The opening of the swimming pool was very much a BIG THING. We wandered up about 3 in the afternoon and it was packed. The bar that is. I think that everyone in the village was there, again, all the generations were amply represented. The party continued and there was much drinking and eating. The spanish have a different attitude towards health and safety. proper glasses were being used and beer and wine was being drunk outside on the grass where people were walking bare foot, huge picnics appeared and were consumed followed by immediate swimming etc. I commented to someone that this would be unheard of at a british council pool. ‘Why’, he said ‘are British people careless?’ Of course no one drowned or injured and a good time was had by all.
One thing that was interesting is that given the relaxed attitude to the above, the spanish are extremely concious of the sun. The bar was packed and outside all the shaded areas were packed. People were stood packed like sardines under umbrellas or under the shade of the building. If you happened to expose even an arm into the sun you were grabbed and bought back into the safety of the shade. I needed to go to the bank and was going to walk and this was greated with shock and invitations to drive me. Actually that is another thing we have noticed is that the villagers do drive very short distances. In fact someone made a joke about this saying that they drive to the shops and then drive home to go for a walk. Meaning I guess that the evening ‘paseos’ are completely different to a walk to the shops.
I lost Dookems last night. Couldn’t find him anywhere, I looked outside, inside, everywhere I could think of. Just when I was really starting to worry, I saw Schnookems looking into the dog cage, and there along with the pups was a little kitten head looking out at me. Dookems was obviously in the cage when we put the dogs away and was quite happy to stay there. He is a funny little thing!