Spanish Practices - Real Life in Spain
Society & Culture:Documentary
Today Mozzies and Orgies
Day Thirty six of the Spanish Lockdown, the sometimes amusing, diary of a Brit in southern Spain under the 'Alarma' - normal life has stopped.
To find out more: https://www.thesecretspain.com
Day 37 Mozzies and Orgies
It is day 37 of our Spanish lockdown and I have been bitten on the bum, it happened the other night. I had thrown the duvet off as it had got to warm, half asleep and half aware of a mosquito in the room, he must have got me right between the cheeks.
As he flew passed my ear I grabbed our handy fly killing aerosol, and sprayed there was the usually angry strangled high pitched buzzing and then silence. I don’t usually get effected by bites, usually just a bit of a red mark.
But I woke up in the morning and my inner left cheek is stinging like hell. I found the culprit on the floor… a tiger Mosquito. These are nasty little creatures that have come over from Asia and are making their home here. They carry all sorts of exotic diseases with them.
Here in Spain you can pretty much guarantee that something will bite or sting you. The place is alive with drunken bees, huge hornet wasps, flies, particularly those little biting flies, normal wasps, mosquitos and cochineal beetle larvae that are like tiny little gnats… never squash one on the wall as the excrete blood red mush.. cochineal colouring comes from.. well that beetle.
I looked up what do to stop the pain - antihistamine.. well I haven’t got any of that, but I found some Essential oil of Lavender so I carefully dabbed some into the affected area … well that was a mistake. If you have ever seen that YouTube video of that idiot sticking a firework out of his arse and then lighting it .. running around screaming in pain.. well that was pretty much the same pain.
Day 37 and Mr Cullens is arriving. Well to be precise “Luke” will sort your order. We have found an online English grocers based in Nerja called PJ Cullens. They have custard powder. I have been thinking about custard ever since my friend Paul was posted he was serving it every day with naughty stodgy puddings.. well he is Scottish!
The wind has got up and I have put together my client Ryan’s first Podcast in which he interviews himself as he is under lockdown in a hotel room in Istanbul. His story of how he came to be a popular New York Times photo-journalist, then the financial crisis of 2008 ended that career, so slowly he has become a successful TV show host of Extreme Rides and Extreme Treks, a month ago he had started filming season four of Extreme Treks in Myanmar, then the covid 19 crisis ended that, at least for the moment.
The door bell rings… her comes the custard. We have one of those video doorbells, the house lies lower on the mountain with stairs outside leading up to the street. I climbed the three flights of stairs and opened the door.
“Hello mate Cullens delivery for you.” Wow an English voice I said where are you from he pointed out to sea, “Morocco” from his accent I would have guessed East London. It is unusual to hear many English voices here accept if you go to the beach and the Chiringuitos.
So we have custard, a stodgy pudding and Robinsons Lemon Squash, Branston Pickle and all other manner of English comfort food. Their Supermarket in Nerja only opened a few months ago and in the space of a couple of weeks they have got a fully functioning online service – well done to them.
I would love to see more supermarkets and restaurants offer online and take-away services here. They have never really bothered, there are just two restaurants listed on Just Eat for this area.
The economy is completely reliant on the tourist trade, a short but fierce season between late June and mid September when tens of thousands swell the local population in an orgy of summer fun, stuffing their faces in the Chiringuitos, packing the beach out and spending nights in the bars and clubs boozing till early morning.
The locals take a deep breath and the tills ring mostly with cash for three solid months. That income has, it would appear been ripped away from the local economy this year. This will have a very serious effect on the local economy, we can only hope the Government has a financial plan to keep these businesses afloat.
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