Talking
One of the things I miss about Andalucía is the exuberant friendliness of the people. As in Ireland, talk is regarded as a cultural asset worth maintaining, and people talk both to each other and to...
View ArticleFreedom falls
About forty years ago, a member of the Guardia Civil approached me while I was working in the streets of a town somewhere on the Costa Brava. “Our excelentísimo mayor,” he said, “would very much like...
View ArticleDog’s life
My father once came home from work to find nobody at home and a stew simmering on the cooker. It was delicious, he told me afterwards, even if the meat was not quite as tender as he would have liked....
View ArticleDuel
I was on my way to work during the week, trying to alleviate the pain of having to do so at my age by having fun on the road with the lorry drivers. Hardly anybody else uses the roads around here, I’ve...
View ArticleMe and Mr Bean
Every day about lunchtime I sit on a dining-room chair with a crimson satin seat amid the sand, bags of cement and scaffolding in the ruin I’m restoring, open a plastic bag, take out two jam sandwiches...
View ArticleUnkind thoughts and forms
I dropped into the bank last week to ask them to change my Social Security account. “No problem,” said the man behind the computer. “Just call to the Social Security office down the street and they’ll...
View ArticlePandora’s box
An advertisement on Spanish television offers en electronic mental game aimed at maintaining the mind in good working order. It was making me uneasy, but I couldn’t think why, so I asked my...
View ArticleChristmas story 11
The mother lay with the new-born babe in her arms and cooed at him. The father watched them both with pride. It was their first-born. He wasn’t sure how it happened. Must have been drunk that night....
View ArticleObstinate resolution
New Year resolutions are a funny thing. They serve no purpose, because we break them as soon as we make them, and in any case, if there were some challenging resolution that would change our lives, we...
View ArticleEquality of smell
I’m not sure what to make of all these smelly men I’ve been looking at recently. I look at them because I smell them first, then turn my head in the direction of the most subtle scents and stare into...
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