HOME JAMES, DON'T SPARE THE HORSES!

A  while back, we owned a giftshop in the nearest larger village, 23kms away, and commuted daily. The journey brought many interesting things, I guess there is a huge difference between a tube or metro and a winding steep road high in Andalucia.  Sometimes the weather stopped us altogether, snow, landslides et al.  Sometimes we would have to stop to observe a Golden Eagle, or for a wild boar, or because we spotted the first Spring orchids.
Mostly though it was the lesser spotted Andreas, holding his lunchbag tied to the end of his walking stick that halted our journey.  This is a local of some eighty odd years young who still farms his land and Cortijo daily.  In spite of his ever debilitating Parkinsons, and ever increasing years, we would drop him about 12km up the road, where he would then walk a steep track another 4km down, and spend the day with his Mule, goats and land. He usually walks the entire way home again at night.
The lifts progressed to taking his wife shopping, and cab fare was always offered, always refused.  In the lovely tradition of  'You scratch my back.....', he offered us some wood for our fire, so one day OH and daughter drove down.  He made good use of the extra hands, for feeding the goats and then threw Isobel on top of the Mules back and she rode it to it's stable too. He filled the car to the gunnels with old vine cuttings and precious Almond wood, the best to burn but normally too expensive for us to buy in.
We continued to take him daily, and continued to feel sorry for the guy, in comparison to the cosseted pensioners we are used to in North Europe.
One day, at the twice monthly market day in the next village, we ran into him laden with shopping bags, leaning for a breath against a car, looking tired out.  "Andreas, let us help you", we started to collect his bags and bundle him away.
"Hey, Hombres! Porque? Sure I have my car here........."