Nothing is easy

Cars get small stones in the same way that adolescents get spots; it’s one of the forces of nature. 

The stones that cars accumulate are of the small variety and usually of an indeterminate grey colour.  They are small enough to fit neatly into crevices and can travel easily underneath car mats.  It is only when they are raised that, rather like a neglected stone in the forest when turned over, a whole world is revealed.  In the forest it might be organic; in a car it is geologic.  And therein lies the real problem for their being cleaned away.

There is no such thing as an effective car vacuum cleaner.  I know.

I have now wasted two individual sums of money on machines which have promised suction and not delivered. 

The latest one, which I am ashamed to admit was a Hoover gave a new meaning to the word pathetic.  It did indeed suck up dust which it immediately expelled through the air outlet!  The little stones stayed stubbornly on the carpet.  When I finally deployed the “crevice tool” (I have no intention of explaining) it did less!

When a machine made by a firm whose name has become a generic name for the device it makes one expects more.  Luckily the box, although thrown into the bin, had not been taken out to the skip and so the hapless machine has been repackaged and will be taken back to the store as something not fit for purpose!

Emma arrived on time and, as is now traditional, was taken to the Maratime for a meal and a chat.  A bottle of wine and a considerable amount of gossip later we fell into our respective beds – but not before the Magic of the Coin was explained.

Emma is prone to mosquito attack and therefore our newfound knowledge about the amazing characteristics of coin-on-sting amelioration was a necessary part of the useful knowledge that any sleeper in these parts needs to know!

The morning was spent at the beach where the number of people enjoying the end of their holidays does not seem to have lessened.

What might have been a jellyfish brushed by right knee and I spent the next few hours having hysterical phantom sting pains.  After the kiss of the medusa last year where I ended up with an almost perfect circle of sting points which took a hell of a long time to diminish, I was more than eager not to suffer the same fate again. 

I may have faith in the power of The Coin but I would not like to put it to the test with the assertive pain of a jellyfish.  As the web page which talks about remedies for stings says, the best remedy is not to have the sting in the first place.

Our leisurely evening of sitting outside a café and having just a few tapas was stymied by the limitations of my two companions: the bad tummy of one and the wheat intolerance of the other, meant that I had to eat an entire plate of chocos myself because of the composition of the batter.  This meant that the plate of pimentos del padron was sent back to the kitchen with some left on it – a high crime and misdemeanour!

Tomorrow more beach time.