Four Short Tales

By Donald Phillips

Living abroad can be good and enjoyable, but there are some things that have to be taken into consideration before you go. Firstly the locals will almost definitely talk a different language and it is really up to you to learn enough of it to at least get by. Secondly, you have to accept that the natives will have different values and culture to the one you are used to. Lastly, if you do not accept all this and learn to live with it then you will be at the mercy of others whenever you want to do anything, such as buy or sell a house or query something in your bank statement. These four stories illustrate some of these difficulties in a humorous way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donald Phillips
• Release date: May 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476387154

Donald Phillips

In the late sixties I was a member of a rock band and we were moderately successful. At twenty three I tired of being out every night for five years, married my long time girlfriend Rosemary and and left rock and roll behind, the money I had made furnishing our first house. I then worked in engineering for many years, firstly in the tool room and eventually as Personnel and Training Manager. Next for some six years I ran the South Avon County Youth Opportunities Scheme for difficult trainees (they were referred by Social Service, Probation or the Police usually), based in Weston-super-Mare, England. We managed to get eighty five percent into permanent work. I spent my last two years in England running a 300 place training scheme for unemployed adults in Bristol. During our life we had visited twenty seven countries at various times and our families are spread from Trondheim in Norway throughout Europe and on to Adelaide in Australia. Twenty six years ago we ourselves moved to rural Spain and found our own niche. We both speak Spanish now and are quite happy here. Since then I have switched to Cabinet making and had over 190 articles published worldwide in the English language woodworking magazines and I produce one off pieces of furniture to order to make my pocket money. Not being a great television fan I spend my evenings writing articles and novels or reading my Kindle. I am a happy and content person.

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Introduction

We moved to rural Spain over twenty years ago. We did not want to live in a Brit community so we chase the ancient city of Elche as our location. This meant that we had to learn Spanish and spent two evenings a week at night school for the first two years we were here. We had bought a four bed roomed villa on three thousand square metres of ground and spent the first five years turning it into a garden. Once that was done I looked for something else to do and turned to woodwork and writing. These four short stories were published in various Spanish produced local English Language newspapers, so if you were in Spain when any one of them was published you may just have read it before. Please enjoy them.

Don Phillips

The Butcher’s Wife’s Tale

Whatever else anyone in Crannington ever said about George Pockington, and there were much said about him once he was put safely under the soil, they all agree that he had ran a damn fine butcher’s. He had always provided the best meat in the county and, even if you did have to make sure the weight you got was the weight you had paid for, there was never any argument about the quality. It was always the best. Some said it were the best butcher’s in the North of England, but that were said mainly by folks as had never been out of Yorkshire and knew no different. However, the consensus opinion, and that’s what really counts in these matters when all’s said and done, was that he at least the was the best butcher in the South Riding, bar none. And could give a lot outside it a run for their money. But that was all the good that was said about him, for apart from that redeeming feature he had always been a mean and tight fisted little m.

George had only stood five feet and two inches tall, but folk could be often heard to say that he had contained in that little body, all of the greed and meanness lacking in his three older brothers. For the other three lads were as meek and mild as you like, by Yorkshire standards at any road. They were open-handed and generous with their opinions and occasionally their money, if you caught them at the right moment in the bar at the Goodfellows Arms. But George was different and I should know. My name’s Jessie Pockington that were Jessie Alderman before, and I was wed to his elder brother, Alfred, before the good Lord took him from me so