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Authors: Chris Stewart
Tags: nonfiction
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the dismal round, that’s the way we are!’
And then we found it was actually happening. We had tossed aside all that was comfortable and predictable about our lives and hurled ourselves out into the cold. Anyone passing us on the road might have thought we had the look of refugees forced to leave a beloved homeland, but we weren’t so much depressed, just numbed with surprise to find ourselves actually taking part in a script we ourselves had written.
It seemed endless, the long tedious inclines up mountain ranges drained of colour by drought and frost, then the plains at the top, with the chill wind whipping the roadside dust. Then late one afternoon on the fifth day we found ourselves creeping down a long pass with dramatic green-cloaked rock formations on either side. As we descended we seemed to enter a different world. The washed browns of the grass above turned to rolling meadows of deep green, sprinkled with autumn flowers. The sun shone warmer, the sky was blue and we peeled off layer after layer of woolly clothes. Little white farmhouses, bright with flowers, were tucked into shady valleys and everywhere was the cloudy green of olive trees. We were coming down the pass of Despeñaperros and entering Andalucía.
At El Valero, the roadbuilders had cleared a wide bare space by the old pomegranate water-butt and there we came to rest. Beaune leapt from the Landrover and set about investigating her new domain. Of course she wouldn’t have seen it then as her domain, just another night-stop on a seemingly endless journey. And it must have looked a pretty odd sort of hotel.
‘Well, here we are. This is home. Here we lay our bones.’ We laughed and walked arm in arm up to the terrace where we sat dangling our legs over the drop below while the sun slipped down behind the hill.
What we needed was a cup of tea. If you’re English, or for that matter Chinese, you always need a cup of tea at such moments, even if you’re just moving into your new home on the continent. So we set about gathering the wherewithal for a brew. Nothing that we had brought with us up to the house was suitable for that purpose and I refused adamantly to unload and go back across the river to where we had left the trailer before I had drained my first cup.
We eventually found a bent aluminium pot. The sort of pot you boil up handkerchiefs in. It looked as if a mule had trodden on it. Then we built a fire of twigs, filled the pot with water from the pomegranate-dribbling hose, and suspended it over the flames with some bits of rusty wire. When the water began to smoke – not steam, oddly enough, but smoke – we removed it from the heat and put in some sort of tea-bag we’d located. Then we covered it with a flat stone to mast.
‘Cups, cups, cups . . . what shall we do for cups?’ But of course! There were some empty tuna-fish tins lying around here and there. I took a couple and went to scrub them in the water-butt. ‘Have six minutes elapsed yet?’ They had, and we poured the loathsome grey liquid into the tuna tins.
‘You didn’t wash the cups very well,’ said Ana accusingly.
‘I did the best I could – they’re alright.’
A scum of fish-oil was floating on top of the tea. We sat back and sighed, gazing at the lovely view of rivers and mountains below us, while we sipped what must surely have been the most detestable beverage ever to pass the lips of man.
Nonetheless, we have kept as family treasures the paraphernalia of that first brew and on November 26 each year we celebrate El Valero Day by seeking to surpass in vileness that first momentous cup of tea.
Romero came up and watched as we unloaded the Landrover. ‘What’s this for? What on earth do you do with these?’ he asked as he fingered and rubbed all the myriad things that had no place in his simple countryman’s armoury.
‘It’s a thing for slicing eggs . . . an asparagus kettle. That? Oh that’s a tea-cosy . . . for keeping tea-pots warm . . . a
And then we found it was actually happening. We had tossed aside all that was comfortable and predictable about our lives and hurled ourselves out into the cold. Anyone passing us on the road might have thought we had the look of refugees forced to leave a beloved homeland, but we weren’t so much depressed, just numbed with surprise to find ourselves actually taking part in a script we ourselves had written.
It seemed endless, the long tedious inclines up mountain ranges drained of colour by drought and frost, then the plains at the top, with the chill wind whipping the roadside dust. Then late one afternoon on the fifth day we found ourselves creeping down a long pass with dramatic green-cloaked rock formations on either side. As we descended we seemed to enter a different world. The washed browns of the grass above turned to rolling meadows of deep green, sprinkled with autumn flowers. The sun shone warmer, the sky was blue and we peeled off layer after layer of woolly clothes. Little white farmhouses, bright with flowers, were tucked into shady valleys and everywhere was the cloudy green of olive trees. We were coming down the pass of Despeñaperros and entering Andalucía.
At El Valero, the roadbuilders had cleared a wide bare space by the old pomegranate water-butt and there we came to rest. Beaune leapt from the Landrover and set about investigating her new domain. Of course she wouldn’t have seen it then as her domain, just another night-stop on a seemingly endless journey. And it must have looked a pretty odd sort of hotel.
‘Well, here we are. This is home. Here we lay our bones.’ We laughed and walked arm in arm up to the terrace where we sat dangling our legs over the drop below while the sun slipped down behind the hill.
What we needed was a cup of tea. If you’re English, or for that matter Chinese, you always need a cup of tea at such moments, even if you’re just moving into your new home on the continent. So we set about gathering the wherewithal for a brew. Nothing that we had brought with us up to the house was suitable for that purpose and I refused adamantly to unload and go back across the river to where we had left the trailer before I had drained my first cup.
We eventually found a bent aluminium pot. The sort of pot you boil up handkerchiefs in. It looked as if a mule had trodden on it. Then we built a fire of twigs, filled the pot with water from the pomegranate-dribbling hose, and suspended it over the flames with some bits of rusty wire. When the water began to smoke – not steam, oddly enough, but smoke – we removed it from the heat and put in some sort of tea-bag we’d located. Then we covered it with a flat stone to mast.
‘Cups, cups, cups . . . what shall we do for cups?’ But of course! There were some empty tuna-fish tins lying around here and there. I took a couple and went to scrub them in the water-butt. ‘Have six minutes elapsed yet?’ They had, and we poured the loathsome grey liquid into the tuna tins.
‘You didn’t wash the cups very well,’ said Ana accusingly.
‘I did the best I could – they’re alright.’
A scum of fish-oil was floating on top of the tea. We sat back and sighed, gazing at the lovely view of rivers and mountains below us, while we sipped what must surely have been the most detestable beverage ever to pass the lips of man.
Nonetheless, we have kept as family treasures the paraphernalia of that first brew and on November 26 each year we celebrate El Valero Day by seeking to surpass in vileness that first momentous cup of tea.
Romero came up and watched as we unloaded the Landrover. ‘What’s this for? What on earth do you do with these?’ he asked as he fingered and rubbed all the myriad things that had no place in his simple countryman’s armoury.
‘It’s a thing for slicing eggs . . . an asparagus kettle. That? Oh that’s a tea-cosy . . . for keeping tea-pots warm . . . a
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