The Orthopaedic Bed.

SOMETIMES, strange things happen here in Spain. Today has been one of those days. Hubby and I were working in the garden, trying to decide on the companion planting, an essential role in organic gardening, and the best way to promote healthy predators, to confuse the destructive ones. Tomatoes with basil, peppers with aubergines, sweet corn with beans, peas and potatoes, and many sunflowers ,to make me smile.

The doorbell rang, peeking up the drive, I saw two Spanish women, obvious by the Spanish red hair, and Seat car. Scrambling, for my pocked sized, Spanish-English dictionary. ‘Hola’, I said quietly, after lots of arm flapping, and many turns of the pages of the dictionary, I discovered that they were cousins of the people we had bought the house off over 6 years ago. They asked us if we still had the orthopaedic bed, left in the house, when we bought it. Apparently, one of the woman’s husbands had chronic back pain and needed it.

My memory of buying the house, after all the signing and dignitaries, was standing on the Notary steps, with the three beneficiaries of the sale, the children of the vendors, who had suddenly inherited wealth, as mum was in a care home where she could be looked after properly. These three people could have been Olympic sprinters, given chance. I had not seen anyone move so fast, to put their cheques into the bank, before it closed. It was 1.45 and closed at 2pm. They almost threw the keys for the house, at us, as they ran anxiously shouting,' Banco, Banco, Banco'.

When we finally viewed our new Spanish property, we found that the only thing the vendors had taken was the wood-burning stove, and the washing machine, which was unexpected, as these two items were the only things we wanted. They had left everything else; there were clothes in the wardrobe, food in the cupboards, wines and spirits, furniture, family photographs, first communion trinkets, and an unfortunate infestation of cockroaches, which my hubby discovered as he peered into a dark cupboard, to see them all staring at him from the ceiling. The orthopaedic bed was in the “gloomy room” as we called it, as the room was then quite dark and unwelcoming.

As six years had now passed, and the house had finally, been cleared, and all the unwanted items skipped, and the cockroaches fumigated. I was surprised when hubby said, “I still have the bed it is in the garage covered in lots of items, which would of course come in handy one day. The two women were delighted and said they would come back on Sunday to collect the bed, armed with wine in exchange for the bed. They went away happy.

Hubby spent the next three days fighting his way to the back of the garage, to retrieve the item, when his back went, he had suffered from sciatica for many years, but had been fine recently, in agony; he crawled in the house, and spent the next two days flat on his back.

The two women came back on Sunday, without the wine, but an English speaker on the other end of their mobile phone, who asked if we still had the automatic hoist to lift someone in and out of bed. They were sure it was in the house six years ago. Unfortunately, we had no recollection of this item; the two women who were obviously disappointed, grunted a little, but thanked us and reluctantly put the bed in the back of their car and drove off, maybe they will come back later, looking for something else. We will see.