Tired of Waiting, Tired of Waiting…(Kinks)
 |
| Fancy a lemon? |
Pat didn’t show for some time, struggling with his chesty cold, he looked like shit it has to be said. I’m no picture in the morning I suppose and I guess I looked like crap! Dave on the other hand always looks the same. Does he go to bed with that leather jacket on? “Only cost me £20” he boasts, ‘best 20 I ever spent!” Well it seems he’s determined to get his money’s worth out of it. Even Shirley noticed it in their daily skype. “You’ll need surgery to get that jacket off!!” she bellowed down the phone.
Dave is a Beatles fanatic, collects anything and everything concerning the Fab Four. Talking about this over the eggs brought to mind the balcony inside Pat’s apartment block which resembled the cover of the Beatles’ Please Please Me album. “I can take a photo of you and Pat looking over the balcony to re-create the Beatles picture taken at Manchester Square if you like” I said. I threw ‘Manchester Square’ in to impress. “Manchester Square?” An example of my knowledge of useless information and trivia which I quite excel at!.
 |
| Please Pleas Me |
I have been caught out a few times though. The famous question, ‘what was the first record played on Radio One’ for example. Everyone of a certain age knows it was ‘Flowers In the Rain’ by The Move. Being a smart arse I always asked, ‘Ah, but what was the second one?’ Guarantee nobody knew it. For years I would enlighten one and all; Eric Burdon’s ‘San Fransiscan Nights”. Never failed. Drawing gasps of admiration, ‘He knows his stuff!” “Anything you want to know about the 60s ask Clive.” Until a couple of years ago that is when the ‘Flowers’ question popped up on Facebook and I fired in with ‘What was the second disc…’ Couldn’t help myself. ‘San Fransiscan Nights’ I duly informed everyone. “No it wasn’t” said my friend Cynthia Douglas. What! Nobody had ever questioned my answer. ”It was the Bee Gees and Massachusetts!” Cynthia retaliated. Couldn’t believe it. I had to google it and blow me, Cynthia was right!
This was the discussion over breakfast when Pat emerged from his slumber. ’You’re full of shite!’ he said, looking for his pills.
Ready to go out I noticed Dave had changed into a blue denim collarless shirt. ‘Hey, I like that” I say. ‘Where did you get it?”
‘“Don’t know. Shirley gets all my clothes. Just orders them. She always packs my case as well. Haven’t got a clue what’s in there. Same with holidays, I never book them. I just say to her ‘anywhere in the sun will do darlin’. Then she tells me where we’re going.”
Shirley confirms this during the conversation they have on Skype. ‘He’s bloody useless. Be lost without me!”
‘“I know darlin’” is Dave’s meek response. “But can you order one of these shirts for Clive!”
We decide on a walk to explore the countryside behind Pat’s apartment block to get some fresh air in our heads whilst the sun is at its brightest. With his tour guide hat on Pat tells us; “This whole area was under water a couple of years back after the worst storm in a hundred years”. Hard to imagine. “The river burst its banks, washed away houses, cars, a bridge and flooded an area the size of Desborough.” Bit random that I thought but I guess Desborough was as good as anything to compare with. We took a breather to watch men working on the reconstruction of the bridge, walked through fields, picked some lemons and oranges off the trees. Almost sounds romantic. We weren’t holding hands or anything but there’s something about picking your own lemons. Novelty. Picking lemons and oranges..not holding hands. There’s even a street here named Lemon Tree Road.
Back at the ranch, another coffee, a munch on my ‘steak’ nuts and it was time to get back on the road. ‘Where we going Pat?”
“La Mata…then Torrevieja.”
Dave sits in the back of the car, I’m coerced as co-pilot. As if I know anything about driving around these parts! Pat does knows his way around thankfully, should do after ten years but blimey, he’s heavy on the brakes. Every junction, roundabout has me and Dave rocking back and for. Dave’s head bashes the back of Pat’s seat. My head nearly bashes the windscreen. ’Christ almighty I’ll have bloody whiplash by the end of the week at this rate Pat!”
‘Sorry, didn’t see that car coming.”
Didn’t want to labour the point but I added, ‘I can see I’ll end up wearing a bloody neck brace like that woman on TV’s Doc Marten!”
We dropped by a place called Benahoffa, that’s how it sounds anyway, to call in at a supermarket to replenish the bread bin. And an opportunity for Pat to exercise his Spanish. ‘Ola” he says confidently.. then mumbles something indiscernible but just about gets through to the lady behind the counter.
“Come to think of it” I say, “what’s goodbye in Spanish?”
“Gracias”.
“Oh yeah! I’ve heard of that” Made me think of how ignorant we are though. Learning foreign lingo. I mean, my son Gareth has lived in Sweden for nearly 20 years, my Swedish granddaughter Polly is 7. And all I’ve managed to learn in all that time is ‘Hey Hey’ and “Hey Dor”. Hello and Goodbye. Oh, also “Tack” which is thanks. Pitiful really.
“Ola”, “Gracias” and paella is about the limit of my Spanish which you could say is piss poor. If we had a car crash for example and an irate Spaniard started ranting at me, in his native tongue of course, ’What were you doin’?” “You were on the wrong side of the road!’ Responding with “Paella” wouldn’t really cut it I expect!
 |
| Nice place to bring a lady.. |
Anyhow, La Mata turns out to be a lovely little place, nice beach, deserted, sand dunes, peaceful. I could imagine it would be pretty much the same during summer. Main feature was a Lifeguard post. Not much else otherwise. Be a wonderful place to entertain a lady I was thinking. Nice little picnic, blanket on the ground, Billy Jo Spears on the radio, glass of beer, wine..
There was an old couple sitting nearby doing just this..didn’t hear Billy Jo mind and come to think of it..old couple..I forget I’m bloody 70 myself next month!
Anyway it was nice, a few photos were taken, Dave managed to get a good shot, shadows of the three of us! Quite artistic. We headed onwards to Torrevieja which has a special interest of sorts for me.
 |
| The Shadows |
Couple of my friends moved here years ago, haven’t been in contact with them for donkeys but the fact that they moved out here way back has often intrigued me. By all accounts though, Torrevieja isn’t one of the favourite resorts in these parts. If you listen to Mick and Lorraine, Pat and Yvonne that is. Even Dave appeared less than enthusiastic, having been here before with Shirley. ‘Shit hole” Lorraine called it. Pat concurred.
I was still keen to discover for myself however and Pat agreed to drive there despite feeling knackered from his late night with Dave, who by the time we got to Torrevieja, had nodded off.
Driving into town Pat was rapidly getting frustrated. Traffic was busy, parking slots hard to come by. “Always the same here”, Pat moaned, “never find a f—-ing car park!” Then, all of a sudden, lo and behold, we come across one. An underground car park with a tiny entrance on an incline, bit tight to say the least. Compounded with a group of workmen farting around laying cement or christ knows what. They had placed some bollards up in the middle of this road into the car park which made it an even bigger squeeze. Pat attempts to negotiate and next thing there’s a big scrape and the wing mirror on my side has been bashed on the wall which is level with the windscreen. “Bollocks!” Pat shouts. “You mean bollards?” I say, trying to lighten the tension. While we’re trying to establish what happened, one of the workmen appears alongside my window, pointing to the top of the wall which has been damaged, shaking his head as if we were a bunch of numbskulls. ‘F—- Off!” Pat shouts at him. ‘Prick!” I add. Dave calls him a ‘Dickhead”.
I could see why Pat hasn’t got much of a love for this place. We have no option but to continue down into the bowels where we found plenty of space but it was Dave who said; ’Drive right through Pat, let’s get outta here..” Pat didn’t need much persuading.
We drove right on out of Torrevieja. ‘That was brief’ I was thinking!
Pat was pissed off, so we all agreed to head back to base. “Looks a dump anyway, bit like Skeggy” I said in case Pat thought I was sulking.
We were all feeling grubby, unshaven and looking forward to a shower, if the water had been turned back on. First thing Pat does is turn the tap on. And still, nothing! “This is ridiculous” Pat explodes, “effin’ wankers!” Raging, he phones the water company up, then calms a little as he’s told he can turn the water on himself at the mains, which is situated in the apartment block cellar. To show some support I tell him; “I’ll come with you Pat’.
Making our way down to the second floor, we find a crowd of people milling around, looking upset, worried. The front door of their apartment is ajar, an old guy has a box of spanners and is trying to dismantle bars over a window adjacent to the door. They ask us something in Spanish. I was tempted to say ‘Paella’ but thought they might think I’m taking the piss. Pat asked what the problem was. One of the ladies is beside herself. In pidgin English she tells us there was an earthquake last night! And points to a hole in the wall inside their flat that the quake had made and which had jammed the toilet door! “Did you not hear the bang last night?” she asked. Well to be honest we were too busy drinking, listening to music and talking shite to be honest. We wouldn’t have noticed. The old boy with the spanner explains he’s trying to get the window frame off so one of the younger lads can climb through and open the door from the inside. Honestly, you couldn’t make this up.
Dave meantime is still upstairs waiting to yell down to Pat when the water arrives through the tap. “What kept you?” he asks when we return. “You wouldn’t believe it..”
Relief that Moses had given us water again was joyous. A nice hot shower, shave and we all felt like spring chickens again.
Tonights meal was to be at a fish and chips restaurant. “Best fish and chips in Spain” Pat and Dave hailed. “Fish that size” Dave said with his hands spread wide like the exaggerated fisherman’s tale of ‘the one that got away’.
“You don’t want the large cod” Dave advised, “you’ll never get through it”. I was beginning to feel frightened by this fish! Well as it happened, there must have been a fews gluttons in before us as there was no large cod, or haddock left! Medium samples only. “That’ll do” I tell the waiter.
For all the big build up, have to say the fish and chips was no better than what you get at the Frying Scotsman in Corby! Didn’t really matter. It was lovely. And ample!
So came the end of another day, Back before 10pm Dave tells Pat to get to bed. “You look shattered mate, go and get a good night’s sleep”. Pat admitted he was aching to get his head down. So me and Dave sat up, a couple of cans of beer were downed, a brandy, coffee. Dave reminiscing about being born and brought up in Dundee. His parents running a boarding house for the stars who appeared at the Dundee Empire or whatever theatre it was. ‘Florrie Lindlay from Coronation Street stayed with us’ he proudly proclaims. Very interesting too. Florrie ran the corner shop in the early years of the Street. In the days of Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner. Before we knew it, it was 1.30am. ‘Right, I’m off” I say, weary myself now. Dave is a nightbird, likes a smoke, looking at his phone, watching the tele, even if it was only the Film Four Channel. How he does that and still manages to get up before me and Pat I don’t know. By the time he calls it a day, I’m asleep. We are sharing a room. I hear the door open tentatively. I’m dozing. Dave’s doing his best to be quiet. Tip toeing about. Then there’s a humungous clatter! His money has fell out of his pockets onto the floor! Waking the whole block up no doubt!
I lift my head; ‘F—-ing noisy bastard!
’Sorry” he says.
And I drift off again into the land of nod.
No comments:
Post a Comment