Beetle-based blog

Big black beetles in Spain, long-legged, seem harmless, fascinate the cat. He tips them over and watches with interest as they struggle to get back on their feet. Then tips them over again. Cats.

This morning I rescued one on the terrace which was waving its legs a bit feebly - flipped it over with the edge of the fly swatter, then sat watching it while I had coffee and a cig (because my life is filled with extreme living-on-the-edge excitement) and you know what? Not the cat at all. When I went out with my second coffee it had tried to climb the doorsill, fallen on its back again, and this time the legs aren’t even waving.

I can identify, a bit. I’ve played a lot of polocrosse, which is a high-speed impact sport (there’s a video on my profile, if you don’t know what polocrosse is - great soundtrack) and often woke the next morning aching in every joint. With so many horses around, feet often got stepped on and that hurts, those beasties are heavy.

So my left foot feeling well crushed, and generally aching from head to foot, is very familiar, but there are no horses around, and although I’ve had an old polocrosse buddy visiting for a week and we walked a lot more than I normally would dream of doing, there’s no reason to feel so knackered and, and, whisper it, old.

Except - we were buying tickets for the hop-on hop-off bus in Granada and the bright-eyed teenage ticket seller asked if we were over 65. That’s half price. Without missing a beat we both nodded.

Payback.