The continuing diaries of an Englishman abroad visiting such exotic places as Spain, USA, Malta and heaven knows where. Tagging along are his wife Pauline and daughter Emma.

Everything you are about to read is based on true events and real people. It may have been embellished beyond recognition for a cheap laugh but everything happened to a greater or lesser degree. Apart from the bits I made up. OK, and apart from the jokes. And apart from the fantasy sequences. But all the characters are real, believe me.


Exciting isn't it?


Thursday, 9 February 2012

Majorca 2004 - Day 14


Uh-oh. Trouble’s brewing or to be more precise, it isn’t brewing – the coffee machine that is.

The Shark has just walked up, put his cup under the coffee nozzle, pressed the start button and to his utter bewilderment, nothing poured out. He stood there stock still, staring at the cup while everyone else wandered round the buffet table to the coffee machine on the other side. Two minutes went by, still no sign of movement from the Shark and then, very very slowly, his forefinger pressed the button again. Another two minutes went by as the Shark again stood there absolutely blooming still, staring at his empty cup, no discernable signs of life except for a small nerve in his left temple that had started to twitch.

One of the waitresses walked past and The Shark grunted.

Then pandemonium broke out. Waitresses were suddenly milling about like ants, bumping into each other in their haste to do something but not really knowing what. A chef ran out of the kitchen with a big can of coffee powder and started to pour it into the top of the coffee machine, a job made all the more difficult by the fact that the Shark still hadn’t moved a muscle and was still rooted to his original spot right in front of the machine.

The sweet young girl whose job it was to look after the coffee machines was dragged screaming from the kitchen and thrown onto the dining room tiled floor where she slid all the way across the room finally coming to a standstill at the Shark’s feet.

Placido the head waiter rushed over, took her outside and had her shot.

Meanwhile The Shark lifted his hand to the machine once more, pressed the button and with a satisfied smile watched closely as the coffee poured straight down all over his feet.

He’d forgotten to put his cup back.

I keep seeing The Talking Lady everywhere I go.

She has this very annoying habit of talking to everybody. Not just in passing, but all the time. Whatever the time of day. Wherever she is. Whoever she’s near to. She’ll be talking. She’s talking on the sun bed. She’s talking in the hall. She’s talking in reception. She’s talking on the stairs. She’s talking at the bus stop. She’s talking but who cares? Who cares, who cares, who cares, who cares, who cares, who cares, WHO CARES?

Del Boy went home today.

I saw him sitting with a group of fellow travellers this morning, waiting for their coach pickup. He seemed un-typically quiet and pensive. I never thought I’d say this but I’m going to miss the old fool. There are lots of people sitting around swapping home addresses today.

Never ever do this!

Unless you want some boring couple you’ve got nothing in common with except sun beds to suddenly turn up on your doorstep at Christmas. I generally use a false name and if pushed I say I work for the Foreign Office. This usually works until Pauline gives the game away by calling me Pete instead of the pre-arranged Caruthers.

Jesus, there’s a headless woman on one of the sun beds!

Nope, false alarm, she’s just got a towel the same colour as the sun bed draped over her head.

A woman came up to me today and asked me what the time was. I said, “The big hand’s on four and the little hand’s on…..hang on….no, the little hands on four and the big hand’s on ten…or is it nine? As the woman backed away, Pauline said to her, “Oh, he’s only joking.”

Sometimes it’s just not worth it is it?

It’s strange how during the day you’ll see all these middle-aged women sunbathing topless by the pool and then at dinner in the evening, there they all are, dressed up in all their posh dresses for the night.

As I passed the table of one woman tonight I gave her an exaggerated wink and said, “Nice nipples.”

We leave tomorrow.

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