The pikeys are back in town

Partner picked up an interesting chair. Not as good as my find, but solid and quite nice. Struck me as slightly frenchified, Louis whateverish.

Chair

Meanwhile my prize mirror find was taken back to the finca and plonked on the top of drawers where it makes a rather good match.

Ace find by me

Our Gib neighbour has an extremely clean and spartan flat. That’s because he gives all his junk to us.

Boat. Of little use or ornament …

The latest was a pair of trainers worn once but they pinched his toes. Too small for Partner, too big for me. Partner recycled them to an Eastern European who sleeps rough.

And, found on the street, a rather spivvy black dress jacket. May find its way to charity shop. Spiv does not suit Partner.

Gib round-up

Heard outside the vet’s. Dog licences are £50 a year. Dogs apparently are being DNA tested so that Dog Poo Enforcement Officers can pick up after non-picker-upperers and get said poo tested. Has it not occurred to anyone that the type of people who don’t pick up are unlikely to have a dog licence? And why waste time and money on testing the majority of dogs whose owners do pick up? Hello government, what about cracking down on a) illegal working and b) choosing cross-border workers in preference to locals, and, basically ensuring locals get decent jobs? No, lets concentrate on dog poo.

…..

A friend of ours wanted to set up a management committee in his block where nothing gets done. He’s obviously impressed with how good ours looks since we took over. Theirs gets no maintenance or cleaning.

‘Of course not,’ said the block owner. ‘We let you rent here out of the kindness of our hearts so that poor people like you have somewhere to live.’

…..

The same friend was asked to clean the flat roof – for free – of his neighbour. This would involve climbing onto the roof of his block, strolling along the parapet and clambering onto the other roof. Fall = certain death.

‘Why can’t you do it?’ asked friend, not unreasonably.

‘I’m a lawyer. I don’t do that sort of thing.’

…..

In fact, same lawyer employs the most useless tackiest people to paint his house, presumably because they are cheap. Or he thinks they are cheap. The one who painted the front door knob had to come back because the paint fell off. I was informed in advance that this would happen by He Who Knows All Things About Painting. The other day, the cleaner was shouting at a different painter who was throwing paint around liberally inside the house ensuring the floor was painted at the same time as the walls.

‘Get a mop and bucket and clean it up,’ said the ‘painter’.

I might add, that is a typical sexist reaction in this part of the world. Men make a mess? Women clean it up.

…..

And still on painting, we heard that a friend working ridiculous hours in the UK — let’s hear it for the Working Hours Directive at this point – had passed out on a job. Because if you don’t work the twelve hours a day plus any compulsory overtime, you Do. Not. Have. A. Job. Just for those of you who think the EU has achieved any improvement in working hours.

…..

Another painter friend, in mid fifties, so younger than us, had a stroke.

Insert slight digression

When I first met Partner I told him he couldn’t possibly be a painter and decorator because painters were always old men. Like Mr Manners from my childhood, or his cousin, Mr Fallus, who we used when Mr M retired, because he was, well, old.

With the death of our painter friend Steve 15 months ago, and the two above incidents, it seems painters aren’t even getting the chance to become old these days. Odd, considering back then that they were using lead-based paints and there were no VOC regs. Or maybe back then, in the days of lengthy apprenticeships, skilled tradespeople were more aware of health and safety issues.

End digression

It turned out that it wasn’t a stroke. It was a brain tumour. He’s had surgery and is now awaiting chemo.

Second digression

When I was working in cancer services I was chatting with the clinical director, who was a neuro clinical oncologist, about patient information. Good bloke, somewhat blunt. Patient groups were interested in having recordings of consultations. It’s difficult to remember what doctors say at the best of times, let alone when being faced with a cancer diagnosis and treatment options.

Doctor T had actually tried this out. Patient goes in to see him, gets not very good news about brain cancer.

‘What would you do doctor?’

Naturally at this point, T had forgotten he was on tape.

‘Get a gun and fucking shoot myself.’

I don’t know if they ever did bring in tape recordings.

His other gem was on the train to London, where he had a second home.

A group of Germans were ensconced around a table on the train. Trouble was, one of the seats was reserved for T. But, the Germans didn’t want to move.

‘Go and sit somewhere else,’ they unhelpfully said.

‘You might have annexed Poland, you aren’t annexing my seat. Move.’

He was big and assertive. They moved.

End second digression

I wonder what sort of info about brain tumours our friend has received?

…..

Spanish round-up

We walked round the beach (header pony pic), and olive tree plus jar photo, entrance to our village. We had a flat tyre, €10 to fix. Tomatoes from next door after we gave José some unneeded tools. I have peas! And lots of acelga, shared with another neighbour.

Olive tree and jar to symbolize our local agriculture

Jacking up the Land Rover to change the tyre

Cherry tomatoes and er, some rather unimpressive designer toms

(Sweet!) Peas, dwarf trailing variety

Spinach, peas, lettuce, nasturtiums, basil

…..

And, in blog news, I’ve accepted an invitation to be a regular guest blogger on Kev’s blog, where I will be writing a monthly Editor’s Column. My end-of-Feb post will be a round-up about the controversial topic of book reviews. Yeah. How can book reviews be such a thorny topic? Believe me, they are.