A NOVEL WAY OF BEING INSPIRED
Author Henry Murphy on how life in the sun introduced him to a whole new genre...
Henry Murphy spent most of his working life in Dublin’s Four Courts where he was a leading barrister who had a sideline in writing, with his previous work centring round the trials and tribulations of one young junior counsel, Dermot Mc Namara. That was until 2014 when, with his six children — including playwright Colin, politician Eoin and actor Killian Scott — all grown up, he upped sticks and moved to Spain. And life has taken on another turn as his new book Tilting at Windmills deals more with soul searching and relationships. Here, he explains why life with his wife Mary in the small village of Canillas De Albaida has captured his heart.
Why are you here?’ I am asked frequently. Indeed, I ask myself. Well I’ll tell you.
It’s two thirty on Friday afternoon, the third of July. I’m sitting at a table in our small sitting room writing this piece. Sun pouring in. Looking out at a mimosa tree, full of birds, in a garden that is not ours and beyond to surrounding mountains under a cloudless blue sky. The fan is playing. Every fifteen minutes the church clock chimes.
The birds are making quite a racket and I can hear Angeles, our local shopkeeper, chatting with a customer. I can’t make out what she is saying of course because, despite how hard I have been working at Spanish, including classes courtesy of the Town Hall, the Ayuntamiento, she speaks too quickly and anyway she is speaking Andaluz, a sort of Cork Spanish. She will close her shop in a few minutes and reopen at 5pm.
It is lunchtime in Canillas de Albaida in the mountains of Andalucia and, in between attending to customers, she has spent the morning preparing the main meal of the day for her family. Indeed, if you are doing your shopping in the morning, it may take longer than expected because Angeles may be delayed in the kitchen. It is a quiet village at the best of times, population 800, but between 2pm and 5pm in the afternoons, it goes to sleep and there is hardly a sound to be heard.
IT WAS 39 degrees yesterday and it can’t be far off that today. ‘Mucho calor’ is the refrain as we pass one another in the street. Even the Spanish. After an indifferent and long drawn out spring, summer has at last arrived and will continue without letup until late September when the temperature will drop a degree or two in deference to those of us from the north of Europe.
If I take a walk around this white washed village at this hour, I am unlikely to bump into anyone and the only sound I am likely to hear, apart from the birds chirping, is Dolores playing the piano. In the evening, particularly at this time of the year, I might come across Ana playing the castanets on her porch. Once a week in summer, at about ten in the evening, to let the heat of the day die down, there is a musical gathering. The informal group known as The Zambombians meet in the plaza and from time to time in other musical corners of the village, to play a variety of instruments and sing. The zambomba is a musical instrument. Though you wouldn’t know to look at it. It consists of a container and a stick. The container is a ceramic jar that you might put a plant in if you weren’t going to use it as a zambomba. It is covered with the stretched skin of a goat, which has a small hole in the middle for the stick. The musician holds the remains of the goat with one hand and thrusts the stick in and out of the hole with the other in what Peter Cooke would call a rhythmical manner, thereby producing a musical experience.
Some members of the group play the castanets, some run an old metal key up and down an Anis bottle, some play the tambourine, some miniature cymbals and the elder statesman of the group, the accordion. At 11pm they pause for half time and well earned refreshment. When we came upon this group for the first time, we were not long here and we were immediately invited to join them. Being Irish, they may have thought we would have a musical contribution
to make but, if they did, they didn’t show their disappointment. Throughout the year, the village band practises in a room beside the children’s playground.
To date, Covid 19 has given us a wide berth. Compared to other places in Spain and beyond, the sacrifice — as far as people like ourselves, jubilados or pensionistas, are concerned — has been insignificant Notwithstanding, the lockdown has been severe and we could only leave our houses for essential shopping and walking the dog which we don’t have. The village is at the entrance to a Natural Park and it was difficult for three months to look out on empty mountains.
The villagers have been compliant throughout and uncomplaining and effectively a quiet village has been converted into a deserted one.
The Ayuntamiento has been outstanding in how it has looked after us. One by one, our four bar/restaurants are opening and we are regaining our freedom but people are cautious and keeping their masks and distance. Throughout, we gathered nightly on our balconies to applaud the front liners and every weekend our musician in residence cheered us with music from his balcony.
One of the recreational casualties of Covid 19 has been the municipal swimming pool. Every village has one and they’re all closed this summer. We will miss it greatly because in the intense heat of July and
August, it is something of a life saver.
Another casualty is Feria. The Spanish are famous for their fiestas and love of party. A bit like ourselves. The high point of the Fiesta season is the annual Feria. Every village has one and these take place in July and August so these are not good months for getting things done. The first one should be this weekend but desafortunadamente ( my favourite Spanish word, meaning unfortunately), they have been cancelled. In fact summer has been cancelled. So we will have to content ourselves, like Wimbledon, recalling Ferias past.
Feria lasts three nights and three days with the emphasis heavily on the nights. In our village, the first weekend in August. Day one, Friday, at nine in the morning, the municipal band tours the village announcing the commencement of Feria. Entirely unnecessary as everyone in the village already knows.
On Saturday and Sunday the band will return at a slightly later hour to remind the villagers of the continuation of Feria. Again entirely unnecessary. But delightful.
ON each of the three days, there are activities for all villagers and every member of the family. The highlight, La Fiesta de la Espuma! The Foam Party! Saturday afternoon in the plaza.
A machine that looks as if it is going to spit out tennis balls spits out foam instead. Snowballs of foam. In minutes the plaza is transformed into a bubble bath of foam. The DJ is belting out the music. An electrifying beat, the foam, the scorching sun. First the children. Then the adults, normal, normally sane, adults. We walk into the foam in our clothes without a thought and dance our hearts out in the blazing sun of a high Summer afternoon in the Andalucian mountains.
Each of the three nights, according to the programme, the music and dancing will begin at 10.30 but no Spaniard worth his or her salt will show before midnight. Or leave before six in the morning. And that includes the senior members of the village down to the very young in their mothers arms. I don’t know how they do it. ‘Why am I here?’ ‘Why would I not be?’
TILTING AT WINDMILLS - A Spanish Year Chasing A Novel Dream by Henry Murphy is out now, published by Orpen Press in bookshops, online and as an ebook.