Maureen

Maureen is 74, from the valleys of South Wales. Father a miner, mother with aspirations.

Maureen married a sailor, Royal Navy. Spent time in Singapore when Britain was hanging on to empire in Malaysia and Borneo. Her husband was playing sailor stereotype, a girl in every port. She sacked him, brought up their three children alone. Ran three pubs in Maesteg and Bridgend.

Tough life, tough woman.

She is an entrepreneur, always alert to opportunities. When she first came to Spain she was bringing tea bags to Benidorm in a car. 25,000 at a time.
She met Svein in Spain 30 years ago, they moved to Ventarique 14 years after that.

In Albox, she ran a car boot sale for a while.

In Denmark, she and Svein buy and sell antiques. Maybe he is the artist, she the businesswoman, I don't know. But he is tired, wants to slow things down. She is still driven. If not looking for some work for me, Svein, herself, on the house, she is planning a cruise, with all the details that involves.

They have hosted volunteers here and in Denmark for years. I think they enjoy the company. Certainly, from what they say, they don't always get much work out of them.

There is also a little power game being played. Maureen plays the boss. Decides the task. Svein helps me get started. Take the painting job. We set up the ladder, I am ready to go. No, don't start that end. Why, Svein asks. Start this end she says, firmly, as if it makes any difference. We move the ladder.

On the cactus job, she tells me to throw the dead ones on the path, no-one uses it anyway. There are three good reasons why that is not a good idea. The path leads to the water tanks behind the house, which need checking from time to time. The clearing work itself will be much harder if the path is full of dead cactus. And it is a public right of way.

Svein comes with boxes. Put them in here, I will dump them in the rambla with the van. Better.
Raised voices from the house. Svein says, do what she says. She just wants to stop the neighbours using the path. He escapes the drama in the van. Off to the bar.

I plod on with the job. Throw the cactus the other side of the path. My walker won't allow me to block a right of way and my worker doesn't want to make the job harder. She doesn't come to check, I am happy with the work. Even get my shirt off for some tanning.

The Helpxer role may be to be a catalyst for the control game. Playing a small part in their drama. Low level bickering is common. Perhaps I am a distraction from that. Like a lot of relationships, love has turned to co-dependency, clinging to each other's wreckage. Neither seem very happy. She is also keen to get value for money from me. Not that I am a great house painter or cactus puller. Some Helpx hosts are clearly replacing paid staff with volunteers. It's not quite like that here, but it does enable Maureen to play the boss role.

I observe it all, smile sweetly, play my part as if it's real and begin to plan my escape. When I arrived, there was an option to support them with driving to Denmark, help there. I have tried adjusting the frequency to match, but clearly we are on a different wavelength. The metaphor is apt, since Maureen is not comfortable with silence, when not playing middle of the road music, she has the radio crackling with pop.

Her relationship with money is interesting. She invests in the lottery, talks about the big prizes a lot. I suppose she has plenty, if she is cruising in South America. I ask her what she would do if she won, that she couldn't do now. Get on the first plane out of here, she says. She could do that now.

I check the mirror. I still have over £2,000 in the bank and €12 a day from the pension. What would I do if I won the lottery? I don't know and I haven't bought a ticket. Alan Watts advised his students to feel into what they really wanted to do and do that. Let the money take care of itself. Trust in the universe. No reason to stay here, much longer. Portugal is calling. Lots of Helpx opportunities, the camino Portugues, Jan in Graca, the Rio Dao nearby . . .

Sometimes Maureen shows fear of losing money, other times spends freely. Sometimes she piles food on the table, other times uses up the leftovers. Brings instant coffee and baked beans from Tesco in the van. Despises the other expats, socialises more with Spanish locals with whom communication is simple, since neither party speaks much of the other's language.

Not sure what the Welsh stereotype is. Dad wasn't keen. When I went for interview for college, the English lecturer started off with, "Day, probably derived from Dai, Welsh." I responded, "I will have to tell my Dad, he can't stand them." "Oh yes, why's that then?" asked the Welsh PE lecturer.
I had a lovely Welsh girfriend once, Lynne, another vicar's daughter. Or minister they called them. Met her at Spanish evening class.

Maureen's mother died this year, now she has bought a house in Maesteg. Roots.

That's where they will settle. Fly off to warm holidays to escape the damp valleys.