It Had Commenced Just Like Any Other Day

There has been a cold icy crispness in the air for many weeks now, the rainy season had started right at the beginning of December, much earlier than normal this year, but what was more unusual was its persistence, for usually there would be three or four days of continuous rain before the sun would re-appear again, for up to a week or so, before another three of four days of rainfall. Although, the last two winters have actually been the opposite, unusually warm and dry, hence the following two years of severe drought, no chance of that happening again in 2026, as our local Embalse is currently sitting at 85% of its total capacity and, for safety reasons, they are actually having to conduct controlled releases of some of it. However, like most of Europe, North, South, East and West, last year, since the beginning of December and right through until the first week of January this year, the whole of Europe, including our location right down here in the South, the place everyone associates with perpetual winter sunshine, was being battered with persistent storms, many wreaking havoc and causing widespread floods as they do, and sadly, causing some fatalities as a consequence.

In our immediate area we have not suffered any major flooding since the devastating flood of December 2016, but this year, in a space of just seven days, between Christmas and New Year, we had received two ‘Red Alerts’ on our mobile phones warning of a ‘Danger of Flooding’ in our immediate area. Fortunately, although the storms did arrive as forecasted by the ‘Works of Fiction’, the threat of severe flooding didn’t, it appeared that we had escaped the worst, we discovered later that we had been extremely fortunate, as the small community of Manilva, which is just a ten minute drive further up the hill from us, and Estepona, just across the bay and only a twenty minute drive away, were not so fortunate, with flooded streets and homes, rivers and storm drains had been breached by the rising floodwaters and there just seemed to be no rhyme or reason for why we hadn’t suffered the same fate as our neighbouring communities, or was there ? Before the rainy season started we had witnessed the local council cleaning out all of the street drains, and clearing the storm drains of any debris, going as far as cutting back a lot of overgrown shrubbery lining the flood drains and the river beds, which could hinder the rapid free flow of flood waters from escaping into the sea, perhaps they had learned the hard lessons from the devastation caused nine year’s previously, prior planning and preparation had obviously payed off on this occasion.

Apart from the days when it has been particularly wet, and I have to say that there has been rather a lot of those wet days over the last few weeks, even so, we have started this New Year with pretty much the same pattern of activity as we had ended the previous year, that being with taking our daily walks along the seafront. Our walks are generally just about maintaining mobility, rather than for any real fitness objectives, although when we want to treat them as more of an ‘Exercise Session’ we just tend to up the pace in which we walk and often just extend the distance slightly, but the majority of our daily walks generally tend to be a distance of between 3-4 miles, with of course the mandatory refreshment stop at the midway point, well it would be rude not to wouldn’t it 🤭

One of my particular ‘quirks’, and yes I know that I have many of those, they come naturally, with the privilege of age and that is my excuse and I am sticking to it. So, in addition to my other quirks, or shall we just call them casual pastimes, such as the ‘People Watching’, ‘Fashion Policing’ and of course the ‘Body Beautiful Observations’ is the listening to, and observing, the sights and sounds of nature that is around me. Currently such observations are more related to the noises that accompany the strong, and extremely blustery winds, as they unceremoniously barge a pathway through the Palm Trees without even an excuse me, or to the high pitched whistling as this invisible force makes its way down narrow streets and alleyways kicking out of the way anything in its path, paper, tin cans and sometimes even empty wheelie bins (Trash cans to my readers over the pond). I particularly enjoy listening to the sounds of the waves as they crash on to the shoreline, or watch them, like Olympic gymnasts, leaping much higher than the thick block on block sea defence boulders, that protect the small entrance to the Marina, whipping up a spray of sand, grit and often larger pebbles as they do so, which then lay scattered on the surrounding roads and pathways. As I sit hugging my Vaso (Glass) of Cafe con Leche, I watch, almost hypnotically, at the white clumps of cloud as they race each other across the sky, like busy commuters in a hurry to get to their destinations. The debri strewn across the beach serving as evidence, not that any was required, of the very recent raging ‘Storm Francis’ that had hit our coastline. So I guess, if I really want to analyse my own behaviour’s, our walks are not solely as a means of exercise, or just to get from one point to another, they are actually also an excellent medium by way of promoting a good feeling of mental health, now you cannot argue with that and, as an added bonus, neither do you need to queue up at your GP’s surgery to get a prescription for it 😉

However, one of the downsides of this mental awareness activity is that I could also hear ‘other’, more familiar seasonal wintry sounds, although this time they were an unwanted intrusion emanating from the human element, namely the harsh and persistent guttural sounds of phlegm choking coughs, often going hand in hand with the sounds of sneezes, some gentle whilst other’s were much more boisterous and louder in their nature and, no matter where we walked, or sat, there was to be no respite from them, they attacked us from all directions. So although the weather may not have been the best, even in these much chillier conditions, Shazza and I still choose to sit outside in the fresh air, rather than being inside in the much warmer but more confined spaces, where bacterial infections are able to breed and multiply and are more easily distributed to newer hosts, even without any formal pre-arranged invitation. So yes, as a consequence of the Covid Pandemic, both Shazza and I still suffer with that same ‘paranoia’, although perhaps that is not such a bad trait, as we have both managed to remain free, although probably more by luck than judgement, from any of these more ‘usual’ seasonal bugs, as well as some of the more newer more recent one’s such as the newer strain of Covid, or the more recent wave of the Nora-virus that is doing the rounds. I find it interesting that the media refer to these rampant wandering bacterial infections by their respective official titles, whilst the Government’s and associated Health Authorities are still only loosely referring to them as just ‘Flu Like’ viruses, I wonder what they think they could be 🙄 The mandatory wearing of face masks, in clinical and medical environments and in care homes, has been extended here in Andalusia until the 6th February, this, according to the Regional Health Authority is, more of a precautionary measure, rather than an indication of anything more sinister, and hey, why would we have any cause to disbelieve them I ask myself ?

One morning, when we reached the sanctuary of one of our more usual seafront Cafe’s, two of our four ‘preferred’ choices of hostelry still remaining closed for their extended seasonal breaks, we sat outside, overlooking the promenade, beach and sea but were sheltered from the strong wind by their very efficient external patio windbreak, which was conveniently closed to the windward side but open on the opposite side and to the front. We were warmed a little, from both the piping hot coffee and also from the weaker, but still warm, rays of sunshine that occasionally managed to force itself through the somewhat swiftly moving blocks of thick white cloud. Many of the locals, who were sat on tables around us, obviously because all of the inside tables were occupied, huddled beneath their own deep layers of weather protection, many of whom we observed were constantly sniffling into their paper tissues 😲 As is usual they acknowledged our presence in the usual polite manner, which we obviously returned. Their response, to my comment that it was ‘Muy Frio” (Very Cold), was to give a shrug of their shoulders, smile and respond with, ‘Es Invierno” (It is Winter), but their response was not given in a clever or rude manner, just in a matter of fact sort of way, for yes it was indeed Winter, although some did acknowledge that this latest extended period of cold and wet weather was a little unusual for these parts. We had to smile when a woman, who was in a group of other, more elderly ladies, sat to one side of us, pointed at a person passing by the Cafe, this particular individual was wearing Summer shorts and a tee-shirt !! The elderly woman said, not in what you would reasonably consider to be anywhere like a hushed voice, “Obviamente un visitante del Ártico” (Obviously a visitor from the Arctic) before letting out a loud chuckle, her colleagues laughed, we laughed and several of the occupants on other tables laughed as well. Who says the Spanish don’t have a sense of humour ?

This sort of un-orchestrated chatter amongst strangers is common in Cafe’s and Bars but initially, not long after we had come to live here permanently, when our understanding and knowledge of the local lingo was in its infancy, we could never understand what was being said, or why the sudden laughter, Were they talking about us ? Were they laughing at us ? and although we were never made to feel unwelcome, we couldn’t help but feel a little isolated. So, now that we have a little better understanding, we are happy and much more comfortable in our surroundings, it has been worth the effort trying to learn Spanish, although we are both still a long way from being anywhere near perfect, but we have enough knowledge and understanding to at least now be a part of, and not just on the periphery, of such normal daily interactions.

In recent days, the storms have quelled, the mornings and evenings in particular are still pretty cold for this part of Spain, and the rain has not stopped completely, being more of drizzle or light rain rather than the heavier more torrential stuff, and that wet stuff only appears now for much shorter periods during the day, either at some point during the morning, afternoon or evenings, but rarely now for the whole day. The blue sky has returned, bringing with it longer periods of warming sunshine during the afternoons, and being back to the normal expected winter temperatures, which vary between 14 degrees(c) and, on a really good day, 18 degrees(c) although the strength of the wind remains variable from one day to the next, but we can handle going out in the winds.

Now the storms have passed, well for now at least, and the blocked roads and flooded streets in the nearby villages and towns have been cleared, we decided to go and have a change of view for our daily walk and headed the short distance into Estepona. It was a bright and sunny morning, although as we left home at 10:00am the mercury was still only registering 10 degrees(c) but that was better than the more recent 5-6 degrees(c) 🥶 However, by the by time we had reached our destination it had already risen another 3 degrees(c). We parked on a piece of waste ground opposite the large ‘Carrefour’ supermarket at the Northern end of Estepona which appears to also be the new home for the abundance of Winter Sun van dwellers, some temporary whilst other’s looked a little more long term. Recently the local authorities had put a height barrier across the wasteland by the Marina, this is where the majority of Motorhomers used to congregate, including ourselves in our former nomadic Motorhome days, but now they have re-located to this new piece of wasteland, which is right opposite the large Carrefour supermarket, where I suspect they will now choose to stock up on their groceries, beer and wine, whilst also being able to utilise the convenient eateries, situated both inside and outside of the supermarket, and of course their very convenient toilet facilities, during the hours when the store is open 😉 Now of course this will inevitably mean a loss of revenue to the numerous Cafe/Bars and Restaraunts, and the smaller Supermarket, that are located in the Marina complex. However, looking at it from both viewpoints, this large group of nomadic travellers, in their variety of vehicle sizes, shapes, colours and varying states of aesthetic beauty, will no longer be ‘eye-sores’ (Local media description not my own) for the occupants of the numerous expensive apartments that had to once overlook them. This new location, well currently at least as their is a new block of Apartments being constructed to the side of this wasteland, has no such overlooking issues and to be honest, from a motor-homers perspective, it is probably a much better location, as in addition to the large Supermarket across the road, this particularly large area of wasteland is on much higher ground and so not affected quite as much from the flooding issues as was often the case at the other location, which was often water logged, created by the waves that constantly used to breach the sea wall and from the rain filled potholed ground. The new location has partial views of the sea, and is quite literally just across the road from the promenade, beach and sea and still within a very easy walking distance of the town and all its facilities, probably a little closer than the original waste ground park up, so in the end it has turned out to be a bit of a win-win all round for both parties I suppose, but for how long it will stay that way for the Motorhomers, well that is always the perennial question ?

As we walked in to the town along the promenade we saw the state of the long beach, which was in an identical condition to our own after the latest storm and, as we wandered along some of the smaller back streets we could see that a lot of the litter and debris, washed down on the floodwaters, was still very much evident along with water soaked furniture, and personal possessions, strewn outside homes and the small businesses that had been victims of the flooding. The main reason for visiting Estepona on that particular day, a Sunday, other than the change of views for our daily walk, was that for months Shazza had wanted to go and take a look at the Sunday Farmer’s Market that set up in one of the Plaza’s just behind the main promenade, but we never quite found the enthusiasm to do it 🤷‍♂️ It was a very pleasant walk along the long promenade into the town, their were lots of people, either sauntering, like ourselves just enjoying a period of warm dry weather, their were joggers, cyclists, dog walkers, pram pushers (Some even had children and not dogs in them 😂). Unlike our own town,which is just really a normal working town that just happens to be situated right on the seafront, Estepona is a larger and more of what you would consider a holiday tourist destination, although behind the very long and wide seafront promenade is the main town, a combination of the old town and the new much more modern architecture, but it generally blends in well. I must admit that, had we have been able to have afforded it at the time, we would have preferred to have bought a property here, but even then, back in early 2015 , the property prices were out of our price range, now over ten years later, they are way beyond it, so beggars cannot be choosers, as the saying goes, although we do just happen to live in a pretty nice and slightly less touristy location, beauty is in the eye of the beholder as another saying goes.

We made our way to the location of this advertised ‘Sunday Farmers Market’ only to discover that their were just two stalls, each of which displayed the barest minimum of produce, the bulk of it being Oranges, this being the picking season for them. So it appeared that this is more of a Summer Attraction, and our lethargy in not getting here sooner had been to our own detriment, well for one of us it was, speaking for myself, I wasn’t particularly that bothered, I mean ‘ just how many vegetables can a person eat 🤷‍♂️’ Although instant reflection on that question, what with Shazza still well into her our ‘Plant Based’ dietary regime, that was probably a very stupid question Eric, just plain stupid ! Although ‘our’ local Fruiteria owner will be pleased to discover that he won’t be going out of business any time soon 😂 We had not come with any intention of visiting the main shopping area, it would have literally have just been window shopping anyway, because the majority of the retail shops in the main town area were closed, unlike a lot of places these days were Sunday’s are just normal shopping days, Spain still adheres to the Catholic principle of it being a rest day, that is apart from some specific periods during the Calendar year when it would appear that commercialism overrules principles 🤭 Anyway, the temperature had continued to rise as we walked around, it was now a very pleasant 18 degrees(c), so we walked back along the seafront, stopped at our usual seafront cafe when we are in Estepona, for a coffee and sandwich. The seafront was well busy now, not quite the levels of the Summer crowds, but it provided more than sufficient ‘People Watching’ opportunities, I could have stayed in that exact spot for the rest of the afternoon but Shazza had other ideas. She needed a new large saucepan and ‘Carrefour’ would have exactly what she needed, and it was the last time, after the recent festive period, that it would be permitted to be open on a Sunday. Strange really, before arriving Shazza had told me that she only needed one new saucepan, yet we left the store with not only the said saucepan, but also two new cutlery knives and a couple of new pillows for the bed, items that we also apparently required, although were never once mentioned before entering the store 🤔

A couple of days later when we went out on one of our normal daily walks, ‘It Had Commenced Just Like Any Other Day’, it was a bit overcast and chilly, but dry, the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast some rain for later in the afternoon, and for many more days in the coming week, so we decided to get out whilst we still could. We were just approaching the Southern end of our local town when, in the distance at one end of the promenade I could see a Guardia Civil police vehicle parked up by the promenade wall, on the actual pedestrian walkway, with its blue lights flashing. My curiosity was raised, could it be that they were waiting to intercept another inflatable dinghy with ‘unauthorised’ Immigrants about to be offloaded on to our beach, or drug smugglers ? These are regular activities that occur all along the whole stretch of this coastline, from La Linea in the South all the way up and beyond Malaga to the North. As we got closer we could see a second Guardia Civil vehicle, one uniformed Officer was stood right on the front of the beach and it looked like he was filming something in the water on his mobile phone, but their was no vessel anywhere nearby, three other Officers were stood on the promenade, one had binoculars hung around his neck. We stood and looked out to see but at first we could not see anything, then as our gaze went to just in front of where the Officer on the beach was standing, we saw something in the water, it appeared to be floating on the surface, but barely moving, with the swells of the waves we could not make out what it was, perhaps a clump of bin bags, a stash of drugs which had perhaps fallen overboard, or been discarded, by smugglers, or perhaps a body 😲 We watched for several minutes, intrigued as to what this shape was in the water, it was close to shore but just a little too far out to wade in and retrieve it, we could hear conversation going on over the police hand held radios that they were carrying, perhaps they had called for a police boat to assist them ? A small crowd had begun to form, we were part of it, and so Shazza asked one of the locals, in perfect Spanish, if they knew what was going on. “Una gran tortuga quedó atrapada en las redes de los pescadores” (A large sea turtle is trapped in fishermen’s nets) they told her. As we continued to watch we saw a large flipper, and I do mean large, it appeared out of the water and was thrashing around frantically, then its large head popped above the surface, this was certainly no small turtle you see regularly in the rivers here, but what was this large species doing here, and this close to shore ?The poor animal was gasping for breath each time it managed to raise its head out of the water, but the weighted net was pulling it down and keeping it under the water, it was obviously getting extremely tired as it struggled continuously to free itself, the frequency of it coming up for air was getting fewer and fewer.

I have often watched nature documentaries on TV which show the impact of pollution in our oceans, many that show a wide variety of species getting trapped in discarded fishing equipment, nets, ropes and many other plastic products, but I never expected to witness it happening before my very eyes on our own stretch of public beach here in Spain. Now to be clear, this turtle was not trapped in a ‘discarded’ fishing net, this small net was one which the local fishermen stretch out from small fishing boats that are, when not in use, parked up on the beach and then hand hauled into the shallow water, they are put out and recovered in the same day but the timings vary according to the tides. The nets remain close to shore to catch generally the small Boquerones (Anchovies) that swim in huge numbers up and down the coastline. We do on occasions during our walks, or whilst sat enjoying our coffee, see pods of dolphins hunting and feasting on them, but we have never seen large turtles like this one along our coastline before. We stood and watched as this terrible scene played out before us for around twenty-minutes, then with no obvious signs of help arriving from land or sea we decided that we didn’t want to watch the animal drown, so we continued with our walk into the town.

After first visiting our usual Fruiteria on the upper high street, where I thought it best not to mention that we were only there because Shazza could not find anything at the Estepona Farmers Market 🤭 We then headed back down to the Plaza where we had noticed earlier that ‘Annie’s’ Cafe/Bar had re-opened. Shazza claimed an empty outside table whilst I went inside to order, on warmer days we would usually just sit, soaking up the warm sunshine, waiting for Annie, or her son ‘Juanma’, to come out and take our order, but as it was overcast and still quite chilly in the Easterly breeze, we chose haste over leisure. Annie was stood behind the bar when I entered and a big beaming smile came across her face when she saw me walking towards her, she scurried around and gave me a hug, and the traditional friendly greeting of a kiss on either cheek, “Hola, Que tal ? (Hello, how are you) she enquired, “Feliz Ano Nuevo, soy Muy bien gracias, et tu ?” (Happy New Year, I am very well thank you, and you ?) I responded. I placed our usual order of two coffees but also added a bacon roll for myself, a rare occurrence these days I hasten to add, Shazza had her much healthier breakfast before leaving home. When Annie delivered our coffee’s outside, she copied the same friendly greeting with Shazza, this extra friendly behaviour is what probably makes this particular Cafe/Bar our favourite, that, and the fact that Annie is our unofficial local language tutor. Not that any of our other three usual Cafe/Bars are unfriendly, quite the opposite, but in them we are just like the other’s, a couple of their regulars who exchange the basic verbal pleasantries.

On our walk back we could see the larger crowd that had amassed around where there was now a turtle rescue operation in full swing. A small motorised Guardia Civil vessel was on the scene, the two people on board attempting to cut the fishing net, but it looked difficult, the swell kept moving the boat dangerously close to the beach where, under the water were sharp rugged rock formations, so every so often one of the rescuers would have to rush back to the wheelhouse to re-manoeuvre the vessel into a safer position. Of course the additional problem was that the turtle was in a distressed state, it had no idea that these people were trying to help it, for all it knew was that they may have been the one’s whose net it had been entrapped in and they were going to kill it, so it became a tug of war as, even in its exhausted state, it still attempted to swim clear and thrashed its large flipper in and out of the water. Thankfully, after watching for what must have been another thirty or forty minutes, one of the rescuers gave a thumbs up signal and we saw the large shape swim out to deeper water and disappear under it. We hoped that it had not been injured, either from its own initial struggles to free itself from the net, or from the resulting rescue attempts.

There are many days when we make this same walk where we see nothing out of the ordinary, but then, very occasionally we witness events like this, or a pod of hunting dolphins rounding up a shoal of sardines then feasting upon them or, fuel smugglers loading large containers from the beach onto a waiting boat even, although some years ago now, a shootout on the beach between the police and drug smugglers who had had their motorised dinghy forced onto the beach by an overhead Guardia Civil helicopter. Over our past ten year’s or so we still consider our lives here to be a bit ‘Forrest Gump’, not with just the weather but with daily life in general, ‘You just never know what you are going to get’.

When we returned home I had to satisfy my curiosity about what sort of large turtle this could possibly have been so ‘Mr Google’ was called upon to assist. I discovered, to my surprise, that there are several species of Oceanic Turtles that survive throughout the Mediterranean, but the largest are the endangered ‘Loggerhead’ and also the ‘Green’ turtles, but which one we had seen we couldn’t really establish, the size could have matched either but if it had have been the Loggerhead, weighing in at an average of 180Kg, then I can understand why the rescue had been so difficult.

The forecasted rain from the ‘Works of Fiction’ predictions, which was supposed to arrive at around 3pm, finally made an appearance eight hours later 🙄 I awoke several times during the night and could hear it tapping quite loudly on the external security shutters but, by the morning, when we got up, it was dry and bright, but no sunshine. This, according to the ‘Works of Fiction’, would be the same weather pattern for the coming week, so we would have to rely on our own ‘Forrest Gump’ methodology to determine whether when, or if, we could get out for more of our walks 🤷‍♂️

Just before I finish with this latest ramble I have to just provide you, my reader’s, with some evidence to support my belief that this world of our’s has actually gone ‘Stark Raving Barking Mad’, and yes, the Pun is intended.

Until my next ramble…………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena