Last night what I can only call a Saturnalia took place on the beach outside our flat.
Throughout the day the sporadic Beirut-like explosions kept the realization that it was a festival to the forefront of the mind. As the day wore on so the crack like reports of sizeable ‘petados’ grew less sporadic and more like a concentrated bombardment.
Which went on throughout the night.
Standing on the balcony and looking out I felt like some medieval baron standing on the battlements of his besieged castle and looking out at the motley crew ranged against him. The numbers of people in the darkness were indicated by the dancing flames of various camp fires and the unsettling deep murmur of what seemed like thousands of voices. From time to time the flash of an explosion showed serried ranks of people lurking about in the darkness.
Although tempted in theory to go along the beach and see what was happening, in practice I was tired and just wanted to go to bed. I was, however, revivified by a telephone from the Head Teacher of the school in which I used to work (ahem!) who told me that the way that The Owner is behaving is simply unacceptable and that she does not deserve to have a school.
So, from accepting that there would be little that I could do except to cause some mild exasperation in the life of the spoilt brat grown to womanhood, I am now encouraged to believe that We Can Do Something Real. At this point I lapse into King Lear and admit that I am not sure what it is that we will be able to do, but I fervently hope that we will do such things,-- What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be The terrors of the earth!
The restored enthusiasm for My Campaign against The Owner and All Her Works drained the last elements of wakefulness from me and I departed for my bed.
I was awoken from uneasy dreams by the same rumble of voices punctuated by explosions which had soothed me to sleep.
I scrabbled around for my glasses and shuffled me way towards the balcony. I was feeling unnaturally tired and I assumed that my sleeping brain had spent the night constructing ever more elaborate dreams to account for the strange noises that thumped their way through my flat.
The sight that met my bleary eyes was astonishing.
The beach was fully littered; not only with the sort of spread of rubbish which is usually only found in careful set dressing of high budget films, but also with bodies in various states of comotosity. And the ones who were conscious were still drinking! Boys lifting the mini metal casks of beer to their mouths and squirting the frothy rubbish directly down their throats. Men examining the contents of bottles stuck at various angles in the sand the ten raising them to their parched lips at half past six in the morning. People of all possible sexes staggering unsteadily towards the newly installed portaloo. What greeted them inside can only be guessed at after a night of unsure personal hygiene conducted in the dark!
By seven o’clock in the morning men in fluorescent tabards had started the Augean task of bringing back the beach to some degree of normality. It is a labour which has taken them all day with the assistance of the giant sand siever, a succession of rubbish vans and management in cars. The beach is now beginning to look more like the manicured stretch of sand that we have become used to.
Living next to a popular beach you understand just how much hard work is necessary to keep sand looking, well, unremarkable. With no tide the effortless flat and featureless appearance of British beaches is something which takes a lot of money to achieve in the Mediterranean.
The amount we are paying for the flat and its position, the least we have a right to expect is a natural looking beach which has taken vast sums of money to look like that!
Throughout the day the sporadic Beirut-like explosions kept the realization that it was a festival to the forefront of the mind. As the day wore on so the crack like reports of sizeable ‘petados’ grew less sporadic and more like a concentrated bombardment.
Which went on throughout the night.
Standing on the balcony and looking out I felt like some medieval baron standing on the battlements of his besieged castle and looking out at the motley crew ranged against him. The numbers of people in the darkness were indicated by the dancing flames of various camp fires and the unsettling deep murmur of what seemed like thousands of voices. From time to time the flash of an explosion showed serried ranks of people lurking about in the darkness.
Although tempted in theory to go along the beach and see what was happening, in practice I was tired and just wanted to go to bed. I was, however, revivified by a telephone from the Head Teacher of the school in which I used to work (ahem!) who told me that the way that The Owner is behaving is simply unacceptable and that she does not deserve to have a school.
So, from accepting that there would be little that I could do except to cause some mild exasperation in the life of the spoilt brat grown to womanhood, I am now encouraged to believe that We Can Do Something Real. At this point I lapse into King Lear and admit that I am not sure what it is that we will be able to do, but I fervently hope that we will do such things,-- What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be The terrors of the earth!
The restored enthusiasm for My Campaign against The Owner and All Her Works drained the last elements of wakefulness from me and I departed for my bed.
I was awoken from uneasy dreams by the same rumble of voices punctuated by explosions which had soothed me to sleep.
I scrabbled around for my glasses and shuffled me way towards the balcony. I was feeling unnaturally tired and I assumed that my sleeping brain had spent the night constructing ever more elaborate dreams to account for the strange noises that thumped their way through my flat.
The sight that met my bleary eyes was astonishing.
The beach was fully littered; not only with the sort of spread of rubbish which is usually only found in careful set dressing of high budget films, but also with bodies in various states of comotosity. And the ones who were conscious were still drinking! Boys lifting the mini metal casks of beer to their mouths and squirting the frothy rubbish directly down their throats. Men examining the contents of bottles stuck at various angles in the sand the ten raising them to their parched lips at half past six in the morning. People of all possible sexes staggering unsteadily towards the newly installed portaloo. What greeted them inside can only be guessed at after a night of unsure personal hygiene conducted in the dark!
By seven o’clock in the morning men in fluorescent tabards had started the Augean task of bringing back the beach to some degree of normality. It is a labour which has taken them all day with the assistance of the giant sand siever, a succession of rubbish vans and management in cars. The beach is now beginning to look more like the manicured stretch of sand that we have become used to.
Living next to a popular beach you understand just how much hard work is necessary to keep sand looking, well, unremarkable. With no tide the effortless flat and featureless appearance of British beaches is something which takes a lot of money to achieve in the Mediterranean.
The amount we are paying for the flat and its position, the least we have a right to expect is a natural looking beach which has taken vast sums of money to look like that!
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