That was the week that was!

I called the police the other day. I had obviously been watching far too many American crime programmes and so when I came up against a problem in the outside world (away from my home) I called the police.

If you are a woman alone in this world – that’s here in Europe – it is understandable that if you need help, you call the police.

I was sitting in my car, which was parked in the lower area of Gabriel Miró, Calpe, (pictured) when I felt a great ‘thud’. Getting out to look, I saw a 6-inch scratch in the side of my car.

Now this may not be a lot to a Range Rover or Mercedes owner, but my 20-yearold Renault, name of Penelope, really cannot do with any more knocks and scratches.

‘Hey!’ I called, as I saw the wizened old man wobble with his wheelbarrow over the road to the building site.

‘Hey!’ I called, running after him. ‘Hey, you!’ I was getting a little perturbed by now.

Finally. ‘Hey! You! Stop or I will call the police!’ That stopped him!

‘¿Qu? ¿Qué quieres?’ he shouted at me. All right, I thought, so it was going to be that sort of a day. Get the boxing gloves on.

Quite truthfully, by this time, I had practically forgotten about what this fight was about. I just knew there was a nasty, workworn elderly man, who had ignored my call. Cheek of it!

If you are ever in the need of calling the Spanish police (Calpe region) get yourself ready to hear something like this: ‘If you are needing an ambulance, press one, if you are injured, press two, if...’

And, I am not an expert, but I believe the whole recording was in Valenciano.

By this time, I felt a bit silly: here I was, a woman with a 5-inch scratch on the side of her old car. And I was calling the police to help me deal with a broken and weather-worn old man.

I shut the phone off.

‘Hey! I called again. ‘You scratched my car!’

‘No, señora! I did nothing!’

‘Oh yes you did! You scratched my car right down to the metal, you did! And, what’s more, I can prove it, ‘cause the paint is there on your rusty old wheelbarrow.’ I screamed, pointing to the white streak on his wheelbarrow that looked nearly as old as he did.

‘You have injured my car!’

By this time, I was practically stamping my feet!

It wasn’t so much that this man had wobbled his heavy wheelbarrow into my car, scraping the paintwork; it was that he denied it and not only that; he screamed and shouted at me. I understood the words - turkey and child - to know that he was not saying anything good about me and my mother.

This was definitely not the week to mess around with me. I was desperately seeking a new home to rent and finding nothing; plus that, I was living amongst boxes that had been packed far too early... maybe England might be a choice, the way things were going, I murmured to myself.

To cut this short, while I had not been able to contact the police (blah, blah, press the number...) in the manner in which I had wished, I called my friend Rebeka instead. Her husband is a policeman.

Within minutes, I had the traffic police, who were on duty that day, with me.

‘This man wobbled his wheelbarrow into my car and caused this damage, I said, feeling pretty silly by now.

They spoke to the work-weary man who, after lots of mumbled and shouted groans, made it so clear that to simply apologise was not something he wanted to do.

And that was all I wanted, I told the officer; just the acknowledgement that my car had been injured.

The old man and his wheelbarrow wobbled off into the building site; the two young police officers, after making sure I wasn’t having a seizure, left the scene. And suddenly, with the time of siesta well upon me, the scene was beginning to fade away. I made my way back to my car.

The little old man had finally, after seeing the white paint on the edge of his wheelbarrow, and under duress, apologised to me for the inconvenience.

‘That’s all I wanted,’ I said to the police officer, ‘an apology.’

I thanked the two police officers who had – I might say – both spoken English – for their trouble.

I know they looked at me in amazement – I had called upon the law to help me with an old, very old, and very elderly wheelbarrow man.

I was beginning to feel awful. Surely, their talents could have been better used.

I walked back to my car, my metal and oily engine object I call ‘Penelope’, only to find a parking ticket stuck under the windscreen wiper…