The seated child is proudly showing a crayoned-in card teddy - nearly as big as she is - with fat arms and legs that swivel around brass paper-fasteners; the old man beams at her and moves the arms up and down and then takes it and bounces it on his knee.

Distinctive blasts of the different horns announce the arrival in the village of the various grocery vans and, when the drivers pull up beside the women they will continue their conversation until its conclusion before starting to make their unhurried purchases.

Another woman joins her and they chat. In the gentle rhythm of the day many people will emerge from their homes and touch lives with each other over the fountain, it is used for so many things . . .

There is a purposefulness about their inactivity as if they are performing a function for the good of the community - which indeed they are because they are the holders of tradition, the tellers of tales, the keepers of the truth and the disseminators of a rich oral history that would die without them. Chaucer would recognise them as they take their places in a well-rehearsed order each morning and commence their job of 'telling lies'

All extracts from White Mules and Mountains: Snapshots of Alpujarran Life. © Ruth Wade 2004