WHEN I'M CLEANING WINDOWS

In answer to Freud's question 'what do women want?' I would say,like Neil Young, it would probably be a maid, but don't tell a Spanish man this as I did the other night or you may be told 'that's not very feminist' to which I replied ''OK, a butler then' but that glib remark didn't wash either. Being glib, ironic,sarcastic, witty or God forbid using an understatement, will often leave you feeling like you have died on stage and put more than a dampener on the evening. I often have second thoughts before I tell a joke or tale for fear of what my friend's daughter calls 'The English joke, the Spanish silence' or worse when the penny finally drops and your listener starts dissecting your joke or story. For a Brit everything is a joke waiting to be exploited, for a Spaniard everything is an accident waiting to happen, Getting back to feminism, perhaps Freud should have asked 'who should do the cleaning?' I did the cleaning once and then realised I would have to do it again and again and again like shaving or breathing.

Living here means we can walk everywhere but on our weekly pilgramage to the LIDL we have the luxury of taking our little car, Poo as she is affectionally called ( how unfeminist but heh, scatologist will do?) and although the journey is short it is full of hazards so obvious that it often feels like it has been set up. The short journey involves driving up wonderfully named streets like Calle Jasmin, Danzantes, and reminders of folk who used to exist like Ramon J. Sender and Ramon y Cajal. They would, flowers and dancers included, dance on or turn in their graves if they could at the sight of locals dithering on opening a car door when another car approaches or park on a zebra crossing just as a woman crosses it with a huge perambulator. I'm thinking of asking the mayor to rename one of the streets after Darwin.