Today is Father´s Day in Spain. It is also San Jose Day who is the patron saint of carpenters. Things like that, I never knew growing up in New York. Here in Spain, one learns about patron saints. The calendar issued at each year end by Unicaja Bank, the largest in this area, has the names of the saints on each day of the year, so helpful, no?
We had a death in the village last Friday, a neighbour of ours as well. She was called Maria, what a surprise. She lived two houses down the calle from the hotel. She had a small dog that followed her, slowly, every where she went in the village. She was sometimes friendly enough to say ¨buenas dias¨ or ¨buenas tardes¨ to me or Ivan but she never failed to give a salutation to Lolita, one of our French Bulldogs; ¨Oh Lolita, Lolita, ¿que tal?¨ she would say. We would see her pretty much daily, going to take her trash to the bins or going down to the fountain to fill a bottle of water. Stopping at the mirador with another one of the villagers to chat and look at the view, speculate about the weather. On mornings when we were here early enough, we would see her waiting for the baker to arrive (the baker comes from Ronda daily about 9AM with fresh bread and sweets in his van). And once, we were clearing out some of the quantity of boxes full of vinegar and so we put a couple out in front of the hotel for anyone to help themselves to and help herself she did. She came along moments after the boxes were put out and said, ¨Oh, oh!! What´s this? For me? Ah, have you got some string for me to wrap it up to take home?¨ And off she went with all the vinegar, no word of thanks, no good-bye, just off she went, waddling down to her house, vinegar in hand, dog following behind her.
Her son, Javier, came into the bar on Friday a couple of times, also a new experience. Although they lived practically in front of the hotel and he even helped to build our pool, he never came to our bar before and he certainly never spoke. But on Friday, he was not himself as he had discovered his mother that morning. Now he would be all alone here in the village. He spoke to Ivan and explained a couple of things to him and had a couple of drinks. He came back to the bar later in the afternoon with some family relations and men from the village for coffee and copas of pacharan with ice. He came back in the evening with an aunt or someone that looked like that and wanted lots more pacharan for which I was admonished by this aunt as he was getting drunk.
On Saturday morning when I came to the hotel, the area in front of the hotel was full with cars. Just as I arrived at the hotel, the procession was coming up from Maria´s house with the hearse in front followed by Javier and Mª Carmen on his arm, a moody, somewhat deranged widow from the next street over. They were taking her to the village cemetary for internment. When our waiter arrived at 11.00, he saw all these cars and thought the hotel must be packed but no one was here except us as usual and one drunk called Paco from the next village (a whole other blog entry that is).
Friday was a glorious day as was Saturday, warm, sunny, clear. We had a table of four for lunch on the terrace of people from Ronda, called Rondeños, which does not happen nearly often enough. We had a lovely American couple staying with us for the weekend as well. They live in Cadiz where they have a business. We also had an English couple stay Saturday evening who publish a local English language monthly magazine called ¨Andalucia Life¨. They are doing a story about Bandoleros and this area and so planned to feature the hotel in the article.
We have a new waiter who started the weekend before; his name is Antonio like our previous waiter but that is where the similarities end. He is a very nice regular guy who also has a business which is struggling at the moment given the economics of the times. He and his fiancé, Mª Angeles, run a butcher business in Ronda but as business is down he is supplementing his income by coming to us on the weekends. They are both quite nice people, Sevillanos living in this area. We are now getting some of our meat supplies from him to help him out. In fact, I´m off to Ronda now to go and collect some suckling pig from them.
So I must be off. Another beautiful day here in Juzcar and warm as well. It had cooled a bit earlier in the week but it´s fantastic now. Ciao for now.
We had a death in the village last Friday, a neighbour of ours as well. She was called Maria, what a surprise. She lived two houses down the calle from the hotel. She had a small dog that followed her, slowly, every where she went in the village. She was sometimes friendly enough to say ¨buenas dias¨ or ¨buenas tardes¨ to me or Ivan but she never failed to give a salutation to Lolita, one of our French Bulldogs; ¨Oh Lolita, Lolita, ¿que tal?¨ she would say. We would see her pretty much daily, going to take her trash to the bins or going down to the fountain to fill a bottle of water. Stopping at the mirador with another one of the villagers to chat and look at the view, speculate about the weather. On mornings when we were here early enough, we would see her waiting for the baker to arrive (the baker comes from Ronda daily about 9AM with fresh bread and sweets in his van). And once, we were clearing out some of the quantity of boxes full of vinegar and so we put a couple out in front of the hotel for anyone to help themselves to and help herself she did. She came along moments after the boxes were put out and said, ¨Oh, oh!! What´s this? For me? Ah, have you got some string for me to wrap it up to take home?¨ And off she went with all the vinegar, no word of thanks, no good-bye, just off she went, waddling down to her house, vinegar in hand, dog following behind her.
Her son, Javier, came into the bar on Friday a couple of times, also a new experience. Although they lived practically in front of the hotel and he even helped to build our pool, he never came to our bar before and he certainly never spoke. But on Friday, he was not himself as he had discovered his mother that morning. Now he would be all alone here in the village. He spoke to Ivan and explained a couple of things to him and had a couple of drinks. He came back to the bar later in the afternoon with some family relations and men from the village for coffee and copas of pacharan with ice. He came back in the evening with an aunt or someone that looked like that and wanted lots more pacharan for which I was admonished by this aunt as he was getting drunk.
On Saturday morning when I came to the hotel, the area in front of the hotel was full with cars. Just as I arrived at the hotel, the procession was coming up from Maria´s house with the hearse in front followed by Javier and Mª Carmen on his arm, a moody, somewhat deranged widow from the next street over. They were taking her to the village cemetary for internment. When our waiter arrived at 11.00, he saw all these cars and thought the hotel must be packed but no one was here except us as usual and one drunk called Paco from the next village (a whole other blog entry that is).
Friday was a glorious day as was Saturday, warm, sunny, clear. We had a table of four for lunch on the terrace of people from Ronda, called Rondeños, which does not happen nearly often enough. We had a lovely American couple staying with us for the weekend as well. They live in Cadiz where they have a business. We also had an English couple stay Saturday evening who publish a local English language monthly magazine called ¨Andalucia Life¨. They are doing a story about Bandoleros and this area and so planned to feature the hotel in the article.
We have a new waiter who started the weekend before; his name is Antonio like our previous waiter but that is where the similarities end. He is a very nice regular guy who also has a business which is struggling at the moment given the economics of the times. He and his fiancé, Mª Angeles, run a butcher business in Ronda but as business is down he is supplementing his income by coming to us on the weekends. They are both quite nice people, Sevillanos living in this area. We are now getting some of our meat supplies from him to help him out. In fact, I´m off to Ronda now to go and collect some suckling pig from them.
So I must be off. Another beautiful day here in Juzcar and warm as well. It had cooled a bit earlier in the week but it´s fantastic now. Ciao for now.
