Lonely and inept… thank goodness for lettuces!

Look at my Lollo Rosso!! It landed in the office 2 hours after being picked in the field, and it was free, and it’s such a good-looking lettuce, and all this combined to lift my spirits. Guess what I had for lunch today!

But why do my spirits need lifting? The turbulent landing that my plane made into the airport presaged the emotions of my first night back. I was happy to be going to work the following day, but socially I wobbled. Despite the amicability of my flatmates, I didn’t feel at ease at “home”; didn’t feel I could sit and read a book without somehow being judged for it. This triggered the realisation that I haven’t yet any friends here – I haven’t met anybody “like me”, whether British or Spanish. There’s nobody who I’ve clicked with. At work I’ve felt very much the “new English girl”, lacking in skill, experience and words, and outside work… I just don’t know where to look. I was pretty down.

But then I pulled myself together. Told myself to relax, and go with the flow. Told myself that things would get easier socially, one way or another. Told myself that this was just the shock of coming back to Spain after such a sociable week in the UK. Told myself it was all good and character building. Told myself above all to throw my efforts into my work and learning Spanish – 6 months isn’t long, and I’ve so much to learn.

And learn I have, this week. There have been times when I’ve felt that so much is expected of me that my head can’t take it. Wednesday lunchtime found me taking refuge in the toilet with a few frustrated tears. I didn’t understand the pallet-scanning processes that were being explained to me, and so how could I hope to solve the pallet-scanning problems that I was charged with? And once again I pulled myself together. And eventually I began to understand, and by Saturday lunchtime I was getting there. Not perfect, and not even close to perfect, but passable. The founder of the company I’m working for was known for saying “’that’ll do’ wont do”. But for now, passable will do for me.

A lot of colleagues from the UK headquarters were over in Spain this week for a “Growers’ Meeting”. This means that there has been a certain expectation to socialise with my colleagues. Although I’ve felt out of place with them – they have all been with the company for a long time, know each other well, are predominantly male and much older than me – they’ve treated me well, and it has been interesting to meet some of the more important company bods. And it goes without saying that I’ve been well fed, courtesy of company credit cards. Last night we ended up in a fancy fish restaurant (followed by my first –brief- experience of clubbing in Spain, and clubbing with non-students. I’d still prefer a book and a cuppa!). I dread to think how much it all cost, and I never thought I’d hear the argument “it’s on the celery account today” – “No, it’s the leafy salad account’s turn!”. I also never thought I’d come across quartered boiled eggs in a soup (not at the posh restaurant, I hasten to add, although a beautiful piece of baked mullet did come accompanied by fried eggs on toast!). And yet both of them really happened.

On the subject of strange things, I met my first praying mantis this week – look!

I hope it got away before the car it was playing on drove off. My boss told me there was a big green splat on the ground when he left work that evening, but I didn’t believe him - it was dark when he left, so there’s still hope. Did you know that female praying mantises have a tendency to eat their mates after mating? Feminism taken to the extreme?

I also saw a robin in a palm tree, which pleased me immensely, mostly because the words fit to the metre of the punchline of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. I’m considering rewriting the song to fit a Spanish theme. So it is that little things have got me smiling this week. The simplest thing to make me happy? This grass, shining in the sun.

Here in Murcia, grass this green generally only exists on well watered golf courses (a source of strong political contention in the area: should water be conserved for agriculture – the backbone of the region – or does the tourism of the golf courses merit the same claim on this limited resource?). This, however, was growing wild amid the beige dust, and so a smile grew with it.