At least ignoring the ongoing rain and sipping away here at a glass of red, and thinking about our first encounter with the local grape....
We were here about 6 weeks and had visitors from home, from my original home in fact in Ireland. On the first night we dragged them up to the bar as I didn't feel like cooking and here we get free Tapa with every drink, not so much as dragged them really as they are Irish after all..So as the night wore on and my cousin who shall remain nameless, Susan, continued to talk to everyone with her phrasebook, we all had a pleasant evening and at the end were invited to my neighbours Bodega at the top of the village the next day to sample his new wine.
At 10am. Ahem.
We packed the kids to school next day and headed up, to find a garage door, knocked nervously, and entered into a huge space of barrels and ham and the most wonderful smell of wine. Really, we had no linguistic skills at all, just Susans trusty phrasebook. After a fairly shy start we were loaded up with glasses of wine, rose coloured and fairly pleasant, with a kick like a mule. Jamon was sliced, bread torn, and a black sausage (Morcilla) which should have been cooked but wasn't served up to us. Our tongues grew looser, our livers more swollen, and our eyes more crossed. What we failed to realise was, if you empty your glass, or finish your food, another one always appears in the Andalucian Feed The Visitor Until He is Full rule.
So we drank the poor mans stock of wine, and ate his entire winter stock of pork, and spent the next day convincing our friends it was alas the wine intake, not vertigo. However, said neighbour is now firm friend after 4 years, so I guess we used all the right phrases! Salud, Cristobal!
To be truthful, we have in that time found all our neighbours here to have that same, warm attitude to visitors, we try to show them the same and many impromptu parties, political meetings, and chinwags have taken place around our own table, if it could walk it would stagger, if it could talk, well, best not...!!
More Political Stuff at a later date.....
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