Spanish Shilling

In these modern times, we the people now have three admittedly weak ways to influence our leaders and the direction they should be taking – through the ballot-box, via the keyboard and thirdly by going out into the city with your either comic or angry protest sign to join the demo del día.

Sometimes though, the protest can even work wonders if it’s large enough.

We saw the masses take down the French monarchy in 1789, the Russian tsars in 1917 and the unlamented Nicolai Ceaușescu and his wife in Romania in 1989. Perhaps something along the same lines will surprise us in Washington in the weeks to come, perhaps not.

Here in Spain, this weekend also had its share of multitudinous protests: the twin concerns of decent and affordable housing on the one hand, and the threat from private medicine (particularly in Andalucía) looming over our National Health.

Being a long-term foreign resident, I’ve never had the right to vote anywhere beyond the municipal level found here where I both live and am inscribed on the padrón, which, for what it’s worth, means that at least in a small town like mine, my vote can count for something (vaguely).

The main drawback to exercising one’s democratic rights to mark a cross on a piece of paper – or put a papeleta in an envelope – is that it only happens every now and again. It’ll be not far short of four years before the Americans have another chance at an election, probably two or three years to wait here in Spain.

As far as posting memes or opinions of my own or of others on Facebook or over on my Spanish Shilling blog, or here in this column, then I hope that you are all paying attention, but if not, well never mind. Write me a letter.

Thus we come to waving a placard out there with the crowd: well it sounds fun but personally, I’ve rarely participated beyond that time some PP idiot decided to bulldoze flat Helen and Len Prior’s house in Vera back in 2008. We all drove into Almería and caused a fuss. That and a few other demolitions cost Andalucía’s property market at the time many tens of millions of euros and attracted the attention of the international media. I was interviewed on the radio and was heard (by friends who later told me) both in Miami and in Melbourne! My fifteen minutes of fame.

‘The best thing about protesting is the feeling that you are not alone with your opinions’, says my soulmate, who is rather more of an activist than I am.

This past weekend, many millions of folks would have agreed with her.

There used to be a nice Canadian show on the television about the delightful critters that live quietly in the garden. A slow and amiable voice helped us as we wandered around a giant lower-forty in far-off Newfoundland looking under leaves and behind rocks. Pleasant-looking bees worked feverishly to please the cameraman as the plant-life went through its various routines: flowers, seeds and pods. Small rodents galloped aimlessly about in the undergrowth as some muted music accompanied the friendly talk. Oh! to live near a Canadian garden and to follow the dragonflies!

Here in Mojácar, we use a Californian gardening book. It has most of our flowers and shrubs, but it is understandably light regarding the local fauna that flitter from bush to bush, or in the case of some of our guests, from root to root.

Such are the wild boar, those large pigs which appear to have joined our society recently. They are not particularly dangerous, although they can weigh anything up to 150 kilos and have an impressive collection of teeth. There’s the story of one of them taking a lamb from its mother. Another, that we’ve all seen, has a jabalí grabbing somebody’s picnic and running off along the beach, with the irate owner, I think he was a Frenchman, chasing along behind.

Could they attack a human: me for example? It’s possible.

My late-wife and I once had a wild boar as a companion (I think, rather than a ‘pet’). He would follow along behind when we went horseback riding. Theodore would eat anything, and we had persuaded one of the local restaurants to save scraps from the diners’ plates: vegetables, gristle, bones and even lobster-shells.

My garden though – a wasteland with some stunted fruit-trees I’ve been trying to bring back to life – has recently attracted the attention of a sounder of wild boars. They drop by every night and dig up the ground (it’s relatively soft now after the rains) and search for the roots which the indulgent orange-trees have shyly put forth, once again, thanks to a combination of the recent floods, plus my attentive husbandry.

I come out every morning to see if anything has budded yet, and find huge holes in the earth, or even in the track that leads to my property. Rocks have been rolled away from their place, and even the stone-terraces have been attacked, as the piggies search for something choice under the earth. They are after the rootlets: fresh, juicy, crisp, tasty rootlets. I may not have a green finger, or is it a thumb, but even I know these fellows need to go.

You may be surprised to learn that I have found the answer to this – forget the blast from a shotgun or the services of a large hound, and above all, ignore the local recommendation of strewing human hair taken from the barber’s floor onto your land (imagine a shred of that being caught by the wind and blowing into your face). My solution is to simply scatter around some powdered cayenne pepper. Honestly, it works out cheaper than buying dog-food.

Understandably, the boars don’t care for that spicy kick to their snout, (although, on the other hand, it’s true to say that a pinch of something picante does wonders to a good pork goulash).  

Thus encouraged, they will leave me and mine alone and go and dig up the neighbour’s garden instead, while I can return to my daily visit to the citrus trees and to counting the blossoms.