We are now into the early days of August - I know it is August as I just took G to Torremollinos and the traffic was unbelievable. August is when all the French have their holidays and all the Madrileños too - all escaping the city heat for, well, the costa heat.
July actually wasn't much better as there were far too many tourists and it was also too hot for too long. Normally June, July and August are pretty warm and usually there is a mini heatwave in each of the months - but this July was just hot all the time. Most days it hit 37º (pretty damn close to 100ª in old money) and that was in the shade. Early mornings weren't too bad as 32/90) felt positively cool. Of course there is always the pool to escape to and that is, at least, still below blood heat!
Our "new" Danish neighbours were down en famille for most of the month and were a bit put-out by the heat and humidity (which is the real killer). Their not having any aircon in the house proved a challenge (as we used to say in Shell), especially as the mosquitos were all too keen to enter the house by all the open windows needed to try to get some airflow. Apparently the house beyond our German neighbours has been sold to some Danish people - who we now know as the "new Danes" (as against the old Dane who used to own it and the Danes below who are our newish neighbours (get it? - we are an Anglo Saxon outpost amongst a bunch of Vikings and Huns - (I must start asking for reparations for past misdeeds).
Not to mention the Spaniards who own the house above. I always prefer not to mention them.
They took back control of the house from their (Brit) tenant at the end of June and were pretty unimpressed at what a family with 3 children and 2 very nasty dogs could do in a year - a year of almost all of them never going out of the house except for odd school and work days. We saw a lot of furniture and soft furnishing hitting the rubbish and even someone painting inside. Oh, and it took about 3 weeks to clean the pool to the point where some of them would go in it (garden unusable due to overuse by kids and dogs). All this on top of the tenant not paying anything rent-wise, garden-wise or utility-wise for about the last 6 months in a dispute about dangerous electrical points (owners took him to court for non-payment and he actually won the case, so kept on not-paying). Shouldn't laugh really as the b*****d also absconded with a suitcase and eski-cooler box that G innocently loaned to them as the urchins befriended her and she showed them her usual care and largesse. Thanks for nothing.
The gardener we found for the new neighbours below has proved a real gem and they are very happy to have him - he is twice as good as the two guys who used to do it and charges less! We had a problemette with the pool just before they came down here as the water turned green - despite not being in use. (Maybe the mountain goats are using it as we often see a family of them in the garden). We tried everything to clean it and identify the cause - basically it was algae in the pool / water which we eventually had to half-change, then shock with some serious chemicals. The only difference between their pool and ours is the cleaner (me!) and the fact we use "town water" whereas a they were using water from the bore-hole. Apparently not the first time this has happened and I can see that being a running issue for some time.
Oh, I forgot to mention the "new Danes" had the squatter kicked out along with his horse, stable , feeding trough, fence, etc, etc. Cheeky b. He obviously didn't know that he could have had better, if not cheaper, facilities at the house above!! Deserved to get booted as G saw him maltreat his dog and he swore at her when she shouted at him for it. (sounds familiar somehow).
I haven't dared look in the fly-catcher nest since we saw the eggs, but I (literally) haven't heard a cheap out of them so they may have flown the nest or left the eggs to their own devices. Pretty sure the parent birds have flown, but daren´t look really.
The tourist influx has also had an impact of our local hostelry. During July and August they run a Thursday night super-session with tapas, cheap booze and live music (no, we don't go), but the staff are so wrecked by these Thursdays that it has impacted the quality of food and service for the weekends. We have regretfully decided we will have to avoid it until September comes (or Come September for Bobby Darrin / Sandra Dee fans).
Age suddenly hit me last month too, when I realised that I struggle to carry things up stairs with two hands as I need one hand to steady myself on the pasamano - or handrail to you - and realising that, also realised there are no pasamanos on the cellar stairs (or any of the outside steps for that matter). I decided to do something about it and went down to San Anton (the local vendor of everything for the builder). Well, everything that is with the exception of steel tubing. He pointed me in the direction of an outside exercise area (cheeky sod I thought), but it turned out there was a steel-working business up behind it. Duly called in and guy came out to the house - and within 48 hours we have galvanised rails on the front and back steps and snazzy stainless steel stuff on the cellar stairs.
When I say we have a rail on the back steps, this is not strictly true. We have the rail with 3 mounting points and we have 5 holes drilled - the 6th didn't get drilled as the 5th hit the main cold water pipe. (I had mused on where any pipes might be, but had ruled out any builder putting pipes on an outer wall and close to the surface - what do I know?). Luckily my plumber came out within a couple of hours and fixed the pipe - but now I am waiting for him to cement-up the wall (a minor miracle if he does, due to the spanish restrictive practices as per demarcation in 60s UK).
At least I can haul my aged frame up the steps with a bit more ease (well I can at night as the bloody rail is too hot to touch in the daytime). Cést la vie!!
Black-vagabond cat Rufus still drops by three times a day for his food, but was totally thrown the other day when we changed his old bowl for a new glass one - the tall type normally used to advertise fancy desserts - mainly as the ants were managing to swim across the underlying saucer of water - anyway it frightened him as it was different so he avoided it, then found a way of getting on the bench at the other end and creeping up on it. What a wuss!
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