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All done

That's it. My teaching is over until September - provided some of my "clients" want me back. The phone and ADSL connection here are cancelled and could go off at any minute, the flat is basically clean but for one last hoover around and a quick mop and my landlady has given me an extension till half past one tomorrow when she will come for the keys. So Life in La Unión is now, almost officially, dead. I won't be back here next academic term so there will be no more entries. Just Life in Culebrón alive then. La Unión has not been my favourite home but the flat has served its purpose and I will miss the nearby bars when I'm back in Culebrón for the summer. In fact I think I might just pop out for one last chilli burger and a couple of beers now before settling down to watch tonight's episode of El chiringuito de Pepe. I may as well make the most of not working this evening and having the bars at hand. Thanks for reading. Hasta pronto.
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Flat life

Maggie and I have lived in several flats in Spain. When we were in Santa Pola the block we were in at first was more or less deserted for most of the time we were there but as summer approached and people started to come back cooking smells wafted in from some of the other flats. We left before the full summer onslaught so we remember it as being a quiet place.

In Ciudad Rodrigo the family next door, or at least the children of the family next door, used to have a mad half hour around 9.30 but they soon settled down. In Cartagena the next door neighbour had a hearing problem and he seemed to become fixated with a few songs that he would play over and over again. Again though it only went on for a while and, although it was noticeable, it wasn't really a problem. The other flat in Cartagena had a main road running past the front door and as the weather hotted up we had the choice between ventilation and having the telly drowned out by traffic noise.

So our experience of flats is that they can be noisy but that the noise is not particularly intrusive or problematic.

This flat is quite different. I'm not saying that it's noisy but there is a lot more noise. The sound of people living their lives. I quite like it and the flat is becoming quite comfy as I collect together those things I need for my daily life.

A little while ago I was uploading some photos and suddenly there was a lot of shouting. Some of the upstairs neighbours were  having a big argument. I listened in for a while waiting for the man to start hitting the woman but it never happened. Lots of shouting but no violence. I can hear people rattling pots and pans as I type and there are occasional snatches of music and isolated barks from dogs. I've just realised that next door has a cat and, every evening, at around 11pm, the man on the other side seems to make or receive phone calls from somebody who obviously has a hearing problem. As I walk the streets late at night in search of Eddie out for his evening walk I can tell who is watching what TV programme as I pass their open windows. Blinds being closed make a very distinctive and loud sound. Water draining from showers or maybe toilets sounds like a waterfall. Washing machines on spin cycle too.

Nobody seems to have sex though but the man next door, the phone user, has a good strong snore that I can hear through the wall as I drift off to sleep.

It reminds me of a Charles Mingus spoken song about life in New York.
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