Barbara is back! CHICKENS DON’T CARE

CHICKENS DON’T CARE
This, I recall, is to do with a conversation I had with our builder, Hector, about putting an extractor fan in the bathroom. Hector always tells me I can’t have what I want solely because, I strongly suspect, I’m a woman. Every job completed in our apartment has ‘contention’ written all over it.
‘Can you please put an extractor fan here in this wall, please?’
‘No, not there’
'Why not?’
‘Because ….’
Because ….?’
‘Because people can walk past the outlet and if you make a smell it will embarrass you.’
‘No it won’t’, I say, followed by, ‘What people, there’s only me and my husband?’ and, finally, ‘English people don’t make smells.’
Figuring I’ve covered all bases, we glare at each other for several moments until he says: ‘The chickens’.
My neighbour keeps chickens. Our bathroom, separated by a footpath and dividing wall, backs onto his hen house. The outlet, naturally, will extract air straight at them.
‘They don’t care’, I say.

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Vote for Barbara!

If you are a regular reader of thisisvalencia.com you will probably look forward to reading Barbara O'Neill's excellent column about life as an ex-pat in (and out) of this fair city of ours. What you probably don't know, and I am about to tell you, is that Barbara has written a book, and jolly good it is too - it's called THE GIANT KILLERS and is currently on the Harper and Collins website Authonomy.com for all to read. The purpose of the site is to get your book read and voted on. The more votes, the higher the book is ranked and when it is ranked high enough it will be read by an Editor at Harper Collins with a view to publication.If, of course it is not snapped up by an eagle eyed agent or publisher in the meantime.
'When Elizabeth and Jack open the package they believe they are looking into a toy box. It is Jack who notices they are breathing.'
Barbara would love you to visit her page and have a read of this excellent novel, which she describes as a fantasy thriller. If you like it sign up to the site and put her book on your shelf and send her your comments....

To whet your appetite here are the cover notes:
It is the year 2150. Elizabeth Waldren, married to a man she has come to despise, is living in an old cottage on the isolated shores of Chichester harbour. Her husband, Stephen, is a geologist with a colonisation project on the planet GT4. Absent now for ten months, he has left her with his psychologically disturbed eight year-old son, Jack. On a routine survey Stephen risks entering the prohibited area and stumbles across an indigenous race, The Lhaitiri. Only twelve centimetres tall, he succeeds in capturing nine of them and, by a clever deception, transports them to Earth, keeping their existence from the project leader, Jonathan Tupperman. Angered when Elizabeth refuses to let him play with them, Jack resolves to punish her; but as he begins to understand the strength of her friendship with Ybron, their chief, he decides The Lhaitiri must die. As Elizabeth discovers that she is dealing with a life form far removed from that of Earth, she is determined to communicate. But when conversation is finally possible, so comes understanding and The Lhaitiri are faced with the true nature of the human race; with all its complexities and the society it has created for itself.
Go on go over to Authonomy.com and read (VOTE TOO) Barbara Richmond O'Neill's THE GIANT KILLERS, I guaantee you'll be hooked from chapter one.
Gooru

Anita on heat, and Punctuallity

It looked warm and sunny out this morning, and I had had the fan on all night as I slept, so I got dressed in last year's silver thong sandals, my thinnest black skinny trousers and a plain, loose, white tee shirt and had a light chicken salad and some chilled water for lunch in my best efforts to remain refreshed and unruffled. Then I left the flat and stepped out on the street and boom! Right into the blast of someone's hot air-dryer. Or so it seemed. But no! Alas, I was mistaken, it was just the lovely end-of-June air blowing a gentle breeze across my face. Or rather, the lovely end-of-June 40º gale blowing its way into the City from the lovely and cool Sahara desert. Running late, as always, I could barely move through the soup-like air to cross the bridge but the plus-side was that my wavy hair was poker-straight by the time I staggered into the office to be greeted by puzzled glances at my otherwise dishevelled appearance. And immediately broke into a sweat. Or, as I am a lady, began to glow, as my grandmother would have me say.
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As Nature intended...

There is a pool on the roof of my complex. On Tuesday, innocently wandering up for a swim, I came across a naked man calmly drying himself before settling into a lounger. Forced to beat a hasty retreat before being spotted (we English, of course, never wishing to embarrass our fellow man) my mind gallops through endless scenarios, mostly involving children, I mean, suppose I had been a child and not a mature adult …. but wait, he’s not one of my mine. He’s a native. Do Spanish children suffer those excruciating spasms of fear, disgust and shock that we Brits, who have been brought up to revile nakedness, are racked with? To which even those of us who went through the horrors of the boarding school system are not exempt. Of course not. I am over-reacting. After all, it’s not as if he was old, or ugly, or misshapen, disfigured or tattooed with snakes and cockroaches. Actually, he was in his early thirties, dark, slightly curly hair, with big brown eyes, clean-shaven and kinda cute and … isn’t it amazing how much the human eye can record in only two short seconds? I wonder if he has a swim routine?
Thisisvalencia.com has a great woman's page, Anita Darling, Lolita Devine and Barbara O'Neill have regular columns on Life as a woman in Valencia. Read more of Barbara O'Neill's latest column by clicking on the headline!

S-H-O-E-S

It is nice to have somewhere to go of a Sunday evening. I met up with Gooru and headed to the IVAM yesterday (you just can't drag him away from the place these days!) to catch a shoe show and a symphony overture. On the way he tried to show me the stuffed turkey, but it had gone - lucky he got the photographic evidence then! The Banda de la Federación de Sociedades Musicales de Valencia took up the whole of the entrance hall to the museum as around two hundred onlookers stood to listen to a piece especially composed for IVAM's 18th birthday. Written by composer, musician, professor and director Ferrer Ferrán, it was quite beautiful and the setting and acoustics were ideal - the rain coming down outside made us feel extra cosy indoors and all the more privileged to witness this special performance alongside Rita Barberà, Consuelo Ciscar and other familiar faces.



We stayed around afterwards to see the inauguration of the Julio González' life works exhibition and then for a parade down the catwalk of an unusual collection of shoes and sandals by Álvaro Carpena. - from bejewelled and platformed to leopard printed and stripy to flat and frumpy. The models came down the spectacular concrete and marble staircase of the IVAM and down onto a catwalk, accompanied by the orchestra playing the piece IVAM for a second time. We were then showed a (rather disappointing) cake and offered champagne. I passed, I was nursing a rather heavy hangover and was not on for hair of the dog, so headed outside instead to admire the new scrolling LED lights imbedded in the steps up to the museum and the images projected on the front.
Tonight at 11pm Josele Santiago will be singing songs from his new album Golondrinas. All events during the 18th anniversary celebrations are free to the public.
©ANITA DARLING
Read her great WOMAN column by clicking on this entry's title.