Majorca 2004 - Day 9

I had a bit of trouble with the coffee machine this morning.

It’s a basic affair; two buttons over two nozzles, one marked coffee the other, tea. So far I’ve been pressing the coffee button and everything’s been fine. This morning I thought I’d try one of the Nescafe sachets. All you have to do is mix it with hot water from the coffee machine, there was a button on the machine labelled ‘Hot Water’ but there wasn’t any nozzle for it. I was standing there with my cup of Nescafe powder staring at the machine when Betty came up in yet another brand new Thomson Gold T shirt and baseball cap and said, “Just put your cup under the nozzle marked ‘Tea’ and press the hot water button. “Oh, right,” I said, “thanks.”

Bloody obvious really.

If you’re not down by the pool by at least 9 am then you’ve got no chance of getting a sun bed. There aren’t many people about but every sun bed has a towel on it. Some people don’t seem to turn up until the afternoon but they’ve still reserved the bed. The trouble is it’s difficult to know if somebody’s just left the bed for 10 minutes or so or if they just haven’t been there in the first place.

That’s the trouble with old people, they don’t sleep. They’re so used to getting up at the crack of dawn to get ready for their trip to the Post Office where they start queuing with all the other old people at 6.30 am waiting for it to open at 9 am. They put all that getting up for the Post Office energy into getting up for the sun beds. We don’t stand a chance with this lot. An awful lot of people not only seem to have a sun bed everyday, they also appear to have the same sun bed in the same position around the pool everyday. These people must sleep on them overnight.

I saw a sign today, “No dancing in pool area before I am”.

“Before who is?” I said to Pauline, “is there someone who comes out at night and starts dancing while shouting out, ‘It’s all right everyone. I’ve started.’”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Pauline, “it says ‘No dancing in pool area before 1 a.m.’.

Oh no, it’s time for one of Emmathethomsonrep’s hourly announcements. Here she goes in that screeching Northern voice of hers, “OK ladies and gents. It’s target darts time in just a minute so if you want to take part just come on oop t’stage and we’ll sort you out. You’ll be playing today for the Thomson Gold baseball cap.”

This is the cue for the same group of people who take part in everything everyday to suddenly start stirring themselves and to wander over.

The only bloody game they don’t seem to have is who can stuff the most socks into the bloody mouth of Emmathethomsonrep.