The Pauls have been fortunate in that every day that they have been here has been fine. Which is more than I can say for my sojourn in the UK earlier in the holiday!
Their growing desperation to change colour puts me vividly in mind of my own frantic behaviour towards the end of a 14 day stay in sunny climes when the growing realization that tanning opportunities are decreasing by the second.
As last night’s festivities included celebrating in a flowingly liquid way overcoming the grasping evil of the Stunted Dwarf thieving manager of the restaurant we went to, there seems to be a disinclination on the part of our guests to spring from their beds and soak up the rays.
Going to a major supermarket on a Sunday morning reminds me of the worst excesses of M&S on the lead-up to Christmas, where hordes of women-type people of both sexes sweep through the store in a ruthless fashion that makes Genghis Khan look like a member of the St John’s Ambulance Service – and that is a very carefully chosen simile.
Suffice to say that the experience is something on a par with what experimental mice undergo in the most severe laboratory conditions so there is an incentive to drag oneself out of bed at an unearthly hour to get any goods that you need before the masses surge into the buying area.
Driving to our local small supermarket in Gava was akin to a general inspecting his troops nodding with approval their preparations for the battle as the visiting family platoons of holiday-makers begin their preparations taking various pieces of important equipment out of their cars and amassing the vast quantities of food in plastic containers that is an essential element in the Spanish Family on the Beach. Laden with parasols, chairs, beds, balls, hats and enough food to feed a normal division they make their sullen way to the beach resenting every footstep because they have not been able to park within millimetres of the sand and sea.
By the time I returned all parking spaces within easy reach of the house had been taken and the more outré parking spaces (zebra crossings and tangentially to rounded corners) had begun to be taken up as well. I therefore had to use the parking of last resource: the driveway.
It’s hot. Very hot. And the Third Floor is like a “microwave oven” according to the Pauls, though Paul Squared has been tempted to lie out there as a sort of “last chance” quick-tan expedient! A dangerous choice, but one I took myself on every occasion on the last day of a holiday when I was living in Britain!
The day will not end with the taking of the Pauls to the airport; we then have to go to Terrassa to collect the various goodies that Toni’s mum has brought back from her holiday on the island of Majorca. I am hoping that she has brought back some of the excellent spicy cheese wrapped in vine leaves that we tried the last time someone came back from a visit to the island bearing gifts!
Alas! Toni has been stricken with some sort of tummy bug (possibly aggravated by his unaccustomed second glass of wine last night!) and we did not go up to Terrassa.
The Pauls have been taken to the airport and we had our evening meal accompanied by that wistful sadness that comes when friends have gone home.
Still, we are looking forward to our next guest due next Tuesday. Time marches on!
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