Two Old Fools in Spain Again Read online

  Perhaps we had a close shave because I was astonished to read the following cockroach story in the Olive Press, an excellent English language newspaper.

  ‘A BRITISH man is lucky to be alive following an explosion that sent him flying through the wall of his Torrevieja flat.

  Daran Cooper hit the pavement below his first-floor apartment after a can of insecticide exploded in his hand.

  He had been preparing a meal to celebrate his 48th birthday while his partner Carmen was trying to kill a cockroach with some bug spray.

  Cooper took hold of the can, which then exploded, catapulting him out into the street.

  Speaking from Torrevieja Hospital, Daran said: “I started spraying at the cockroach and some of the gas must have got into the washing machine.

  “A moment later, there was the click of the wash cycle, followed by an almighty bang as I flew through where the wall used to be.

  “There was glass and all kinds of stuff in the air, but miraculously I stayed conscious all the time and all I could think of was that I had to protect my head.”

  The explosion totally ripped out the wall of the flat, but Carmen escaped unharmed and the couple’s five-year-old son Sebastian remained safely tucked up in bed.

  Daran suffered a broken wrist, bruising and head wounds, as well as an elbow injury that required surgery.

  Investigators initially believed the blast had been caused by a gas leak. However, fire crew sources have suggested the bug spray may have reacted in some way with nearby domestic appliances to spark the explosion.’

  “I bet the cockroach survived,” said Joe.

  Poor Mr Cooper. Reading that article made us realise that we were lucky, things could have been a great deal worse.

  Joe has a theory about the fire behind the dishwasher. He maintains it was caused by a cockroach crawling into the plug wiring, resulting in a short-circuit. We’ll never know for sure. I wish I could say that the cockroach invasion was the last insect plague we suffered, but of course it wasn’t.

  Having conquered the mould and cockroaches, it was time to think about getting some more chickens to keep our poor lonesome hen, Regalo, company.

  She wasn’t entirely on her own, as the two village cats, Sylvia and Gravy, had reappeared. They had been born in our chicken coop years before and we sometimes fed them. The two sisters moved back into our garden and looked surprisingly fit and well considering that they’d been forced to fend for themselves for a year without help from us.

  Once again we fed them scraps but were careful not to give too much, or too regularly. Had we done so, word would quickly have spread to the village cat community and we’d have been mobbed by the furry felines. Spain has a serious feral cat problem and we didn’t want to add to it.

  Sometimes I’d put out scraps, then stand back and watch. Sylvia, Gravy and Regalo the chicken would appear from nowhere and charge toward the treat. I hoped they’d share, but no, Regalo won the contest every time.

  Sylvia backing away from Regalo

  Chickens eat anything and she’d gobble the offerings while the cats crouched a little distance away, their eyes glued to the food, inching forward ever so slightly like lions stalking their prey. It wasn’t until Regalo had eaten her fill, wiped her beak on the ground and strutted away, that the cats approached and devoured the leftovers.

  Now that I had tidied the garden somewhat, it was time to put Regalo back in the coop permanently and get her some new sisters to live with. We hated the chicken shop, but it was the only place we knew where we could buy hens.

  It was located on an industrial estate and was not small. Behind the building that housed the shop was a huge metal warehouse that stored a variety of items for sale: farm machinery, animal produce, bales of straw, plants, to name but a few. Alongside the warehouse was a smaller windowless brick building that housed the chickens and other poultry. On the ground and piled against walls, were mounds of onions, waiting to be shovelled into sacks.

  “We’d like to buy some hens, please,” said Joe to the assistant in the shop.

  As usual, he led us outside and round the back of the shop. The smell of onions hung in the air.

  We approached an outbuilding with no windows. He unlocked the big, wooden doors and pulled them open. From outside, you could barely hear the chickens, but now the noise hit our ears like an explosion. I don’t know how many chickens were housed in that building, but I would hazard a guess at two or three hundred.

  The chickens were kept in battery-style conditions, with row upon row of wire cages, stacked one above the other, each cage containing between one and five hens. They had no room to stretch their wings, no daylight and no solid ground to walk on. The smell was terrible and the sound of hundreds of hens, squawking and giving off alarm calls, was deafening.

  “You choose,” said Joe, as the assistant stood by.

  How to choose? Today there were only brown ones and a few black ones and we had decided to buy six. I marched to an overcrowded cage and pointed.

  “All these?” asked the assistant.

  “No, just one.”

  The assistant opened the cage door and reached inside, grabbing the legs of the chicken I’d indicated. She shrieked and flapped as he dragged her out and her companions shrank, terrified, against the cage sides. The assistant awaited further instructions, the chicken dangling from his hand, upside-down and calm now. I stopped at the next blatantly overcrowded cage.

  “All these?” asked the assistant hopefully.

  “No, just one.”

  I wanted to make this operation as speedy as possible, but I also wanted to take one hen from the most crowded cages, leaving a little more space for the others. A futile attempt, as I knew the vacancies would soon be filled by more unfortunate chickens for sale.

  The assistant with our new girls

  Soon, four brown chickens and two black ones hung quietly from the assistant’s fists. He strode out of the building with Joe and me close on his heels. Unceremoniously, he thrust the chickens headfirst into two waiting cardboard boxes and jabbed his penknife into the walls to make air-holes. We were familiar with this procedure, having bought chickens several times before, but we never liked it.

  On the journey home, the chickens were quiet, apart from one that coughed ominously. Regalo watched with interest as we entered the coop and opened the boxes.

  Chickens occupying a coop will attack any newcomers and we had learned that the best time to introduce chickens to an existing group was at night, as hens can’t see in the dark. However, we felt that as Regalo was totally outnumbered, we were safe to introduce them in daylight.

  At first, the new chickens stood stock still in a group, beaks slightly open, panting a little, eyes blinking. How bright the light must have been for them! They’d never been outside before. Cramped in tiny cages, with a sky of corrugated iron over their heads and only artificial light, what must they have thought of the big, blue Spanish sky, the sun and the breezes? How strange the soil must have felt under their feet.

  Experiencing sunshine for the first time

  An hour later, the chickens had visibly relaxed. They still moved in a huddle, but they’d found the water and feeder and some were even scratching the ground a little and pecking the soil.

  Regalo was beside herself with excitement. She ran at them, exerting her authority, trying to boss them about. But there were too many of them and the new girls were too confused to react, so she eventually gave up and simply accepted them.

  Serena, Venus and Sick-Note

  We called the two beautiful black ones Serena and Venus and the one with the cough, Sick-Note. Hens bought from the chicken shop often had coughs but we weren’t unduly worried as plenty of fresh air, good food and exercise usually cured them. Hopefully, Sick-Note would thrive in her new, healthy environment.

  “What shall we call the others?” asked Joe.

  The brown hens were identical, we couldn’t tell them apart.

  “How about
calling them One, Two and Three?”

  “How do we know which is which?”

  “Doesn’t really matter, does it? Perhaps when their characters develop a bit we’ll know which is which.”

  “Okay and when Sick-Note loses her cough, she can be Four.”

  That night, when the shadows grew longer and the sun sank out of sight behind the mountains, the newcomers piled on top of each other, pressed into one uncomfortable corner of the coop. Regalo peered down at them curiously from her high roosting perch, head on one side. I doubted that the new hens had the strength to climb up to join her.

  As the summer days passed, the new girls gained in strength and confidence. First one hen, then another, followed Regalo’s bedtime routine, until finally even Sick-Note began to spend her nights on the roosting perch. There was a better roost undercover, but Regalo, being Top Hen, led by example and they all slept outside. Each night they would all busily check out alternate roosting places, but always ended up with Regalo, outside, under the stars.

  The new girls were settling well and their vocal range expanded. Before, they were either completely silent, or fired off alarm calls at the slightest sound or sight, even at a sparrow perching on the wire, eyeing their feeder longingly. Now they chatted and clucked and I knew we’d soon hear the raucous Egg Song, the triumphant announcement to the world that an egg had been laid. Following Regalo’s example, they dust-bathed, purring with enjoyment as they flung dirt all over themselves, then stood and rattled their feathers clean.

  No longer did they shriek in fright and run away when we fed them, but gradually learned to crowd around our feet, necks craning up to see what might be in the treat box. They even ignored Sylvia and Gravy, the two village cats that always hung around our garden. Sylvia and Gravy showed no interest in the chickens either.

  One day, Gravy disappeared.

  “What happened to your sister?” I asked Sylvia.

  I never understood why village cats would sometimes vanish. Had they been poisoned? Shot? Or did they move to pastures new? Gravy was only three or four years old, so it wasn’t old age that claimed her. The ruling tomcat of the time, a huge, battle-scarred Siamese with a face as wide as his body and almost flat ears, disappeared at the same time. I suspect they were culled, but I prefer to think that they eloped.

  It was the chickens who alerted me to the new arrivals. Already well-used to Sylvia and Gravy, they didn’t panic at the sight of them, but squawked alarm calls at the arrival of two new cats, jumping down from our wall into the garden.

  I watched. They were just kittens and Sylvia was leading the way, encouraging them to sample the delights of our garden. We weren’t sure if Sylvia had produced a litter this year, although we’d guessed. When she snatched a scrap of meat and bolted away with it over the garden wall, I suspected she was taking it to a litter of kittens stashed away somewhere.

  The two new kittens soon made themselves at home. One was a tabby, like his missing Aunt Gravy and the other was black and white, complete with white face and comical black Hitler moustache. The black and white one turned out to be female, so we named her Felicity. Her tabby brother we named Snitch.

  As more animals roamed our garden, unfortunately, more creepy crawlies were invading our house. We needed to wage war on strange insects that we had never encountered before.

  4. The Grand Opening

  Tomato and Paprika Chutney

  Joe and I were looking forward to the opening of the new village bar, but a new problem was occupying our minds at the moment. Moths.

  Little brown moths fluttered all over the house and settled quietly on every available surface. They billowed in clouds from folds in towels and from clothes hanging in our wardrobes. They crawled up wall tiles and flitted irritatingly in front of our faces.

  We simply couldn’t understand where they were coming from. They weren’t difficult to catch or exterminate, but for every two or three we disposed of, five more would take their place. I thought most moths were nocturnal, but these individuals seemed as active during the day as they were by night. Bright lights didn’t particularly attract them, although they seemed drawn to the TV screen when it was switched on, crawling up slowly, obscuring our view.

  The phone rang, taking our minds off moths momentarily. Joe, for some unknown reason, has an aversion to picking up the phone when it rings. He will find any excuse not to do so.

  “I’m just going to fill the chicken feeder,” he said.

  I nodded and lifted the receiver. I could hear loud barking and I didn’t need to guess who was on the other end.

  “Good heavens, you wretched, flea-bitten critters! Dogs, be QUIET!”

  “Judith, is that you?” I asked, smiling to myself.

  Our English friend Judith still lived in the next village with her ancient mother and pack of rescue dogs. She was determined never to have more than nine. Having nine, she named the tenth, Half, so she could report having nine and a half when asked how many she had. When she adopted the eleventh dog, she called it Invisible.

  “Bloody dogs! Pipe down! Yes, Vicky, it’s me, you must be psychic!”

  I let that one go.

  “How’s Mother?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know, getting older but as badly behaved as ever, m’dear.”

  “Oh, good. And the dogs?”

  “Taken on another one, dear girl!”

  “Really? Don’t tell me... You now have nine and a half and one that’s invisible. So what’s the new one called?”

  Judith chuckled. “It’s a white one, dear thing. We’ve called him Ghost.”

  “Well, that’s okay then, you still don’t have ten dogs.”

  Judith chortled, breaking off to shout at the dogs again before resuming our conversation. Phone calls from Judith were always difficult with the hounds baying in the background.

  “Just giving you a tinkle to find out if you’re going to the bar opening next weekend.”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Jolly good! Haven’t seen each other for yonks! We’ll be able to do a spot of catching up!”

  “That’ll be...”

  “God’s teeth! Must go, dear,” she said, cutting me short. “Looks like Half has found Mother’s organic beef and mushroom pie...”

  The phone was slammed down and the line went dead.

  “Who was on the phone?” asked Joe, returning from outside.

  “Oh, just Judith.”

  But he wasn’t listening.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said, scratching himself down below. “I know where those blasted moths are coming from. Come with me.”

  I followed him obediently into the workshop. We kept the chicken grain in a large plastic dustbin and Joe gingerly lifted the lid. A cloud of moths floated out.

  “Look inside,” he said.

  I hardly needed to but I did. The seed was alive with moths. They crawled in waves over each other and up the sides of the bin.

  “So, this is where they’re hatching...” I said, nose wrinkled in disgust.

  “Yep. What shall we do with it?”

  “Well, chickens eat everything, insects, worms, I don’t think it’ll do them any harm. Probably add protein to their diet.”

  “What, we empty the whole lot into their coop?”

  I considered. Looking around the workshop, I could see moths everywhere. Cobwebs were bowed down with their weight and moths crawled on the workbench and up the walls.

  “No, I think we need to get rid of it.”

  Together, we heaved the dustbin onto the wheelbarrow. Joe wheeled it down the garden and out of the back gate, heading for a patch of waste ground beside the cemetery. Joe tipped it out and unsnapped the lid, allowing the seed to spill out into a big pile. Some moths took flight, whilst thousands of others began crawling away into the undergrowth.

  Back in the garden, I hosed the dustbin out and sprayed the inside of the workshop liberally with pesticide. Sparrows were already flocking to the seed pile, ch
irruping with delight. I imagine the story of that free feast of moths and seed became a sparrow legend to be passed down to future generations. Within 24 hours, not a seed or moth remained.

  Gradually, we stopped seeing moths in the house and hoped that was the end of the problem.

  As the day of the Grand Opening drew near, the village prepared. Strings of coloured lights, normally reserved for the annual fiesta and Christmas, were looped round the square. Extra lights were hung in the trees and the old stage erected. Trestle tables were put up and some ancient benches were brought out, providing extra seating space.

  On the day of the event, we wandered down to the square. It was a beautiful evening, warm and clear. Bats spiralled round the lampposts above the parked cars and the coloured lights glowed brightly against the darkening sky. People filled the square and crowded around the new bar, with its shiny tables and chairs set out for the first time. Adults sipped from plastic glasses of beer, while small children and dogs weaved through the forest of legs.

  “I want to stay in the background,” I said to Joe. “You know how embarrassing the mayor can be, singling me out.”

  Joe nodded.

  “Let’s just stand at the back here and watch,” he said. “I’m surprised how many people there are. That stage is beginning to look a bit rickety though.”

  I followed his gaze and could only agree. The legs supporting the stage were rusty and worn. Not only the stage, but the temporary seating looked antiquated too. Wooden planks had been provided for people to sit on and these were balanced on wobbly-looking trestle supports.

  “I can’t see Judith and Mother yet,” I remarked.

  “A drink for you,” said a village lady passing with a tray.

  We thanked her and accepted the glasses. We didn’t sit, but stood under a tree, people-watching, listening to the hum of conversation and looking at the scene.