A Riddle Reflected: Death by ice cream

Whether the post-mortem would have found the death to have been caused by hypothermia or hyperglycaemia is doubtful. What is certain is that after two minutes of woozily wandering over my half-eaten hazelnut ice cream, the fly died. Had I not already had my fill of my mountainous dessert, I would have considered it a tragedy. Luckily for me (though, I appreciate, not for the fly), aided by a stomach full of pizza and pud I was able to see the funny side.

I was dining with one of my employers from the UK, who had flown out to see me and to review my progress here so far. That afternoon we walked and talked and dined and laughed like loons at a dead fly, attracting odd looks from the waiter. The following day brought my review… which was positive in every way. I’m fulfilling and exceeding their expectations, and their only criticisms of me were my lack of self-confidence and that I undersell myself. So I guess that’s something to work on. My worry though is that there’s a very fine line between confidence and arrogance… and while I would love to be able to act with more confidence, I can think of few character traits I despise less than arrogance.

This week has been a very bitty kind of a week. We’re into our most busy period of the year at work – the countdown to the Christmas rush in the supermarkets – so work is fairly intense. And yet this week there were two bank holidays here in Spain, and so although I worked both of them (with slightly shorter hours than a regular day), most of the Spaniards completely disappeared on Tuesday and Thursday, leaving the office strangely quiet. The first holiday was 6^th December – Spanish Constitution Day. When Franco died in 1975 after his dictatorship of 36 years, a new constitution was needed. This constitution was approved in December 1978 by an enormous 88% of the population, and this is what is celebrated once a year. Except that there are no celebrations to speak of… it’s just that everything closes. The same can be said of 8^th December, except that this fiesta is religious rather than political – the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Apparently Seville is the place to be on 8^th December, with big dances and singing and street parties. Anyway, the place to be definitely wasn’t where I live! I’ve heard it said that Christmas officially begins here on December 8^th (I suppose it makes sense for it to be the day that Jesus was supposedly conceived) but there are still few signs of it here. Just a few sparse street decorations:

I had a few lovely moments out walking this week. There are a certain few characters (other oddballs who feel the urge to get up and out at 6:30am!) who I see every day – a little old man with a flat cap and twinkly eyes who I pass twice, saying once hello and once goodbye; an even older man with a voice like gravel who is always plugged into music; a woman whose age I can’t gauge because she cycles past in a white raincoat, a scarf around her mouth and a white cowboy hat on her head (she always makes me giggle)… and then another old man, with whom I would normally share greetings. This week, however, he came towards me as if to talk to me, and proceeded to do so with a smile and a thick Murcian accent and a heavy smoker’s rasp. I didn’t understand a word, and so, smiling and apologising, I told him so, and that I was English. He smiled back and said, slower (but still in Spanish) “you’re lovely. You make me smile”. How lovely is that?! I didn’t see him the following morning… but as I finished work early that afternoon I went down to the sea to catch a few afternoon rays, and he cycled past me and waved. He doesn’t just get a smile now, he gets a full grin.

Things have been looking up a bit at work too, mostly because I’ve started taking my lunch with me. Not many people do it, but there are four or five Spaniards who do, and so I’ve started to get to know them a little better. Of course, this also means that I get a good 45minutes of solid Spanish listening in too, and occasionally I’ve even been able to join in. One of them is a Pole who came to Spain without a word of Spanish six years ago and she’s now fluent, so she’s very sympathetic to my position! I’ve even made progress at the gym, in the form of a garrulous 14-year old Hungarian who speaks perfect Spanish and goes to my dance class. AND a few members of the cool crowd (yes, it’s like at school, there’s a cool crowd – they’re the weight-lifting, lycra-donning, slightly intimidating thirtysomethings) asked timid old me if I was going to their Christmas Party. Unfortunately I can’t – it’d be a great way to get to know people – but it’s the same night as my work Christmas do… but more on that next weekend!!!

My linguistic skills also got an outing this week in the form of a trip to the doctors as an interpreter for a Lithuanian colleague (not that I was translating into Lithuanian… now that really would have been impressive!!) and his 3-year old son. So I’m now much more proficient in talking about ear and throat infections, high temperatures, antibiotics and ibuprofen. And I’ve learned – after literally hours of fruitlessly trawling the area for a pharmacy that would serve us past 8pm – that Spain has designated “emergency chemists”. They look as if they’re all boarded up and closed… but they have a little grille in the wall like this one:

You ring the bell and speak over the intercom, and the little box opens underneath it. You put in your prescription and it closes again. A couple of minutes later it opens again and the voice tells you how much you owe. You put money in the box, it closes, and then opens again with your medicine and your change in a plastic bag. Fascinating stuff! I also learned my first word of Lithuanian that evening – lektuvas . It means aeroplane. It might be useful one day, you never know…

And finally, the bit you’ve all been waiting for – the advent calendar!! So….

… on Sunday 4^th there was a choir girl with a flickering candle.