Black Dogs and Olives
It doesn’t matter where you are, or how idyllic your life might look from the outside, there are times when the travails of life can overcome you.
Over the past couple of weeks, both Andrew and I have found the occasional day to be overshadowed by the presence of the unwelcome Black Dog. We have had the ongoing saga of a possible legal battle with our builders, and we’ve been batting letters back and forth between lawyers which is always tiresome and emotionally draining. We have watched, as the winter rains arrived, damp patches and leaks appearing in our lovely studio. On a particularly chilly day, with the little antique stove burning away quite happily in the studio, the poorly-fitted flue fell off allowing the stove to simply churn its fumes out into the space where Andrew was working. Wind whistled through gaps in the sitting room doors, and the seasonal change in the weather did little to lift our spirits. Other current life concerns are ever-present and it is sometimes difficult to reassure oneself that there are so many good things in the mix that you have to keep the faith and press on.
We count our blessings that we live where we do, and Black Dogs on the horizon can be kept at bay by taking our not-so-black and very small dog for a walk. This past week has proved that good company, small dogs, fresh air and exercise are essential for our good mental health.
I, for one, was at a pretty low ebb when we were asked to go and help our chums, Nick and Richard, harvest their olives. The winds were whipping across their hill above the Lecrin Valley but at least the sun shone and we had a lovely 24 hour stay in great company. Hand-picking olives can be both very therapeutic and rather laborious. During the morning of the first day of harvesting, there was something very lovely and elementary about standing on a terrace in the wintery sunshine, collecting little black olives and popping them in plastic buckets, accompanied by no sound other than the wind in the trees and the song of birds. Being this close to nature, surrounded by breathtaking scenery, is a great leveller, and it lifted my mood no end. That said, hours of rummaging around in trees grappling for every last olive does take its toll on the back. As the sun started to go down, and as we tackled the last of the lower terraces, I decided that I might have had enough for that day and I think that our fellow pickers had arrived at a similar conclusion. Great company, fresh air and exercise did the job and we both left feeling much better, and rather virtuous having contributed to the harvest. Alfie, our pup, also had a rather splendid time, pottering around in the campo with a chum of his own, not far from the countryside in which he was initially found abandoned.
Shortly after that day of picking olives, my daughter Lucie and her boyfriend George came to stay for the weekend. I have written previously that the one downside of having friends and family to stay is that they eventually have to go back to their own homes. We didn’t think along those lines as we got ready for their visit, and we had the most lovely couple of days, as we always do when we have visitors. The weekend was delightfully simple, spent chatting, eating and walking. Our families have all embraced the life we lead here and can quite understand why we chose Andalucia as an alternative to London as the location for leading a better, healthier and far more fulfilling way of life. The weather forecast had promised rain, but we were extremely lucky and had four mainly sunny days during which we visited Granada for a Sunday wander, went exploring Neolithic caves in nearby Limones, climbed to the summit of the Cerro del Hacho to take in the most stunning and dramatic wintery landscapes with the snow-capped Sierra Nevada in the distance. We enjoyed beers and tapas in unexpected places, cooked and chatted at home, huddled cosily around the fire as the chilly evening darkness descended. Alfie was predominantly the centre of attention, and relished the exercise, play, cuddles and many moments of being spoiled.
The weekend was exactly what we both needed. We had stark reminders of the life we left behind with the news of yet another horrific incident on London Bridge, only a short distance from where Lucie lives. We are reminded daily of the grim and increasingly mendacious nonsense surrounding the UK General Election, and it was just lovely to be able to lock ourselves away in the bubble of our own family in the place we now call home and concentrate on some of the things that are important to us. We can’t hide from life, nor has that ever been our intention. Indeed, here we embrace life but life will always present the occasional challenge just to keep you on your toes. Whenever I have these introspective moments, I am always drawn to something that Willy Russell wrote in his fabulous play, ‘Shirley Valentine’. As Shirley is sitting on a beach in Greece, having similar retrospective thoughts, she admits “I’d allowed myself to live this little life when inside me there was so much. So much more that I could have lived a bigger life with - but it had all gone unused, an’ now it never would be. Why - why do you get all this life when it can’t be used? Why do you get all these feelings and dreams and hopes if they can’t ever be used?”
For us, sometimes we need to remind ourselves that we are living our dreams and feelings and hopes and that, instead of living a little life we are living a large, magnificent and adventure-filled life that we can share with those people we love. Now that the children have returned to the UK, and are greatly missed as always, it might be easy to slip into a post-visit slump. Instead, we have more wonderful memories to share of a life well-lived.
So, with the words of Shirley Valentine in mind, the Black Dogs can just **** off.
