Blogpost 61, 28 Nov 2025, Reijer Staats
Los
Summer has already passed. No more triple-parked cars. Nor the usual Andalusian hustle and bustle, the noise and superlatives of sun-tanned bodies with tattoos on the gitanó beach just around the corner.
You no longer hear us ask for permiso to pass. Or families familias engrossed in a charla, awkwardly blocking the pavement as families tend to do here in summer.
Only occasionally a pardon or a entschuldigung from a grey-haired couple in three-quarter shorts, white socks in creaking sandals, and the audible, irregular tapping of Nordic walking poles as they briskly make their way along the paseo. Yes, those peculiar, somewhat forced sporty northerners are back on the costa!
Campervans have also found the free parking spots along the promenade again, preferably close to the beach facilities. After all, you'd rather spend your money on your home on wheels than on a paid pitch at a local campsite.
This autumn, by the way without Nordic walking poles, we're celebrating fifteen years as a married couple! Ten years ago we first turned the front door key of our Casa Una Más, and for over five years now we've been living and working in Andalusia. What luck: unwinding here together, all the amigos and vecinos around us, in such a beautiful, authentic and forward-thinking country.
Superlatives
"Niñita pequeñita!"
This exclamation piques my curiosity, so I turn around in my squat and see Txetxo, the Basque trainer of our sports class (yes, even he is still regularly amazed by the Andalusian joie de vivre) leaning towards one of the compis on the beach, pulling down the corners of his mouth. Waving a finger in time with the syllables, he repeats it, now shrill and louder in dialecto andalú:
"NÍ - ÑI - TA - PE - QUE - ÑI - TA !"
He mockingly imitates a typical local madre, who uses words rather than volume to affectionately diminish what she loves: not niña (girl) but niñita (little girl), and instead of pequeña (small), pequeñita (even smaller).
Txetxo brings thumb and forefinger of both hands together, moves them towards his mouth, shrugs his shoulders, and theatrically makes himself as small as possible. As if the mother portrayed here is speaking to her niña microscópica, according to Txetxo.
Meanwhile, the compi nicknamed Nike brings up an issue with her noisy temporary summer vecinos. She hasn't slept a wink that night; it rings out:
"No es un problema. Es un problemó! Un problemo górdo!"
For Nike, the neighbour noise isn't just a problem, it's a problemóóó: a huge mega-problem!
It's often in the superlative form here: expressive and loud, yet light-hearted, full of humour and self-mockery. I always watch with amusement, sometimes chuckle quietly, because well, usually when a strong story is told, everyone talks over each other and I have no clue what it's about.
In Jesús's hairdresser's chair, guiri Reijer learns how to communicate in Andalusian superlatives as a foreigner. For example, my complaints about summer temperatures should primarily be expressed with words like La Virgen, cojones or Dios (the Virgin, damn it, or God):
"Cojones! Qué calor!"
But summer has truly been chased away by the poniente and a storm from the west turns our street briefly into a river, sweeping along several bins. Two beaches away, one is found lonely (📸Susanne Bund on Instagram).
On to Jaén!
Johan and I leave the coast behind, and also the valley where we stop on the way to give our casita and the winter guests there an extra set of keys.
Oh dear, on the little street: a run-over kitten. And behind her persianas appears the face of the vecina; she who always seems busy with the laundry and consistently ignores me. Could I clear away the poor cat by her door? I take a wide berth around it.
Thus begins our autumn break to the Andalusian province of Jaén, which annually produces nearly as much olive oil as Italy, Greece and France combined. Speaking of superlatives.
After a two-hour drive, we settle into our Airbnb in the UNESCO town of Baeza: for the first time in months, several days in a row in long trousers (brrr). We're prepared with driving and walking routes from the website Jaén, paradise inland and an important culinary tip: every terrace offers bread with premium olive oil.
The Renaissance architecture of Baeza stands out especially as we walk to and from our parking spot, collect bread and olive oil, or go for a coffee.
Everything here is notably neat and prosperous: from the proud jiennenses (as the locals call themselves), the pavements and eateries, to the orderly, gently rolling olive groves stretching endlessly, as far as the eye can see, for hundreds of kilometres!
We travel through the beautiful Úbeda on to Cazorla, a mountain village on the border of the olives and several mountain ranges that together form Spain's largest nature reserve (the second largest in Europe, after Swedish Lapland).
It feels like we've landed in an Italian town: with squares, churches and castles. We walk out of town into nature: fresh air pricks the nose, the sound of rushing water fills our ears, walking through autumn colours of green, yellow and red, accompanied by the scent, clinking and bleating of grazing sheep flocks. The body warms up. High above the peaks we see vultures circling.
"Here we'll have lunch," says Johan, at a sunny square called Balcón de Zabaleta (see the next photo). We explore the square's namesake, an interesting modernist artist from the area, look out over the mountains we just walked through, and enjoy local specialities: bread with olive oil, grilled asparagus with sun-dried tomato, courgette tempura with cheese sauce, spinach with pine nuts and egg, and fresh cheese mixed with whipped cream on speculaas crumbs and forest fruits. What a delight.
A little detour into the mountains to discover the source of the Guadalquivir: the fountainhead of Andalusia, the river that flows through Córdoba and Seville to the Atlantic Ocean. And we found it…
But a panting wild boar-like sound makes me decide to climb a rock with Mèlo. Johan boldly throws sticks towards the bushes, shakes his head and reveals it was an irregularly spurting leaking irrigation pipe.
Keeping up the pace: driver Johan likes to be out of the wilderness before dark. So we continue, bickering and chatting like the two ravens perched high above us on a rock. I point them out briefly.
"Yeah, what am I supposed to see!?"
Wonderful: back in the car, driving along the ridge, wild nature on the right, endless olive groves glowing in the setting sun on the left.
A thought: would these have been so neatly arranged in the Renaissance too?
Well, yet another superlative added to our travel videos!
Barney from the Flintstones
Anyone who lives in or often visits the Lecrín Valley knows the shortcut to Mercadona and Lidl. A fairly long, straight, gently rising stretch of road. On both sides stand large sheds with car-related businesses: garages, body shops and second-hand dealers.
When our Renault 4 was parked outside for the very first time five years ago and was found to be leaking oil, our then neighbour Juan Antonio sent us straight to one of these garages.
"Es un amigo mio," said Juan Antonio.
The small, square figure of this amigo in overalls moves like a wind-up toy and reminds Johan, as he tells us, of Barney from the Flintstones: "Also a good-natured chap, that friendly face, the small playful eyes, only his hair colour is different."
Barney's shed stands on a large fenced yard and consists three-quarters of a cluttered, dark workshop. The rest is office space: an echoey room with a shiny floor and a massive high-gloss varnished desk. On the yard, one car waits for servicing.
When paying, a traditional A6 receipt is written out, with large grubby hands pressing the pen almost through the paper. Standing, you wait for the receipt to be torn off, meanwhile observing the model cars in the display cabinet and whispering softly to each other because of the harsh acoustics.
Barney can't say no. This becomes clear when Johan asks him to collect the Citroën Dyane and get it ready to drive after two and a half years in storage. "No hay prisa," Johan says, but the Dyane could be on the trailer the very next day, with status updates via WhatsApp…
But it stays quiet. On the way to Mercadona, we frequently glance at the yard, where more and more cars appear, but the Dyane remains untouched in the same spot, looking increasingly faded under the bright Andalusian mountain sun.
Then friends Sebastian and Perry knock on Barney's door with car trouble and are immediately helped. Johan decides to apply pressure. Several visits to the shed bring movement.
Well, after four months the Dyane can be collected! Parking outside the gate, as the yard is now packed to the brim. Johan revs up and behind the rolling Dyane, I see a white pick-up from the last century emerge, and next to it our Flintstone amigo grinning as he closes a deal and hands over the keys to the buyers.
Am I right? Is Barney now in the car trade too?
We head off to the MOT test.
The still red Dyane from 1983 on the trailer.
And the 1981 Renault 4 is entering its fifth winter with us too.
Writing urge
While things are back on track, the urge to write begins. A new Spanish Chit-chat forms as the recent period passes through my mind. I feel like adding more to La gente de la media haba, 36 encounters around the Lecrín Valley. To my surprise, a parked working document already contains 99 encounters! A new winter beckons to continue writing.
Sometimes small new moments remind me of a period already closed, such as on a trip to the valley, where I give Malle Pietje a abrazo, have a charla with the Professor and bump into Boefje: from his tractor with a load of firewood behind, he invites us for a drink. And Juan from the bar? He's still just as grumpy. Without a word, let alone eye contact, he throws a reservado sign on the table where we just sat down. The message is clear and makes us decide to quench our thirst elsewhere rather than at his bar.
On a Monday evening, Johan and I head to our regular spot in Granada, Bar Patio Braserito, to catch up with an old acquaintance from my Schiphol days.
"You're off the leash," sums up the former colleague what I just told her about snippets of life stories.
Later, I chew over the word los again and keep mulling it over: the urge to let go, my need for connection, the loose stories on paper, not connected by a red thread, and how the lack of connection now feels lonely for a while.
Los: perhaps food for a future short poem?
The small painting Summer by Johan from 2006, posted with an earlier poem Live and let live on Facebook and Instagram
Handyman
Then the dramas around our casas call again: a leaking air conditioner, damp in a wall, a short circuit in the pool pump, a bathroom fan that's stopped working, the annual maintenance of the pellet stoves. We're busy with it all.
A yawning Johan stretches once more on the heavily rain-soaked morning of those swept-away bins: "Hey, do you hear dripping too?" Still sleepy and unsuspecting – I roll my eyes, yes it's raining outside – I get out of bed to fetch coffee upstairs: my bare feet right in a puddle. A leak in the bedroom ceiling, on my side of the bed… No stress: we now have a manitas who can basically do everything and quickly solves every problem.
At home, work is also planned: a solar water heater, bathroom renovation, white skirting boards everywhere, a plastered living room wall and a new floor upstairs. Something is being done in every room. Two days' work, according to the project coordinator from the hardware store Leroy Merlin. All cupboards are emptied, taken off the walls, our small patio crammed with furniture and moving boxes, glassware displayed on the mosaic table and the wine stock on the balcony in full sun.
And then suddenly a house full of Colombian workers: all air conditioning set to 18 °C but windows and doors wide open, banging, sawing, laughing, singing and dancing to loud Colombian reggaeton from the speakers of these cheerful chicos.
Johan and I are forced to camp outside at the patio table full of glassware, exchanging a glance behind our smartphones: sigh. Between 08:00 and 15:00 we literally can't go anywhere together, for two weeks now, always unsure if the Colombianos will ever finish the work.
Unwinding on the fishermen's path between Almuñécar and La Herradura: el Camino de los Pescadores.
The 100th encounter
Clearing out the house gave us the idea to organise a garage sale. I put a call out on Facebook and within ten minutes receive a response from someone named Inma. She would like to reserve the bathroom mirror and an Arabic embroidery behind glass and wants to come by at 10:00 the next morning, as she finishes work then and we're right on her route.
"Reiger? I'm Inma."
In front of the garage of Villa Merise stands a tall, slender woman with pale skin, messy hair, large round metal glasses on her nose and an outstretched hand. The atmosphere is immediately friendly and very spontaneous. I ask about her work and she replies that she is a Profesora de Biología y Física at the Colegio in Motril. She lives in the campo and is on her way home after two morning classes.
While we load the items, Inma tells me she took over an English neighbour's cortijo and is renovating it to rent out. She's looking for characterful second-hand items for the furnishing. When she picks up the oxidised brass frame around the old mirror, she starts to beam.
I enjoy the contact and give Inma a wood carving as a regalo that wasn't reserved yet. She immediately knows where it will hang and that it will get a new colour. Maybe as thanks I could have some avocados from our own orchard? Well, I say yes to that, as our own avocados still don't produce. I see her look uncertain:
"Vamos a ver…"
The Profesora Biológica walks ahead into the orchard of Villa Merise and inspects our sixteen fruit trees one by one. Every identified pest is given a remedy. The spray mixtures are of course biológico, for example water with a tablespoon of jabón blanco, special soap from Mercadona, or if that doesn't help, a product based on olive oil. I learn which trees need fertilising, which need more or less water, and which won't make it and must be replaced.
Inma always delivers her explanations from a carefully chosen shaded spot to protect her fair skin.
Only an hour later, after this campesero masterclass, I'm back home in Almuñécar and excitedly tell Johan about the 100th encounter: with a Spanish person I would very much have liked to be friends with.
For one it's the fruit orchard, for another it's the plants on the terrace in Salobreña: trial and error in the Spanish sun.
Fresh pomegranates in autumn from the orchard of Villa Merise.
The last one is the most important
Finishing this Spanish Chit-chat proves a struggle. I get stuck in a list of loose stories without a red thread. But hey, Johan already called out to Barney:
"No hay prisa!"
Without rush, everything falls into place, so I put this chit-chat aside and drift off to Sharing heals and to the whispering voice of a trusted mentor, who always provided my loose lists with the following comment:
"The last one is the most important."
In the looseness of the stories I get closer to what I really want to write, which is that I have slowly come to accept the situation around my mother's illness and passing. From writing about her, I started email contact with her childhood friend. From her, I received kind words: "Beautiful, what you wrote. She loved you. At least you didn't get the writing from a stranger." And I also received the Last Letter: a beautiful document with their lifelong correspondence.
From los, I finally feel connected to my mother again. I catch myself smiling during bootcamp burpees on the beach. At 75, she still did them, my mother, every morning as part of her routine. Until she heard the neighbours complain at the residents' association meeting about an unexplained banging echoing through the whole block every morning. Only my mother knew who and what the cause was.
On the beach, I feel her presence, as if she's joining me: squat, jump, plank, push, jump, stand…
Genesis: an audiovisual performance in the chapel of the Sacred Heart College in Granada
Madre
I'm on my way to the underground car park beneath the Leroy Merlin hardware store in Motril.
Because the small plastic yoghurt pots at our fruit breakfast were increasingly bothering me, I started looking into kefir: its endless positive effects on gut flora and how easy it actually is to make yourself. A kefir starter, madre in Spanish, a kind of rice pudding full of bacteria, mixed with milk, left to ferment overnight, strained, ready. What remains in the sieve is the madre, which can be reused again and again.
I like the sound of that!
On my search, I came across a Facebook group where kefir starters are exchanged. From the list of providers, I selected Mercedes, a señora from the neighbourhood. I told her I could be recognised in the car park by a white-green Renault 4.
A full-figured woman approaches me, sturdy, in a long multi-layered dress, large jewellery and with strikingly greasy, sticky dark shiny hair down to her shoulders. I can't help but immediately think of Caroline van der Plas from the BBB party.
"Reiger?" I hear her ask, slightly breathless.
Following the Facebook group protocol, we exchange glass jars: I receive the madre, she takes my clean jam jar. Enthusiastically she instructs me about the many uses of kefir and proudly shows some photos where she's experimenting with her favourite dairy recipes. In one, a photo of cream cheese, or rather kefir draining in a cheesecloth, I point to the whey and ask what she does with it.
Well, Caroline massages that into her hair every morning. I haven't tried it yet myself.
Nowadays, it's lovely to enjoy Johan's kefir cheesecake and carrot cake.
We cut another slice and say: "Hasta luego!"
Until the next blog: Live today!
Johan & Reijer