Spain 1999 - Day 1

We’re bound for Gatwick today to catch the Malaga flight at 4 pm and from there we’ll be traveling to our hotel in Fuengirola.

Journey to airport uneventful.

Boarded the plane We have seats 26 A, B, C. They’re towards the rear of the plane and it took ages to get down there, stopping every few yards to let yet another person figure out whether they’ve reached their seats or not and when they have, waiting while they sorted themselves out by stowing their hand luggage, sitting down, standing up again, sitting down again, changing seats, standing up. getting their hand luggage down from the overhead locker, deciding they don’t want it after all and standing up again to put it back, sitting down again and finally sitting quietly fiddling with the air conditioning nozzles above their heads trying to direct the air flow which of course they can’t because it’s not switched on yet,

Finally getting to aisle 26 we found our seats already taken.

Sitting in them from window to aisle were a fat woman, a fat child (girl I think) of about 12 and a fat git with tattoos on his arms, an earring in his left ear, a shaven head and one of those sports leisure suit things that fat people wear because the trousers have elasticated waists and baggy legs (as do the people who wear them I might add), with the words “DONNAY” plastered all over the front. At first glance I thought it said ‘DONKEY’. Hmmm, nice name, I said to myself.

“Excuse me,” Pauline said, “We think you’re in our seats, we have 26 A, B and C.”

“No, don’t fink so, we’re in the right place,” the fat git said.

“Well our boarding card has us allocated to 26, A, B and C. What have you got on yours?” we asked.

“Row 26, that’s where we are,” said the fat git making no attempt to check his boarding card, “that’s right innit?” he asked his fat wife.

She nodded.

I can’t stand all this nonsense and just as I was about to call over one of the stewardesses Pauline does it, while I’m standing there thinking to myself how many stupid people are there in this world? And why do I always seem to meet them? Why doesn’t the fat git just get out his boarding card and check it? The bastard’s obviously in the wrong seat. They’re either too imbecilic to look at a number on a card and find that number above the aisle they want or (as Pauline suspects), they know they’re in the wrong seats and for some reason don’t want to sit in their allocated seats.

The stewardess glanced at our boarding card and asked the fat git for his.

He showed it to her immediately.

“You should be in 26 D and 27 E and F,” the stewardess told him.

“Oh, really?” the fat git said with a look of fake surprise.

“Oh dear, sorry, “ said the fat git’s wife.

They moved out and it became quite clear that they had taken the three nice seats in a row rather than their own which were split up. What was the point? Did they think our seats wouldn’t belong to anyone and they’d get away with it?

Did they think that if they just sat in them and told us they were their seats that we’d just say, “OK then, sorry, we’ll just sit in those seats over there which haven’t been taken even though our boarding card tells us we should have those seats you’re sitting in. It’s obviously our mistake. Boarding cards eh? Not worth the paper they’re printed on are they? Don’t mean anything do they? The allocated seat numbers on them are just there for a laugh aren’t they? Row 26, seats A, B and C allocated to us? So what?

You just sit there and enjoy yourselves in a neat little row you stupid, moronic, fat, pathetically dressed, greasy haired brainless bastards.”

The rest of the flight was fine.

We arrived at Malaga on time but before going through to collect our luggage Pauline wanted to go to the toilet. You know I spend so much time hanging around outside public toilets waiting for Pauline, it’s a wonder I’ve never been arrested. When she eventually emerged we reached the carousel to find that there was only our luggage on it, pathetically going round and round in a deserted luggage reclaim hall. I think she must have been in there longer than that time in Disneyworld when she missed the evening firework spectacular completely.

We passed through passport control to find a Virgin rep. waiting to tell us which coach to board, found it and settled down for an hours drive or so to our hotel in Fuengirola. Now, don’t know about you, but I have my own idea of what a female Virgin rep would be like haven’t you? What would you think? Young, attractive, bubbly, fun-loving, life and soul and all that?

Wrong.

Young yes, but that’s as far as it went. She was short, fat, unattractive and trying very hard to be funny and fun-loving but wasn’t. When it was time to talk to us punters over the microphone it was a disaster. It reminded me a bit of Norman Collier’s act with the dodgy microphone cutting in and out, one-two, one-two. The difference was that instead of the microphone cutting out, every few seconds there would be this enormous sound of feedback which she didn’t seem to know how to cope with. She was reading everything off small cue cards that she had in her hand and was desperately trying to be amusing. I was cringing in my seat. How did she get the job? Sleep with Richard Branson? Who knows? I’ll have to ask Richard next time I see him.

We got to the hotel at 10 pm and found our room surprisingly cramped. The hotel is rated four star but the room looks too small for three people. It’s a double room with an extra single bed squeezed in for Emma. Nothing wrong in that if the room is big enough to accommodate it but what with the extra bed and all the bits of furniture, we were already failing over ourselves trying to move around the room. Pauline said we should ask for a bigger room, in fact she said that she was going to ask for a bigger room.

As we made our way down to reception it turned out that I’m going to ask for a bigger room!

The receptionist said, “Sorry but all the rooms are part of the Virgin holiday allocation and can’t be changed, if you want a bigger room it will cost an extra 5,000 pesetas a night (about £20). All our double rooms are the same size, the only other rooms we have are suites. There’s nothing we can do sorry.”

Perhaps we should see the Virgin rep in the morning,’ said Pauline. “we thought we’d see If you could do anything for us before we unpacked and used the room.”

"0K, we’ll give you a suite for no charge,” the receptionist suddenly said. Why there was this sudden change of heart I don’t know but from being very unaccommodating she switched in a second to being very helpful. Still, she was Spanish.

From then on it was as if we were royalty. First a porter was assigned to move the single bed from the old room to the new one, the house-keeper was called to make up the bed in the new room and everyone was all smiles and sweetness and light. Why? Who cares. The new room was great, two rooms, bigger balcony, loads of space.

There’s a 30 minute meeting tomorrow at 9.30 am with the Virgin rep so we went to bed early at 1 am.