It is shortly 7.00 a.m. on a cool spring morning

It is shortly 7.00 a.m. on a cool Madrid spring morning. The traffic is still just a purr, though it will soon be a rumble and some time after that, the usual riot of horns, ambulance sirens, and roaring motorbike exhausts. This should be a small moment of peace in what must be one of Europe’s noisiest cities. A helicopter, however, has spent the past fifteen minutes poised noisily at roof-top level just a block down our street. The wide open well of our six-storey apartment block is acting as a sound box that amplifies the relentless chugging and clattering. Sleep in our top-floor apartment seems, under these circumstances, impossible. I lie in bed worrying about whether the helicopter – which does this every few weeks – will wake the children. It is not as though they went to bed early, even though they have school today. One of them seven year old, got out of bed to take a phone call at 10 p.m. last night. It was another seven year old, excitedly inviting him to a birthday party at the weekend. Madrid boasts that it is a party town, a city that never sleeps. But does this really have to apply to the under eights?
I go out onto the balcony to wave a fist at the sleek white helicopter- wondering why on earth it is hovering there, so low, so loud and so early. I expect all the other balconies to be filled up with angry people roused from their beds. I am, however, alone. I stand solitary, deranged and dishevelled, amongst the wilting geraniums. Even at this stage of the year, they are gasping for water. It is one of those moments when I am reminded that, although I now consider this to be my city, I am really a foreigner. Noise in Madrid, in Spain as a whole, is just background. It is part of the atmosphere, like air or daylight. I realised that I have been caught with my guard down. During the day, after I showered and slipped my daily coat of Madridness on, I would not care about the mere roar of a helicopter. Noise and bustle are normally part of what I like about this city. At night, when I sleep. Though. I am returned to my natural condition as what Spaniards like to call an AngloSaxon. This description for native English speakers –be they British, American, or from anywhere else- has always amused me. It makes me think of runes and lyres, of Beowulf and the Venerable Bede.
From the book 'Ghosts of Spain' By Giles Tremlet