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| As one door closes |
In late 2006 barely six months after arriving in Spain, aside from some seriously disingenuous work colleagues almost all of whom I would ignore if I ever bumped into again now, I didn't know many people and the temptation not to return to Spain after a great British Christmas was almost overwhelming. But, as one door clanged shut noisily behind me I gently nudged open the next without so much as a clue what lay behind. It turned out to be a bit good actually, but not straightaway. From the start of 2007 until about April of that year I went through life in something of an emotional daze and being compelled to endure three further months of two bent bosses with aliases on their business cards didn't help. Eventually, and to keep one step ahead of the law, they scarpered to the Costa del Sol taking with them the mugs on the workforce over whose eyes they were still able to pull the wool. I wasn't tempted, (unsurprisingly), and stayed in Santa Pola; rattling around all by myself in a bloody great three bedroomed, two bathroomed "front line" apartment from which it was possible to watch the sun rise and set from my seaview balcony, which, until the previous November had been put to good use by two people and not just me. Happy(ish) days!!
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Cheers Auntie, thanks but no thanks |
Wherever you live though not a fat lot in life is do-able without the means to pay for it; i.e., employment. Shortly after having consigned the first couple of crooked English tossers to the recycle bin, the BBC were also deprived of some interesting material when I declined to be involved with a programme they were making about, funnily enough, English conmen in Spain. It was but a temporary reprieve because just around the corner, bugger my luck, were the next couple of ex-pat spivs seeking to feather their own wholly inadequate nests. Credit where credit is due though, before chancing across the first of these two, I´d never managed to flog a single thing in my life, except on eBay. As I was later to acknowledge, at least I was taught well - this tuition I was able to put to good use over the next couple or three years of being gainfully, (and painfully at some points), employed selling advertising space in, first of all, two English language magazines and subsequently a popular, and pretty good, radio station. (The two British owners of the mags were nowhere near as good as their publications).
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Elephants and females rarely forget |
Towards the middle of April 2007, the 21st I'm reliably informed because women always know these things, I went to a dinner party that changed my life for the better. Unbeknown to Mr Naive, that'll be me then, the French hostess as well as having an unattached English bloke for a friend also had an old Spanish girlfriend who just happened to be a little down on her luck in the man department at that moment in time too. You've probably guessed where this is heading but do read on there's more. On this particular evening I was weighing up two offers of a night out, neither of which particularly appealed, so, having successfully cried off the first on a flimsy pretext I attempted to do likewise with Mademoiselle. She was having none of it!
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| A Spanish dinner party |
Me being English and pathologically punctual, I arrived on time and had to wait a good thirty minutes for the rest of 'em, all of whom were natives and appeared in no particular rush to get there. Introductions and halting Spanish small talk made, there came a knock at the door as, eventually, the final dinner guest deigned to put in an appearance. Not needing any prompting I scuttled away from an awkward group of three complete strangers to attend to the latecomer. Pulling the apartment door towards me with no idea who to expect, I had know idea that I was just seconds away from taking the coat of my future - and present - girlfriend. Eventually, after another excruciating hour or so of badly mangled Spanish and broken English, the eight of us sat down to eat with yours truly still blissfully unaware of Mlle's cunning plan. Obviously it's a little difficult to talk with a mouthful of food so I played the role of hungry Englishman and patient listener as the Spaniards do what they do best; talk over each other increasingly loudly at the meal table. As luck would have it, mein host was also the owner of an adorable little terrier dog with a penchant for becoming over-excited and pissing on people´s shoes or shins. For this reason, 'Lola' was safely ensconced in my lap and slowly falling asleep whilst being lovingly petted by an Englishman trying and failing dismally to keep up with the ongoing conversation. Then it happened for the first time.
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A wholly innocent dog plays cupid |
I assumed the lady latecomer seated to my left had inadvertently mistaken my leg for the dogs back and continued, unknowingly, to stroke it with her right hand. Not wishing to embarrass her by pointing out the mistake I did the courteous thing and, inch by inch, almost imperceptibly moved a little further to my left whilst placing a, by now, very nearly comatose Lola within much easier reach of the adjacent dinner guest. Feeling pretty satisfied with my sleight of hand I began to relax. Not for long though because the intrepid señorita a couple of feet away wasn´t to be denied. With just sufficient Spanish to get by, it took all my concentration to follow the various threads of noisy chat the assembled invitees were simultaneously and at high volume engaged in, a difficult enough task without the added complication of at least three fingers of a woman I'd only just met moving themselves inexorably along my inner thigh. Abandoning all attempts at subtlety I then scraped my chair clumsily away attempting to put daylight between her, Lola the innocent dog and I. When madam next door reciprocated, I knew the game was up and her mission, which she had very clearly chosen to accept, was destined to end only one way.
Four years later we´re still together and loads of water has passed beneath the bridge, some of which I`ll share next time.
