Save Me…… from not making the most of what falls from the sky

Summer temperatures haven’t been as hot in Seville this July as they have been in summers past. We’ve barely got above 40C most days throughout the month, which is strange to say the least.

A couple of days have seen the thermometers top 43C but other than that we’ve mostly hovered around the mid- to upper-30s. And for Seville that is unusual, especially if previous years are anything to go by.

What’s not in the slightest bit unusual is that it hasn’t rained for a long time. In fact, I can’t actually remember the last time it rained, let alone the last time it rained significantly.

I’m not complaining. The days are still hot, even if sometimes the nights are uncomfortable. But with air con and a fan it doesn’t get to you much.

What is perhaps more unusual is that despite it not raining here in Seville for, well, let’s be honest, several months, the taps are still running and there are no water restrictions. You can have a shower, a bath, you can water your plants, you can hose down your terrace, you could even fill a bucket and pour it over your head if you really wanted to.

Standing on our terrace you can look out across the east of the city and see hundreds if not thousands of flats and houses, each one no doubt using many litres of water every single day. Taking a train down to Jerez last weekend took us past acres and acres of sunflower crops and olive groves, none of which seemed to show any significant signs of drought. The huge, portable, watering machines that trundle across the open fields, were everywhere to be seen as well. And yet still no water restrictions.

It’s true that there are many areas of parched grassland, turned yellow from the lack of rain. Fly into Seville or Jerez at this time of year and looking out the window of the plane you won’t see much in the way of green at all. But the right places are still getting the water. The places and the people that need it are getting it.

Contrast that with the UK. There, if there’s no rain for two weeks, the water companies go into meltdown, the hosepipe bans are tossed around like confetti and before you know it, the standpipes are out, there’s panic buying of bottled water in the supermarkets and the army are being drafted in to man the portable water tankers.

Before the downpours of June and July, there were drought orders in force up and down the UK as the population tried to come to terms with the fact it hadn’t rained significantly for at least 14 days!

So what on earth is the problem? How can southern Spain survive restriction-free for months on end, while the UK sputters to a halt after a matter of weeks? What are we doing here that they’re not doing there?

Well, some might think it has something to do with the population. The UK has higher demand because it has about 20 million more people. But it’s not as if the country is a desert. Green fields are everywhere. And, let’s be honest, it’s incredibly unusual for it not to rain in the UK for any significant period of time, while the opposite is true for southern Spain.

Maybe it’s something to do with culture. In southern Spain, people tend to be a little more conservative with water. They don’t really waste it. They turn the tap off when they’re brushing their teeth, they don’t – despite being able to – fill up buckets of water and liberally pour them over their heads. They also don’t have a lot of baths. I’m not saying they’re dirty. They just have showers instead. Quicker, more economical when it comes to water use and frankly a lot cleaner than lying in your own filth in a bath for an hour. It might not come as a surprise to learn that I’ve never been a fan of baths. Give me a shower any time.

In the UK, people are less sparing with their water. To be fair, you can hardly blame them because they know that they’ll be another shower of rain along in a minute. Some years ago a friend of mine, who worked for a water company in the south east of England, told me that more than 70 per cent of water that comes into people’s homes in the UK goes straight back down the plughole the moment it comes out the taps. Think about it.

But the real answer to why we here in southern Spain seem to make our water go further is actually historical. Over several decades in the 20^th century Spain embarked on a programme of reservoir and water pipe building right across the country. That meant that when it rained in one place, the water was captured, saved and used efficiently. So it was possible to transport that water to another part of the country where it hadn’t rained.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a shortage of water in the south. There is. We could really do with some rain, especially as the reservoirs in the south are quite low. But other parts of the country are getting rain. In fact, this week has seen some fairly fierce rain storms in the north of the country. In Palencia and Lugo in the last couple of days the heavens opened big time. But frankly, no more than what the UK would probably get in an average summer itself. The difference is that a lot of the rain that fell in the north of Spain will be used in exactly the way it needs to be.

It may have a dodgy economy at the moment, it may have the highest unemployment in the European Union, it may have a desperately weak manufacturing base. But Spain does seem to have got it right when it comes to keeping its population in running water.

The UK, on the other hand, despite the huge quantities of rain that descend from the sky on a regular basis over its green and pleasant land and an infrastructure that would at least suggest an ability to provide adequate water for its citizens, doesn’t appear to have got its act together quite yet.

Fascinating, don’t you think?

Save Me…… from the people who grumble about nothing

The Olympics will have kicked off in London this time next week. But I´m prepared to make a prediction already. In fact it´s a guaranteed bet. It´s a rock solid shoe-in for the Gold medal for Team GB if ever there was one. This one cannot lose. I stake my life on it.

Well, it wouldn´t lose if the event was actually in the Olympics. But it´s not. Which is a shame. Because if it was, they would probably just give the gold to the British team immediately without even having a competition.

The Brits are rubbish at football, they´re rubbish at most sports actually. But at the sport of complaining they are Olympic champions. No, in fact they are World, Galactic and Universal champions.

If there´s one thing I´ve noticed above all others looking back at the UK from here in Spain it´s that you guys never stop bloody whinging. I should know. I´m one of you!

Think about it. How familiar are the following sentences to you? Everything´s rubbish nowadays; They don´t make ém like they used to; It wasn´t like that in my day; It´s all wrong it is; Kids today eh?; We´re all going to hell in a hand basket (whatever that means).

These are phrases that are used so commonly in everyday British society that they´ve actually entered the English vernacular. And as if that´s not enough damning evidence, then let me give you another example. When someone asks you how you are, often the answer will be: “Mustn´t grumble.” You´re fine, but you don´t say you´re fine. You complain about having nothing to complain about.

Christ knows how the UK ever became a global superpower in the past what with the complaining about how rubbish everything is all the time. Mind you, thinking about it, maybe that´s how they did come to dominate the world. Everywhere they went, they depressed the locals so much with tales of misery and hardship and the fact that it never stops raining that the locals gave in without a fight just to shut them up. I think the only reason the British Empire slowly disappeared after the Victorian era was that everyone else in the world started cheering up and telling them to bugger off.

A brief scan of the British papers this past week revealed the following stories to me; O2 mobile phone customers getting livid about having no phone network for a day and a bit, complaints that some security staff at the Olympics being “illegals”, anger at the fact that it´s been raining a lot recently, complaints that there are too many women teachers in UK schools, much gnashing of teeth over the fact that David Beckham hasn´t been selected for the Olympic football squad, fury over claims by a government minister that Britain will always stay in the EU, outrage over cuts to the Olympic opening ceremony, wailing over the fact that there isn´t enough security at the Olympics.

Did you notice a common theme in there? There seems to be a lot of people angry about the Olympics. You´d think the fact that the UK is hosting the premier sporting event in the world, an event they´ve been planning for four years, would generate some sort of joy, excitement, thrill or happiness among the British people.

But oh no. We can´t have that, can we? It wouldn´t be right to actually be positive about something as big as this. The staging of the Olympics is perfect for the British mindset because it gives them the opportunity for an Olympic-sized moan. And there´s nothing that makes the British people happier than being unhappy about something.

The other stories are almost as bizarre in their banality. Mobile phone users without coverage for a day or so? Well, all that does is show just how much mobiles control their lives. Grumbles about the fact it´s being raining a lot recently? It always rains. It´s Britain. It´s hardly breaking news. Grumbles about the EU? Again, nothing new there, just some bloke´s throwaway comment sparking fury and threats of conspiracy. And as for the claim that there are too many women teachers in British schools? Well, that one came from the Daily Mail. Say no more.

 Here in Spain, there´s 24 per cent unemployment (or if you´re a young person 50 per cent), there´s tax hikes, pay cuts, slashed government spending and businesses closing left, right and centre.

But the sun is shining, the beaches are full and people, while expressing their frustration with demonstrations from time to time, generally just get on with things. There´s not the culture of persistent moaning here that permeates the core of British society. Maybe that´s because the Spanish have had it a lot tougher than this in the past. That´s not to say they don´t care. They do. But they just express it in a slightly less permanently irritable way.

They realise that things aren´t great at the moment and haven´t been for some time. No jobs means people here have had more time for leisure or sport activities. Maybe that´s why they have the best football team in the world at the moment, because they´ve had a bit more time to practise. There´s nothing like success in the sporting arena to galvanise the masses, to send a wave of happiness through the population. And that´s just what happened earlier this month when Spain won football´s European Championship again. It makes the hardships easier to bear, at least in the short term.

So instead of complaining about how everything´s rubbish all the time, maybe the UK population should instead celebrate the huge sporting bonanza that is the Olympics and be happy and excited about this festival of everything that´s good about the world.

They might even find that things aren´t quite as bad there as they are here in Spain.

Save Me…… from having to take a microwave oven up a mountain pass just to make a point

I’m sorry to both Scotland and Croydon. I like you both. But the following must be said.

Much of my family is from Scotland and I have toured and explored many beautiful, awe- inspiring places within it. From mountains to lochs to sweeping sandy beaches and rocky headlands. It is quite an incredible country when it comes to natural scenery.

Not so much Croydon. Before I moved to Spain, I lived in Croydon. It´s not quite Scotland. It’s more beautiful on the inside. But I’ll come to that later.

Anyway, it is with great pain that I have to say, with hand on heart, that the scenery we found this week not 100km from home in southern Spain blows all of it away. All of it. The lochs, the mountains, even the haggis and bagpipes. Even the strangely fascinating No.1 Croydon tower. It blows them all sky high, in much the same way putting a mobile phone into a microwave and pressing “start” would do.

The startlingly beautiful scenery I speak of can be found on the road between the Andaluz villages of Grazalema and Zahara de la Sierra.

Travelling from Jerez or Seville you follow a twisty mountain road from the small town of El Bosque to Grazalema which, itself, is incredibly beautiful. This first road is steep, narrow and, in places, the edge drop away hundreds of feet. It takes you past the isolated mountain village of Benamahoma, itself worth a detour to visit, and the views from the road are amazing, especially when you near the top of the pass before descending into Grazalema.

But it is here that many people stop, already blown away by the rolling hills, the deep valleys, the acres of forest and the rocky mountain pinnacles they lay before them at the “mirador” that stands just 2km from Grazalema itself.

However, what so many people miss is the turn-off to Zahara, just one more kilometre further down the road, just outside Grazalema. From here, there are 14km of road taking you through the most invigorating, spectacular and stunning scenery. Ascending the first part is breathtaking. Plunging cliffs, huge boulders, sloping trees, grey, rocky outcrops, rich green grass and sweeping vistas greet you as you look out to the right.

But that’s not even the best of it. When you come to the pass at Puerto de las Palomas, you find yourself at a point between two sweeping valleys. You can see for miles and miles across the Sierra not just to the south east but to the north west as well. It leaves you speechless (which is frankly unheard of for me). Go to any good thesaurus, find the most positive adjectives you can about scenery and you still won´t come close to describing the view from this point.

But – yes, there’s another but – as if you thought you’d already stuffed yourself full of sweets from the metaphorical sweetshop that is the view at this point, as you descend the other side towards Zahara, you drive down an awe-inspiring, twisty, turny, steep and precipitous mountain road, which reveals 2,000ft below you a fluorescent turquoise lake, while towering rock pinnacles lie jagged and broken a 1,000ft above you.

I’m out of breath just describing it.

Now, it’s fair to say that if we saw the same sight over and over again, we might become a little blasé about it. For example, I worked in central London for nearly a decade before coming to Spain and every day I would see the famous Tower Bridge and the Tower of London on my way to and from work. Wonderful sights. Incredible to look at. But after the twentieth time of looking at them as I crossed over the river in a double decker bus, I just didn’t bother any more. You know what I mean?

I can imagine Sherpas born and brought up within in the shadow of Mount Everest saying to an awe-struck mountaineering tourist seeing it for the first time: “Oh yeah, that thing. Done it already thanks.”

I bet even Kublai Khan, on seeing Xanadu for the twentieth time, probably said: “I’ve seen better if I’m honest. Don’t like the trees very much. They’re a bit too pointy.”

Now, for me, this has become true with some parts of Scotland. Don’t get me wrong. It’s an incredibly beautiful country – if you miss out most of Glasgow that is – but I can quite happily drive past whole swathes of it and not feel the need to gaze out in wonderment.

And so, this week, as we drove along this road through the sierra, I did worry for the briefest of seconds that it might all get a bit humdrum the next few times we drove that way, especially as we live not far away.

But then I slapped myself hard in the face. Metaphorically, of course. Take your eyes off the road for a few seconds and you’re liable to career off, through the concrete bollards and plunge thousands of feet to a fiery grave, all the while thinking to yourself what an incredibly beautiful place to have such a violent death.

Frankly, there is no way, no way, I could ever get bored of this sight.

I’m sorry Scotland. I really am. I think you’re great (well, maybe not Glasgow so much). But it’s over. We’ve grown apart these last few years, haven’t we? You’ve got your own friends now and I’ve got mine. We don’t do things together like we used to. Look, it’s me, it’s not you. Honestly. I’ve just moved on. I know it’ll be difficult at first. But you’ll find someone new. I know you will.

And as for Croydon. Well, it’s got a nice shopping street and some good pubs and a few parks. But it doesn’t have much in the way of rocky pinnacles, mountain passes and turquoise lakes. I like it. I do. But here I turn back to my original analogy.

Imagine Croydon’s sweeping vistas were a mobile phone and the views from the mountain roads in the sierra were the world’s most massive microwave oven.

I´m quite getting to like this country.

Save Me…… from, well, I don’t know

It´s been a strange couple of weeks. I could, if I was being overly pretentious, call it a watershed moment for me. It hasn’t so much been the things I’ve been doing during this time, but more the way I’ve been feeling as I’ve done them.

I´m not making much sense, I know. But that`s because I´m still trying to work out the significance of it all.

I´ve been living in Spain a while now. But last Sunday, on a plane back from the briefest of visits to London, I actually felt like I was coming home.

Truth be told, I noticed a change the week before. But I´ll get to that in a minute.

I had had to take a plane to Jerez because I couldn´t get one to Seville that evening as everything was booked up last minute. But as we banked in a steep curve to come into land at the airport, I could see out of the window the winding Guadalquivir River, the fields, the lagoons and the sea along the coastline from Jerez down past Cadiz. The sun was low in the sky as it was about 9pm and it reflected brightly off the water as the plane came into land from the south.

The feeling took me quite by surprise, I have to say. Because while I´ve always liked Spain, I haven´t felt completely at home here. At least, until now, that is.

I don’t know. Perhaps it was down to the beer I´d had on the plane that was making me feel that way.

But even after getting off the plane, grabbing a taxi and heading into town, the feeling remained.

That same evening Spain beat Italy to win football´s European Championships again. Just like last week, the streets were deserted, the roars and the cheers echoing around the town from bars and homes as people crowded round their TVs.

But making my way back to our flat in a taxi on empty streets, for the first time I felt a genuine pride and connection with the team and the people here which I´ve not felt before in Spain. When I got in and switched on the TV, I even got irritated – it is me after all, so how could something not irritate me, even at a time like that – when a couple of the Spanish players from Barcelona tried to unfurl the Catalan flag as they held the cup aloft. The same thing happened in 2010 when Spain won the World Cup. Then, one of the players enthusiastically waved the red and yellow Catalan flag as he held the Cup too.

Don´t get me wrong. I have nothing particularly against Catalan separatism and pride and the growing calls for independence from Spain, but I did find myself thinking that the players achieved their success wearing the Spanish shirt and with the Spanish people´s support and it seemed to me that they were forgetting this in their excitement to express their political feelings.  What strange affinity with the Spanish was I experiencing?  

I don´t know. Perhaps it was the stodgy Chinese takeaway I was eating as I watched the celebrations on the TV that made me feel that way.

The next morning I had to take the early 7am train back at Seville. As I sat at a window seat and watched the sunflower fields roll by outside against a bright sun low in the sky, I found myself having the same feelings again. A strange peace. A calm. It was a beautiful morning and there wasn´t a cloud in the sky. The carriage was quiet; most of the other passengers were sleeping or dozing. But I was happy to sit there and watch the world go by outside, feeling as if I really belonged.

I don’t know. Maybe it was because I was listening to “So What” by Miles Davis on my MP3 player at the time that made me feel that way.

As the train pulled into the station at a small town not far from Seville, I looked through the railings into the adjoining park and saw a man sitting on a mower winding his way serenely around the trees and up and down in perfectly symmetrical lines. He was an old man, with wrinkled, sun-tanned skin and grey, receding hair, covered by a crooked, battered red and blue baseball cap. He was wearing earphones and I imagined him listening to The Blue Danube by Strauss as he wound his way, almost as if he was in a waltz, around the park apparently with not a care in the world.

I don’t know. Maybe it was because I was listening to The Blue Danube by Strauss on my earphones at the time that made me feel that way.

It had all started the week before when me and the wife had gone to a spa in Seville for a dip in their hydro pools and a back massage.

As we sat there in the pool, embraced by dozens of little bubbles blasting out from jets under the water, for the first time in ages I actually felt quite relaxed. I realised too that, for the first time in a long time, my brain wasn’t whizzing along at a million miles an hour thinking of all the things I had to do.

I always did that when I lived in London. I always had a million different thoughts at the same time. That’s what living in London does to you. Everything moves so fast that you have to move with it or you get trampled in the crush.

So when I first moved to Spain, I was still going at full speed, when everything else around me was going at a far more sedate pace.

But as I sat there in the spa, the bubbles rushing through my swimming trunks like a thousand tiny farts, I took a deep breath and let it wash over me. Metaphorically and physically.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s because things don’t move as fast here as they do where I used to live. And maybe I’m finally beginning to realise that it’s ok to drop down a gear or two.