throw another dog on the fire

When we lived in the pueblo of Ruté, our neighbour Andrés, appeared at the door one day and asked me to look at the damage he had inflicted on our car whilst he had been reversing past. As the damage was slight, I pointed out all of the other small dents and scrapes that seem to have accumulated over the months and despite his protestations, told him that it wasn’t worth involving the insurers. He obviously didn’t want to be left beholden to us and asked if we needed anything so bearing in mind that he is an olive farmer, I said that we could do with a little firewood.

A couple of weeks went by before he and his wife, Antonia, arrived at the door with a large rubber bowl full of seasoned olive wood and after we had unloaded it he asked if we wanted more. Well, we always want more of anything so he and I went back to his house to collect it. Stepping through their front door was like going back into the late 1940’s; everything was immaculate and there were little check curtains over alcoves, lace cloths on tables, the furniture was solid but very old and the house had that “just scrubbed” look. Antonia was working in the kitchen (skinning a rabbit or disemboweling a chicken for dinner), mother was sat at a table in the parlour with her feet and legs covered with a table cloth and the walls were dotted with religious icons and family photos which probably pre-dated Eastman’s inventions.

As we walked into the back garden, my nostrils were assailed by animal smells with Andres’s assertions to “mind the mierda”. Now, it’s funny thing that when you learn a new language the first words you remember are the one’s that you would not use in polite company and “mierda” is one of those words. He was right; “mierda” was everywhere. Two dogs, several cats, about 20 chickens and possibly 50 rabbits ensured that this was a “mierda” factory of world class proportions. I now knew why we had so many flies buzzing around our patio; there just wasn’t enough air space in Andrés’s garden for them to fly without radar !

In the gloom of the furthest reaches of the animal shelters was the largest wood pile in Andalucia and as Andrés refilled the rubber bowl, I tried to breath through my mouth whilst retaining a polite smile on my face which I hoped didn’t appear too strained.

I unloaded the bowl at home, returned it to Andrés still with my polite smile and as I handed it over, noticed that rolling around in the bottom was a small, dried dog turd….

We didn’t handle the firewood again but our guests were really appreciative of the warmth that it gave to them.