Too much housework

Dismantling the old sofas, with the new ones in the background.

I spent Monday morning feeling tired and seasick. I'm not sure how much was down to having fun so much fun on El Hierro, how much was trying to work on the computer on the boat (it's like reading in a car - big mistake) and how much was a mild lurgy. But I didn't get much done, even though it was obvious that the boys hadn't exactly spent the weekend cleaning the house. In fact we went backwards, because the dishwasher broke. Lucky me, my husband managed to fix it. But by the time I realised that it had covered all the dishes in dirty, soapy water, they were mixed in with the other things in the cupboard, so the only sensible thing was to wash the whole lot again. I got one load done on Monday evening.

I was having sofas delivered on Tuesday morning. So I tidied up the living room and pulled the old sofas to one side to make space. Of course it was only common sense to mop at least the free bit of floor while it was free.

I had to move some of the junk out of the hallway so there'd be space to move the sofas in. Of course it was only common sense to mop that bit of floor, too.

Meanwhile, I was running the dishwasher pretty much continuously. It took another three loads to get everything clean. And naturally, it was only common sense to clean each shelf and drawer while it was empty.

Plus two loads of laundry.

Plus, I was going to teach, so I had to clean the kitchen. That included mopping the floor because it was embarrassing.

My friends from Franceses came for lunch, and managed to get the wooden frames from the old sofas into the van, once they'd taken the feet off. The wood will probably be reincarnated as kitchen doors.

Then I taught for two hours.

As you might imagine, I was well knackered after that lot. Which is when I made the wonderful discovery that one of the new sofas is long enough to lie down on and stretch out.

Bliss!


Loading the old sofa frames into the van.

El Hierro again

Panchita, my friend's neighbour

My trip to El Hierro was great. I didn't feel a bit sick on the way there. Lugging my stuff around Gomera coming and going was hard work, but San Sebastian is a nice little town, and I got quite a bit of work done on my laptop. More importantly, once I got to El Hierro, I had a great time with my friend.

It was too brief of course, but we talked, and went shoping in Valverde, and talked, and went to a charming little seaside place called Pozo de las Calcosas, and talked, and ate bacon sarnies, and talked, and met a local kitten and her humans, and talked, and drank a bit too much and talked, and found a viewpoint called "La Fuente" and talked, and didn't sleep quite enough.

It seemed like about five minutes before I was back in the port, catching the ferry to La Gomera again. I tried out the Wi-fi on the boat, and it was pretty good - it glitched once or twice, but what do you expect, floating in the middle of nowhere? But I had to stop pretty fast, because it was like reading a book in a moving car - I felt sick pretty fast, pills or no pills.
Ah well.

San Sebastian was nice enough on the way back. I had a muddle in the pension where I ate. I asked to see the menu, but then dishes started appearing. They thought I meant the day's set menu! Actually I did very well: starter salad, paella, a beer and a coffee, all for 8€. Nothing pretentious and everything tasty. If I have another stopover on Gomera, I'll go back. I just wish I could remember the name of the place to recommend it to you.

The sea was a bit rougher for the last leg, and I stupidly tried to use the computer again. I felt dreadful for most of the way home. And I've gone all feeling mildly seasick all morning, plus very tired.

But my goodness, I'm glad I went.

Hard travel

I've been wanting to visit my friend on El Hierro for a while. Now that my son's recovered from his fight with the pavement and there's a long weekend coming up, I thought it was a good time to go. My friend has Friday's free, so I hoped to fly out on Friday morning, come back Monday afternoon.

So on Monday, my husband asked for Friday off.

They finally said, "Yes" on Thursday morning, by which time the flights to El Hierro were pretty much full. The earliest I could arrive was Saturday afternoon, and latest I could leave was Sunday morning at 8:30. Not worth going.

So now I'm booked on the ferry. I leave 6 am Friday (ouch!) for La Gomera. I've got a five hour stopover (with all my luggage) and I get to Estaca on El Hierro at 3 pm. At least I get to stay until 3pm on Sunday. There's another 3 hour stopover in La Gomera again, and I'll finally get back to La Palma around 11pm. It's not ideal, but I get to see my friend for 48 hours.

I must go and buy travel sickness pills.

General Franco

I've been doing a little research into the Franco years, as background for a possible novel.

It was worse than I expected.

I knew divorce was forbidden under Franco, and that a woman who ran away from a violent husband would be brought back by the police, who, like as not, would tell the husband to give her a good hiding to teach her not to run off again. I wasn't a bit surprised to hear that abortion was illegal, but so were contraceptives. And you had no right to refuse sex.

"Women could not become judges, or testify in trial. They could not become university professors. Their affairs and economy had to be managed by their father or by their husbands. Until the 1970s a woman could not have a bank account without a co-sign by her father or husband."

You know what? Women were arguably better off under Saddam Hussein! At least women were legally people in Iraq. It's even possible (but not likely) that Franco killed more civilians.

Franco and his party killed 150,000-200,000 civilians and PoWs during the war, and maybe 200,000 were killed after the war. (The red side --the elected government-- killed "38,000 to 110,000, with most estimates closer to the former.") Saddam Hussein killed between 300,000 civilians in his repression, and about 1.4 million in his wars.

Of course it doesn't really matter who was worse: they were both revolting people. I'm so very, very glad I live in a western democracy.

Fun busy

I've been rushed off my feet and enjoying it.

Yesterday I had some rubbish to take to the recycle point in Puntallana, so I visited a local museum while I was there. Casa Lujan is an 18th century house, restored to show how well-to-do people lived between about 1920 and 1960, and it's very good. My husband burst out layghing when he saw this photo, because I used to have similar hair and glasses. In fact, I also used to have a reconditioned, treadle sewing machine much like this. Between taking lots of photos, and chatting with the staff (including a local artist called Rosa Vidal) the morning zipped past. It was already noon when I got home, and I had to produce lunch and scrub the kitchen ready for a visit that afternoon. Then I took my son to the riding stables, only to find that the kids' activity was cancelled for the day. Then it was yoga, which was a real killer, followed by dinner and collapsing in a heap.

This morning I took the cat to the vet, updated the La Palma blog (with an entry about Casa Lujan), scrubbed the fly shit off the kitchen light fitting, filed my complaint with eBay, updated the Ruido website, cooked lunch, taught a friend English for an hour, and edited the photos of the Ruido fiesta.

I think I've earned a cup of tea, don't you? And then it'll be time to do some of my own writing.