Spain 2005 - Day 10

At breakfast this morning I went straight over to the two gay men and gave them a Chinese burn.

That’s reinforced the boundaries I think.

This afternoon by the pool it started to rain. When this happens people react in strangely different ways. Some panic as soon as the first drops fall, bundling their belongings together and racing for cover as if a raindrop was going to kill them stone dead. Some wait to see what develops before deciding to make a move while others, like me, say to themselves, “It’s only rain. I’m here in shorts sitting under a large sun umbrella, how wet can I get anyway?” So while most people had evacuated the pool area I found just myself and a few other sad blokes sitting huddled up under our umbrellas waiting for the rain to stop.

But it didn’t.

It came down harder. And harder. And harder until I couldn’t see in front of my face. It was so hard I was getting drenched just from the rain bouncing back off the ground no matter how far I crawled up the sun bed to squeeze as much as my body as possible under the umbrella, which by now was beginning to sag very badly indeed. I looked around and nobody, but nobody was around. The few people still outside, which included Pauline and Emma, were all huddled under the very large canopies of the poolside bar looking across at me.

I was really getting wet now and it seemed to be getting worse. I had my sun hat on and I glanced over at Pauline and Emma, who were laughing for some reason, and gave them a sort of ‘What a carry on’ look. Slowly I gathered up my wringing wet towel, soggy book and belongings and walked nonchalantly over towards the bar, water pouring off my hat, down my neck and into my shorts.

By the time I’d reached our room my hat had shrunk to the size of a postage stamp and the slogan on my shrunken T-shirt which said ‘Save The Ales’ actually read ‘See les’.

Tonight at dinner we had a really dozy boy as a waiter. We ordered our drinks, a bottle of rose wine and as we were ordering he stood there gazing into the distance screwing his eyes up and then opening them wide again. After repeating this for a few seconds he wrote on his pad while saying out loud, “One bottle red wine.”

“No,” said Pauline, “Rosado.”

“Ah, si,” he said screwing his eyes up at her.

When we came back to the table with our food we found him there, screwing his eyes up as he was struggling to open a bottle of white wine.

“No,” shouted Pauline, “Rosado, Rosado.”

“Ah, si,” he said and screwed his eyes up at me this time.

“Don’t you screw your eyes up at me dozy boy,” I thought, “just get the right bloody bottle.”

The Irish have fallen foul of the Spanish town planners but have gone ahead and built a brick BBQ just to the left of their dinner table anyway. I saw them earlier at the supermarket, it’s amazing how they can manage to fit four packets of cornflakes and a bottle of Lambrusco inside a leather bomber jacket isn’t it?

Went for a stroll along the front and while sitting outside a sea-front bar a Northern family came along and sat down near us. The man started to order strawberries and cream and, sounding just like Geoff Boycott, he started.

“Ah’d like a beeg bowel of strawberries and fresh cream. Moost be fresh cream, mind. You know, thaht squirty cream, fresh squirty cream. Not cream but squirrrrty cream…….fresh.” while saying all this he was miming a big bowl and doing squirty movements with his hands. “You know,” he went on, seeing the puzzled look on the waiter’s face, “fresh squirty cream, SQUIRRRRRRRTY, SQUIRRRRRRRTY, PSSSSSCH, PSSSSSCH, PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSCH, BIG BOWEL.”

The waiter left and so did we.