That is Spanish Fly as in ‘fly on the wall’, not Spanish Fly as in ‘aphrodisiac.’ The casual approach to life in Spain still astounds me on a daily basis. I should be accustomed by now to seeing someone eat their lunchtime sandwiches while parked on a busy roundabout, on a moped.

A crane swinging several hundredweight of bricks in a cradle from one side of the road to the other, via the airspace directly above my convertible should no longer fill me with panic, but it does.

Anticipating death, Zhuangzi says,

” I shall have heaven and earth for my coffin and its shell,

the sun and moon as my two round symbols of jade,

the stars and constellations for my pearls and jewels,

and all other things assisting as my mourners “.

Yet Su Dong Po writes,

The silkworms have grown old

and the wheat is half yellow.

Around the mountain … the rain falls unrestrained.

And the farmers cannot work the land.