Metro 9, Dirección Nuevos Ministerios, Madrid. 20.47
Landfall. After a speedy and somewhat sleepless flight on Ryanair’s ridiculously good value £20 flight from Bristol, I’m back in Madrid. I fired off a couple of job applications to schools here after my last visit in December, but I’ve heard nothing. I suppose that would be disheartening if I weren’t perfectly comfortable at my current school. Besides, I could harbour no ill feeling toward Madrid. As capital cities go, she is both homely and stately.
The new European security protocols have started to take effect at Barajas. Separated from the Europeans – God’s chosen – by a luminous pink arrow and two security guards, I was shepherded into a large room with an array of digital fingerprint kiosks, where the COVID passes were checked years ago. Many of the machines were already out of order. I saw two cease to function after the same passenger tried to use them. Not for the first time, I found myself contemplating a new circle of Hell for the cabal that convinced an entire nation that being European wasn’t in our best interests.
As though on cue, perhaps, I was sent a visual reminder of one thing we Brits do generally take more seriously than our European counterparts. There weren’t many seats on the train, but one that was free was next to a couple of Frenchwomen. One of them was holding on tight to the leash of a muzzled dog, which was clearly in distress: it was evidently struggling to breathe with a heavy black face mask secured across its mouth, and it kept pawing frantically at it with its head to the ground in a desperate attempt to dislodge the thing every time its owner relaxed her grip on the leash.
She didn’t seem to have noticed. She seemed more engrossed in her conversation. She had a ring on every finger on both hands and they clicked when she gesticulated or tightened her grip on the leash. Even some of her nails had rings. Hell, I like a girl who isn’t afraid to go all out with the jewellery, but even that was a bit much.
The dog’s collar wasn’t much better: a proddy, pokey, cage-like device that was causing the poor thing almost as much discomfort as its muzzle, by the way the creature kept trying to scratch at it with its hind leg.
It was painful to watch. I changed carriages on the connecting train to get away from it.
In England, some busybody would have taken her to task. But this is Spain – we’re getting a lot better, but we’re still a long way off the land of the RSPB.
The trains are – predictably – packed for Toledo tomorrow, so I’ve booked a bus instead. It means an early start, but that’s no bad thing. I’ve quite a few of them coming my way in Peru, so I’d better get used to them. BB x
The Book of Barnabas 