pal from San Francisco.
 |
| Kathy and me, in Praia Altura, Portugal |
Parts of the trip were beautiful and limpid. Parts were manky and cranky. I met Julio Llamazares, an author I admire. I sat in an ancient monastic church where the old Gallego ladies chanted the rosary, passing the prayer across the aisle in their oil-and-vinegar voices while the waves crashed against the sea-wall outside the open door. Farther south we poked through another empty monastery, this one a tiny cluster of cells cut into rocks and lined with cork-wood. I bought a handbag made of cork-wood. I slipped inside the hollowed-out heart of a big old cork oak tree, and it felt like an embrace.
I ate many, many fishes, caught fresh and roasted whole, and many shellfish, too. And squids, and cuttles, and octopi. The sea gave up its bounty to me, and I made sure her creatures did not die in vain.
Meantime, here at The Peaceable, the rain fell and the sun shone. Paddy oversaw the rebuilding of the plumbing connections under the patio, and replacement of the tiles. He fed the chickens and walked the dogs and watered the plants. All was well. The crops ripened in the fields, and out back, the grass grew.
Monday afternoon we came home.
Everyone was glad to see me. Tim, who has been dieting for a month, is noticeably slimmer and more energetic. There was no mail to speak of. No word from the tax lawyer, no news from England or America. Aside from a few half-mopped spills and some black vegetables under the sink, the place looked pretty well cared-for. I needn´t have worried. Paddy got along just fine without me.
And then I went out back to visit the hens.
I could not see the hens. The trees are in full leaf now, and the grass is thigh-high, swirled by the wind into whorls, hiding the chicken pen from sight. The garlic is budding, the onions will soon sprout afros. And the flowers, Oh my, the little orange and yellow calendula flowers that want to take over the flower bed... well. They´ve done it. They are bursting over the curbstones and spreading into the raised beds, colonizing the yard. They bloomed in a spectacular way sometime last week, and are this week gone spectacularly to seed, their dead heads smile with a thousand teeth each.
The vegetables? I am not sure. I have not looked. I think the potatoes have taken over their corner of the garden. There were French bean plants where there were none two weeks ago, but when I loosed the hens into the great green jungle, they made a beeline for the beans. They stripped the seeds off the weeds, they leapt into the air to snatch moths in flight, they dusted themselves in the onion bed. They delighted and desported themselves out there, and I enjoyed the music as I began the slow work of dead-heading the vast banks of calendula flowers.
The sky is stormy. I worked with thunder grumbling to the south, I worked til the rain drove me indoors. I am not even half finished with that job. Tomorrow I must tie them up, and weed-whack round the raised beds. I must go to town and buy dog food and spray cleaner, and have the sickle sharpened. I must answer emails, just a few -- my email box had 400 unread messages in it, but only about 20 were worth reading. Tomorrow I will strip out the dross, unsubscribe to all those "quotes of the day" and decorator porn and Holiday Bargain sites.
I will chop out the weeds, clear up the things neglected while was away, doing maintenance on my self.
 |
| Hens in the mayhem of what was the garlic patch |
Sunday, 2 June 2013
A Cliff Full of Swallows
This week I walked a "throw some things into a bag and go" kind of walk. With a friend and a dog.
The friend is Malin, a Swedish woman of 36 who lives in a camper up in the mountains above Astorga. Her dog is Bjork, a splendid Border Collie that is smarter than most people.
A week ago Malin and Bjork and their man David rolled up in Dusty, their big green VW van. We'd only expected David. He is our standby fix-it man, and he'd just finished up a gig setting up trapezes for a troupe of acrobats. (For real!) And so he was primed to do some maintenance on our house.
Malin had an idea for us. Malin wanted to walk home from The Peaceable, with Bjork the dog, along the Camino de Santiago. She asked me if I would walk with her, at least as far as Leon, maybe all the way to the little mountain village where she and David and Bjork live.
I thought hard about it. This would be a good exercise, I thought. A way to let go of my need to oversee the repair works. I put them into David's hands, seeing as he knows how to juggle. Michael the Italian, his volunteer helper, is also a capable worker. I had nothing to worry about, I told myself. And so on Monday we set out.
It was walking weather, bright and cool. Bjork wore a little red backpack with her dog chow inside, and behaved like a perfect lady. We had to adjust ourselves and our budget to find shelter where a dog could go, too, but Malin and Bjork spent only one night in the little tent we carried along. (They froze, but they slept anyway). We did two almost-30 km. days, and three shorter ones.
Me and Malin walk at about the same speed. We both know how to travel light, we both are fit. The only hitch happened when my new boots rubbed troublesome blisters onto two of my toes. Like pilgrims do, me and Malin talked about everything. We sang sad songs and drank rank wine, ate strange food. I had pig knuckles in Mansilla de las Mulas, gave the bones to Bjork, and hours later stepped on the masticated remains in the dark floor of the albergue in Puente Vilarente.
We saw a fox. We met two know-it-all Spanish men who, once they learned we are foreigners who live in villages in the region, set about to instruct us on everything we already know about where we live, from dog breeds to building materials. They were sweet and sincere, and convinced that we are utter morons.
A lumpen German told me Bjork is "subnormal" because each of her eyes is a different color. (Malin was inside the supermarket then, which is a lucky thing for the man). The same guy that night put on a stupendous snoring extravaganza, the most spectacular of all my years of albergue use. I took up my bed and repaired to the lounge, where I kinda slept on the sofa.
We met a pretty blonde Zimbabwean woman who writes travel stories for GQ magazine. (The know-alls told her she can't be from Zimbabwe, because she is not black!) We met a fastidious Canadian whose primary passion is folding paper into origami sculptures. We met many hippies of several varieties, an ageing Austrian surfer dude with a snowy pony-tail and perfect shiny teeth, and an American "Shamanic Crone" who had so much to say she could not stop. Not even when we pointed out a cliff face peppered and salted with swallow-nests, alive with tiny birds bee-bee-beeing to their babies, she had to talk, talk, talk.
We only walked five days, across the plains and into the foothills where the soil turns red and rocky. My heart wanted to keep going west into the mountains, but my toes said No.
Yesterday I scratched Bjork goodbye (and hugged Malin) and boarded the 2:20 train to Sahagun, and from there to home.
To the lumberyard in Cea, the paint store, hardware, feed store, fruiterer, the call to the plumber when the sewer line started bubbling smelly water out onto the driveway, to greet the young Buddhist who knelt in the living room for hours, sorting our CDs into topical and alphabetical order. He arrived here with Patrick the Czech, who stepped into the traces when Michael the Italian went back for the weekend to Valladolid. Patrick and David are mixing concrete by the ton, to fill in cracks in the walls, the holes dug by dogs in the barn, to re-render the bodega's rugged face.
The plumber left the gate open, and Lulu and Bella escaped into the afternoon. Paddy turned white and swore a blue streak. There is no word from the tax lawyer. The plumber pulled out a pneumatic hammer and smashed holes in the newly-tiled patio floor. The upstairs bathroom suddenly smells like a swamp.
Me and Kathy are due in Santiago de Compostela Monday evening, for the start of a tightly scheduled two-week holiday. She is supposed to fly tonight from San Francisco, but her plane is overbooked. She is on standby. Maybe Barcelona, she says.
Stress leans on the door, waiting for a crack big enough to slip through. I can't leave here. Not with a literal shit-storm piling up under the patio.
I know I will likely go. The trip will not go as planned, it rarely does. And awful things may well happen while I am gone, because that seems to be the nature of things. (Awful things happen when I am here, too.)
I am making this into a big drama. I gotta let this go.
I gotta think of that little slip of a grey fox way up the road. That cliff full of swallow-babies, the "bee bee bee" of their parents bringing them bugs to eat. It was only yesterday I heard that, and already I let the daily noise rob me of it.
This yappy American woman's just gotta shut up for a minute and hear the music.
The friend is Malin, a Swedish woman of 36 who lives in a camper up in the mountains above Astorga. Her dog is Bjork, a splendid Border Collie that is smarter than most people.
A week ago Malin and Bjork and their man David rolled up in Dusty, their big green VW van. We'd only expected David. He is our standby fix-it man, and he'd just finished up a gig setting up trapezes for a troupe of acrobats. (For real!) And so he was primed to do some maintenance on our house.
Malin had an idea for us. Malin wanted to walk home from The Peaceable, with Bjork the dog, along the Camino de Santiago. She asked me if I would walk with her, at least as far as Leon, maybe all the way to the little mountain village where she and David and Bjork live.
I thought hard about it. This would be a good exercise, I thought. A way to let go of my need to oversee the repair works. I put them into David's hands, seeing as he knows how to juggle. Michael the Italian, his volunteer helper, is also a capable worker. I had nothing to worry about, I told myself. And so on Monday we set out.
It was walking weather, bright and cool. Bjork wore a little red backpack with her dog chow inside, and behaved like a perfect lady. We had to adjust ourselves and our budget to find shelter where a dog could go, too, but Malin and Bjork spent only one night in the little tent we carried along. (They froze, but they slept anyway). We did two almost-30 km. days, and three shorter ones.
Me and Malin walk at about the same speed. We both know how to travel light, we both are fit. The only hitch happened when my new boots rubbed troublesome blisters onto two of my toes. Like pilgrims do, me and Malin talked about everything. We sang sad songs and drank rank wine, ate strange food. I had pig knuckles in Mansilla de las Mulas, gave the bones to Bjork, and hours later stepped on the masticated remains in the dark floor of the albergue in Puente Vilarente.
We saw a fox. We met two know-it-all Spanish men who, once they learned we are foreigners who live in villages in the region, set about to instruct us on everything we already know about where we live, from dog breeds to building materials. They were sweet and sincere, and convinced that we are utter morons.
A lumpen German told me Bjork is "subnormal" because each of her eyes is a different color. (Malin was inside the supermarket then, which is a lucky thing for the man). The same guy that night put on a stupendous snoring extravaganza, the most spectacular of all my years of albergue use. I took up my bed and repaired to the lounge, where I kinda slept on the sofa.
We met a pretty blonde Zimbabwean woman who writes travel stories for GQ magazine. (The know-alls told her she can't be from Zimbabwe, because she is not black!) We met a fastidious Canadian whose primary passion is folding paper into origami sculptures. We met many hippies of several varieties, an ageing Austrian surfer dude with a snowy pony-tail and perfect shiny teeth, and an American "Shamanic Crone" who had so much to say she could not stop. Not even when we pointed out a cliff face peppered and salted with swallow-nests, alive with tiny birds bee-bee-beeing to their babies, she had to talk, talk, talk.
We only walked five days, across the plains and into the foothills where the soil turns red and rocky. My heart wanted to keep going west into the mountains, but my toes said No.
Yesterday I scratched Bjork goodbye (and hugged Malin) and boarded the 2:20 train to Sahagun, and from there to home.
To the lumberyard in Cea, the paint store, hardware, feed store, fruiterer, the call to the plumber when the sewer line started bubbling smelly water out onto the driveway, to greet the young Buddhist who knelt in the living room for hours, sorting our CDs into topical and alphabetical order. He arrived here with Patrick the Czech, who stepped into the traces when Michael the Italian went back for the weekend to Valladolid. Patrick and David are mixing concrete by the ton, to fill in cracks in the walls, the holes dug by dogs in the barn, to re-render the bodega's rugged face.
The plumber left the gate open, and Lulu and Bella escaped into the afternoon. Paddy turned white and swore a blue streak. There is no word from the tax lawyer. The plumber pulled out a pneumatic hammer and smashed holes in the newly-tiled patio floor. The upstairs bathroom suddenly smells like a swamp.
Me and Kathy are due in Santiago de Compostela Monday evening, for the start of a tightly scheduled two-week holiday. She is supposed to fly tonight from San Francisco, but her plane is overbooked. She is on standby. Maybe Barcelona, she says.
Stress leans on the door, waiting for a crack big enough to slip through. I can't leave here. Not with a literal shit-storm piling up under the patio.
I know I will likely go. The trip will not go as planned, it rarely does. And awful things may well happen while I am gone, because that seems to be the nature of things. (Awful things happen when I am here, too.)
I am making this into a big drama. I gotta let this go.
I gotta think of that little slip of a grey fox way up the road. That cliff full of swallow-babies, the "bee bee bee" of their parents bringing them bugs to eat. It was only yesterday I heard that, and already I let the daily noise rob me of it.
This yappy American woman's just gotta shut up for a minute and hear the music.
Friday, 24 May 2013
International Man of Mystery (+ nuns)
The moon is still a few days from full, but the Camino Characters are rolling in.
Paddy is looking at art in Barcelona for a few days. I am on my own out here on the perimeter. I am listening to old CDs and gardening, and seeing what pilgrims filter through.
The camino heaves with pilgrims. The Moratinos albergue and hostel are full. Peaceable is listed now as a Place of Christian Welcome, so I was not surprised today when two young nuns arrived, sisters from an obscure order someplace in France, or maybe French Canada. Something immaculate.
Now over the woodstove their immaculate linen hangs, scrubbed free of all human stain in the big sink out back.
We did not communicate well, but the sisters were done-in and dehydrated. I offered water and gazpacho and cheese, bread and fruit and eggs. I bandaged and massaged and insisted on a bit of watered wine, for anaesthesia. They were wise and did not resist. No meat at dinner, in case it's a fast day. One of them, Therese, knew all the words to Elvis Costello's "Allison," she sang along. That song means a lot to her, she said, that and ''Every Day I Write the Book.''
It's been years since Therese heard that music. Therese has a beautiful voice, she sang with tears in her voice (Maria Alacoque was doing their laundry.) The camino does that to you, out here on the plains, it brings back things.
Therese kissed me twice good night. God keep her.
The nuns were asleep by 9 p.m. They will sneak out at sun-up. I will not see them again.
Religious are wonderful that way, utterly flexible and sensible and sleepy after 31 km of sun and exertion -- adjusting themselves to my convenience. I love nuns and monks. They love me back. We all will meet someday in heaven.
Nuns often sing before they sleep. These ones sang a blessing over their dinner, and blessed Murphy and Moe and Rosie and Tim, and even laid-on their four hands and sang over me. I dig this in a deep sort of way. It is worth far more than rubies. Or even Euros.
I am happy the sisters are here, even though they are asleep.
Because at 9:15 came Luis Manuel, an International Man of Mystery. (If I did not have women sleeping here already, I would have fed him, but turned him away for a bed. The neighbours will talk, you know.)
Luis Manuel says he is a pilgrim, but he looks much too fine for the role. He arrived at sunset, well after any pilgrim ought to. His pack is small. His shoes are high-end Nike trainers, his Adidas sweatpants are pressed and clean, free of any trace of sweat or dirt. He smells not just OK, but good. I suspect an Audi lurks someplace down Calle Ontanon.
Luis Manuel did not want any dinner. He waved away the water pitcher. Matter of fact, he brought drink. He brought a bottle of Vega Siciliana Reserva. Very, very good wine.
He said this bottle is a gift. He carried it for us all the way down the camino from Logrono, La Rioja, from my good friend Miguel Angel from the PSOE.
The PSOE is the Socialist party, now out of power. I was gracious, but puzzled. I am not allied with any politicos. I corresponded briefly with Miguel Angel Moratinos, the PSOE foreign minister two elections back, when the Socialists were in power in Spain. I invited him over for dinner and he said he'd love to...
But these days, the only socialist Miguel Angel I know is from Mexico. He lives in Paris, poor as a church-mouse, well out of range of the PSOE and Vega Siciliana. When I go to Paris, me and Miguel Angel treat ourselves to oysters and Mosel wine, but... my Miguel Angel is a classical Freudian psychiatric analyst. He is not a politician.
And Vega Sicilina wine is not from La Rioja. It is from Ribera del Duero, almost local, from south of here. Luis Manuel's story does not quite add up.
But like many suspects, Luis Miguel was happy enough to share a glass or two with me. I decided that Paul Simon music would go well with my home-made whole-wheat bread and the ewe-milk cheese from Melgar de Arriba... and apples from this morning's market in Carrion de los Condes. I knew the wine was going to be memorable. I set it up perfectly, if I say so myself. This was an opportunity. I wished Paddy was here to enjoy it too.
Luis Manuel speaks Spanish beautifully, without any regional accent I can hear. He only corrected my most egregious mistakes. Tim Dog liked him, so he cannot be too bad. (but dogs are notoriously bad judges or character, I find... Sausages are given much too much moral weight.)
When the fine, fine wine was gone, I asked Luis Manuel if he minded moving on to Rioja wine. He answered with an inclination of his head and a subtle tip of his wine glass, not letting on that I had let-on to his wine's origin. I told him our Rioja is rough, common stuff, with my husband away I have not been today to the bodega. Nothing like the nectar he'd provided. He said he could not distinguish any difference between wines, he was not "cultivated."
I assured him he would notice, and right away.
And so I took the decanter down to the little kitchen by the front door and filled it up with Faustino Garcia Marquez. Cosecha.
And at the first pour, Luis Manuel was blown away. He sniffed and rolled it round his glass, he wrote down its name on his electronic notepad, he knocked down three glasses to my one. I did not tell him I'd decanted it from a plastic bag inside a cardboard box. Faustino Garcia Marquez is on special offer at the feed-store. It is extraordinarily good, yes. And you can buy 6 liters of the stuff for 11 Euro.
Luis Manuel then offered a pointed analysis of Spanish socio-economic policy. He sniffed and expanded on the benefits of immigration and the effects of foreign investment on the arts in Spain. He even extolled the influence of French nuns on his life in years past.
By 11 p.m. he took himself off to bed after a moving (but subdued, for the sake of the Good Sisters) version of "Mother and Child Reunion."
I sat up late with the mystery. Who is the Miguel Angel is who sent the fine wine? Whoever it is, I am deeply grateful to him. I would never have otherwise tasted Vega Siciliana. And never in my own home, the finest place in the world to taste good wine.
Who is this Luis Manuel Peregrino, snoring now in the blue bedroom? What is he about?
I will likely never know. He brought me a gift, and helped me enjoy it. I will leave it at that.
It is lovely here. The clothesline loaded with the linen of French nuns, and Tim twitching in his sleep by the wood-stove, which is still going halfway through May.
Paddy is looking at art in Barcelona for a few days. I am on my own out here on the perimeter. I am listening to old CDs and gardening, and seeing what pilgrims filter through.
The camino heaves with pilgrims. The Moratinos albergue and hostel are full. Peaceable is listed now as a Place of Christian Welcome, so I was not surprised today when two young nuns arrived, sisters from an obscure order someplace in France, or maybe French Canada. Something immaculate.
Now over the woodstove their immaculate linen hangs, scrubbed free of all human stain in the big sink out back.
We did not communicate well, but the sisters were done-in and dehydrated. I offered water and gazpacho and cheese, bread and fruit and eggs. I bandaged and massaged and insisted on a bit of watered wine, for anaesthesia. They were wise and did not resist. No meat at dinner, in case it's a fast day. One of them, Therese, knew all the words to Elvis Costello's "Allison," she sang along. That song means a lot to her, she said, that and ''Every Day I Write the Book.''
It's been years since Therese heard that music. Therese has a beautiful voice, she sang with tears in her voice (Maria Alacoque was doing their laundry.) The camino does that to you, out here on the plains, it brings back things.
Therese kissed me twice good night. God keep her.
The nuns were asleep by 9 p.m. They will sneak out at sun-up. I will not see them again.
Religious are wonderful that way, utterly flexible and sensible and sleepy after 31 km of sun and exertion -- adjusting themselves to my convenience. I love nuns and monks. They love me back. We all will meet someday in heaven.
Nuns often sing before they sleep. These ones sang a blessing over their dinner, and blessed Murphy and Moe and Rosie and Tim, and even laid-on their four hands and sang over me. I dig this in a deep sort of way. It is worth far more than rubies. Or even Euros.
I am happy the sisters are here, even though they are asleep.
Because at 9:15 came Luis Manuel, an International Man of Mystery. (If I did not have women sleeping here already, I would have fed him, but turned him away for a bed. The neighbours will talk, you know.)
Luis Manuel says he is a pilgrim, but he looks much too fine for the role. He arrived at sunset, well after any pilgrim ought to. His pack is small. His shoes are high-end Nike trainers, his Adidas sweatpants are pressed and clean, free of any trace of sweat or dirt. He smells not just OK, but good. I suspect an Audi lurks someplace down Calle Ontanon.
Luis Manuel did not want any dinner. He waved away the water pitcher. Matter of fact, he brought drink. He brought a bottle of Vega Siciliana Reserva. Very, very good wine.
He said this bottle is a gift. He carried it for us all the way down the camino from Logrono, La Rioja, from my good friend Miguel Angel from the PSOE.
The PSOE is the Socialist party, now out of power. I was gracious, but puzzled. I am not allied with any politicos. I corresponded briefly with Miguel Angel Moratinos, the PSOE foreign minister two elections back, when the Socialists were in power in Spain. I invited him over for dinner and he said he'd love to...
But these days, the only socialist Miguel Angel I know is from Mexico. He lives in Paris, poor as a church-mouse, well out of range of the PSOE and Vega Siciliana. When I go to Paris, me and Miguel Angel treat ourselves to oysters and Mosel wine, but... my Miguel Angel is a classical Freudian psychiatric analyst. He is not a politician.
And Vega Sicilina wine is not from La Rioja. It is from Ribera del Duero, almost local, from south of here. Luis Manuel's story does not quite add up.
But like many suspects, Luis Miguel was happy enough to share a glass or two with me. I decided that Paul Simon music would go well with my home-made whole-wheat bread and the ewe-milk cheese from Melgar de Arriba... and apples from this morning's market in Carrion de los Condes. I knew the wine was going to be memorable. I set it up perfectly, if I say so myself. This was an opportunity. I wished Paddy was here to enjoy it too.
Luis Manuel speaks Spanish beautifully, without any regional accent I can hear. He only corrected my most egregious mistakes. Tim Dog liked him, so he cannot be too bad. (but dogs are notoriously bad judges or character, I find... Sausages are given much too much moral weight.)
When the fine, fine wine was gone, I asked Luis Manuel if he minded moving on to Rioja wine. He answered with an inclination of his head and a subtle tip of his wine glass, not letting on that I had let-on to his wine's origin. I told him our Rioja is rough, common stuff, with my husband away I have not been today to the bodega. Nothing like the nectar he'd provided. He said he could not distinguish any difference between wines, he was not "cultivated."
I assured him he would notice, and right away.
And so I took the decanter down to the little kitchen by the front door and filled it up with Faustino Garcia Marquez. Cosecha.
And at the first pour, Luis Manuel was blown away. He sniffed and rolled it round his glass, he wrote down its name on his electronic notepad, he knocked down three glasses to my one. I did not tell him I'd decanted it from a plastic bag inside a cardboard box. Faustino Garcia Marquez is on special offer at the feed-store. It is extraordinarily good, yes. And you can buy 6 liters of the stuff for 11 Euro.
Luis Manuel then offered a pointed analysis of Spanish socio-economic policy. He sniffed and expanded on the benefits of immigration and the effects of foreign investment on the arts in Spain. He even extolled the influence of French nuns on his life in years past.
By 11 p.m. he took himself off to bed after a moving (but subdued, for the sake of the Good Sisters) version of "Mother and Child Reunion."
I sat up late with the mystery. Who is the Miguel Angel is who sent the fine wine? Whoever it is, I am deeply grateful to him. I would never have otherwise tasted Vega Siciliana. And never in my own home, the finest place in the world to taste good wine.
Who is this Luis Manuel Peregrino, snoring now in the blue bedroom? What is he about?
I will likely never know. He brought me a gift, and helped me enjoy it. I will leave it at that.
It is lovely here. The clothesline loaded with the linen of French nuns, and Tim twitching in his sleep by the wood-stove, which is still going halfway through May.
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Isidro Comes Alive!
(I took a nice photo to put here. Blogger does not allow me to post it. I do not know why.)
Yet again it´s San Isidro day, and yet again the entire village carried our San Isidro statue out to the fields for an annual blessing. José says the crops are coming along beautifully, despite unseasonably cold nights -- the long days of rain have trumped the cold, if you don´t count all the fruit crops lost when the blossoms froze.
San Isidro is a tough cookie. You gotta be tough, if you are the patron saint of people as hard-to-please as farmers, laborers, and Madrileños! Our statue makes him look pretty girly, but during his life he got his jobs done and fed the poor and made it to church every day as well... and he was married to a saint, too! He had an angelic work crew helping out, but hey... sainthood´s got to have some benefits.
But in Moratinos, after the blessing and an ExpressMass (Don Santiago had five such Masses and crop-blessings today) we all had a big get-together in the ayuntamiento, with olives and bread, cold cuts, German weisswurst sausage and sweet mustard from Martina and Daniel, pizzas from Albergue San Bruno, as well as the usual hot tortillas españoles for the not-quite-so-international palates that abound around here. Several lucky pilgrims got their fill, too, and at least three decided to stay at Bruno´s to soak up even more local color. This is Nestor, one of the French pilgrims. He volunteered to mow all the grass in the prado.
(Blogger will not allow me to upload Nestor´s picture. Suffice to say he is a genial donkey. I will add his photo when I can.)
This celebration happens every year, and every year I think it gets more collegial and merry -- even though few of us are professional farmers any more.
(A picture of happy people round the table should go here.)
And at the end of the day, whilst showing some pilgrims round the bodegas, my faith in San Isidro was called into question. "Cover your garden beds, bring in your budding flowers," Milagros warned me. "The TV´s posted a four-snowflake yellow frost alert for overnight!"
So out come the feed bags and fleece and milk cartons cut in half... Jeez. Bring in the donkey from the field... It´s time to get on the stick, Sid.
Yet again it´s San Isidro day, and yet again the entire village carried our San Isidro statue out to the fields for an annual blessing. José says the crops are coming along beautifully, despite unseasonably cold nights -- the long days of rain have trumped the cold, if you don´t count all the fruit crops lost when the blossoms froze.
San Isidro is a tough cookie. You gotta be tough, if you are the patron saint of people as hard-to-please as farmers, laborers, and Madrileños! Our statue makes him look pretty girly, but during his life he got his jobs done and fed the poor and made it to church every day as well... and he was married to a saint, too! He had an angelic work crew helping out, but hey... sainthood´s got to have some benefits.
But in Moratinos, after the blessing and an ExpressMass (Don Santiago had five such Masses and crop-blessings today) we all had a big get-together in the ayuntamiento, with olives and bread, cold cuts, German weisswurst sausage and sweet mustard from Martina and Daniel, pizzas from Albergue San Bruno, as well as the usual hot tortillas españoles for the not-quite-so-international palates that abound around here. Several lucky pilgrims got their fill, too, and at least three decided to stay at Bruno´s to soak up even more local color. This is Nestor, one of the French pilgrims. He volunteered to mow all the grass in the prado.
(Blogger will not allow me to upload Nestor´s picture. Suffice to say he is a genial donkey. I will add his photo when I can.)
This celebration happens every year, and every year I think it gets more collegial and merry -- even though few of us are professional farmers any more.
(A picture of happy people round the table should go here.)
And at the end of the day, whilst showing some pilgrims round the bodegas, my faith in San Isidro was called into question. "Cover your garden beds, bring in your budding flowers," Milagros warned me. "The TV´s posted a four-snowflake yellow frost alert for overnight!"
So out come the feed bags and fleece and milk cartons cut in half... Jeez. Bring in the donkey from the field... It´s time to get on the stick, Sid.
Saturday, 11 May 2013
The Voice calls "Reb!"
"Reb," comes The Voice from downstairs.
Paddy's voice, calm but hard on the edge. In that tone that says something is really wrong. That tone that takes me from 7:30 a.m. doze to wide awake in half a second.
I get there, and it's bloody. Blood on the tea-towel, blood on his hands, blood in the sink. He's cut himself, cutting bread for his breakfast -- the reason why sliced bread is supposed to be so great is there's not so much blood involved in breakfast.
The cut is not so bad, really. It only needs a pressure bandage to stop bleeding, and those require two hands. A person can't apply one of those to himself, Paddy explains. Otherwise, he never would have wakened me.
("I never ever wake up a woman," he says, ad nauseum. "They are no trouble when they are asleep." And he is serious about that. Can't tell you how many times I've overslept, outslept an alarm even, because he will not wake me up.)
When I heard That Voice, I knew. Thank God I hear it rarely, and even less on weekends. When accidents or illnesses happen on weekends, we are well and truly up the creek, especially when there are animals involved. There is no emergency veterinarian within 50 kilometers. The nearest open pharmacy is nine kilometers from here, the nearest medical help 13 kilometers. And Paddy does not drive cars any more.
I am extra careful now when I climb ladders. I ask for help a lot more than I ever did before. I cannot afford to be injured.
We keep many animals, so the two of us rarely go anywhere together for any length of time. When we do go away, there's always a nagging worry that someone will chuck a wobbler and the house-sitter won't know what to do. And
When I go away on my own and Paddy stays home alone, I worry even more. I never know what Paddy's going to get up to when I am not around. Or the dogs. Not to mention the ^%%$ cats.
Today we walked the dogs together, seeing as Paddy was one-handed. We discussed my upcoming two-week odyssey in Portugal, who is coming to help out here, what jobs need to be done. We walked down to the labyrinth and picked up a load of litter. Lulu the greyhound leapt through the high green grain, showing off for the many pilgrims. She is spectacular, a picture of grace and speed, loving and silly and dumb as a box of rocks.
Back at the Peaceable a Canadian-Ukrainian pilgrim came for a chat. I planted-out courgettes and zinnias and yellow wax beans, assembled two lawn chairs and a little table, made a lasagna for dinner. Paddy was out on the patio, pottering around with paint. Bob sang along to the Vienna Philharmonic.
I grated cheese, careful to keep my fingers out of the blades. I tore lettuce leaves, lovely lettuce from out back.
And That Voice came from out on the patio, over the Beethoven. Again. "Reb. Reb!"
I dropped the cheese and ran outside, and Paddy was kneeling beside the dining table. Lulu was underneath, pitching her head back, arching her spine, kicking her legs in a bizarre parody of her perfect run. Her eyes were wide and staring, her mouth drooling, her teeth clenched. She was having a seizure.
I got myself under there, and Paddy and I put our arms under Lulu's pointy head, so she would not smash it so hard against the tiles. I spoke quietly to her, calmly, trying not to let the horror slip into my voice. I stroked her neck, and after a few seconds she seemed to calm a little. Her heart was racing, she breathed so fast... I slowed my breath, I slowed my words, I cradled her snout in my hands and tried to give her peace.
She was dying, I thought. I told Paddy that. A stroke. A heart attack. Poisoned, maybe. She might die, Pad. Get water, I said, and water arrived. She was not interested. She stared into my eyes, but she was not seeing me. "Lulu. Lulu. Quiet now. Breathe with me," I told her.
And she did. Slowly, eventually, she rolled up onto her haunches and came back to where we were. She lapped some water from my hands, she licked Paddy's fingers. She shook. For a moment it seemed like we were losing her again, but after a deep breath she was okay. I told her that. I told Paddy that, and I tell myself. It's over now. We all are still alive.
No veterinarian until Monday. The online vet advice says there's not a lot a vet can do anyway. We will just watch her, and see.
She is back to herself again now, maybe a little embarrassed. She ate all her dinner, and kicked Harry off her end of the sofa in the barn.
Pad and I, we keep looking at one another, wondering if this is a one-off, or do we have an epileptic dog? There is no cure for epilepsy, and the only real treatment available for dogs is heavy tranquilizers. That would erase the very thing that makes Lulu what she is -- mad joy.
The day is beautiful and productive, everything that is green is suddenly lush. Bob sings, the swallows swoop, the little grackle-bird chuckles and waves his wings from atop the internet aerial. We have turned down the philharmonic, though. Just in case. It's not as if we could hear Lulu having another fit out in the barn.
But if That Voice calls "Reb!" again, I've gotta hear it.
Paddy's voice, calm but hard on the edge. In that tone that says something is really wrong. That tone that takes me from 7:30 a.m. doze to wide awake in half a second.
I get there, and it's bloody. Blood on the tea-towel, blood on his hands, blood in the sink. He's cut himself, cutting bread for his breakfast -- the reason why sliced bread is supposed to be so great is there's not so much blood involved in breakfast.
The cut is not so bad, really. It only needs a pressure bandage to stop bleeding, and those require two hands. A person can't apply one of those to himself, Paddy explains. Otherwise, he never would have wakened me.
("I never ever wake up a woman," he says, ad nauseum. "They are no trouble when they are asleep." And he is serious about that. Can't tell you how many times I've overslept, outslept an alarm even, because he will not wake me up.)
When I heard That Voice, I knew. Thank God I hear it rarely, and even less on weekends. When accidents or illnesses happen on weekends, we are well and truly up the creek, especially when there are animals involved. There is no emergency veterinarian within 50 kilometers. The nearest open pharmacy is nine kilometers from here, the nearest medical help 13 kilometers. And Paddy does not drive cars any more.
I am extra careful now when I climb ladders. I ask for help a lot more than I ever did before. I cannot afford to be injured.
We keep many animals, so the two of us rarely go anywhere together for any length of time. When we do go away, there's always a nagging worry that someone will chuck a wobbler and the house-sitter won't know what to do. And
When I go away on my own and Paddy stays home alone, I worry even more. I never know what Paddy's going to get up to when I am not around. Or the dogs. Not to mention the ^%%$ cats.
Today we walked the dogs together, seeing as Paddy was one-handed. We discussed my upcoming two-week odyssey in Portugal, who is coming to help out here, what jobs need to be done. We walked down to the labyrinth and picked up a load of litter. Lulu the greyhound leapt through the high green grain, showing off for the many pilgrims. She is spectacular, a picture of grace and speed, loving and silly and dumb as a box of rocks.
Back at the Peaceable a Canadian-Ukrainian pilgrim came for a chat. I planted-out courgettes and zinnias and yellow wax beans, assembled two lawn chairs and a little table, made a lasagna for dinner. Paddy was out on the patio, pottering around with paint. Bob sang along to the Vienna Philharmonic.
I grated cheese, careful to keep my fingers out of the blades. I tore lettuce leaves, lovely lettuce from out back.
And That Voice came from out on the patio, over the Beethoven. Again. "Reb. Reb!"
I dropped the cheese and ran outside, and Paddy was kneeling beside the dining table. Lulu was underneath, pitching her head back, arching her spine, kicking her legs in a bizarre parody of her perfect run. Her eyes were wide and staring, her mouth drooling, her teeth clenched. She was having a seizure.
I got myself under there, and Paddy and I put our arms under Lulu's pointy head, so she would not smash it so hard against the tiles. I spoke quietly to her, calmly, trying not to let the horror slip into my voice. I stroked her neck, and after a few seconds she seemed to calm a little. Her heart was racing, she breathed so fast... I slowed my breath, I slowed my words, I cradled her snout in my hands and tried to give her peace.
She was dying, I thought. I told Paddy that. A stroke. A heart attack. Poisoned, maybe. She might die, Pad. Get water, I said, and water arrived. She was not interested. She stared into my eyes, but she was not seeing me. "Lulu. Lulu. Quiet now. Breathe with me," I told her.
And she did. Slowly, eventually, she rolled up onto her haunches and came back to where we were. She lapped some water from my hands, she licked Paddy's fingers. She shook. For a moment it seemed like we were losing her again, but after a deep breath she was okay. I told her that. I told Paddy that, and I tell myself. It's over now. We all are still alive.
No veterinarian until Monday. The online vet advice says there's not a lot a vet can do anyway. We will just watch her, and see.
She is back to herself again now, maybe a little embarrassed. She ate all her dinner, and kicked Harry off her end of the sofa in the barn.
Pad and I, we keep looking at one another, wondering if this is a one-off, or do we have an epileptic dog? There is no cure for epilepsy, and the only real treatment available for dogs is heavy tranquilizers. That would erase the very thing that makes Lulu what she is -- mad joy.
The day is beautiful and productive, everything that is green is suddenly lush. Bob sings, the swallows swoop, the little grackle-bird chuckles and waves his wings from atop the internet aerial. We have turned down the philharmonic, though. Just in case. It's not as if we could hear Lulu having another fit out in the barn.
But if That Voice calls "Reb!" again, I've gotta hear it.
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