Deserted by the golfers, Chris the Dub Organiser and I chill with Roberto by the pool, eating fresh fruit from his cool box. The sun begins to scorch and we drive to Cabopino beach. The warm breeze from North Africa soothes me under my parasol, but hunger arrives, so it’s a fish feast at the beach bar, sardinas a la plancha para tres, beautifully fresh mixed salad, bread, wine and agua con gas. We quickly concur in the headiness of the breeze, tastes and aromas that we truly have more than we need in life and declare a fatwah on Life’s moaners.
Soon the golfers return, order what we just ate, join us back under the parasol and the banter bounces bed to bed. The Sloane Square rank and the Chelsea Kitchen are a million miles away.
Did someone say food? In the evening smelling like the Harrods perfumery, we arrive at the elegant La Plaza restaurant for dinner out on the terrace. Everybody chooses whatever they want and our table overflows. The enjoyment is only interrupted three times by news of Ireland conceding another goal to Spain in the Euros 2012. We need no TV in a corner found in other, lesser establishments, for the locals are sufficiently hospitable to inform us of this fact with a surrounding salvo of fireworks launched with every goal from surrounding balconies and flat rooftops. I’d heard Spain went crazy when they won the 2010 World Cup. I can definitely believe it now.
We stay locally after dinner, popping round the corner into JJ’s, an outpost for British ex-pats. By the look of them and their conversation subjects, they all arrived in the last millenium. Soon one of our party bridges six degrees of separation and finds he’d worked with one of them in the Post Office in Islington. I buy a book from a shelf and donate two Euros to charity as requested. It’s a compilation of Londoners’ oral history who recall going Hop Picking in Kent back in the day. I wish it were more fittingly poetry by Lorca perhaps, but this will do nicely on the Sloane Square rank next kipper season. Ooh, fish. Never mind.
We bid farewell to the cast of Minder and return to the apartment. Tomorrow is not going to be just another day.
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