Peace offering Peaches

Our neighbour, the incomprehensible, who speaks with an accent so pronounced it makes communication impossible is having the roof renewed on his barn.

This has been a source of endless amusement to us as the works are visible from our pool and the merry band of tradesmen have provided hours of innocent fun as they scrambled about the roof, removing asbestos sheets, replacing tiles, guiding the placement of beams by a crane which is out of the line of sight by improvised directions, urinating freely from the ridge into the lane below, erected scaffolding which looks as steady as an Irishman on St Patricks day, all without any obeisance to health and safety or being shackled by safety ropes or helmets.

This has now gone on for three weeks and has obviously pricked the conscience of the neighbours, as the noise, the dust and the rumble of heavy machinery, the passage of lorries and the torrents of Spanish oaths from the intrepid band of brickies has punctuated our waking hours and much of our early morning sleep.

This morning as I was attacking with a pick axe the patch of hard baked clay that passes
for my vegetable garden, I was summoned to the hole in our adjoining boundary by the neighbour with his usual sibilant hiss... NEEEEK. He passed through a box of peaches still warm from the sun and with that unique smell that only the downy skin of a peach can exude.

How goes the work ? I enquired in my best Catalan. "Bueno, no se, als palleters son molts rapids pero els viges son ganchat" was the nearest interpretation I could place.

So no wiser but fruitily richer I retired, the peaches were delicious and I have now sent an emissary to ask him to start work on converting the ruined farmhouse next door to the barn. After all there is still much of the harvest to be gathered and perhaps his conscience is still pricking