'Junkie Scum' playing at El Morreon
As I sit here in my darkened room on a Wednesday evening, I have to say that it hasn’t been the most auspicious week so far in ‘mi vida en La Alpujarra’. And why is that, you may ask? Well, boys and girls, the answer is simple: after spending the best part of a fortnight starting at my laptop fairly constantly and with a certain fixation, I decided to let loose at the weekend. After all, I deserved it – or “you’re worth it,” as that awful L’Oreal ad would say. Whether or not ‘having it large’ was in order, it has to be said that the results have turned out a tad undesirable this time round.
Don’t get me wrong: it was a great party on Saturday night - the birthday celebration for one of the key figures from the local party scene, to coincide with the solstice. And, sadly, the local party scene has been diminished this summer by various factors, including (a) the digging of graves for los extranjeros (sorry, I mean holes for trees!) in Ciggarones where many of the main parties were previously held. This was followed by (b) the denouncing of organisers of the free Dragon Festival for running unlicensed bars on-site and (c) the recent tendency of the Orgiva ayuntamiento (town hall) to set about clearing the vehicles of ‘hippy types’, and hence the ‘hippy types’ themselves, from the area. Unfortunately for those who like to parrrr-tay, this has also curbed some of the free-spirited entertainment that usually occurs in the community.
Anyway, I digress. After spending 10 hours dancing at the rather excellent soiree in El Morreon, followed by ‘mine sweeping’ more than a few beers towards the end (disgusting and unnecessary behaviour), I returned home on Sunday morning and lay on my sofa groaning. I sometimes forget that partying all night like you’re 23 – or it’s 1999 - and expending a lot of energy at once can lead to feelings of decrepitude. Not to mention feelings of grumpiness, anxiety and neurosis – and it won’t be cured by a banana, folks. This feeling lasted through Monday and Tuesday and was joined by the other unwanted after-effects of partying, including lack of attention to detail – this time, ahem, relating to contacts in my mobile phone.
On Saturday before the fun began (well, OK, it sort of started on the Friday evening), I entered the mobile number of a nice lady who runs a local playgroup into my Spanish mobile. Or I thought I did. I had failed to press ‘save’, it seems. On Tuesday pm, I couldn’t identify the desired number to line up a review of the playgroup, so I searched through the ‘dusty annals’ of my handset, found a random number I didn’t recognise, and tried it twice – with no answer - in the hope that it was the correct lady. “Ooh – it’s worth a try,” I thought optimistically. “This looks like a fresh number – even if it’s based in the wrong country, i.e. England.” Hmmmm... bad mistake! I had actually dialled the number of, shall we say, a ‘bette noire’ from my past. A bette noire who I really didn’t expect to phone me on a Tuesday morning, sounding slightly inebriated and demanding the phone number of a male person of our acquaintance whom she thought had called her “repeatedly”, little realising it was a misplaced call and, hence, insinuating that I was keeping her from her target. Furthermore, my Bette Noire kept referring to me as a “baby mother” - depersonalisation in two handy words - hahaha. Some undignified comments ensued and I sat there for at least half an hour trying to figure out how this... character... had obtained my home number. Eventually the light dawned. Dialling random numbers through decrepitude from partying had led to the reanimation of an unwanted figure from the past. Argh!
With this in mind – and the fact that the call from Bette Noire has led to ‘awfulising’ in La Alpujarra occurring for at least part of today – methinks it’s time to get back to the bread maker, the sewing machine, the cake tins (no, I’m not joking – I like a good Victoria sandwich) and to stare at the laptop a whole lot more. It’s obviously safer than going out, having too much ‘fun’ and losing one’s brain cells in the process. In fact, perhaps I’ll watch my copy of ‘Babel’ which, as well as being a brilliant movie, is all about miscommunication and how one wrong move can lead to things going very wrong indeed. Back in the party days in Leeds (1992-95), we would have referred to this tendency as ‘things coming on top’ – but this is when I was 23 and you couldn’t get much more ‘on top’ than living in a rickety, damp attic room with a condemned gas appliance... so who cared if you lay in bed until Thursday groaning and making misplaced calls.
