Over to Africa

The curious incident of the dog in the nightime.

If memory is correct, Sherlock Holmes solved a mystery by noting that a dog did not bark when it otherwise would have.

No mystery here though. Down in the valley among the scatter of houses and villas are dogs. Someone has a pack of them. How do I know? Because at about 4 in the morning they decide to sing in chorus, yapping, barking and howling at shadows, the breeze or out of sheer boredom. How their owners can sleep I’ve no idea. We have double glazed doors leading out onto the balcony but even that only just about keeps out their noise. Instead of ear bleeding and anxiety raising levels of noise, we get a muffled cacophony that just about registers. Then, they shut up just as quickly as they started. Perhaps someone fed them a leprous cat to shut them up. As they bark, the sound bounces off the surrounding mountains and reverberate around the valley. The trees absorb some of the noise, the limestone cliffs amplify and redirect it. One dog sets off another in a call and response to innervate the devil into mischief.

As the morning sun rises, the noise dies down. I would not say silence fills the valley but somehow the dogs are less tiresome. Instead we are treated to the sounds of swifts, swallows and sparrows all of which are a sheer joy. Kestrels patrol the sky above looking for breakfast, supper and dinner. I saw one make off with chihuahua in its beak. There is a tree next door which is home to a bird. I have no idea what it is because it never reveals itself and I don’t recognise its call. It sounds something like a magpie, or a crow, or a jay but not quite. Or perhaps a half strangled parrot, with a mouse stuck in its gizzard?

I muse on this as I stand on the balcony, in just shorts, feeling the warmth of the sun on my shoulders, warming the blood. Over the winter, the Cornish drizzle has been absorbed into my bloodstream and now, the Andalucian sun is drying me out from the inside. Fresh coffee in hand I can gaze across the mountains, the Mediterranean Sea and over to Africa which appears as a brown smudge on the horizon.

Down in the valley, I can see a dog jumping up into the air, and playing, and sticking its tongue out in eager anticipation, its ears flailing as it leaps. Perhaps it should not have got so close to the electrified fence.


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