Nothing In Particular: November

If I had a euro for every time someone had said to me how do you manage to write so often and so much, I would have sufficient to buy a pretty cheap lawnmower. People don't really ask me the question that often; it just seems as though they do. The amount that it would come to, possibly in the region of around 80 euros, would get me a lawnmower. Another one. I've got two broken ones sitting in the utility room. If I bought a proper one, an expensive one, they probably wouldn't be broken, but I have better things to waste money on.

Having therefore borrowed a lawnmower and tackled - finally - an overgrown, autumn lawn, I was attacking the grass with a degree of relish, as there is something satisfying about cutting a lot of grass, mixed with resentment at having to spend my time doing so when I should be somewhere else writing whatever it is I am writing today. But what was I going to write today? This was the question I was asking myself, as I deposited some cut grass into the brown container for the umpteenth time.

Was there a clue to hand? As in on my hand. And on my arm. And on my face. And in my ear. It's a title, I thought. Mosquito Coast. Nicked from Harrison Ford, it seemed a good title as here, by the coast and by Albufera, there are mosquitoes. Thousands of them. Millions, for all I know. And during the day.

Mosquitoes are a fact of life because of Albufera, but the autumn dampness makes them an all but intolerable fact of life. They get everywhere. In my car, for example. November is a miserable, horrible enough month as it is without mosquitoes making it even more unbearable. And November was something else that I thought I might be writing about. Its deadness and its sadness. There is barely a soul to be seen. The whole of Playa de Muro has been wrapped in black bin-liners and brown paper and packed away for a few months. You feel as though you are the last person left alive. God knows how people who have fincas in the back of beyond get on. It would drive me nuts.

And at the airport on Sunday, there was hardly anyone left alive there either. The last easyJet flight out of Luton had three people on it. Little wonder really when there isn't much open for anyone arriving and no chance of returning with the same airline to the same airport.

Then I thought about writing about the unemployment queues. But if I had a euro for every time I've written about these in November, I would be able to dine out reasonably well. Not that you could so in Playa de Muro of course, except at the little cafeteria that keeps going with its menu del día through the winter. Oh, and maybe the burger place, but that's normally only open at the weekend. The queues, though, aren't like the queues used to be. There must be a different system for processing all the poor sods hoping for their measly benefits.

Ah but, there are always the autumn fairs to write about. Yep, done them before now as well. The line about the how-big-is-your-pumpkin competition at Muro's autumn fair is wearing a tad thin. Not that it isn't legitimate, as it has been every year since the pumpkin contest was introduced. Nothing ever changes. November comes round, the fairs are as fairs have long been, albeit that Pollensa is having some sort of Wild West competition at its fair for the first time.

Maybe I could write about November being a time for people to relax, start to re-charge, maybe even begin to think about next season. Maybe I could, but I don't want relaxation. I don't want nothingness. Putting it bluntly, I don't want November. I want people not relaxing. I want them working. I want life. Not an empty airport that is so empty it closes part of itself down for the winter. Not the sight of empty houses - so many of them in the neighbourhood going to shameful, obscene waste - and empty hotels, shells of unconscionable non-productivity.

I could write about this, and there would be a few euros knocking around for the number of times I've expressed my disgust at the volume of unused real estate. So I won't. I'll just flick the mosquitoes away, listen to the silence and wonder what I'm going to write about. I know. I'll write about nothing in particular.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.