Threat Of An Unlawful Eviction !

Now of course, you all know by now that down here, in our little corner of the Iberian Peninsula, there are, practically speaking, only two Seasons in our calendar year, Very Hot, which is generally the period between June and August, and Less Hot, which is the remainder of the year, and that, I do have to say, is perfectly fine by me. So okay, maybe that is not the case everywhere else in Spain and so yes, officially speaking, there are still four seasonal changes and apparently, one of those changes took place on the 23rd September, that being the start of ‘Otono’ (Autumn). Anywhere else, these changes are quite visible, the leaves on the trees change colour and, in mixed woodlands, this can lead to the most wonderful colourful visual displays, with varying shades of greens, browns, reds and yellows and then, gradually, the leaves start to fall to the ground and it’s the time to go foraging for all the seasonal fruits, the berries and the sweet horse chestnuts being the most abundant at this time of year.

For those of us down here at sea level however, it is of course a very different picture, as we still continue to wear our tee-shirts, shorts and flip-flops and continue to enjoy the warm daytime and evening temperatures, when the swimming pools are still very much swimmable without the need for any additional neoprene protection 😂 However, the reality is that we too will start to feel the change soon, but not usually until mid to late October, when these current 27 degree(c) temperatures will start to drop to nearer 22-23 degrees(c), the pool water then only really suitable for those who enjoy cold water swimming, and the evenings will start to feel a little chillier, dropping to between 18-19 degrees(c) and that will mean that it will be time to dig out the long-sleeved shirts, the long trousers and we will be forced into wearing those infernal socks and shoes again 😲 Perhaps, when the winds pick up, we may also start to get the very occasional few hours in the day when we get a smattering of the wet stuff, we may even be forced to wear a warmer top layer, a sweater or lightweight hoodie but……….. just hang on a minute and don’t be so hasty lad, ‘Hold That Front Page’ !! for, according to the ‘Works of Fiction’………………….

But we know by now don’t we ? At just how inaccurate these ‘Works of Fiction’ advance forecasts are and, given that neither they, or the media, are actually very good at understanding the geographical layout of Spain, their South being very much different to the actual South 🙄 so, we are remaining prepared for the potential down shift in the temperatures, the moths have now been evicted from the wardrobes and drawers, our cooler months stash of clothing have been recovered from their storage containers under the bed, and are freshened up in the washing machine, although their is not a lot of space in our wardrobes or drawers, as we are keeping out our Summer attire, just in case the ‘Once In A Blue Moon’ scenario happens where the ‘Works of Fiction’ actually get their forecast correct.

Now I don’t know with any accuracy whether anywhere in Spain actually got the forecasted 37 degrees(c), all I kept reading about in the Spanish National Media was in relation to the floods in more Northerly parts, Galicia, Asturias, Cataluña and even just up the coast from us, in Malaga City, and that these conditions would be followed by much more stormy conditions, I am only surprised that I have not, as yet, read about the ‘Lynching’ of those employed in the Meteorological profession 🤷‍♂️

But the news here, from ‘your’ man on the ground, which will be me then 🤭 is that, in the main, we have kept our more usual weather conditions, no 37 degrees of course just our more usual 26-27 degrees, but then again we already know not to trust the so called ‘Experts’. But to be completely transparent with you, five days into this official ‘Otono’ period, on Monday 28th September to be exact, we did awake to no sunshine or blue sky, instead it was with, what I can only describe as being a be-speckled sky, white and grey clouds and, from my balcony observation post, I noticed that the pavement below was wet. There was only the faintest hint of a breeze and the external temperature had dropped to 23 degrees(c), their was a very light, almost unnoticeable drizzle falling horizontally, which meant that we could still sit on the balcony with the doors open. Even this minimalistic amount of water gave the surrounding grass, shrubs, trees and flowers a much more radiant and refreshing appearance, whilst it would not have prevented us from going out, if we had wanted to, instead, the two of us unanimously agreed that we would use this break in the weather to have a full on domestics day, rather than just the shorter weekly ‘essentials’ version, which was quite timely really, what with Shazza’s mum arriving in just six days time (Sooner by the time I actually get around to publishing this ramble). However, and as is pretty usual here, by early evening on that same day, the light drizzle had stopped, the clouds had parted and the sun made a brief appearance before dusk arrived, which is another visual sign of the change of season here as it now gets dark by 8:30pm.

The following morning, normal service had resumed once again and we went for our usual morning walk, refreshments stop and people watching activities before driving to our local fuel station to fill up the car with diesel, ready for our upcoming Airport run. Now of course, we have also read about the fuel shortages in France and the UK, and some other countries within Europe.

However, Spain it would appear has announced that there are no such risks to the availability of fuel here, either Petrol or Diesel, as it has it’s own Refineries and it only relies on imports of around 4% of oil which is transported through the Strait of Hormuz.

Well, shortage or no, it still hasn’t taken the Spanish fuel companies long, to use the fuel shortages elsewhere as an excuse to put up the prices here too, so it came as somewhat of a shock when, for the basic diesel, not the stuff with added this or that, and for which I had previously been paying €1.75 per litre (£1.50), but on this occasion I discovered that I was now having to pay €2.04c a litre (£1.75) 😲 Now correct me if I am wrong but this is known as ‘Profiteering’ and it goes on all the time, with every type of public consumable, and worst of all they all get away with it 😡 However, when there is no longer a shortage, those prices do not fall and, if they do, they are nowhere near as much as the increases were, or as quickly. I know, it’s pointless me ranting about it as there is nothing whatsoever that us mere mortals can do about it. Fortunately, and yes, speaking with my completely selfish head on, personally we don’t generally tend to use very much fuel and in truth, this was actually the first time that we had re-fuelled the car since June 🙄 Not sure why that happened as we do usually refuel at least once a month 🤔 But for everyone else here in Spain, the Government have once again stepped in and announced that as from the 1st October they are discounting the price of both Diesel and Petrol, at the Pumps, by €0.20c per litre, well every little helps, although I wish I had known that before I had refuelled 🤷‍♂️

Now then, the beginning of this current ramble has just been a bit of preamble before I hit you with what has really been going on here, and believe me when I tell you that it is serious for I have now just discovered that I may be being subject to a ‘Threat Of An Unlawful Eviction’ 😲

It started quite surreptitiously, from just a small rather insignificant event which had begun over twelve months ago, but has now progressed into something akin to a heavy truck without any brakes, travelling down a very steep hill and gathering pace very very quickly 😲 What had commenced as just being a quite innocent ‘seed’ of a thought has now ‘grown’ into a reality that I had not foreseen and, quite importantly I should add, for which I have not, as yet, received any formal written, or verbal, communication on the subject and have only become aware that this process has already commenced through my own observations 😳

However, as I now reflect back on it, I should really have been aware that the early warning signs were there but, in my defence, even my OCD Buddy, who is generally quite alert to potential advance changes in my personal circumstances, he too had also been blindsided by this one 😲 So, you may be asking yourselves at this point, ‘What on earth am I going on about, Eviction ? How ? Why ?’, so, if you are sitting comfortably, then I will begin to tell you the whole story, from what I now realise was the real beginning of how this had started……………..

It was over a year ago, Shazza and I had been on one of our routine annual trips back to the UK, to visit family and friends. On one of those days we had taken a drive out in the countryside where we had made an unscheduled stop to visit a Garden Centre, that we had noticed as we were passing, it being one of those with a Cafeteria. As you already know, we live in an apartment in Spain, and not on the ground floor, so we don’t have any real outside space or a garden, so we were not there to purchase anything of that nature and, in all honesty, neither Shazza or I have what you may describe as ‘Green Fingers’ although, I do have to say that many years ago, when we did have a house and garden, it was usually me that cut the lawns, yes ‘Lawns’ as in the plural, for we had three of them, a larger one to the rear and two much smaller one’s to the front, I also weeded, and tended to the various flower beds, although I will state here and now that I hadn’t stooped down so low as to purchase a greenhouse to grow our own produce, for in those days we were still fully committed patrons of the ‘Carniverous Diet’ 😂 So no, we had just made that unscheduled stop solely because it was at a certain important time of the day, the time when one of Shazza’s automatic stomach clock alarm’s sounded, she has three such gastronomical alarms, Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, and it was already a little after midday, so she needed feeding as a matter of urgency, otherwise I would certainly suffer the aftermath for the remainder of that day 😲 So, we had only stopped there as it was a convenient time for us to partake of lunch, the bonus being that we knew, from past experiences of stopping at other similar locations, that they always do nice freshly made sandwiches or rolls, with generous fillings and also, beautiful home-baked scones and cakes which, without fail, always taste so yummy and so of course, with such a vast variety of temptations that we would be faced with, we were always willing to forego those all important calory counts and dietary health principles 🤭

Now many of these Cafeterias are actually located within the Garden Centres themselves, not a separate building or facility, and so, after a very pleasant and filling lunch, we decided to take a stroll and look at what was on show, it would have been rude not to, as usual in these sorts of places there were a wide variety of Seasonal Flowering Plants, Herbs, Bushes and miniature trees on display and for sale, along with associated outdoor garden furnishings and cooking stations, Barbecues, Pizza Ovens, Chimeneas etc, and of course the usual vast array of Garden Ornaments and Fountains, “If we still had a house and garden we could spend a fortune here” we both said to each other as we casually wandered around. However, and this where the slippery slope started, as is usual at these places, they also have a section where you can purchase packets of various seeds, flowers, vegetables, herbs all that sort of stuff, and that, my friends, is where the future potential eviction story starts because, for some inexplicable reason, Shazza decided to purchase several packs of seeds to bring back to Spain to start growing her own Herbs in Pots 🤷‍♂️ Now what you need to understand, and remember, is that Shazza has never before shown any sort of green fingered inclinations, although since starting our ‘Plant Based Dietary Regime’, over six years ago now, she has made the occasional murmurings about buying a property with a small garden, in order to go some way to us becoming self-sufficient, although she had always quickly discounted the idea, when she gave some thought to the personal and physical consequences of such an action, what with all the ‘seasonal’ efforts that would have to be involved, through Spring, Summer and Autumn, although Winter may have perhaps of provided some respite from the more physical requirements, but even so, all of this would require dedicating time, which would detract from much more of her favoured daily engagements, morning walks and coffee stops, partaking of extended lunches at beachfront Chiringuitos, her two or three hour swimming pool and solar basting sessions, reading her books, doing her Spanish lessons, and, as she was quick to point out, “Everything would surely die when we went on our extended ‘Road Trips’”. I smiled, for I knew that she wouldn’t need long to talk herself out of this crazy idea and, I had of course had to agree with her, she had delivered a very strong case, before agreeing with her that she had come to a very sensible conclusion, “It is certainly very much easier and convenient just to drive to our nearby Organic Farm, Fruiteria or Supermarket to gather all of our vegetables, herbs and fruits” I had said. Now I had genuinely believed that she had allowed the Herb Garden idea to just fizzle out of her mind, and that the half dozen or so packets of Herb seeds would remain secreted, somewhere in the apartment, and that they would never see the light of day again, or feel the sprinkling of life-giving water or warming rays of the sunshine upon them 🤷‍♂️

But now, a little over a year later, whilst she was de-weeding the outer window planters on the balcony, a job usually delegated to myself, along with the cleaning of all the balcony windows, which was a task that I accepted willingly, considering that the balcony has always been ‘my’ primary domain. Although in all fairness to myself, I do let her make us of this space, if and when she feels the need to, I have never considered myself as being ‘overly protective’ of this one small area of space in our apartment, well not until now that is. But, to my alarm, whilst she was conducting this period of de-weeding she suddenly said, “Oh, these planters would be perfect for growing those packets of Herb Seeds ‘we’ purchased from that Garden Centre in the UK. Now where did I put them ?” I hastily reminded her that there was certainly no ‘We’ in that decision making process, and I suddenly realised that I had been complicit, my big mistake being that, at the time, when she mentioned buying these packets of seeds, I hadn’t actually said ‘No’, I had instead chosen to just humour her and now I realise that that was a big mistake, “Never choose to just humour a woman, for it will undoubtedly come back to bite you on the arse at some point in the future 😲”

Now these external planters, that are permanent, and form part of the structural’ part of the outer windows on the balcony, were used at some point by the previous owner’s, for they contain, what is now only hard gravelly earth with chunks of white decorative pebbles throughout, so my guess is that they probably grew flowers in them. We had no fresh soil or compost on hand to replenish them but Shazza still went and found a packet of seeds, ‘Mint’ on this occasion, and planted them in one of the smaller window planters, she got me to save my tea bags and mixed the used contents with tap water and fed them religiously on a daily basis. To the surprise of both of us, even in this hard gravel like soil, that must have not had any nutrients in it after all this time, apart from used PG Tips tea leaves and water, the bloody things only went and grew, and grew, and grew and she has now used the leaves in several of our meals, mixed in with Salads and other ‘Plant Based’ concoctions, the damn things still just continue to keep growing 🤷‍♂️

Well that giving life to something must have stirred something within her more maternal nature, for ‘we’ have since been out, now bypassing all of the fruiterias, replacing them with regular stops at the gardening stores, where ‘she’ has purchased a bag of compost along with several more plant pots. Within just a few days, the second longer planter has now been filled with ‘Coriander’ seeds, the rest of the seeds, including ‘Basil’, ‘Thyme’, ‘Sage’ and ‘Small Green-leaved Lettuce’ and god knows what else, have been planted in Plant Pots and placed on the Juliet Balconies outside the bedrooms. She is now spending way too much time looking for other varieties of edibles that she can grow, and spending too much time looking suspicious, as if visually measuring up ‘My Balcony Space’ and that, to me, is taking this ‘Self Sufficiency Just One Step Too Far’ 😡 I am beginning to think that she may also be taking this ‘Prepping’ for disaster lark just a little bit too far now 🤷‍♂️

Otono is actually my personal favourite time of the year, the heat is much more bearable and so enables us to have a wider choice of things we may want to do, and although whilst the majority of the Summer visitor’s have gone, the place isn’t what you would call dead, for it is, as I have said numerous times, a normal working ‘Open All Year’ location, with the benefit of being situated right on the coast, although yes, there is no doubting that it has certainly quietened down a lot, to what I consider to now be ‘bliss’. For now you can actually hear what is going on around you, from the somewhat boisterous flocks of parakeets arguing consistently with each other up in the palm trees, the seagulls screeching at each other whilst chasing the one that had managed to find a scrap to eat, the Cormorants as they make a discreet splash as they dive bomb a lunch target under the almost flat sea, then of course the sea itself, with its ever changing moods, one day it is as flat as a mill pond, and makes gentle lapping sounds as it breaks onto the shoreline, other days, with perhaps the force of a much stronger Easterly behind them, they crash onto the shore with their white surf shooting skywards. As we enter the town along the promenade we pass three separate schools, a Nursery and then two separate ones for the Primary age groups, if it is break time we hear the excited and loud chitter chattering of children in the playgrounds, not loud and oppressive but a sign of life going on around us. As we get closer to the town centre, then there is the usual associated noises, traffic noise, the beach tractors going up and down, collecting seaweed and sifting through the sand with its fork like projectiles collecting man-made rubbish left behind or washed up, then there are still people sat on seafront terraces having conversations in the variety of cafe/bars, either between themselves or more usually, with EarPods in and talking on mobile phones, oblivious to the fact that everyone else can hear their one-sided conversations. So we head for one of our usual choices of venue for our own morning refreshment, the choice of venue very much dependent of course on which one has a table with shade, for it is still too hot to sit in the direct heat of the sunshine, unless of course you are one of the recently arrived ‘Purple Rinse’ brigade with lily white skin. We of course just sit and engage in our usual hobbies, you know which they are by now 🤭 If we have nothing else to do that day, shopping or going to the bank ATM, which are our usual diversions, then we just return along the same route to where we had left the car, all in all around a 3-4 mile long stretch of the legs, even Shazza has stopped using her mobile device to count how many steps she has completed, the only time it varies is when we change our route, which isn’t very often.

However, I have just been reminded that there is something else that continues to return at this time of year, another much more unwelcome visitor, no of course I am not talking about Shazza’s mother, as if I would say anything uncomplimentary about her, well not out aloud at least 😂 No this next visitor has already announced its arrival, and it has nothing to do with unruly passenger’s on flight’s, or sunbed wars or drunk’s in bars, no this visitor sends shivers of fear down everybody’s spines, for we all remember it leaving its devastating calling card, back in early 2020 and it never really left 😳

My philosophy remains the same, there appears to be more threats in the world these days, to us personally as individuals, what with Environmental hazards and disasters, Global Warming and Climate Change, Wars, Violence on our streets, Food and Fuel Shortages, Cost of Living, Hacking of Essential Infrastructures and AI taking over the world, so perhaps, when you put all of it into some sort of perspective, Covid is the lesser of all the other evils that surround us 🤷‍♂️ Of course there is a Vaccination available, will I be partaking of it ? I suspect that you already know the answer to that one, but in my defence, I do have my own very effective Anti-Covid Medication 😁🍷🍷

It is a simple lifestyle we lead these days, probably myself more than Shazza as, whilst I do certainly have my own opinions and thoughts on many of the things that are going on in the world today, I don’t get involved, or allow myself to get stressed over the vast number of things that I have absolutely no control or influence over. So my life is in truth a fairly uncomplicated one, we can basically choose to do whatever we want to do, if we want to, and when we want to and, apart from the periods when we entertain our own visitors, and take our own annual trip back to the UK, we will also try to get away ourselves at some point on a road trip, generally somewhere within Spain as there is still a lot of it to see, sometimes if it is local we go away for a day, or even a few days, perhaps a bit longer if our trip is beyond our own Region of Andalusia. With Shazza’s mum due to arrive shortly, and staying for two full weeks, and also with the repair to the car unlikely to be completed now before the end of October, as I have, with the co-operation of my Insurers, changed the garage that is going to complete those repairs, it is a long story which I will not bore you with, but the fact is that we are unlikely to go anywhere now before the end of the year. Anyway, Shazza will be fully engrossed with harvesting her produce from her garden, whilst I remain engaged in my own surreptitious schemes to fight this proposed ‘unlawful eviction’ from my balcony space. I may require to become a ‘Squatter’, although I will certainly require much more than the three days worth of ‘Prepping’ supplies secreted away somewhere, I wonder if she will be growing any Tomatoes, Potatoes, Onions ? I could always attach a zip line to the balcony railings, so that I can order and take delivery of take-away meals, when I want a change from all of the healthy ‘Plant Based’ home-grown produce that will be readily available and close at hand. That thought gives me another idea for keeping this produce plentiful during my period of internment, I will be able to supply it with plenty of home grown ‘Organic Compost’ 😂

On that note, I best bring this particular ramble to its conclusion, so, until the next time……………………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena