Weighed in the balance and found wanting - again!

When I first went to Greece I went with the best of intentions. I had studied and researched the museums and excavations that I wanted to visit; I had bemoaned the fact that one could only spend a mere morning or afternoon on the Greek sacred island of Ios or whatever. I arrived in Athens late determined to make an early cultural start.

But the sun was shining and I discovered that the Greeks actually produced Newcastle Brown looking bottles filled with Retsina for mere pence. I was instantly corrupted and this holiday marked the end of my ostentatiously artistic ventures abroad. From henceforward I searched for the sun and the warm waters of the Mediterranean in which to bathe.

A similar epiphany has taken place with regard to the house or flat in Spain. The overriding consideration in the quest for the appropriate domicile was a suitable repository for my books (and of course, naturally, somewhere visitors and family could be entertained so that they would realise just how unfortunate they were not to be living in Castelldefels!)

The first house that we saw today was almost perfect: adequate accommodation with an interesting arrangement of rooms and a large lower room which could take all my books. It had a small (very small) garden and a terrace. It had a parking space and a sun roof. Perfect. But in the wrong place, or, as we say in Castelldefels, on the other side of the motorway. The house was empty so everything in store would fit. But it was in the wrong place. The wrong bloody place!

The afternoon was given over to a mendacious estate agent (Gosh!) who took us to a truly horrible flat that we had not asked to see and none of the properties that we had asked to see. We were taken on a grand tour of locations where there might be properties but not to the sea front where we wanted to be. By the time that we were ready to go to our last port of call we were in a thoroughly bad mood, not made any better by the conflicting attitudes we were beginning to develop about exactly what it was we were looking for!

We had no great hopes from the last property and the estate agent who was supposed to be showing it to us was late. The generally poor mood continued and developed.

When we went to the flat we were show in detail and in a logical order the various attributes it possessed. It had a reasonably sized swimming pool and the block of flats had their own private entry directly to the beach. There was a parking space in a generously proportioned bay (I was told) and then we taken round the flat. The living area was generously proportioned and the terrace adequate with views of the pool and the beach and the sea. The main bedroom was adequate but the other rooms somewhat small. The kitchen had been refurbished and the bathroom and loo were adequate.

My carefully dispassionate description hides the glaring, incandescent and truly wonderful fact that it was directly on the beach!

So! To hell with the books! The flat is directly on the beach: from the pool, through the door and onto the beach.

Once again the lure of sun, sea and sand has conquered my dedication to academe. Sad really; but it is what I have been working towards for a number of years. I may not own it, but I’m going to be living in it.

So, tomorrow, back once again to Castelldefels to put down a deposit and try and explain how my complete lack of an income is no hindrance to my renting a flat for the foreseeable future. I’m not quite sure how that circle is going to be squared, but I’m sure that money will sort it out. I will be dealing with estate agents after all.

What is going to happen to all the stuff in store is anyone’s guess. This, as they say, is work in progress.

Meanwhile my continuing exploration of the Spanish psyche has delved into small spaces.

Although British people find toilet humour, well, humorous and laugh inordinately at references to toilets and attendant activities, they find personal discussion outside the realm of standup comedy intensely embarrassing.

Judging by the number of advertisements connected to one aspect of bodily evacuation, it is the horror of having anyone other than you realise that excreted matter might actually smell offensive! One masterly neurosis inducing advertisement asks the acutely psychologically penetrating question, “What do you loo say about you?” One is tempted to answer that it probably says that you are using the loo for the purpose for which it was invented – so much nicer than pooing in the sitting room!

I know that the advert is referring to the smell (or ‘stench’ as I’m sure Doctor Johnson would have preferred to have said) and judging again by the number of products that have been developed to counteract the smell of this particular bodily function they are onto a winner.

I particularly like the toilet blocks which also emphasise that they are antiseptic and disinfectant so it is hygienic rather than cosmetic to use one. And one what? We have been presented with bleach tablets, blue blocks, under rim attachments, in cistern slowly dissolving cellophane wrapped rings and in-an-out attachments. The last ones I bought for my ex-house I preparation for its new denizens, was an under rim strip which seemed to stretch half way round the bowl. The bewilderingly wide range of ‘fragrances’ that have been deemed suitable to mask the unpleasant odours of a particular part of the bathroom all have one thing in common: they emphasise the smell that isn’t there! The incongruity of young of pine forests or wild jasmine infused with rampant spring lavender bursting forth from the toilet bowl is always a little unsettling.

Having one toilet bloc is inadequate; having two is either boasting about the virulence of your bodily functions or proclaiming your unnatural nature when it comes to what goes naturally.

The well appointed and hygienically sound little toilet in the café in the plaza in front of the station in Castelldefels was not distinguishable or notable for its scent but rather for the design of its toilet block. This took the form of a little hollow canoe shaped boat on the deck of which was a hollow man in blue behind a hollow sail of green – all filled with de-odorising goo! I am sure that these elaborate constructions are well known to my reader, but to me, a toiletry innocent, they were a revelation!

If a man in a boat, why not a surfer riding a big wave; a lion attacking a water buffalo; Venus rising from a scallop shell; Margaret Thatcher fighting a bloated Edward Heath; the sinking of The Bismark; a working model of an artesian well . . .

. . . and I’m ready for my medication now nurse.