Decided to take a walk to the harbour today, it’s not too far and the weather’s brilliant. We’d already seen a sign that said “To the Harbour” the previous day so we made for that. However before we got to it we suddenly saw a sign that said “To the Beach”. “Let’s go down there,” said Pauline, “we can see the beach and if we’re down on the coast we can just follow it round to the harbour.”
It was a boiling hot day, we got to the beach, there was no shade and I was roasting.
The harbour didn’t seem to be that far away but after rounding one promontory after another and not finding it I had my doubts that there really was a harbour at all. By now, Emma and I had been walking slower and slower, getting further and further behind Pauline and still no shade. The heat was unbearable and Emma was beginning to look like a lobster. The track we were following had left the coastline and was now meandering all over the place inland but was still following the general direction of the coastline. After roughly 45 minutes we suddenly reached the harbour and staggered up to the first café we came to. Emma was feeling unwell and just said, “Dad, I’ve got to sit down.” She looked like she was about to faint. I quickly got some water for her and we both sat in a daze for about 15 minutes while we tried to recover from our dehydration and general feeling of nausea.
Pauline was fine and couldn’t see what all the fuss was about so we didn’t get much sympathy there. We had something to eat and feeling slightly better, we moved on. Shortly afterwards, Emma was sick by the roadside. Within seconds it was covered by a swarm of ants who must have thought it was their lucky day. Isn’t nature wonderful?
Next time, if I want to go to the harbour I’ll follow the sign that says “To the Harbour” and if I want to go to the beach I’ll follow a sign that says “To the Beach”. I think that’s why they put them there isn’t it? They’ll have to change that “To the Beach” sign though. It should read “To the Beach and also to the Harbour via the longest bloody route we could think of for stupid English people who think that “To the Beach” actually means “To the Harbour.”
Went out for our evening meal. Found a place that looked nice and got ourselves a table in the open air just outside the restaurant. As soon as we sat down we discovered that the table had a wobbly leg and so did Emma’s chair. I told her to just try and list over to the same side as the table but it didn’t work so we changed her chair and I got one of the waiters to put his hand under the table leg until we’d finished our meal. It was all right, he had nothing else to do. Was all this a bad omen? No, why should it be?
We ordered a bottle of wine and the waiter came back with a different one saying that they didn’t have the one we wanted but this one was more expensive and we could have it for the same price as our original choice. This looked like a good omen eh?
The waiter brought the bottle to the table and proceeded to uncork it with one of those foolproof corkscrews and promptly snapped the cork leaving half of it in the bottle. Was this a bad omen? No, why should it be?
Instead of bothering to pull out the rest of the cork with the corkscrew the waiter just poked it into the bottle of wine. Oh no, bad omen again eh? No, why should it be?
Our meal finally came up. My roast chicken was warm on the outside but bloody stone cold on the inside with luke warm chips. Oh no, bad omen…... possibly.
While we sat there waiting for the chicken to be re-heated, the owner’s three or four children were running riot, shouting, screaming, crying, running around the tables and generally being a pain in the arse. They love children in these Mediterranean countries don’t they, the bastards. Then, all of a sudden, no more than two feet away from me one of the kids stopped jumping about, stood stock still, looked me straight in the eye and puked up all over the floor. Oh no, bad omen? All right, all right yes, yes, it was a bad omen, no, it wasn’t a bad omen it was a bloody shambles and I wished I hadn’t walked into the stinking restaurant in the first place.
The kid’s parents, the owners, were far too busy serving customers to notice all this but luckily a waiter did.
And do you know what he did?
He got out a hose and started to hose the muck away. The water mixed with the sick and started to swirl across the tiled floor (thank God it was outside) and eventually formed a sort of river of chunks cutting off our table from the rest of the restaurant.
I just looked at all this and thought of my chicken somewhere between this diluted river of sick and the kitchen. What the hell would they do to my chicken if this is how they conduct their hygiene outside the kitchen?
Oh, here it comes. “Sorry about that sir, here you are, enjoy your meal,” said the waiter. He gave me my meal and splished sploshed away back to the kitchen. Enjoy your meal? What the hell is he talking about? Enjoy your meal? Here I am, sitting with my feet in the air because of the puddles of sick under my chair, drinking wine that I didn’t want, eating chicken that still isn’t hot, chips that by now are colder than the chicken was in the first place and still trying to have a good time.
And do you know what?
I still paid the bill.
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