Rubbish, rubbish removal and rubbish pastimes

...Every night we get our dustbins emptied. Every morning the roads are swept and watered down to remove the dust and sand. We have recycling of bottles and glass, cardboard and paper goods, aluminium cans and plastic containers, they too are emptied every night. The removal of rubbish is known here as the basura. Every year each household has to pay for this and it is roughly between 70 to 180 euros a year. If a bin lid is open to any extent no problem, if the rubbish at the recycling bins cascades onto the floor no problem. So what the hell is happening in England with rubbish disposal and on my apartment there I pay £800 a year.

Anyway, the dust cart comes round from about 0200 every morning, I know because I hear every single stop, because the breaks squeal. On the basura truck there is an Englishman and he runs ahead of the truck getting the obscure dustbins in advance of the truck. At the side of the Marina bar there is a ramp to the car park and it is also where they keep the bin. This ramp is not ordinary it is about 50 yards long and raises so steeply that cars have to take a run at it. The English basura man climbs the ramp every night, we have witnessed this from the Marina bar. He bounds up like a spring lamb, but the coming back is more like a le Mans 24 hour car race, as it drags him down the hill there are sparks coming from his shoes as he tries to slow down, and he makes it just about 5 minutes ahead of the dustcart...

In the morning we wake to the noise of motorised street cleaners which rinse and scrub the road, there are men in overalls hosing all the cement and tarmac surface and men and women with dustbin on wheels brush the street by hand. On the beach there are tractors combing the sand back flat ready for the throng of sun worshippers who will later cover every grain of sand.

But in amongst this are the scavengers, no not seagulls, but people with metal detectors. One even wears a wet suit and wades into the sea up to his waist. I am no Marine scientist, but the med is not very tidal especially so far from Gibraltar, so unless someone has been daft enough to go swimming with coins in their pocket of with jewelry on, I should think he will have slim pickings.

One day I saw one chap with his metal detector marching along the sand and they wave it from side to side like a manic mine sweeper. He was doing well until he got close to a couple lying on towels, the male of the two jumped up when he saw him and was shouting at the metal detector man, who in turn was shouting back, suddenly the sunbather started to run at metal detector man, who spun round and legged it as fast as his equipment would let him, and the lady sun bather started after the man, he was very much like a Bennie Hill sequence. The metal detector man was lucky that the sun bather got fed up because he was making ground on him, needless to say his mine sweeping for the day was over, and those poor people who lost money, bracelets, watches and other such items had some solace in knowing at least he wouldn't get something for nothing today, come to think of it, I bet the two sunbathers have lost something to take that aggressive approach.

The other 'odd' behaviour is exercise. And there are three distinct ones here, speed walking, running and physical exercise in groups.

The speed walker has these ridiculous speed walking sticks which if you are watching from afar you think you are watching a four legged stick insect with long front legs, if you really want to know ridiculous then its the 70+ year old with them just about walking at 2 miles an hour. Just as a note, my wife and I were once on a ship in the Panama canal and we were going down the locks, 99% of the people on board were in awe of this magnificent feat of engineering, but we kept hearing a clip clop clip clop noise and when we could be bothered to look it was a speed walker with sticks walking time and again around the deck not even noticing we were in one of the modern wonders of the world, for that she paid at least £2,000, I think that's why I find the exercise quite moronic.

Running is an admirable way of exercising, but we live in temperatures of 35 to 45 on average in Summer. There are perfectly good Gymnasia's in Spain and air conditioned with walking machines. It is always going to be hot just walking, the authorities tell anyone over 60 to stay in doors or in the shade and wear white not black otherwise they could get heat exhaustion, and the runners still continue. You know where they have been they are like snails, they leave a trail only of water.

The most ridiculous are the group exercisers, someone comes along with a ghetto blaster sets it up on the beach and the fit size zero, (you know the ones Shell and Julie if you are reading this, they are the ones who look good coming out of the sea) stands at the front giving it what for and shouting in Spanish "uno, dos, tres, quatro........uno mass.....uno, dos,...." In front of them stand a varying age group of Spaniards, British people, some Germans perhaps, most of them out of time, out of shape and have just put their cigarettes out, some flapping arms like demented penguins most of them lobster colour and perspiring and all of them clearly out on day release from some type of care home.

Sitting in the shade with a cool Mahou in my hand watching all these displays of madness makes me sweat and think I'll settle for the 5 fruit and veges a day and run the risk of an obesity driven demise. The really funny thing is at the end of the group exercise they break into applause for the size zero stick insect who didn't need any exercise in the first place...