Two Old Fools in Spain Again (23 page)

So, for the third time I battled and failed again.

I went downstairs and typed in the travel cot brand on the Internet. Up popped a YouTube video entitled ‘
How to erect your travel cot in less than 30 seconds
’.

I watched in awe. So that was how it was done!
Pull out the end struts, pull up the base
and hey presto, it all snapped into place! I ran back upstairs and tried it. It worked!

“Joe, come here, I know how to do it!”

“Really? Show me...”

Joe entered the bedroom and watched my performance.
Pull out, pull up, snap!
I was even faster the second time.

“Well,” he said, admiration in his voice. “I take my hat off to you. How did you work that out?”

“Oh, natural intelligence, of course. You know, a woman’s intuition.”

Not a mention of my friend Mr Google. My nose probably grew by 12 inches.

I checked everything for the last time. I paid particular attention to Luc’s room, remembering how clean and tidy he had been in Australia. I checked the jars of baby food, toys, towels, buckets and spades, the food in the fridge, special baby milk…

I also checked the pile of wrapped presents, birthday cake, balloons and bubble makers. Indy would be celebrating her first birthday in Spain.

27. Highs and Lows

Luc’s Italian Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce

B
efore our visitors arrived in Spain, they had spent a week in England catching up with other family members and introducing Indy to a host of friends who hadn’t yet met her or Cam.

Their flight from Australia had been horrendous. A couple of weeks before their journey, Indy had suffered from an ear infection. The doctor had pronounced her fit to travel, but he was wrong. The poor little mite screamed for 15 solid hours on the flight. It can’t have been much fun for Mum and Dad or their fellow passengers. Karly and Cam were reduced to walking up and down the aisle trying to pacify her.

After a week in the UK, Indy was back to her usual sunny self. At last the day came for their arrival in Spain.

“Time to drive to the airport,” said Joe.

And then suddenly, there she was, bouncing in her mother’s arms.

I held her, stroked her soft, baby skin, played with her curls and drank in the scent of her, making up for lost time.

Our house came to life, ringing with Indy’s giggles. Floors, once clean and tidy, were strewn with toys and smeared with discarded food. Books were pulled out of the bookcase and papers scattered across the floor. Baby bottles appeared on the draining-board and baby paraphernalia covered every surface. After 24 hours it seemed as though they’d always been there. We loved it.

We discussed their forthcoming move from Melbourne back to Sydney and how they planned to buy a new house with a garden and plenty of space for grandparents to stay. Life was wonderful.

Luc arrived in the tiniest car, sending us into peals of laughter. It looked like a Noddy car and he looked exactly like Enid Blyton’s Noddy sitting behind the wheel.

Luc in his Noddy car

But it was useful having another vehicle. There were so many of us and Indy’s car seat took up a lot of space in our car.

One night, we went to Judith’s village and had a meal at the outdoor restaurant there. It opened at 9 in the evening, which was far too late for Indy to be up. Joe kindly offered to stay home and babysit. We all enjoyed sitting under the almond trees and the food was good.

“Was Indy okay?” Karly asked when we arrived home after midnight.

“Never heard a peep,” said Joe. “She never woke at all.”

Unfortunately, Indy woke up as soon as her parents entered the room. She howled, rather spoiling poor Karly and Cam’s night and it took several hours before she settled again. She was teething, so easily forgiven as most of the time she was a happy baby.

The Spanish are extremely family-oriented. Carmen wondered at how we lived so far from our families as her family had never ventured out of Andalucía and had no wish to. In the village, every new baby was proudly shown off and now I had a baby to show off too. I knew that Carmen and Paco wanted to see Indy and visiting them would be a good opportunity for Cam to see the interior of a typical village cottage. This was his first visit to Spain and, being Australian, he was fascinated by village life, which was so different from his own back home.

“Guapa!”
shouted Paco.

“Guapa!”
exclaimed Carmen, stroking Indy’s hair.

Indy beamed at her.

“Is she walking yet?”

“No,” I said, “but she crawls really fast.”

To demonstrate, I set her down on Carmen’s floor. Indy shot off at a rate of knots, closely followed by a snuffling Yukky.

I caught Cam looking around the neat little house with its host of family photographs crowding its white walls. No doubt he was comparing the tiny interior with the large, airy, spacious houses of his native Australia.

Our next stop was the village shop. Uncle Felix sat outside and forgot his reticence long enough to touch Indy’s cheek with his ancient, horned finger.

We entered the shop and Cam stared around in disbelief. There was nothing in the shop apart from a counter, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and a yellowed portrait of the village saint. No shelves of merchandise, no freezers full of food, no fresh produce. Not remotely like the supermarkets he was accustomed to in Australia.

“Guapa!”
said Marcia and offered Indy a lollypop from under the counter.

Karly thanked her and slipped the lollypop into her own pocket. She didn’t want to start rotting Indy’s teeth before they had even grown. Indy cooed at Marcia’s black cat as it wound itself round the old lady’s ankles.

On the evening before Indy’s birthday, Joe and I inflated fifty balloons and hung them everywhere to surprise her when she came down next day. I couldn’t wait for her to open her presents.

Indy’s birthday

The balloons were a great success and entertained Indy (and us) no end as she chased after and caught them. Of course she was far more interested in tasting the tinsel and eating the paper than the gifts themselves. Eventually each present was opened and then it was time to move outside so she could enjoy her birthday cake.

We put the cake on the ground, in the middle of a large plastic tablecloth decorated with birthday greetings.

Indy’s birthday cake

The idea was that she could dive in, making as much of a mess of herself as she pleased. Unfortunately it backfired a little because Indy was uncertain about the strange looking thing in front of her. Instead of heading for the cake, she turned and headed for her mum. However, after a little encouragement, she got the idea and managed to cover almost every part of herself and the sheet with the cake.

A splash in the paddling pool washed off any excess cake. She cooed and gurgled as bits of cake, plastic frogs and ducks floated around her, while she made every effort to empty the pool using a plastic bucket.

Cleaning the cake off the plastic birthday sheet had an unexpected consequence. We hosed it down and left it on a glass table to dry out in the sun. The next morning we found the tabletop had shattered, much like a car windscreen does during an impact. Initially, we thought somebody had thrown something heavy over the wall and it had struck the table. Highly unlikely and no missiles were lying on the ground so we dismissed that theory. We could only surmise that water trapped under the plastic cloth had been heated by the sun during the day and then cooled overnight, causing the table to shatter. Sweeping the garden took forever as the bits of glass had flown far and wide.

Apart from that small mishap, the days were filled with banter and laughter and we loved it. Indy enjoyed sampling the Spanish fruit and soon became a big fan of peaches and watermelon.

Indy wearing watermelon

We never tired of teasing Luc about his toy car, but he was a good sport and took it in his stride.

Evenings were spent eating and drinking outside under the vine. We shared cooking duties and one night Luc cooked us a delicious Italian dish.

All too soon the visit came to an end.

“We’re going to try really hard to come over to Australia this winter,” I told Karly and Cam.

“We’ve contacted our builders,” said Joe. “We want to make sure this house is totally secure so we can come over for a few months.”

“We should be in our new house by then,” said Karly, excitedly. “We should have loads of room.”

“So we’ll probably see you in a few months,” I repeated, trying hard to look on the bright side.

“Time to drive to the airport,” said Joe.

With leaden hearts, we waved our family goodbye.

I tidied away the books and toys, packed away the cot and stroller, washed the sticky fingerprints off the walls and emptied the paddling-pool. A few balloons still remained, drifting aimlessly across the floor. I knew I should pop them and throw them away, but I didn’t. The balloons reminded me too much of Indy giving chase, scuttling across the floor on all-fours at great speed and squealing with delight when she caught one.

As another summer began to die, so did the leaves on our vine. Our garden needed tidying constantly and we always had rubbish to dispose of.

Since moving to El Hoyo, we’d discovered that the Spanish are incredibly resourceful and find ingenious ways to use items that Brits happily throw away. The previous owner of our house used an old upside-down frying pan to cap one of the chimneys to stop the rain coming in and sparks flying out. It was a little quirky but worked perfectly well. So we kept it, giving it a new coat of black paint every now and then.