A quiet night in?

Last night was going to be a quiet night in at home, especially with two possible late nights on Friday and Saturday. We live in Spain however we haven’t adopted the habit of taking a siesta yet, preferring to have early nights beforehand.

We don’t expect to be too late on Friday as we are going to a 14th birthday party, although it doesn't start until 21.00. Did I mention that we live in Spain?! Children here seem to stay up as late as adults do. I noticed on my recently acquired programme for the August fiestas that there is a musical aimed at young children on 11 August that doesn't start until 23.00!

Saturday night though is the latest concert in the Música entre Vinos summer events, where concerts are held in various bodegas, followed by lots of wine and local dishes. The evening will begin at 20.00 with a tour of the bodega, however the concert in unlikely to start until after 21.00 and I can almost guarantee that we won’t get home until the early hours of Sunday morning.

So last night we bathed early and sat in our pyjamas to watch a bit of TV before the planned early night. We looked like a couple of pensioners - oh, that’s what we are! -  which made it even more embarrassing when the doorbell rang. We looked at each other in surprise: we weren't expecting anyone. I opened the door warily to see a group of our Spanish neighbours standing outside. They explained that they could smell gas, and they know we have a gas water heater.  John checked in the kitchen then outside at the back and said he couldn't smell anything. It was obvious that our neighbours were nervous, even when we told them that the heater had been serviced last month. Our friend Isabel was saying that it was "peligroso" (dangerous), so we agreed to turn the gas completely off in order to reassure them all.

We were just thinking it was time to switch off the TV, when we heard sirens outside. Peering over the balcony, we could see two fire engines with lights flashing, plus a local police car. We weren't surprised when our doorbell rang not long afterwards. This time there were four firemen, a policewoman and even more neighbours outside!  The firemen came into our apartment and then went outside to check the water heater. Eventually they came back in, told us everything there was ok (as we had expected) and left us in peace.

Well, it was almost in peace, as we could still hear lots of noise outside the front of the building as various neighbours returned home, while the firemen pulled up covers loudly, presumably looking for gas pipes and associated leaks. At the same time people were emerging from other parts of the building curious to find out what was going on and to add their voices to the racket.

After all this I think we eventually went to sleep at about 01.30, which was a lot later than planned.  I am now wondering what the chances are of a good night’s sleep tonight!