A summary of 2006

And here is another inspired moment of writing from a freezing cold room in Ouarzazate that made me get angry with my employers who hadn't paid me for two months and eventually get the sack coz i complained. Needless to say I was more relieved than anything else... It also led me to write this...
I know I have been a bit negligent of my communication to you all but I have been trapped in this dead-end bubble known as Gibraltar for too long.

I was, however, able to escape its clutches as I hovered on the verges of desperation and got a job on the Costa del Sol. [right: only high point -lovely home]
Life changed dramatically as I was thrust into the cutthroat world full of English businessmen seeking big bucks in a world which released them from the social responsibilities and constraints imposed on them in the UK. Freed from their shackles and never having a chance of social redemption in their new surroundings, they wage a war of entrepreneurial rape and pillage to see if they can reach the top of a pile in a place that despises their presence and refuses to see their benefit.

In this cultural conflict, everyone is a loser. The Brits live a life of rejection while the new Spanish generation grows up reviling the aliens with all their being, the sentiments of resentment and unforgiveness glowing strong in their hearts.

Through all this discord some hope could be found as a less overpowering race of Englishness sweeps the inland towns. The more impartial and intellectual side of the British psyche seems to prevail here as foreigners live a humble life of co-existence with the locals, trying hard to measure their culture with an acceptance of the one they are immersed into. However, with a younger generation growing up blaming the arrivals for the higher prices and the loss of all they hold dear it is only a matter of time before the cracks in this fragile balancing act will be seen.

If any redemption can be hoped for from this situation it is a desire that the revolution of open-mindedness spreading from one of the fastest growing cities in Andalucia, will embrace those whitewashed towns and see the invasion as a chance for growth than a time to build walls. Unfortunately the development has come hand-in-hand with alarming levels of crime as the sense of community is dismantled stone by stone by a wave of opportunistic relativism.

To make things harder, an unstoppable exodus from Africa has hit the EU's southern border with such force that desperate measures have been taken, upsetting every civil rights group along the way as authorities find a palatable way to get rid of the hordes that arrive on the nation's coast at ludicrous numbers of as much as 1,000 per day. Add to this the hundreds of thousands of South Americans returning to their Spanish routes by the planeload and you have a veritable population explosion that has only been harnessed because of the need for cheap, efficient labour. Other than this it would be untenable but the strains of a growing economy have left a void for those latest arrivals while locals take the cushy office jobs and managerial positions.

This mish-mash, though a cultural revelation was far too tense a backdrop to live in and after a series of events I was given the chance to move to Tarifa, something I did and which was incalculably beneficial. [Palmar - near Tarifa - sunset below]

For once I found a community in which I could be myself without feeling pressurised and revel in my multi-culturalism while enjoying the south Spanish warmth which left me with me with fond memories. Whether it was walking along the beach with my family dog as the autumn sun streamed down happily, or surfing clean waves on a friend's longboard or walking the tightly-woven streets of the old town, this place was a breath of fresh air and one I needed after the suffocation of the rest of the year. Independence also felt good especially as my flatmates' absence made the flat practically mine, while the ability to develop some relationships yielded fruit.

That the place had little scope and was full of escapism-chasers from all over Spain and elsewhere was not lost on me, and I yearned for some place where I could develop myself

on every level. This led to a desire to go somewhere new and Barcelona tickles my fancy, especially after a month or two in Morocco and a family Christmastime.
Yeh and I went to these two places - as you can see above and below...
[Here is Andy at right pulling into a glassy evening barrel - well it could be if it was bigger... lol]