I’m always learning
I LIVE IN a mountain village. It’s not too far from Benissa, but far enough away to be considered almost remote. The village stretches for two kilometres in length, and like myself, there are a few other English neighbours nearby. But living in this village, and being made so welcome, it’s only a matter of time before you try to immerse yourself. Hence, I adopted two young female goats, which was kind of a Spanish thing to do. Their names weren’t. The childish streak in me named one Goaty McGoatface and the other was simply Blackie, how original for a black goat. My aim was to keep the weeds down, nothing more.
The first thing was where to put them and make them a shelter. I have a fenced in back field, so when they arrived, I manhandled them into there, left them a trough of water, and went off to source some pallets to make them a shelter. A few hours later, I got back and opened the gate to the back field. No goats. Nothing. Not a sign. In my naivety, how was I supposed to know they could clear a 5ft fence?
Now, living in this remote area, I then spent the next five hours, bucket of food in hand, shaking it, and calling two names that these darn goats had never heard of. Plan two – download the noise of a bleating goat and play it on my phone. Well, that was a ridiculous idea too, because unless they were within two feet of me, they’d have never heard it. So back to plan one. Climbing places I’d never thought I’d climb, walking through thick forested areas, binoculars out, but I found nothing. It was getting dark, so I thought hopefully they’d return and would be back in the garden the next morning.
No chance.
The next morning, after another thorough search and no joy, I knew I’d have to ask the neighbours if they’d seen two goats. Spanish neighbours, that is. I went over the road and asked Pedro if he’d seen them. He looked at me, pointed at the fence and fell about laughing. After he’d finished doubling up, he said he’d keep an eye out and ask around. Well, I thought the English could gossip well, but this went around the village in literally a matter of minutes – I think they all phoned each other to have a laugh!
Day three – still no sign of the goats, but then people started to hear them bleating. They would message me and say “I’ve just heard them at the top of the mountain” – I would rush out of the house and literally run up a mountainside, lungs burning, also looking for goat poop en-route (I was beginning to turn into Bear Grylls at this stage), I’d reach the area in question and no sign.
Day four – I was now becoming famous in the village, and people would stop and either ask if I had them back or say they’d heard them about two kilometres away, and I should go and get them. (As I write this, I am actually now thinking that even if I had seen them, I wouldn’t have caught them anyway!!)
The days passed, and I was now getting extremely concerned, it was summer. I left many buckets of water out around the mountain and checked them daily, but no sign.
Day seven. A note was on my front gate when I returned from my daily search. In Spanish was scrawled “I have your goats, please call this number”. Elated, I rang the given number, and Juan from across the mountain said yes, the goats had got into his VINEYARD and he’d rounded them up and put them in his courtyard. Cringing at the thought of how much money he was going to ask for to compensate for the only wine made in the village, I slowly drove along the track to his farm. He and his wife welcomed me and introduced themselves, and after a fifteen-minute chat about the weather, his chickens and his grapes (which they hadn’t touched!) he showed me to the door of his courtyard, with me thanking him profusely. Now, imagine a rustic finca with an inner courtyard of double height – the walls were at least ten metres high.
Juan proudly opened the door and I stepped inside. I turned to Juan who burst into a string of expletives – no goats! They had scaled the walls of the courtyard and escaped again. He was dumbstruck at this moment in time. We walked from the courtyard back onto his drive, when he let out a yell of delight – they were back in the vineyard where he had caught them. He rushed to shut the gate, and the goat chase began. Like a scene from Benny Hill, him, I and his wife were all running in a row behind these two goats, trying to get them into a corner. Juan, who is around 80 years old, suddenly makes a dive that any goalkeeper would be proud of and manages to catch one of the goats by the leg. He then splats his whole body on top of said goat, and yells at me to bring him my dog lead. Innocently, I thought he would put it around its neck and lead it off, but no, with one swift action, the goats four legs are now tied together and it’s lying on the floor. “That bugger won’t move now” he grins. With that, the other goat just simply trundled up and stood there like a lemon, just watching the other. I put a collar and lead on the loose one and led it to the van. Juan picks up trussed goat, pops her in the back, and the other goat jumped in. Great. Doors shut, I’ve got them!
I have an unused tennis court with a ten-metre high fence, so popped the goats in there. I’ve since built them a huge shelter and laid bedding on the floor, and that is now where they live. So the reason I got them, to keep the weeds down, hasn’t actually worked!
The legend of my escapees clearly lives on though, as you will occasionally notice a villager looking at me and stifling their giggles at my utter, utter stupidity!