Bend it like Beckham

I paid a visit to a specialist tree nursery near Bascara, a nursery which supplies the stock to the local garden centres and landscape companies. The owner made time to show me around his stock which was very impressive indeed. Pride of place went to the old gnarled olive
trees of course, those on sale for up to 1000€ each. He told me that as a rule of thumb the best trees were priced at 1€ per year of growth, pointing out well structured trees across the age ranges.

Olive trees so old as his finest stock were not bought for the number or quality of olives that they produced, but purely for aesthetic appearance, better olives came from much younger trees.

As we walked and talked he turned the conversation to football and of course to Barcelona. Then he asked me what I thought about David Beckham the Englishman playing for Barcelona's great rivals Real Madrid. This was obviously a trap, and I had to be careful because too much praise for 'El Beckham' and the price of my trees would surely go up. He agreed that Beckham was a good player but insisted that he would never match Ronaldinho. 

When I told him that I thought Beckham was a lot prettier than Ronaldinho, he laughed out loud and then whilst patting his cheek ever so daintily and suggesting vanity in his action said,

'Si,Si es muy guapo no'?

I was in dangerous territory here and turned the conversation back to the trees. Looking at my land and it's planting possibilities, he went on to suggest that I buy four trees at 1000€ and plant them across the finca; the rest of the 14,000 m2 area I should plant at 5 metre intervals with young trees for their more prolific crop. This he believed would really set of the villa and give me a useful income as well. I must have gone as white as Beckham's football jersey because he laughed again.

'Maybe in the future' he said adding 'poco y poco' (little at a time)

Poco y poco indeed.