Village life in Andalucia

A couple of British ex-pats are giving us a lift to the village. We are in the back of their 4 wheel-drive “Pajero”.

She: We live up there, see? Up that track, you can see the pool and the house behind. Its getting difficult out here, lots of us are going back. He hasn’t had any work for nine months. Have you?

He is silent

She: (indicating her husband) He’s a carpenter. Aren’t you? Pause We used to live down the coast in a village but they weren’t very friendly. We didn’t feel very welcome. I don’t know why. Don’t understand what was the matter with them. We were very outgoing. Used their bar and everything. Didn’t we?

He says nothing

She: We were always in that bar, I don’t know what they do now without us. We more or less ran that bar. Not just us ha! ha! I mean us expats. There were a lot of us there. But the villagers never made us feel at home. They were quite aggressive. We live up there in the campo now. You can choose who you see. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, do you?

He gazes out of the window

She: Nine months without work. The Brits are all going home and the ones that are left haven’t got any money, don’t want anything done. So we have to sell a car. Yes, yes I know what “pajero” means. We get little Spanish boys pointing and giggling. I don’t care. Well, they didn’t make it for the Spanish market did they?

I’m not going back to the UK mind. We’re originally from Bognor. Ha! “Bugger Bognor” who said that? We wouldn’t go back to Bognor for anything would we?

He sighs gently

She: I used to like Bognor. Nice place. Its horrible now. Full of foreigners. You can’t go into a bar without pushing past Poles and Slovaks, all sorts, all jabbering away so you cant understand what they are saying, taking the place over. Bloody foreigners. . .