Two Old Fools in Spain Again (12 page)
14. Oranges and the Law
‘Your baby is now the size of a prune. Bones and cartilage are forming and fingernails and hair are starting to appear.’
A
t the bottom of our mountain was a roundabout, one of many. We were accustomed to seeing an elderly farmer sitting on an upturned crate beside his ancient car at the side of the road. In winter, although the Spanish sun is always warm, the air can be cold and the wind often has a biting edge.
The old man wore woollen gloves and a scarf, his shoulders hunched in a heavy coat. Under his flat cap, he watched the traffic pass, waiting for people like us who couldn’t resist his wares.
I turned to Joe. “Stop the car,” I said. “I want to buy some oranges.”
He rolled his eyes, but applied the brakes. I knew what he was thinking. We had more than enough oranges given to us by villagers in the bowl at home. But I also knew he agreed with me. Spain was going through tough times and most people were struggling financially. We could easily afford 5 euros for a bag of oranges.
The crates stood in a row on the verge, tilted slightly, so that passing motorists could see the gorgeous display. A few had rolled into the road and been crushed by tyres.
“Very fresh,” the old man assured me and I knew he was telling the truth. The glossy, green leaves still attached to some of the golden fruit hadn’t even begun to wilt.
I held the carrier bag open and the old man poured an entire crate in, muttering with annoyance as some big oranges threatened to escape. I paid him and carried the bag back to the car. It was so heavy that it cut into my fingers.
A local orange seller
When we arrived home, we found a bulging bag had been left on our doorstep. Oranges and lemons. Some kind villager had left them for us, as they often did. I sighed and took them through to the kitchen. It had been been a long day and a gin and tonic with a few fresh lemon slices wouldn’t go amiss. Joe put the car away, but didn’t come back empty-handed.
“Somebody left these for us,” he said. “They were hanging on the garage door handle.”
“What are they?” Silly, unnecessary question.
I became very inventive with oranges. We ate them all through the day and a jug of freshly squeezed orange juice was a permanent fixture in our fridge. I made chicken à l’orange, orange curd, orange sponge cake, orange upside-down pudding and orange mousse with caramelised oranges (thank you, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall).
It’s a pity the body is unable to store vitamin C because I’m sure Joe and I had enough in our systems to last until we were at least 300 years old. We never caught colds and perhaps we could thank the oranges for that.
Of course all those oranges generated yards and yards of peel. It occurred to me to do a spot of research to find out whether orange peel can be recycled in any way.
Oh yes, apparently there are many colourful uses for discarded orange peel.
1) Orange peel firelighters
I was keen to try this one as we always needed firelighters to start the stove in winter. I followed the instructions by placing our peel on a tray in the sun to dry. A couple of days later, I went to see how my firelighters were coming along. They were swarming with ants, so many that the peel appeared black, not orange and organised lines of ants were marching in from all directions. Failure. I threw the peel, ants and all, into the bin.
2) Orange peel cleaning product
This one looked easy. All you had to do was place the peel in a jar, cover with vinegar, screw the lid on tight and wait two weeks. After a fortnight, I needed to strain the vinegar, throw the peel away and my cleaning product was ready to use.
All went according to plan, although the liquid smelled more of vinegar than oranges. Unperturbed, I set to work. I dampened a cloth with the mixture and began wiping the furniture. It worked beautifully. I looked at my cloth with satisfaction. It was now grey with the dirt that my new cleaning product had lifted. I scrubbed some more. It was then that I realised I was not only removing dirt, but also the varnish. The remainder of my homemade orange peel cleaning product was poured down the sink.
3) Orange peel rose table centre-piece
Oh, please! Life was too short to start sculpting orange peel into little roses. Joe would never have noticed anyway as he’d be far more interested in what was on his plate.
4) Orange peel insect repellent
Hmmm... That could prove useful.
“If you mix orange peel and water, then spray the solution outside your home, you will prevent ants from coming in,”
began the article. Rubbish! I’d already seen my orange peel firelighters swarming with ants. I believed the orange water would attract ants, not chase them away. I certainly wasn’t going to waste my time with that one.
5)
Orange peel bird feeder
With three or more hungry cats in the garden? Probably not a good idea.
6)
“Why not fashion yourself some orange peel Halloween teeth?”
asked another article.
“Because it’s March,” I grumbled.
5) Adorable orange peel boats
No. Enough.
So I carried on throwing away all our orange peel, satisfied that at least I’d tried.
I’m not good at breaking the law; it makes me nervous and twitchy. I don’t believe I ever did before we moved to Spain, but circumstances changed.
The problem was our car. It was brand new the year we came and although we used it for carrying heavy stuff and firewood up the mountain, it still ran beautifully and the mileage was ridiculously low. It was a four-wheel drive, a Suzuki and we loved folding back the soft roof in the summer as the sun beat down, allowing the wind to blow through our hair. (Well, mine, anyway, as Joe was rather lacking in that department.)
The jeep was a right-hand drive and had British number plates and we knew we should get Spanish registration for it. We tried. We hired a lady to do the paperwork. She hired an official to check over the car and make notes about its specifications. Back came the report. Our car didn’t exist. It could not be found on any of the Spanish files.
“Never mind,” said the lady, tapping her clipboard with a polished fingernail. “We can find a way round that. It’ll cost a bit more, of course.”
Of course.
Several months down the line, we had imported new headlights from Japan at huge expense, removed the tow bar and paid to have all sorts of other modifications made.
All cars must be put through the ITV
(Inspecciòn Tècnica de Vehiculos)
and we were confident that our car would pass with flying colours, considering all the modifications that we’d made. In the UK, the MOT, or Ministry of Transport test, is carried out at appointed garages. In Spain, the procedure is different. There are designated ITV stations dotted all over the country. We made an appointment and drove there.
In Britain, you just leave your car and pick it up later, but in Spain you actually stay in the car as the mechanics swarm all over it like insects over a carcass. They crawled underneath, spun the wheels and fired instructions at us to switch things on and off. At the end, we were informed that the car had failed because of a headlight technicality.
“Do you realise we’ve thrown a couple of thousand euros at this car and it still isn’t right?” said Joe. “I think we should just sell it and buy an ordinary Spanish car instead. Otherwise we’ll have to go through all this paperwork again and I bet it won’t ever pass, whatever the garage does.”
“But who is going to buy a right-hand drive Brit-registered car, without an ITV certificate?”
We both loved that car. It was reliable, functional, lovely to drive and easy to park in our garage. Neither of us wanted to get rid of it. The weeks slid by and we continued to use it, illegally. I was a nervous wreck every time we went out, jumping at the sight of police cars, convinced we would be pulled over, questioned and fined.
It’s rare to see any police presence on our mountain roads so when Joe drove to the seed merchant to buy more grain for the chickens, he wasn’t expecting any problems. It was a lovely sunny day and the roads were empty.
When he approached a service station on the outskirts of a neighbouring village, he decided he should fill up with petrol. Checking behind him in the mirror, he turned left and swung onto the forecourt without bothering to indicate as there was no other traffic on the road.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t looked carefully enough. He’d failed to notice the police motorbike tailing him. Worse still, Joe’s left turn and lack of signal had forced the policeman to brake violently.
On the garage forecourt, Joe switched off the engine and waited, head drooping, for the inevitable. The policeman drew up alongside, killed his engine and angrily pulled off his crash helmet. Joe looked at him sheepishly.
“Dangerous driving,” announced the policeman. “You failed to signal when you turned off. You have broken the law and you could have caused an accident. I need to see your ID, proof of insurance and the car’s paperwork.”
Glumly, Joe produced his passport, which was all he had with him. The policeman glanced at it, then patted the pockets of his own leather jacket and checked his panniers for something.
“You need to produce the rest of your paperwork within one week,” said the policeman, scribbling Joe’s name and registration number on the back of a cigarette packet. Obviously his official notebook had gone missing, or perhaps he was off duty. “Take them to the police station, or you will be fined.”
Tucking the cigarette pack back into his pocket, he replaced his helmet, turned the ignition key and roared off up the empty road.
“We’ve got a week,” said Joe gloomily when he came home and told me all about it. “A week to pass the ITV or get a new car.”
“There’s no way we can get an ITV, so I guess we’ll have to buy a new car, even though we don’t want one.”
“And what do we do with the old car?”
“I don’t know. Just park it in the village somewhere for now. Ask Paco what people do with old cars. Perhaps there’s a car scrap place we don’t know about.”
It was a depressing thought to abandon our perfectly good car to rust amongst crashed and broken vehicles in a scrap yard.
The following day we started looking in earnest for a replacement vehicle. In the city, we parked at the first car showroom and started browsing the vehicles on display on the forecourt. We were so engrossed we didn’t notice when a tall, skinny man with fair curly hair strode up to us.
“Joe! Vicky! How are you?”
“Kurt! Good to see you!”
Kurt was the German estate agent who had found our house in El Hoyo for us, nearly ten years ago.
We exchanged chitchat. Kurt and his Spanish lawyer wife now had two children. Selling houses was no longer a profitable career, but Kurt had fingers in numerous pies. He was active in local politics and also had an interest in the restaurant in the next village. We told him about our year in Bahrain and life in general.
“Are you looking for a car to buy?” asked Kurt.
“We are,” said Joe, “although we don’t really want to part with our old car. Are you looking for a car, too?”
“
Ja,
I promised my vife I vould look for a fun vehicle ve can use to pull our little boat to the beach in the summer. A small RV vould be good, perhaps.”
Joe and I stared at him.
“Like that one?” Joe asked, pointing to where our vehicle was parked.
“Ja,
exactly like that one.”
To cut a long story short, Kurt loved our car. The fact that it didn’t have an ITV certificate didn’t bother him at all as he was a man of many contacts. He didn’t mind that it was a right-hand drive, either. We shook hands on the spot and Kurt was pleased with his purchase, although being German, he wasn’t one to rave. He had secured a bargain for 1,000 euros and we had sold a car we thought was un-sellable. He found us another car in another garage, a rather boring Volkswagen Polo, but it suited our needs.