Meerkats & Big Dog.

I've always talked about our nearest neighbours being on the next hill, but that isn't strictly true.

Our house is next door to a farm and they access the farm behind our house. Now, the couple who run the farm, which is an Almond farm, don't actually live there, they live about half an hour away, but they come over at weekends to do whatever is necessary to maintain their trees, and they have an awful lot of trees.

They do however, have some dogs that live there. They have shelter and they have food from a hopper, and they are in a huge fenced compound. The gate is at the back of our house so we often see the dogs. There are 6 of them, all the same, and when we go round the back of the house they come running to the gate.

If they suspect I may be going round to them they are soon on their back legs, looking just like Meerkats, and so from day 1, we have always referred to them as 'The Meerkats.

We were concerned when we first moved here that they would be a problem, but after the first week they got used to us being around and now, they are actually quite useful. They are at the back of the house and the track to our house comes in at the back, so when we are in the house we rarely know if anyone is nearby except for the Meerkats, who bark. The rest of the time, we never hear them. Oh, unless our Brinkley goes round to say 'hello', as he is prone to do.

Many of the Spanish have a different attitude to dogs than we do, they are working dogs, not pets and so to me, they seem to have a harsh life but, the Meerkats seem healthy and happy enough and go berserk when the couple visit next door, they really do enjoy the company. I had said when we moved here that we have to accept the local ways but I can't help but take the Meerkats a biscuit every day. I haven't worked out why they keep the dogs on the farm, maybe one day I will.

We also have one more neighbour on the farm, in a different compound is Big Dog.

Big Dog has a stone 'Nave' to live in. A Nave is an outbuilding, often small and used as a store. We have a delapidated Nave which we'll renovate at some point to store the gardening tools and stuff for the vegetable patch and orchard. I feel quite sorry for Big Dog as he is in a compound on his own but seems to really love company. When I go down to give him his biscuit he comes bounding up to the fence and loves a little stroke through the wire mesh.

The Spanish dogs have such a different life to that of our dogs, but they haven't known anything different and seem well enough, so we just accept that they are there, they are no bother to us and are quite useful as an early warning for anyone getting close to the house. Neil always knows when I am coming back from walking the dogs, because the Meerkats tell him it's time to put the kettle on!