FRANCESCA DE AVALON - Chapter 9

Hard work, fiestas and a visit to the source of the Alardos

The work that lay ahead of me was daunting, to say the least and the temperatures were beginning to soar, reaching the high thirties in centigrade, close on one hundred degrees in Fahrenheit. With zero humidity it was not oppressive but the sun was relentless and the sky cloudless every single day.

The roar of the river became a gentle babble as the quantity of water running off Almanzor slowly decreased. Every day the dogs and I would go to the river bank to collect water for washing and find that we had to pick our way over newly stranded granite boulders as the bank became a wider beach of white coarse granite sand and the flowing water slowly decreased.

6 springs in one location close to the church

For drinking and cooking I had filled five large containers at one of the many springs in the village. The quality of that water, filtered through miles of volcanic rock, was impressive and crystal clear.

When I had arranged our few belongings, I moved an old set of bunk beds out of the smallest bedroom and onto the patio where I set them up side by side as day beds in the shade. I contacted my friends back in UK to arrange for the stored furniture and general paraphernalia to be delivered to me at the first opportunity.

Among the items left on the property by the previous owner I found a number of useful gardening tools which were essential for fighting through the overgrown bramble and that became my daily activity in a long and slow progression which resulted in multiple scratches and battle wounds.

The rickety bird cages which were built into the bottom of the water tower were stinking in the heat. They were full of decaying detritus which had to be burned along with the cage materials. When the tower was clear I climbed its built in ladder and hauled the large empty fibreglass water tank down to the ground. I had a plan to move the tower so that it was between the kitchen window and the front door, up against the front wall of the house but this was a job which would require some assistance.

Meanwhile, Madrigal de la Vera was filling up with holiday makers and day trippers. All the bars were becoming busy in the village and there was a general atmosphere of fiesta all along the riverbanks near to the Roman bridge. The road was surprisingly full of traffic passing on to other Vera villages and occasionally I would drive to Candeleda to visit the shops and find it hard to park. There was music and partying everywhere, both day and night. I had not expected that and was pleasantly surprised.

The whole of August was one long party!

It was during this time that one of my near neighbours had a number of visitors who came to investigate me. They were a very friendly crowd who insisted that I should down tools and join them for a barbeque.

Nobody works in August, they said.

Grateful for their lively company, I walked with them the half a mile to my neighbour’s house. Fuego was a very unusual character but he made me very welcome and showed me around his property.

He had chickens, a couple of horses, some pigs and dogs. The house, standing in immaculate lawned grounds, was very modern and beautifully decorated. It turned out that he had a similar story to Hernan and, in fact, knew Hernan well. I was very puzzled that rich Madrid families would banish their errant sons to live in these country estates on a limited financial allowance! They were not cut off without a penny and expected to fend for themselves. They certainly were not expected to work for a living!

The barbeque turned into an elongated drinking session and there were copious other drugs being shared around. Around midnight I returned home, exhausted. Early the following morning two ladies from the village passed by on their way to Fuego’s house and greeted me politely. These were Fuego’s cleaners who had a contract with his parents to thoroughly clean his house twice a week. You may wonder what Fuego did for himself…. I wondered that myself especially after I met his gardener!

As the scorching August days wore on, it was impossible to work through the hottest part of the day. Fuego’s guests grew in number and so did the parties.

I began to spend a significant amount of my time either at Fuego’s house or entertaining his friends at mine. I had become a member of their little crowd and was very fond of them, especially Cecilia, a woman in her forties from Toledo. My two spare bedrooms became overflow accommodation and my lounge became the chill out zone to escape Fuego’s heavy metal taste in music.

When the heat reached a zenith it was decided that we would all pile into my van and drive up the mountain as far as we could get by road. Then we would walk to the high waterfalls and deep pools they created, way above the treeline. We took food, beverages and blankets in preparation for spending the night under the stars. Rasta and Ben were very excited to be joined in the back of the van by all their new friends. A road trip was guaranteed to get their tails wagging furiously.

After a long difficult and slow climb, the road literally petered out in a dirt track and I could drive no further. Loaded with all our provisions we walked, with Fuego leading the way, through rough gorse land which eventually led us to the very source of the Garganta Alardos. It was a series of small waterfalls which had carved out deep bowl shaped pools where we gratefully soaked away the heat and dust of the long hard trail in the cold, pristine mineral water. As the sun went down, we lay on our blankets and watched the sky slowly darken until it was too dark to see more than starlight on the whites of our eyes and teeth! Stargazing gave way to deep sleep soothed by the sound of waterfalls.

At dawn we bathed one last time and gathering up our stuff, we began our descent and returned to the van. Turning the van was impossible for many hundreds of yards, so I had to reverse on the tricky track before a suitable space presented itself.

When we arrived home, Rasta took a few steps into the house and collapsed unconscious! We were all stunned and confused. What could have happened to him? I wasted no time and lifted him back into the van. I drove straight to Candeleda and mounted the flag stones of the large town square to cross directly towards the veterinary clinic which was on the other side. I jumped out and had just opened the rear van doors when a policeman ran over furiously waving his arms and yelling that I could not park the van there - until he saw me struggling to lift Rasta, who appeared to be dead.

Between us we got Rasta into the clinic, onto the vet’s table and, thankfully, the lady vet was very quick to realise the cause of his condition. Rasta was absolutely infested with ticks. Thousands of them!

She had him hooked up to a saline drip and antibiotics in no time but still he remained unconscious. She said not to worry, Rasta would recover and so I left him in her hands and went back to the van to move it to an acceptable place. I thanked the policeman profusely for his help and understanding, through my tears. I cannot tell you how afraid I was that I would lose Rasta.

Marta, the vet, turned out to be a super understanding young woman. She explained to me that the mountains are full of ticks because the resident goat herds were their usual prey. Rasta’s thick silky coat was an ideal environment for ticks and one night at the high altitudes had provided them with an easy target.

Poor Rasta regained consciousness in a state of complete confusion. He had no idea what was happening and could not stand to walk at first. Marta gave me medication and, because I did not have my purse with me, happily accepted my offer to pay her later.

When I got home, my new friends were all waiting anxiously for news and were delighted to see that Rasta was just a little bit groggy and disorientated.

Cecilia and I spent the next couple of days endlessly picking tiny black ticks out of Rasta’s coat and drowning them in a jar of water. It was revolting. I had no idea that ticks could swarm in such numbers and I certainly did not realise that they could knock a strong animal unconscious like that.

When I took Rasta, fine and well, to pay Marta’s bill she was delighted to see him fully recovered. She had a favour to ask of me. The clinic was moving to a much bigger building in a better location with easy parking. Would I help her move the equipment with my van? Of course I was willing to do that and there began another useful friendship which blossomed into me providing temporary care for injured or homeless animals for Marta.

From then on I was careful to give Rasta, Ben and Pearlie continuous protection against fleas and ticks. I did not want to have to deal with such an event again!

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New chapters will be published every Sunday until I finish the story of how I became Francesca de Avalon. You can find the previous chapters 1-8 beginning here.

This is the fourth book I am publishing exclusively on Substack.

ONWARDS!
xx

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