There is, as far as I know, no Gran Canaria National Gallery so when clouds cover the one and only things that we are here for, there is little else to do other than mope.
Or have faith. I have always believed, whatever the weather conditions that Maspalomas has a microclimate. Even if it is cloudy within yards of the place where we rest our prone bodies and expose them to the healing rays I still march forward chanting the mantra that “It will be sunny on the beach.”
Today, this morning, was frankly unpropitious with sullen cloud shading into outright hostility. There were worrying mutterings about how it might be a good plan to go to Las Palmas – a place, saving the grace of El Corte Ingles, of almost no real interest – or even one of the other resorts along the coast where the proportion of unsuitable Brits tips into the unforgiveable. I was staunch in the protestation of the central tenet of my Canarian faith that, as has been explained, “It will be sunny on the beach.”
Our trudge through the gloomy dunes was not enlivened by Unexpected Gentlemen looming suddenly from sandy knolls in attitudes their mothers would not have approved of but we were most definitely accompanied by a constant rustling of other lizard life forms scuttling underneath the wholly artificial looking thorn bushes which about along the sandy trail.
After conflicting views regarding the blue-topped pole route through the sands as opposed to the red-topped one, we eventually and acrimoniously broke away from both and eventually emerged within sight of our eventual destination tired, sweaty and cross.
Our mood was not improved by the impertinence of clouds which seemed intent on testing my oft-stated faith in the quality of sunlight on that patch of sand. But, with gritted teeth and a determination to ignore the wind which reminded one that this was only April, the true believer was rewarded with the full glare of our nearest star.
I did go into the sea on a couple of occasions but that was an ungainly proceeding.
The lack of a smooth shelf of sand under the waves and its replacement by pebbles, larger stones and occluded strata of igneous rock makes walking into the sea a truly perilous task. Strapping, muscular and healthy men are reduced to bow backed arthritic hags as they stumble and lurch their unsteady way into the water looking very much as if someone had just kicked their walking sticks away.
The topography has wiped out the more irritating macho entrances into the sea. Anyone trying to run down the beach would be in danger of broken limbs, and throwing oneself into the water would result in almost certain evisceration. Displays of manliness were confined to peacock strutting along the few stretches of pebble free sand rather than aquatic acrobatics.
Lunch was in a seaside restaurant whose maître d remembered us from the last time we were on the island. We remembered him too, but the years since we had seen him had changed his face into a Dickensian caricature with ravaged face and teeth which looked as though they had come out of a ham actor’s make up box! We had an excellent fideua. This pasta based fish dish is a great favourite and this version was individualistic. It was much more liquid than the ones that we have in Catalonia and there was much more evidence of herbs, especially oregano – but every region is entitle to its version.
One of the selling points of the hotel in which we are staying is its “Adults Only” policy, rigidly excluding under 18 year olds. One only has to g into the adjacent shopping centre to see families at full exasperation to appreciate the absence of children from our locale.
It was therefore with something approaching horror that, on our return to the hotel to lounge by the pool I discerned not one, but two of the under-aged creatures disporting themselves in the waters. I glared at them with the full professional force that I have developed over the years and at the adult who appeared to be encouraging them. The children were emitting sounds of forced noisy enthusiasm that grates on every teacher’s ears and sounds to the uninformed and quiescent (i.e. non-teacher) like “charming” play.
I know that hotels have a fairly free attitude to the use of their pools and there is a sort of loose inter-communality (if such a word exists) of such facilities between hotels which I find wholly repugnant. I was busily building up my resentment and also forming the more biting of the phrases that I was going to use in my letter of complaint when the damn kids disappeared.
I shall bear the choicer phrases in mind in case these neophyte life forms dare make an appearance at dinner.
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