I have been reading about some men who decided to shove a petrol bomb through the letterbox of the publisher of a book that hasn't even come out yet which allegedly has sex scenes between the prophet Muhammad and his child bride. The headline starts 'Muslim gang firebombs....' Instead of saying Muslim, Islamic, Islamist, perhaps we should start using the words 'anarchist', saboteur, or Luddite even. Extremists of an Islamic bent in Britain just seem to be taking Punk Rock a bit too far. In the future I see an advert that begins ' Now a bank manager? You too can relive your wasted youth listening to CDs of the Koran. Maybe I have got it all wrong and the rebels were trying to burn the publisher's house down because the book is guaranteed to be a load of shite, either that or a publicity stunt gone very well.. When people say things to me like 'What? You have never watched an episode of Big Brother or X Factor?' I always ask them if they have read The Satanic Verses and then tell them 'same thing really, you're not missing anything'.

On the theme of religion, a woman with a very Aragonese accent, meaning we are in the Wales of Spain, rang me to ask when my husband would be picking up the lamb that needed to be slaughtered. Being Aragonese she was adamant that he had ordered one and it needed picking up today. I assured her we were not in the habit of buying lambs in this way but she didn't give in. When I finally told her my husband wasn't Morroccan and hailed from The Netherlands she started to apologise. Being parsimonious, the Dutchman's first question was 'have they paid for it?' and I could see his mind hatching a plan to get hold of the animal. Being fair haired, blond and known to attend the occasional mass might give the game away but this is Spain and surreal things often happen.

One of the most ridiculous has to be trying to get the number plates changed to Spanish ones. Being the type of person who needs to have everything in order the Dutchman decided to get this done and embraced it with the kind of zeal expected from someone who can be best described as Teutonic in these situations but only when he isn't listening as this kind of insult would inflame anyone from The Netherlands. After six months of paperwork, visits to the police, the MOT people, and Golf in Germany and England and searching for numbers that would prove he wasn't lying about any part of the car he finally got the new number. Having a certain amount of Irish blood I wouldn't have bothered and would have waited to see how long it would be before I couldn't get away with it. So he happily pootled off to a key cutting-cum-shoe repair shop that goes by the name of, wait for it, Mr. Minit with all his papers and a spring in his step. So it was much to his chagrin a week later to find out that Mr. Minit had only made one number plate. He seemed surprised when the by now apoplectic Dutch was threatening to do a Basil Fawlty in the middle of the Coso Real Shopping Centre and start thrashing everyone with whatever was at hand.

Back to today. It has been surprisingly quiet. I haven't heard a peep out of the priapic Piti the poodle. We took a wrong turn on our country walk this afternoon and found ourselves trudging over what looked like a minefield. I thought we'd never get out and wondered what we must look like as if any Spaniard would care, but it still troubled me as a woman walking her dog saw us scrambling out of some bushes as we finally got back on track. It is a small town where everyone knows one another and extremely gossipy. Nothing ever goes amiss and for a Londoner this has taken some getting use to. I feel sorry for others though. Like the Dutchman's 'gynaecologist'. He calls all his pupils by their profession so there are numerous from his 'chemist' to his 'vet'. But it is the gynaecologist who must dread stepping outside as the womenfolk leap from every corner enquiring about their 'problemos abajo' and I am sure they do as there doesn't seem to be the kind of embarrassment here that exists in The Atlantic Isles when it comes to enquiring about your nether regions. More on this subject soon...................