Some of you may have read my recent post 'Wine, women and ... doughnuts' which referred to my elderly neighbour Antonio.
This evening, a conversation I was having with Jose was interrupted by a call on his mobile. The call was 'malas noticias' (bad news); apparently Antonio died yesterday in hospital from what I can gather was a brain haemorrhage.
José had known him for 50 years and was visibly shocked. Ascertaining that the funeral is tomorrow in El Ejido and wanting to pay my respects as a neighbour, I insisted that I take him to the funeral as, being car-less, he wouldn't be able to get there.
Apart from our recent wine-tasting, my abiding memory of Antonio is my driving up to the ruin one Sunday afternoon and finding him asleep in the verge while his sheep wandered around eating the grass in my almond orchard. We then proceeded to chat for about an hour with Antonio giving me lots of advice about what I should do with my land. Given that our very first conversation back in September had, for him, been a frustrating one as he couldn't understand me, I took the length of our chat to be some kind of signal that I am 'getting there' with my Spanish. He mentioned that he was going to sell the sheep in June as they were getting too much for him at 73. I'll miss his cheerful demeanour and sense of humour and wish I had known him longer.
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