Yesterday I mentioned that we were not overlooked, well we are sort of, by an entire village. The village of el Vilosell is a small medieval village perched atop a hill. I say medieval, I’m not even sure that Spain had a medieval period did it? History was never my strong suit at school. I was more of a Geography person. Even then it was not physical geography (mountains and stuff) but human geography (town planning and infrastructure. I did my A Level assignment on the retail value of businesses on Lord Street. This was when Lord Street had businesses. Oooh, little bit of politics there!). So I have no idea what the hills are made of around here (I’m guessing rocks) but I recognise a medieval settlement from the street plan of el Vilosell. My entire knowledge of Spanish history was the Moors came over from Africa, built the Alhambra and then it was the Spanish Civil war. Did much more happen in between?

According to the census the village has a population of 188. If that is the case, then we reckon that every inhabitant owns two more houses then the one they are actually living in. There’s seem to be a lot of houses for that many people. The other thing is that our villa is right on the border of the village so we are set apart, but as we discovered, quite visible. One day we headed in and up to the viewing point (where the Catalan flag is flying next to the tannoy speakers). You got a great view…of our hot tub. We may not be in a complex, but we are certainly visible and must provide endless entertainment for the locals.

We knew that there was a shop (singular) in the village which sold most things we needed, a restaurant, a church (which chimes on the hour which is useful as we know when to turn over when sun bathing) and at least one bar. On our trip we saw a total of two people before we found the shop. Neither said hello to us. We then found the bar in the town square which was throbbing with life. There was a girl sat at a table with her laptop smoking fags and making phone calls while her son rode around on his bike, her mate and an old couple at the next table. We were lucky to get a seat.

We ordered drinks and some tapas. Rachel wanted a coffee but Tibu insisted she charged it to a Diet Coke as apparently ordering tapas and hot drink is just not the done thing. I was very Spanish and went with a beer (well it was past 11:00). We began chatting with the waiter (I say “we”, I mean Tibu chatted to him). We had seen signs about it being the Fiesta this weekend and wanted to know more details. He told us that he didn’t know anything as he had only been in the village for three weeks, but the girl with the laptops mate filled us in about it. All the time she and Tibu were chatting here mate was throwing dirty looks their way as she was obviously doing a business deal on the phone and this complete stranger was asking after a Fiesta. I do get the feeling that if we do go to the fiesta then we will double the attendance. They may even have to find an extra table from somewhere.

After our drink we headed to the shop, which did sell most things, for a price. The bottle of Cava we bought in Carrefour for €2.95 was suddenly over €4. When the shop assistant was adding up she asked where we were staying and Tibu told her in the villa. There was an audible “ooooh” as she realised that if we could afford to stay there, then she could have charged us at least €5 for the cava. We also got a slightly convoluted story about who owned the villa and how they were local but have moved away and the mother in law was involved somehow. Anyway, I think most people in the village know about this place, and the villagers who live facing us have a stadium seat view of it.

This morning at around 11:00 the tannoys began playing what can only be described as military style music, followed by a female voice announcing something. (I think I recognised the voice as being the lady in the shop). This can only mean one of three things:

1. There has been a military coup.

2. The announcement was about this weekend’s fiesta

3. She was calling the villagers to arms to take on the bourgeoisie in the villa.

If you don’t see a blog tomorrow you know it was either option one or option three.

Tomorrow (if we survive the village uprising): 5 go for Lunch.