Exhausted by the old

After another few days of doing very little and failing to get out of bed before 11am and generally enjoying ourselves very much, the owners call and ask if they may disrupt our idyllic life so they can fix the bathroom which is apparently leaking into the apartment below. We are generous and allow them to do so because it seems polite - we are informed that Germans would not be as nice about it, or offer cups of tea and lunch as we do. Mother would be so proud. Four men take apart one bathroom, then the other, at which point I realise that we have no toilets and that I should not have drunk so much tea. But I love it so much . . . Fortunately just as I am pondering the bucket in the corner of the laundry, they very kindly give us one loo back. Crisis averted.

The owners are a charming English couple in their 60s, who refuse to live in England, but instead live in France for six months and Spain for the other six. It sounds very tiring. Horrified at having put us out of a toilet for a few hours they insist we come for drinks - they have also discovered that Katie has a bicycle and they too love cycling, so good warm feelings all round. They ply us with wine, so much so that I have to resort to sitting as far away from my wine glass as possible else I get totally fucked up. More warm feelings when I find their Arthur Ransome collection and borrow one and then they insist I take several others as well, which is just as well because I´m running a bit low on reading material. By this point we are all pretty much in love with each other so they drag us out for dinner and we eat a lot of fish and chortle at the Spanish dessert option of a Magnum icecream presented on a saucer with a flourish.

Katie and I then both have worst night´s sleep ever, which is unfortunate because we said we´d be out of the apartment by 9 so the chaps can come back and continue to destroy the bathroom. We stumble to the beach, I push Katie over and she falls asleep and I find the market and buy fruit, which I don´t want, what I want is hot chocolate and churros and I think I might go and get that now. Oh God, so tired.

This was a pretty rubbish update, sorry.

Coming out in spots

I thought perhaps I was allergic to Spain as my tummy is covered in spots, and as I spent a lot of time in South America being infected with things, I just thought this was par for the course and as long as it wasn´t my bladder again, I could take the peril. But then I recalled that I had similar spots in January, when I thought I´d just splattered myself with sunblock in a weird manner and so now I am forced to conclude that I do not have an intriguing rash that will allow me to meet hot Spanish doctors, but rather I have some bizarre skin pigmentation issue that doesn´t seem to be affecting my health so I will ignore it.

It does make me look like a leopard, though, so not all bad.

Spain did give me insomnia and headaches, but they seem to be clearing up. A likely explanation for the headaches would be booze, but Katie and I seem to have somehow, for some inexplicable reason, not really indulged. We had plans to totally take over this village of 2,500 people on Saturday night, but somehow wound up reading and drinking tea instead. Old age is certainly taking its toll.

I think I had a tea hangover yesterday. Turns out you can have too much of a good thing. But it was raining, although in a nice and charming Spanish manner so I read some more. Finished Katie´s book on Enoughism, which is both depressing and inspiring - depressing because I really do need to face up to the fact that I don´t need more shoes and inspiring because Katie and I are now determed to Save the World. One square of 70% cocoa, sugar-free chocolate at a time.

Fuck. I thought I had mosquito bites on my back but Katie has just confirmed that I have a rash. Perhaps this is because I have jumped on Katie´s wheat, sugar and dairy free bandwagon for this trip as it just makes things easier when cooking. Obviously I am allergic to not having any of those things.

Fail

Did not make Grenada. Got stuck in a supermarket underground car park. Our hire car was upgraded so is very large soccer mom type Mercedes station wagon thingy. Is an utter bitch to drive on other side of road (not that I would know but Katie´s potty mouth would indicate she´s had more fun). At any rate - getting out of tiny parking spot, around car park whilst avoiding pillars of doom and through tight barrier on weird angle was incredibly difficult. Barrier also had a timer which we failed. In the end we got the driver of the car behind us to help out, guessing that as a native driver of the other side he would be able to manouvere mammoth wagon better than us. Sometimes being a girl, and blonde into the bargain, is very helpful.

By then it was 5pm and we decided that instead of Granada we would go back to the village and have gin. And possibly get chatted up by a Scotsman. Who hopefully now thinks that we are lesbians.

Bits and stuff

There are several things I forgot to say about Ireland, namely that the crimes against hair committed by teenage lads are horrendous and they should all have their styling gel confiscated immediately. I shouted ´rubbish´ at lots of them and, sometimes, I even opened the window before doing so.

We passed a dog in the act of what seemed to be making love with another dog only, as we drove past, we realised that the dog was, in fact, having its wicked way with a sack of potatoes. I know it is childish and silly to personify inanimate objects, but the sack of potatoes did not look as though it was having a good time.

The Irish are a chatty bunch - on the bus to the airport an American sat down and was immediately engaged by the elderly Irish chap next to him. They chatted politely for a bit before the Irish asked "And how old are you, then?" The American looked a trifle surprised at such a personal question but answered nicely, ´51´.
´51!´ The old man gasped and looked thoughtful for a moment and then leaned forward in a confidential manner and asked, ´Would you be having Botox then?´
In truth, the American did look a lot younger than 51.

Spain so far is terribly nice and warm - Katie and I are living it up in a wanky apartment on a small beach outside Nerja where we are being awful travellers and doing nothing. It is very nice. We only scraped the hire car a little bit and I´m sure that dog deliberately stepped out in front of us.

We spent the first night searching for tapas at 11.30pm, being stared at incredulously by old men when we said we didn´t want booze only food. They insisted on buying us shots anyway.
We were then mistaken for Germans. About the only good thing with that encounter was that I understood what the young man was talking about.

Katie and I have so far attempted to make conversations with the Spanish in German, English and French. Spanish just seemed too easy.

Yesterday we got caught comparing fat rolls by a Scottish real estate agent. For the record, Katie does not have any.

Right. Am utterly determined to get to Granada today as we have to get Katie some bike parts. Some jockey wheels, apparently. I will buy more chocolate because yesterday I left a block in a hot car and, well, you can guess the rest. And we need some sangria. Probably a lot of that.

And yes, I am having issues with the quotation marks. But I really don´t want to use doubles. It makes me feel ill.

More ranting about public toilets

I drank a lot of tea in Ireland and therefore had to use a lot of toilets. Easter weekend - all the public loos were locked, feck it. What's the bloody point? I had to pee behind the damn toilets. Judging by the amount of toilet paper lying about, I was not the first to have this idea.

Em's wedding yesterday - was an utterly gorgeous summer day, with cutesy English church, park champagne photo stuff, double decker bus and far too much wine. And the Time Warp. I felt a trifle off colour this morning, but there was no time for dilly dallying as had roast at Kruse's to attend, along with Chook'n'Katie'n'Caro'n'Dom. Roast onion is currently very high on my list of yum things I should eat more of.

Was particularly pleased with my wedding outfit as it cost £4. Vintage 60s, completely non-breathable blue dress. I was ever so cute. And a trifle smelly by the end of the evening owing to said non-breathable material and my sweat-inducing enthusiastic dancing.

Spain tomorrow so it might be about time to have a look over my Spanish homework, which I have been meaning to do for about four weeks now. They all speak English over there anyway, don't they? You just have to talk louder and slower with an exasperated expression and wave your hands around a bit.

Missing work which means I must be ill

It's true - I went back to my old office at Waterloo, bearing cookies of yum that disappeared rather quickly because of my superior baking skills and the magic qualities and quantities of butter and chocolate involved. I only meant to stay 20 minutes because I know they're all busy making books and there have been redundancies but 2 hours later I was still talking to people, or rather, they were all talking to me and I was drinking tea. Gosh I miss work. I miss making spectacular fuck-ups and getting paid to complain about commas.

But am in Ireland now, where I braved a half pint of Guinness and it was all right. Would be improved dramatically by the addition of lemonade but I was a bit worried the bartender would slap me one if I asked so I opted for a whiskey chaser.

It is raining. Am not sure why I expected anything else. But the accents are knicker-meltingly good.

Snippets of London

Almost saw a fight in the park on Sunday. Almost. A lot of angry young men stalking round the footy field that I was trying to run (this is a generous term) around. A lot of people ignoring them. And then the police came.

The end.

Awash with tea in a good way

Jet lag is even less enjoyable that I remember it.

I blew my nose yesterday and a whole lot of black stuff came out of it so I knew I was definitely back in London. I am also drinking Yorkshire tea, probably another clue.

So, rocked in, was an hour too late for the protests/riots, such a pity, and got to Katie's just in time for tea and chocolate and the super uber news that she had quit her job that morning. We are unemployment buddies. We will skip through the daffodils together, holding hands and whistling in a merry fashion. Now, if I can only control my spending, this whole unemployed in Europe gag should be a doddle. Which it won't be because I've just remembered what I've bought in the past four days. But the dresses are so nice and they're vintage, so somehow in my head, it's all okay. And I really needed those aubergines. And I can pat myself on the back for not purchasing the purple towelling playsuit for £40, even though I really wanted it.

With the riots, bankers were told to 'dress casual' so as not to provoke the hippy protestors, also called 'unwashed' and 'stupid' by people interviewed in the media. I gather the average banker's idea of casual is somewhat different to that of the normal person. Full points to the young chap who went to work in a t-shirt proclaiming 'I predict a riot', though.

Caught up with the London version of the Chch gang yesterday, where I shamed myself by pretty much falling asleep at the table and had to go home at 9.30. Pathetic. They all seemed well, although, quite frankly, they could have been telling me of their unfortunate chlamydia experience and I might not have registered it.

Spent Friday night in Oxford visiting the munchkin - who I made sure was fed every two hours as per the instructions. Otherwise I'm pretty sure she shrivels up and cannot be revived unless you rub bike oil into her skin. Oxford is very pretty. Oxford is very English. So disgustingly pretty and English I was charmed. Had a jolly good op shop as well. And I got new jeans. They are stretchy ones, which I said I would never buy, but as Gen bought them for me, I can stick to that. The truly exciting and magical thing about these jeans is that they are almost too long. Impossible, I hear you gasp. Oh gentle reader, I too feared this day would never come, but it's true! So true it deserves a hated exclamation mark.

Right now I am supposed to be in tennis whites, drinking pimms and being mildly rude to Justin's friends, which I'm pretty sure is the only reason he invited me. However, not even the lure of tight white shorts was enough to get me across the city today, when I could instead be scoffing more chocolate and eating neurofen like raisins instead. Also, I'll need at nap at about 4pm. So I told him I was getting a labia reduction and would be unable to make it.

Current sleeping pattern involves me waking up at about 4.30am most mornings for about two hours. On Thursday night/Friday morning I was lucky enough to be lying wide awake at about this time, which enabled me to hear a woman greet her 16-year-old daughter as the young lady and her date tried to come home quietly - I think they were a bit past curfew. Mum was one cross lady. Shrieking like a fishwife. Took me a bit to piece together exactly what was going on, so high was her voice pitched, but eventually I worked out that the daughter was with an undesirable, possibly a much older one at that, judging by the amount of times the mum screeched 'She's only 16-fucking-years-old'. Daughter obviously did not agree with the state of affairs and argued back, resulting in mother uttering the charming line 'You fucking whore'. Good times, I tell you, good times.

I have a really good bruise on my lower back, which several people have kindly pointed out to me, although, generously, they have not poked it. I know where this came from and await my revenge. It's just a pity the perpetrators are in a different country right now. Their time will come.

On the back of my chocolate bar the manufacturers have kindly listed exactly how many calories are in each chunk. I do not think this is helpful, rather that it is depressing. But one more piece won't hurt. And neither will this piece. And if I don't eat it, then Katie probably will, so it's best if I just keep going and prevent her from making herself sick from overindulgence, which she is so prone to.

Ireland this week. Spain not long after. Wedding in middle.