Open Writing

It's February, and it was at the end of this month a year ago that our furniture arrived from England.

January and the early part of February had brought glorious weather, chilly but sunny and dry, that is until the 27th, when the clouds moved in bringing initially rain, then glory, glory snow!

David had moved into our house in August 2003. Well house is probably a slight exaggeration. The walls of the house are of stone and are about a metre and a half thick, thus in the hot summer months the interior living rooms are cool. However this also means that in the autumn and winter months the interior is, to but it mildly, bloody freezing!

When we bought the house we had the romantic notion of keeping all the original fittings. The range, fuelled by the wood in the Bodega was too good to throw out, wasn't it? The quaint shutters on the tiny paned windows were so charming. The pine floors throughout the bedrooms and living rooms gave the rooms an authentic ambience.

Like hell!

I remained in England, returning "home" every six weeks or so and after the flurry of excitement on seeing Dave again, the house inspection proceeded. I wasn't impressed.

Dave had been in the bar (where else?) asking if anyone knew of a good electrician. After a couple of days, Isaac introduced himself, and very soon the house was being re-wired.

Now, Isaac is 72 years old and would put younger men to shame with his work. That is when he turned up. Here, as in most of Spain, there are always fiestas, even in winter. Not the full blown ones, but just the odd day when for some saint's cause or another, the whole place comes to a standstill. I had to believe it, when Dave told me that there were an awful lot of them last year.

I digress.

Isaac, typical of many senors around here, is a little over 5 foot, and a polite word to describe him would be rotund. He "adopted" Dave. After the day's work, he would not let Dave spend nights alone, whisking him off to the various bars in Monforte, purely for observation, I was informed.

Whilst being a good electrician, Isaac tends to be a little on the clumsy side. As far as switches are concerned, providing the power goes on and off it is irrelevant whether they are upside down or right way up.

Sorry, I'm waffling. Moving day.

Originally we had arranged with the removal company to ship our belongings over at their convenience. This may seem a little odd but it suited us, allowing Dave the much needed time to organise the really heavy work that was required. As well as new windows, new kitchen and central heating, (sense prevailed!), on my Christmas visit we decided that the lovely wooden pine floors really weren't that lovely. Whilst respecting our fellow creatures of the Earth, woodworm I could do without.

We had a chat with Carlos the carpenter to find out the cost of new hard wood floors. The quote was exceptionally reasonable, so we extended it to include new doors and frames. The work would also help alleviate the drop in the slope of the floor, thus reducing the "run" that was initially the case. It was at times like being on a ship, especially if you were carrying heavy packages. You'd open the door and whoos... you'd be in the kitchen in the blink of an eye.

Really I must stop going off on a tangent!

The removal company telephoned. The furniture was being shipped over on the following day and the drivers would be with us at about 6 o'clock on the day following that,all being well.

All was not well. It started snowing. Not gentle snow to glisten the branches and brighten the dull, dark paths. Oh no! The sort that starts and goes on and on, until the roads are blocked and everything, including our furniture, was held up for hours.

Another telephone call.

Sorry, the drivers will arrive about 11 o'clock. Could you arrange somewhere local for them to sleep?

And yet another call. Forget that. They will sleep in the cab. Expect the furniture around 10 am tomorrow morning.

The day broke - which hopefully would be the only thing to break!

10 am arrives. No lorry,

11 am. No lorry.

Phone call. Slight problem. The lorry got stuck in the car park and whilst getting out lost the fuel cap!

By this time, our faithful friend Isaac had arrived. He decided that it would be best for him to direct the lorry to our house and trolled off in his little yellow van down to the entrance to the town.

Our house is situated in a little village, 2 km from the town, where the road is a normal road. On turning into our village, it narrows, then narrows further still until the section of it leading to our house is only slightly wider than a car's width.

We had advised the removal company of this fact. They said were going to send a small lorry with a detachable forklift.

At 2pm Isaac returned. The lorry had arrived. He'd been patiently waiting at the bottom of the road since 11 am for its arrival. Bless!

At 2pm it started to rain. It was not a small lorry that finally arrived but a huge double lorry, with no forklift.

Well there's was nothing else for it but to manhandle our furniture from the lorry. About a third of the lorry's space was filled with our goods. The rest of our stuff was in the lorry's trailer, which was in a lay-by some way from the house.

Once the furniture was unloaded all hell broke loose. From all the houses nearby, neighbours descended. With the help of wheelbarrows, cars and that little yellow van our goods was transported from the top of the village, downhill to our house.

At one point I was carrying a precious ornament in my arms. At my rear the drivers were following with a mattress. Leading our merry procession were two neighbours bearing a box between them, all the time holding an umbrella. I wish we had a picture of that.

As I mentioned before, Isaac has a tendency to be clumsy. I remember vividly when he was "walking" a sofa on its end In my best Spanish I tried telling him to desist. However it wasn't until I shouted "Isaac NO!" that he finally allowed Dave to take over.

Eventually, after another neighbour had revived us with strong coffee, strong liquors and cakes, the day was over. The removal men drove away, taking some of our stuff with them, as we discovered later, to deliver the rest of their cargo in Portugal.

At last, we were able to sleep in our own bed with sheets, pillowcases and a duvet. Dave could finally stop sleeping in the flannelette pillowcase as had been his wont. Don't ask. You try sleeping with only a duvet cover filled with a mattress cover in the mid of winter. It was the only way he could keep warm whilst I was in England - or so he tells me.