Life in La Unión

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.

As I sprayed the antiperspirant under my armpit my mind strayed to getting in touch with the phone company. The flat is beginning to look a little barer because things have been migrating back to Culebrón for the past few weeks. At the end of the month I will leave La Unión and before I go I need to cancel the phone and Internet connection. I realised I would need to know the number I wanted to cancel. I have no idea of the land-line number for the phone here because I never phone the flat and if I did I would just press something on my mobile. In fact I don't know any phone number except that of my mobile phone. And the address. The phone company would probably need that too. I know the street name but I'm not absolutely certain whether it's flat 3 at number 11 or flat 11 at number 3. When I need a physical address I never use this one so all I need to know is how to walk to the front door. Although some people would disagree with me it's not a memory problem. ...

I only turn out for event type football games - World Cup and European Championship basically. Last night it was Holland Spain. When one watches football there is really only one suitable drink. No point in sipping a sherry in front of the telly at home. Football means beer. Beer means a bar. Bars mean atmosphere. I reckoned half an hour beforehand would be plenty of time to bag a seat. As a lone drinker I thought I may not be that welcome - taking up valuable selling space. It's true the Cantina, with it's big screen, was pretty much all reserved. The customers had war-paint, flags and paraphernalia. Not so in the bar where I most often buy alcohol or the bar I use more for coffee. Plenty of space and no sign of football fever. I have no idea if England still dresses up with flags and banners before the big football events but Spain doesn't so much. It's not as though the World Cup isn't going on. Telly and radio are full of it and there are lots of football ...