March 5, 2012
THE fire alarm in the Hymer is becoming a real pest. The damn thing is
so super-efficient that it goes off every time we cook, or boil a kettle, so we
have to keep disconnecting it.
Yesterday evening I opened the door in a fury to David, who was
barbecuing outside in the dark, and hissed: “If that f***ing alarm goes off one
more time I’m going to throw it out.” Only to discover that a neighbouring
camper – a new acquaintance – was standing there, having dropped by to arrange
some mutual dog-sitting.
The alarm got its own back by going off in the early hours for no reason
at all and waking us both up in a fright.
Motorhoming is a world where you make fleeting friendships and instant
judgements about who you can trust. We’ve agreed to leave Glen with the
neighbours tomorrow while we take a guided 4x4 tour of the Donana national park
– a birdwatcher’s heaven - and to look after their two dogs this afternoon
while they do the same.
We’re at El Rocio – a town like the set of a cowboy film, with streets
of sand and hitching rails for horses outside every house - right down in
southern Spain England
It’s a different world, co-existing with our everyday one. And the local
Spaniards, who’ve been busy enjoying themselves with a religious festival
involving sporadic gunfire, are in another world again. We’d have liked to go
and join the watching crowds, but the noise terrified Glen and we could neither
take him nor leave him.
However, when things quietened down, we did drive down to the lagoon
alongside the village, where we parked our folding chairs and sat in the late
afternoon sunshine watching hundreds of birds, including flamingos, glossy
ibis, spoonbills, avocet and a young Spanish imperial eagle. Lovely.
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