Crap!
When you can work out how much you are paying for a day of your holiday and are impressed by the amount of money is it costing - then a day without sun in a resort and on an island whose only selling point is that they have a plentiful supply of that commodity is something which merits the word “crap”.
Pushing my faith in the micro climate of Maspalomas to its limit, we trampled through sandy wastes illuminated only by a heavily masked sun, unable to penetrate the deep, purple tinged clouds to our sun (on-how-ironic) beds to “enjoy” our last full day in warm sun-kissed bliss. Not to be.
Instead I lay unclothed and open to the elements gazing at cloud cover and hoping that the brighter bit was moving steadily to the tantalizing area of clear blue which might mean that some heat might fall on my cold-winkled flesh.
To be fair (in a cruel world) there were mere moments (and I am stressing the “mere” here) when the full force of the African sun did beat down. This, of course, only served to make its general lack of beating down all the more reprehensible. And on a Bank Holiday Monday too!
We eventually (even I!) admitted defeat and strode off along the vanished beach, stubbing our toes on the ugly pebbles, to a resentful lunch.
I had decided to have a frugal lunch of tomato soup and pimentos del pardon though the eventual sight of the pile of salt crystal bedecked peppers was a little daunting, even for someone who loves them. Needless to say I managed to get through them with Toni eating a token number. He is always afraid of “the one hot one” which, with telling irony, he found with his first taste the last time I ordered them! These were all mild and delicious.
The flight back to Barcelona tomorrow is at half past four and is it only the presence of Toni which means that my case is packed already.
Hitherto I have always relied on the “push all the stuff in the case and hope that Customs don’t ask you to open it and display to the ogling world all your dirty washing” and I have seen no reason not to adopt this tried and tested method. But such hasty ways of doing things are apparently “not acceptable” and I will have to live with the burden of the extra time that I will have at a period when I am usually in a state of fine panic!
Toni has already filled out the hotel’s questionnaire and “put the finger” on a particularly obnoxious waitress who roundly insulted us both by a single gesture.
Our table for dinner has been the same one for the whole time that we have stayed in the hotel and so, if you purchase a bottle of wine and do not consume it all you can “keep” it by having it tagged with your room number and it will magically reappear for your next meal.
We had bought a bottle of the over-priced hotel wine and had made it last for two nights! This is mainly due to Toni’s Catalan capacity for being satisfied with a single glass. By the end of the second night there was about 20% of the bottle left. When Toni indicated that it should be reserved for the next meal the waitress picked it up, tilted it sideways and gave it what can only be described as an old-fashioned look indicative of astonishment and disgust. I was amused but Toni was outraged: and rightly so – the customer, however stingy, is always right!
The hotel is good, but not that good. The accommodation is fine and more than satisfactory, though the plastic sheet under the cotton sheet makes one wonder what usually goes on!
The food is adequate. Breakfast is fine: they have scrambled egg, cereal and tea so I am happy. Dinner is another matter. They, like so many hotels, use the buffet method of serving food and while the selection is good, it does tend to get a little repetitive. The salads are tasty, especially the one with smoked salmon, but the hot meals remind one of institutional food and, although the names indicate an exotic choice, the reality is not necessarily so. I think that if we had been staying here for any longer then we would have started going out to restaurants for dinner rather than staying in.
However, I think that it has been reasonable value for money.
I have asked for an extension to the time that we have to leave the room and that has been graciously granted – I only hope that I do not find some sort of extra charge when we leave.
There was a time when I did not want to leave Gran Canaria because I was going back to the harsher reality of the climate of Cardiff. Now I am going back to Catalonia where, even allowing for the fact that the weather there has not been as good as it has been here, is altogether in another category of warmness than Cardiff. And we are a damn sight nearer the sea than we are here!
It is, as ever, work that holds few delights for me. I have been longer at the school at which I presently work than I ever intended to. There are attractions there, but I think that there are more in real retirement!
I will have to do the sums.
Again!
And, just to give an edge to my thoughts, I may well meet up with my financial advisor from Wales when I get back to Barcelona. I still remember his description of “unspectacular, but steady growth” when applied to the place where I put my savings. This was the same place where 40% of those savings were wiped out in the Crisis and where there has been a slow via dolorosa back to parity. Parity – not “steady growth” through the years that my savings have been in place.
Oh well, it’s only money!
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