Andrès

Most weeks a dog gets run over. Outside the old Venta that is. When it was still open, before Andrès retired much further inland - to die, as it's turning out – he used to chase the dogs off the road. Waving arms, throwing a stone near the stray. I reckon he saved quite a few of them from the crude butchery of being run over. No-one stops, when they hit one. I suspect some drivers twist the wheel a little to spread a little more of the remains around. Usually they'll be in a hot Seat hatchback in a painful shade of yellow. Maybe they'll have a licence, too.

Yesterday's dog might be my neighbour's; off on holiday – left the dog in the house. Fred was going round to feed it twice a day. It's not at home at the moment.

Thing is, even if it's not my neighbour's, I probably know the dog, this time. On the other side of the Coín road is the campo. Fincas, Ranchos and what the Spanish like to call “Chalets” dot the browning hills. I walk my dogs there: on a lead, crossing the road carefully. Anyway, any property with an impractical number of dogs will be owned, for sure, by a Brit. Their fence will be inadequate, dogs will dig under the chicken wire and do what dogs do. But their dogs are safe: they're in the campo aren't they? But the Coín road is 200 metres from their fence.

Chances are Andrès saved that particular dog more than once. He's in a bed now, wearing tubes, somewhere up by El Chorro, wishing he had a dangerous road to cross.