End of the Line

August 23, 2026 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Flight EZY2804 to Bristol, Somewhere over Greece. 13.08.

Inch by inch, mile by mile, the wild ride of the summer of ’26 is drawing to a close. Outside it’s approaching the high 30s again, but the fierce heatwave that has held the British Isles in its grip all summer is being swept away by the first cool winds of autumn. Over the last two months I’ve seen it all: scorching heat, howling blizzards, thunder, rain and snow; mist, fog and diamond dust. It seems only right that as my life settles back into some kind of order, the weather should follow suit.

It took just shy of two hours to get from the apartment to Eleftherios Airport, but I did add to the commute by walking to Syntagma Station via the National Garden. I didn’t want my last memory of Athens to be the air-conditioned carriage of the underground, and I needed a wake-up. A steady drip on the plastic roof over the patio beside the bedroom kept me up late last night, until I used a bit of science and drowned it out with a rain track, after which I fell asleep in seconds. Fun fact: the constant change from sound to silence in a steady leak triggers the body’s defence mechanisms, anticipating a threat for as long as the sounds continue to change. White noise, on the other hand, is far less threatening, no matter the volume. The signal wasn’t superb, so thank goodness somebody thought to upload several hours’ worth of rain recordings to Spotify – I wouldn’t have cared much for a YouTube ad waking me up every five minutes.

August is nearly over. Just over a week of summer remains – but it’s certainly been a summer to remember. I’m not sure I deserve even half of the miracles I’ve had the good fortune to witness since I stepped out of the door back in July with a backpack, a suitcase full of winter clothes and a smart new wedding suit – but I’m grateful for every single one of them.

It’s very easy to hit thirty-two and look around at your world with a rising sense of anxiety as everyone marries off and starts to lay down roots. Find them while you’re young, they say – and yet here you are, single and rootless. When will it be my turn, you catch yourself asking. But I think I’ve cracked it. The question you should be asking yourself is very different. Would the child I was look at me now and take heart?

I think he would. I haven’t found Her, but I have found my way back to the thing that made me happiest: the wild. If the eight-year-old me knew that in my thirties I’d be traveling the world in search of pumas, albatrosses and giant tortoises, I think he’d be ecstatic. Nobody could ever dream of replacing Sir David Attenborough or Valmik Thapir (or any of the great wildlife presenters of my childhood) but the fact that I get to live in the world they showed me when I was just a boy is the greatest gift of all.

What was the highlight of the summer? It’s such a difficult question. Dancing with Alex and Elena at their wedding? Teaching my first ever English Literature class? Celebrating Spain’s victory over Argentina in the World Cup Final? Swimming with turtles, sailing with albatrosses or watching a fully-grown mountain lion tread through the snow just feet away? Every one of them has been written upon my heart, which is now so very full. I thought my happiness was conditional upon finding my other half, wherever She may be, but this year I’ve learned to find it in myself by allowing me to be me, the way I always wanted to be.

September is always a bumpy landing. September brings Inset, the annual safeguarding talk that makes me question whether I believe in this job, and the return of a fresh-faced generation of students that remind me that I’m in the best line of work in the world. September will be familiar – I know what to expect – but this time, something feels different. I don’t think I’ve ever gone into the start of a new school year quite so positive. I just have a feeling that, finally, things are going my way.

Oh, for sure. There will be trials ahead. There always are. But I know I can face them head-on as a man, supercharged by a summer of light and life and animal encounters.

In many ways, I haven’t changed since I was eight. I’m still writing the same book about a a brave hero and a red-haired princess. I’m still listening to Juan Martín and Michael Jackson. I’m still singing in school choirs, dancing with every fibre of my being when the beat comes on and playing a passable passage on the violin when the occasion demands. I’ve added a few languages to my roster since then, changed my look a few times, and loved and lost and learned to live again – but fundamentally I still hold true to the same values I built up as a kid. Teaching has allowed me to hold onto these things, and for that much I am truly grateful.

England welcomed me home with golden fields and petty public transport pencil-pushers. The bus driver from Bristol wouldn’t let a girl on the bus because she didn’t have the right ticket and wasn’t helpful at all when she looked distressed, there being few other buses around on a Sunday afternoon. Three of us got up to help her out but the man in front got there first and bought her a single ticket. On top of that, I arrived just in time to catch an earlier train, but the man at the ticket barrier at Bristol Temple Meads wouldn’t let me through on account of the fact that my ticket was for an hour’s time – “you don’t need to be on the platform yet”. With two thirds of the southbound services cancelled, he was probably trying to stop me from using my Advance Single ticket on board an earlier train where there would almost certainly be no ticket checks… but really. I’m out of the country for nearly two months and the most trouble I have with public transport is back to back on the day I get home…? If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s jobs-worthiness, and we English are especially bad at it. When I manage to escape this country, that kind of behaviour will be top of the list of the reasons that drove me away.

Anyway. I’m home, in the familiar comfort of my flat, and July Me had the common sense to stock up so I’d have something to eat when I returned in case the supermarkets were closed – which, being a Sunday afternoon, they inevitably are. Just occasionally I surprise myself by planning ahead.

Here ends the Great Adventure of 2026. It’s been a blast. To those of you who have been reading my adventures, known and unknown, thank you for coming along for the ride! It’s nice to know I’m not always speaking into the void. I’ll write a little less when term kicks off, but do stick around for the next adventure – whenever that may be! BB x

Rainbow’s End

December 2, 2017December 2, 2017 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Hornachos. How you play with my heart! You, who the Moors adored in this land of endless fields, are indeed beautiful; the purple heights of the Sierra Grande soaring out of the earth like the broken spine of some great ship upon the shore… Home of the golden eagle and his imperial cousin, the fierce boar and the mighty griffons, the guardians of this beautiful kingdom… The twinkling lights of your houses, seen from afar to be floating in the night like the island of Laputa…

…why on earth do you only have one fucking bus per day?!

That’s right. One of the most beautiful towns of Extremadura is hamstrung by its virtual inaccessibility. Centuries after the departure of the Moriscos, the mountainside town remains as unapproachable as ever it was under the rule of the soon-to-be pirate kings, albeit for slightly more mundane reasons.

Hornachos is served by one bus line, which is perfectly suited to the Hornachego with a job in the outside world, but virtually useless for the interested day-tripper. Two buses make for the town at 15.15 and 18.45 on weekdays (with the notable exception of Fridays), and one leaves for the outside world at 7.15am. And that’s it. It wouldn’t be so bad if there were any cheap accommodation offers, but with a slew of casas rurales, 50€ per night is the standard. When nearby Villafranca – which has almost nothing to see, by comparison – has a hostel for 10€ a night, it seems a little ridiculous. Not least of all because I would happily spend as much as 50€ every month (or more) if it meant I could be in Hornachos every weekend. Because I would. As for BlaBlaCar, the distance between Villafranca is too long to walk (and then hike), but too short for a popular carshare. You can’t free camp either, because of local laws. Goddammit.

Simply put, day-tripping to Hornachos is simply not possible without a car.

Its inaccessibility, however, is my sole complaint. Because, besides a lousy bus service, Hornachos has it all: the ruins of a tenth-century Moorish castle, a Mudejar church, an enormous sierra with vast fields of rolling dehesa stretching out for miles behind, a history so bitter and intense it might have been written in lemon juice and a super-friendly Casa de Cultura. I fell in love with Hornachos from the moment I first laid eyes on it. The unmistakable silhouette of Olvera, my old hometown, still strikes a chord or two in my heartstrings whenever I see it, but the Sierra Grande has long since overshadowed its place at the centre of my heart.

I was lucky enough to hitch a ride with a couple of friends who wanted to go hiking in the Sierra, so I leaped at the chance. We didn’t have long to stay in the castle, because as we arrived atop the ruins, the shrieks and shouts of an approaching school trip sailed up the hill to meet us, like a colourful besieging army. Amber didn’t hesitate to let them know we were English. I replied to their questions in Arabic. Brownie points go to Amber for being a decent human being, where I just wanted to be difficult, I think.

It did drive home to me just how deceptive the mountains are, though. We had no idea there was a forty-strong school trip coming up the mountain to meet us until we’d reached the top, though one might have heard them for miles around. It’s a dangerous place up there, and little wonder the Moors made a beeline for the mountains when they reached these lonely parts.

I had a private lesson in the afternoon and a language exchange at the EOI, so I had to be back in Almendralejo for four o’clock, which didn’t give us mountains of time to explore (ho ho). We fitted in the usual circular route, albeit in reverse, as well as a cheeky yoga session at the end – needless to say I remain as flexible as a dinner plate – though this time I scaled the first leg of the Trasierra route which crosses the Sierra Grande and winds down into the fields below. Further exploration is definitely required.

The church, sadly, is closed to the public. Like the museum, if you’re interested, you have to ask for the key from the local tourist information office. I suppose this is the normal way of things; you take things for granted in the outside world, where Seville and Marrakesh whore their finery to the lowest bidder. Hornachos retains some of that ancient-world mystique. As much as it bothers me, perhaps that’s the secret to its survival.

You’ve got to hand it to the old town for its tenacity. Who’d have thought that this quiet gathering of houses on the side of the Sierra Grande was once home to the men who would go on to become the infamous Sallee Rovers of Robinson Crusoe fame? I wonder whether there were any Hornachegos amongst the corsairs who took part in the equally bloody Sack of Baltimore in 1631, only twenty-one years after their expulsion from the Iberian peninsula… Rabat sure does seem like a world away from this flat, flat world…

‘We’re not in Hornachos anymore…’

I will make you famous, Hornachos. When the world knows of El Gran Hornachego and his adventures across Iberia and beyond, you will get the fame you deserve. I will write you back into history. That’s a promise.

Also, after my sour-grapes episode about cold and snow, we did actually have some frost yesterday. Not much, and only in the shaded ditches at the side of the olive fields, but it was something. I hear Durham’s been looking beautiful in the snow lately, like Spain did last year. Why do I always manage to miss the snow wherever I go? BB x

Winter in Madrid

January 11, 2016January 11, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

I’m spent. Completely and utterly spent, in heart and body and mind. Ready to drop to my knees and sleep for a thousand years like some twenty-first century Rip van Winkle. I’m back in Spain, I’m back home, and I’m back in bed, and if it weren’t for the sake of this blog, I’d be fast asleep by now. But that can wait.

I’ve dropped enough hints over the last few months for you to guess what I’ve been up to. I’m back from three days in Madrid with my dear friend Ali, who has stuck with me through thick and thin over the last few months and been a most valiant and enduring friend, putting up with more of my less-than-perfect Spanish than she deserves. As a way of saying thank you, and as a birthday present, I took her to the capital (a long-term dream of hers) to see El Rey León, or The Lion King (a long-term dream of mine). And since Madrid’s a long way from both of us, we decided to make a weekend of it.

First things first, The Lion King. Oh. My. God. Words fail me. I’m normally fairly speechless when I leave a theatre or cinema, but Friday night’s performance had me tongue-tied for a record half an hour. It being almost entirely in Spanish – but for the Zulu and Xhosa lyrics – had absolutely no effect on the impact whatsoever. Shadowland and He Lives in You had me welling up like a new father and it’s nothing short of a miracle that I didn’t lose all control and burst into tears completely. There’s even a few fitting modifications to the Spanish version that make it – dare I say it – even better than the original in places. Timon in especial, and he’s not normally one of my favourites, was pure gold in Spanish, and a lot of the puns translate brilliantly. I know, I know, I’m late to the party as ever, but I’ll recklessly advertise it to you as its been advertised to me. You’ll simply have to see it for yourself if you haven’t already. It’s a once in a lifetime experience, and with seats on the first row of the platform, it could hardly have been better.

There’s so much to see and do in Madrid – too much for a single day’s sightseeing – but we made good of the following day, taking in the Palacio Real, the Egyptian Temple of Dagón, the gorgeous Parque del Retiro with its street musicians and its Crystal Palace and, last of all, the Prado, home to some of my all-time favourite works of art, like Velazquez’s study of the Conde-Duque de Olivares and Goya’s Maja Vestida and Maja Desnuda, as well as the über-famous Las Meninas. If photos were allowed in the Prado, I’d have gone berserk. Naturally, they’re not. So you’ll have to look them up. We were herded out with the rest by the guards before we had the chance to find the equally famous Dos de Mayo, which is a shame, but that’s what you get for being thrifty and waiting until the 6pm free entry, giving you, and everyone else who’s in on the secret – which seems to be most of Madrid – just under two hours to appreciate it all. Fear not, Goya. I’ll be back.

This weekend has also done one system a world of good, and that’s the thrifty-gifty BlaBlaCar operation that so screwed me over in December (or maybe it was me that screwed up…?). Getting to and from Madrid from our respective backwater neck-o’-the-woods could hardly have been easier, faster and more enjoyable. This year I will try to use it much more often, if not all the time. It requires a little bravery and certainly more social skills than simply hopping on a bus, of course, but I do believe I’m getting there. Consider me, then, a willing convert. And if you’re reading this, Mr Oulad Berhil taxi driver, you could learn a lot from BlaBlaCar. It’s all about the conversation, at the end of the day, and these can be worth their weight in gold, though it’s mere pennies you’re paying. Truly.

Post script. Madrid is a capital city. By all rights, it should have scared the living day lights out of me. But with Ali by my side, it didn’t occur to me even for a second. I’d even go so far as to say that it was one of the best adventures yet. A lot of auxiliares living and working here use Spain as a launch-pad to other European destinations, but I maintain that there’s enough to do here to last you not just a year, but a lifetime. Oh Spain, how cruelly you play with my heart…

Well, I guess it’s finally time to pack up the festivities, dust off the schoolbooks and get back to work. I’m none too keen to do so, but at the same time I really need to. The wind is howling outside and winter, it seems, has finally arrived. And long has it been in coming. BB x