Spain, Las Ramblas, last day crisis

This was our last day in Spain and with a mid afternoon flight and all morning to get to Alicante we had planned for a relaxing morning and a leisurely drive back to the airport.

I couldn’t lie in of course because when I wake up it’s a bit like switching a light on – I simply cannot doze and think about it and I just have to be up and away and out in the sun.  Tea on the terrace as usual and when Richard had joined me we finished off the last of the food and had a continental breakfast consisting of fruit, ham, cheese and yoghurt and after breakfast Richard set about cleaning the apartment from top to bottom in his usual thorough style.

I do confess to feeling a bit guilty as I sat on the patio but I did make the occasional helpful contribution but Richard was in full Mrs Mop mode and was cleaning furiously and I couldn’t match his impressive productivity.  I packed my bags and tidied my bedroom as best I could in the certain knowledge that there would be a full-scale military style inspection any time soon.  When the place had reached the required standard of cleanliness Richard made a last trip to the rubbish bins and the recycling centre and I went back to my seat on the terrace and breathed a sigh of relief.  The challenge now of course was not too make any more mess in the last two hours at the apartment.

There was some activity in the garden and some important looking people seemed to be assembling.  Ah yes, the Annual General Meeting of the Neighbourhood Association.  Pete from next door was there looking all self important and the man from across the way who had challenged us on the first day and two other people who obviously represented the Las Ramblas estate management company.

I couldn’t imagine that they could possibly have had a very big agenda but the meeting went on for nearly an hour with a full inspection of the garden and furious note scribbling to record their conversation.  I wonder what momentous decisions they made?  We were unlikely to find out because they kept well away from our side of the garden and nodded and gestured as they whispered in a conspiratorial style well out of earshot of a couple of non-owners!   After a while the two visitors left and the two owners lingered in deep discussion, probably comparing the size of their patios and bragging off about property values and then they went their separate ways and both marched off in a self important manner.

The morning passed quickly after that and after Richard made a final inspection to see if he had missed anything and after satisfying himself that there was no further cleaning to be done we loaded the car, locked up and set off for the airport.

We had judged our timing to absolute perfection so there was plenty of time to stop off in San Miguel and find a supermarket for some duty free purchases and we drove into the town and found a couple of promising looking shops.   And it was then that I had that awful sinking feeling when you just know that you have forgotten something.  Where was my mobile phone?  I ransacked my pockets and my bag but I knew that it was useless of course because it was a certainty that I had left it behind in the apartment.  Oh bugger!  I gave Richard the bad news and then there was nothing for it but to go all the way back to retrieve it, a round trip journey of forty minutes that was likely to destroy our meticulous planning.  Back at the apartment, sure enough, there it was, on the dining room table where I had put it in full view so that I could be sure that I wouldn’t forget it.

This unscheduled interruption to our itinerary transformed our planned gentle drive into a frantic dash.  It was all my fault of course but Richard has enormous amounts of patience and although he was probably thinking ‘what a complete pillock!’ he was nothing less than thoroughly supportive as I drove with frazzled nerves back through San Miguel (and I didn’t think that I would be doing that again today) and then on to the motorway system and off to Alicanté hopefully before the check-in desk closed.

There were miles of road works of course and a lot of midday traffic and we had to stop for fuel but despite all this we arrived at the airport with time to spare just as Richard had confidently predicted throughout the entire journey.

The first part of check-in was relatively easy except that I nearly forgot about returning the car keys and Richard had to remind me as we stood in the queue. This involved two trips to the Hertz desk because on the first one I forgot the documentation and was sent back.  Annoying therefore that when I returned the second time and after waiting for an ice age for someone to complete what looked like a very simple clerical operation was informed that I didn’t really need it after all!

Then we were sent off to a separate office to pay the excess daylight robbery charge for our golf clubs.  There were two men in the queue making flight availability enquiries and the clerk was dealing with it at the speed of a forming stalactite and Richard could sense that this was taking my patience levels back into the red zone so with the skill of a master magician he produced two plastic beakers and a bottle of beer and this was enough to take me back down to only yellow alert status.  The two men finished their enquiry and faced with a choice of options had a bit of a debate and decided not to bother, what the….? Richard poured me some more beer.  Whilst waiting for eternity I almost made the need for the mad dash back for the mobile phone irrelevant because I decided to drop it onto the tiled floor where it fell apart in two spectacular pieces.

Panic over we went through to the departure gate and after a short wait at the departure gate we were on the plane, a bit of a delay to begin with, the safety lecture, take off, two-for-one gin and tonics for me and a snooze for Richard and very soon we were back in a very wet and windy Birmingham which compared most unfavourably with the weather we had left behind in Spain.  Never mind, there is always another year….!

 

Spain, Costa Blanca and the Ex-Pats

“It was not only in Farol that brusque changes were taking place…they were happening at a breakneck pace all over Spain. Roads, radio, the telephone and now the arrival of tourists… were putting an end to the Spain of old.  And for those who wanted to see it as it had been, there was not a moment to be lost.”      Norman Lewis – ‘Voices of the Old Sea’

We stopped again at La Zenia and dropped in once more at the beach top bar where we baked in the sun and watched the shoreline activity once more.  After a cool drink we walked along the beach and Richard brazenly ogled the topless bathers in his usual indiscreet style.

After hehad seen enough of the topless ladies we drove further south to a more refined beach resort at Dehesa de Campoamor which was a nice little place where we found a perfectly acceptable little beach bar where we sizzled for a while longer in the sun and listened in to the conversations of the British ex-pats.

Sadly conversation is severely limited and there are only three main topics; the first is about property, how much they paid for their place and how much it is worth now, second how it was the best decision that they ever made in their lives and third how they would never ever go back because Britain is such a bad place to live because of the crime.

EXCUSE ME!  At least I don’t have to worry myself stupid about security and live behind security grills and more locks and keys than you’d find in a high security prison.  Some of these people have lost all sense of reality and spend most of their time trying to convince themselves that they made the right decision when they sold up, left their heritage behind and relocated to the sun.  Personally I am not convinced.

Once again however that is just my point of view of course and it is possible to look at it from a different perspective as I was reminded by a fellow ex-pat blogger  – “I do think that’s a bit unfair. While it certainly wasn’t what I wanted to do, I don’t have an issue with people who move to the costas, live in seafront flats, and drink with their mates down the British pubs”

It was time to move on so we drove back to the apartment for an afternoon of leisure.  Unfortunately naked swimming was now out of the question because the night before some people had gate crashed our holiday complex and moved in to the apartment next door and when we arrived back to the garden they had taken up sunbathing positions around the pool.

We minded our own business for quite a while but eventually we were overcome with curiosity and we just had to strike up a conversation with our new neighbour.  It took a while to get beyond the three main topics of conversation but we quickly realised that here was a man who was the vice-president of the neighbourhood association and this was a role that he took very seriously indeed and he was looking forward to the Annual General Meeting which was due to take place later this week.

He was so boring that we started to look forward to it as well, because this was going to be fun!  He introduced us to the hierarchy of Spanish property ownership; first of all there are the owners and they are top of the pile, and then below them are the guests, these are the people who are using the apartments as friends of the owners and this is where we fitted in, and right at the bottom (actually some way at the bottom) are the renters, who are common people who can’t afford overseas property investments and don’t have friends who can either.

It was at this time that Richard played a despicable trick on me.  He was engaged in conversation with Pete and anxious to get away before his brain melted with tedium strain he seized the moment brilliantly when I wandered up to join in and he took the opportunity to disappear inside and back to the fridge bar.  It took me at least fifteen minutes to get away myself after being subjected to a barrage of boasting and a conversation about optimistic Spanish property valuations.

After that we did much the same as on the previous nights; went to Villamartin where we went to the same restaurant and enjoyed another good meal and then went back to the apartment for late night drinks, reflection on the day past and optimism about tomorrow’s round of golf.

Spain, Torrevieja and The Costa Blanca

“By the end…it was clear that Spain’s spiritual and cultural isolation was at an end, overwhelmed by the great alien invasion from the North of money and freedoms.  Spain became the most visited tourist country in the World, and slowly, as the foreigners poured in, its identity was submerged, its life-style altered more in a single decade than in the previous century.”                      Norman Lewis – ‘Voices of the Old Sea’.

No golf today but I reverted to my natural tendencies and despite the tightly closed shutters I was awake at my usual early hour.  Richard was still fast asleep  so I did my best to keep appropriately quiet as I crept about the apartment and made an early cup of tea.  Opening the shutters was a challenge but I was successful and I spent a leisurely time on the terrace drinking tea and watching the sun come up and flood the garden with comforting morning rays.  There was a blue sky and it was going to be another good day.

Our plan today was to drive to Torrevieja for breakfast and take a look at one of the Costa Blanca hotspots (or perhaps black spots depending on your point of view).  We were in no hurry so there was plenty of time for Richard to make his morning estate inspection, clean the apartment right through and take the rubbish to the recycling centre down the road.  After he done all of this we finally got away and made our way back to the untidy coast road and drove to our destination.

It has to be said straight away that this is not a place that I will be rushing to for my holidays!  There is a long concrete strip overlooked by 1970’s high-rise hotels and apartments and littered with bars with cheap plastic orange furniture and tacky pictures of the food on the menu.  I really hate that!  I know what bacon and eggs looks like and I know what spaghetti bolognese looks like (or what it should look like) and what I also know is that these pictures bear absolutely no resemblance to what you are likely to get if you are demented enough to order it.

One thing that I did like was the impressive sandcastle artists who had constructed the most amazing displays of castles, dragons and ogres and were diligently carrying out constant running repairs to prevent the things drying out and collapsing back into the sea.  Next to them on the beach were the army of  ex-pats who must now have little else to do everyday than to find their favourite pitch on the sand and wonder what else to do.

There are an enormous amount of British living in this part of Spain; in Torrevieja alone there are about twelve thousand and this accounts for about thirteen per cent of the entire population.  In fact the Spanish themselves are in the minority here at only forty-eight per cent and soon it is estimated that there will be one million Brits living on the Costa Blanca.

That is a lot of space freed up at home for the Eastern European migrant workers who want to come to Britain!  The sad thing of course is that they don’t want to seriously integrate and the place is awash with British pubs, British breakfasts and British newspapers and that really is a great shame.  In more glorious times the British gave the world great architecture, magnificent civic buildings and culture and now all we have to give is Burger King, Newcastle Brown, fish and chips and England football shirts.

That is just my point of view of course and it is possible to look at it from a different perspective as I was reminded by fellow blogger roughseasinthemed:

“I think you are missing the fact that ex-pats in little England actually do enjoy their view and their way of life in Spain. What’s wrong with sunshine and cheap booze – and cheap fags if you smoke?”

It was a bit late for breakfast by the time that we completed our walk along the seafront and when we eventually selected a restaurant it was practically lunchtime.  Luckily this place didn’t have pictures of the food and was semi-traditional place with a heritage going back to the 1950’s so we ordered tapas and beer and sat in the sun and watched the increasing beach activity.