Nobody was more pleased than me when my good friend Jane decided to move back to Spain after three years back in England. Not only was she moving back, she was moving just a few hundred yards up the calle from Piddock Place. Now I have a fellow writer, dog lover and wine drinker within sneezing distance - or barking distance for Paddy - and I'm loving it already.
It's been a hectic few days settling Jane in, and shopping till we dropped for her new home, but we cracked it this afternoon - or at least, we thought we did. Lovely as she is, Jane is blonde, and from Essex, and she does have a few of 'those' moments. Now I'm worried that being blonde is contagious, although I don't think I can catch Essex Girl. I'd never manage to walk in white stilettos with my feet.
Picture the scene - we rocked up at Jane's apartamento bajo con jardin with so much shopping my ancient Fiesta breathed a sigh of relief as we unloaded it. And that's when the trouble started.
As a sign of my full integration into Spanish life, I have a Market Trolley. It hasn't been used for two months, as we've been in England, but we needed it at Rojales Market today. Jane bought enough fruit and vegetables to feed the whole of Algorfa for a month, and as I pulled the trolley from the boot, deep red, foul smelling liquid emitted from its bowels. I thought Jane's beetroot had been crushed beyond help, but when we emptied out the trolley, the true source of the suppuration was revealed.
Casting my mind back to Sunday, 19th July, I remembered being perplexed when, returning from Lemon Tree Market, I lost my cherry. Or rather, I lost my big bag of cherries. Today I found them. They were still in the trolley, and they weren't a pretty sight - or smell. Obviously, Tony was on trolley emptying duty that day. I contemplated serving them up with his ice cream after supper, but Jane talked me out of it. Like I said, she's a nice girl.
Anyway, in all the kerfuffle of emptying out the trolley, and wiping fermented cherry juice off everything, I lost the car keys. So Jane and I spent at least 20 minutes emptying out the car boot, removing the spare wheel, looking under and between the seats, and checking out all the shopping bags. And there were a lot of them, boys and girls. When Essex Girls are let loose in Primark and Aldi, there's no stopping them. And of course, they're shopping in Euros here, not Pounds, so it's even better - or worse, if you happen to be the poor Fiesta transporting the goods home.
We removed the rear seat, in case the keys had gone down there. We did find half a dog - or at least enough of Paddy's hair to cover half a dog - but of keys there was not a sign. I crawled on my hands and knees under the car, in case they had slithered from my cherry-soaked fingers, but no, there was nothing. That's when I became convinced that somebody had nicked the key ring containing car keys - which also held the house keys - and that I would be ravished in my bed before the night was through. Rather reasonably, Jane pointed out that they wouldn't know where to come to ravish me, since the car was not parked outside Piddock Place. And anyway, nobody had walked past, other than a feral cat, who couldn't reach the lock, even if he knew which house we lived in. Don't you just hate spoilsports, boys and girls?
By now, I was in panic mode, and I was not looking forward to breaking the news to Tony that I had lost the keys to both the car and the house. Jane suggested I appeal to his better nature and ask him to come and check through the shopping and the car, since a fresh pair of eyes might yield the missing keys. Okay, he hasn't got a better nature, and his eyes are anything but fresh, but in the absence of a better solution, I loaded the spare wheel, Tony's tools, the beach chairs, the umbrella and my paltry €15 worth of shopping back into the boot.
And closed it. And found the keys, in the lock. I thought Jane was a really nice girl, but she said some very, very rude words. I don't think I want her too close to Paddy if that's the type of language she comes out with - she could be a bad influence. The really funny thing is, I always leave the keys in the lock of the boot while I unload it, as I keep the car doors locked, just in case anybody decides to help themselves to my worldly goods while I'm decanting the shopping. I reckon if the keys are in the lock of the open boot, there's no danger of me locking them in said boot by mistake. This time though, I forgot. Maybe the fumes from the fermenting cherries addled my brain temporarily. Or maybe having blonde moments is contagious. I wonder if there's a vaccine against it?
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