Driving down the main 3 lane highway down from the hills to La Canada, Marbella, the other morning, I heard a bang.

I assume that a stone had hit the windscreen, I slowed but couldn’t see any damage.  Then the plastic window surround on the window beside me exploded - there is a lot of hunting up here, someone must be shooting at the car - I slowed down a lot more.  Just as well.

A sheet of hail dropped down, the stones got bigger and bigger until some stones were fist sized.  I am not normally frightened by weather, but this time was different.  Not the usual rattle of hailstones, this time every bang was like a hammer blow on the car - and on the windscreen.  You can tell it was bad, even the Spanish drivers had stopped.  It wasn’t just ordinary hail, but fist sized blocks of ice dropping out of the sky at full speed.

It seemed to go on for ages.  I was convinced that something was going to come through the windscreen.  I know that they are strengthened, but this was like stones hitting the car.  Parked in the middle of the road, flashers on, no-one else around me able to move either, I slipped between the front seats and moved to the middle of the back seat - just to be on the safe side.  One hit the screen, I could see cracks all across the windscreen, but then the cracks slid down the windscreen, and I realised that the hailstone had exploded across the windscreen, but the windscreen held.

Eventually, it died down, and turned into a torrent of rain - like being in a shower.  I crept back into the drivers seat, and slowly edged my way down the road.

When I finally got out of the car, I could see at least 2 dozen dents on the bonnet, boot, and roof, which looked as though the car had been hit by a hammer.  The car is very old, so it is going to have to live with it’s injuries. But they are quite impressive.

One of my fellow workers also had the same damage to his car, but he lost a windscreen.  Luckily for him, it was a hire car.

I know that there were injuries, and hundreds of cars damaged.  I am convinced that anyone caught in the open in the area where I was would have been killed, you can’t take that kind of damage to your head and get away with it.

And some people come here for the weather!!

I haven’t had a lot of time to blog recently, so I thought that I would check things out before starting again.  And I found all the incoming spam.

Some days, there can be 50 spam messages coming in to the blog.  But what fascinates me, is why people continue to do it, to sites like this. After all, how much do you see here?  Look carefully, very carefully.

There isn’t any!  Between 200 and 400 messages are received each week, and they all disappear into the spamhole. So why do people continue to send it? Do they think that they will catch the software on a good hair day, and it will change it’s mind, and allow theirs in?

And looking at the content, it’s so un-original. Extend the size, yet again.  I thought that exercise was the best way to  improve any kind of muscle!  Or we could get the cheapest loan in the US, or the cheapest medicines in the US - err, this is a site about Spain, where they are cheaper anyway.

Oh, well,  let them waste their time.  I don’t have to read it, neither do you.

But my server is getting fed up of reading it and deleting it.  So not for me, but for the sanity of the server…

Butch has been carried off to the great chicken coop in the sky.

Butch has literally ruled the roost for the last two or three years. His half a dozen ladies were always there for him, for his every need. Not always quietly, not always willingly, but always there. After a short while, we noticed that he hadn’t been wasting his time, because one of the girls was broody. Whenever anyone went into the chicken house, they got a mouthful of abuse from her - “keep away from these eggs, they’re mine”, or the chicken equivalent. Four of the eggs were coming to life.

One by one, it was the turn of each one to break out of the egg, and into the reality of a chicken house in Spain. One didn’t make it. One was very small and weak, and despite being spoonfed some egg and milk, we knew that it was never going to make it. One morning, there it was, gone. It seems that the mother had squashed it - who knows…

Two of them survived. But they weren’t old enough to have names. Might as well make sure that it was going to be worth our time thinking of names. Which was the right decision, because after about 10 days, we heard all the chickens screeching, and the dogs barking. The two little ones had found a hole in the pen of the fence, and the dogs were doing their duty, of protecting us from all comers - be it burglars or baby chicks. One of the chicks managed to find a corner to hide in, the other wasn’t fast enough, and the little hunting dog found herself a tasty lunch. The last one remain, and was named Sausage.

It’s very difficult to tell what sex baby chicks are, we certainly couldn’t figure it out. So whether Sausage was a he or a she, we didn’t know. But has time passed, (s)he got bigger and bigger. His/her father, Butch, was big and strong, and his/her six aunties looked after him/her.

As time passed, and Sausage got bigger, gradually bigger than the aunties. And we did catch Sausage mounting one of the girls, but, hey, we all experiment at some time or other (don’t we???)

But finally we could deny it no longer, Sausage was a male Sausage. And Butch noticed that Sausage was male as well. He didn’t want to share his girls. Fights ensued, Butches huge haunches and massive talons always won the day.

But time passes, and Butch began to slow down. Until finally, Sausage started winning the fights, the food, and the women, and Butch was demoted. But it seems that, in the world of chickens, winning isn’t enough. So over the last weeks, Sausage was mercilessly attacking and beating Butch. Butch retreated, bloody and down, to the places that he used to send Sausage to. And his weight was so great, that he could hardly walk.

Finally, the decision was made. Butch is never going to have a good life, he is just going to get more and more bloodied. We caught him one day, hidden away from the others, head buried in one corner, obviously ready to die. And this morning, there was loads of noise, and again, loads of blood.

“OK, I know, I am going to have to put him down for his own good”. We don’t know anyone who has chickens, who don’t have at least one cock, and he would just be going from the frying pan to the fire. “When we get back from the supermarket…”.

So the plan was to empty the other chickens out of the pen, tempt him out with some food, and hit him really hard with the spade. If I knew how to do it, I would neck him, but I don’t, and I think that I would probably cause more pain unnecessarily. So the spade it is, then.

When I found him, he was lying on his side, in a most unchicken-like pose. Not moving. Perhaps he is dead already? I carefully use the spade to pull him out. He might be on his last legs, but those talons are still very sharp.

As I pull him, he seems to move his legs around the spade. Perhaps he isn’t dead? Who knows? I know that chickens can run around without their heads, it could just be reflex. So lets get it over with. I raise the heavy old spade over my head, and SMACK. Ouch, I felt that. But he must be dead now. A couple more full-on smacks to be sure, just in case. Lets get it over with as easily for him as I can.

Rather dis-respectfully for an old geezer, he is going in a black plastic bag. Far too old for the pot.

So I let the girls back into the pen, and they rush around. But I know that they are looking for food, not Butch. I wonder if any of the chickens will even notice that he isn’t there.

Then into the pen comes Sausage. Leader of the pack. King of all he surveys.

But for how long?