Week 12

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Geo: 42.0534, 3.19767

18/06/11 Hot and Sunny 24 oC

19/06/11 Overcast with Sunny spells 22oC

We went into the town to view the traditional floral carpet made to celebrate the feast of the corpus, the carpets are made by most of the retailers and children from the local school. The displays are made from flowers, glass beads, and coloured wood chip / shavings, they made a beautiful sight. Fortunately we went early in the morning, because as we started to leave after the judging the wind got up and started to blow some of the carpets away, such a shame.

20/06/11 Hot and Sunny 27 oC

Les went to the airport to pick up his daughter and two grandchildren, they got back around 15:00 and then Les set about doing his speciality the mega fryup for 5 whilst fag ash Lil put the brew on.

I felt sorry for the kids as neither their granddad nor their mother are spending anytime with them the adults are just sunning themselves leaving the kids to amuse themselves, and then inevitably told of for one thing or another, not nice.

21/06/11 Hot and Sunny 31 oC

A blistering hot day with no air movement so we're staying on site all day.

Things are not to good over at Les & Lils they appear to have fallen out big time with Lil telling him I'm not doing it again you can do it. And with that she stormed off and now they're at different ends of the awning brooding. Later in the afternoon whilst Les was cooking dinner there was an almighty shout from his daughter who had toppled over backwards in the recliner and was stuck, she was shouting she couldn't get up and Les just looked, with that the two kids went rushing to their mums aid, and Les eventually sauntered over by which time the kids had dragged her out of the chair, if it wasn't so telling it would have been funny.

22/06/11 Hot and Sunny 23 oC

Uncovered the car to go and do the final shopping before leaving next week, so it was a large order of Pastis, Grants Whisky (€9.99 a litre!!! Oh yes), and our favourite wines especially the Rioja's, along with life's essentials like steak, chicken, and Salmon, oh and some water.

Feel real sorry for the Les's Grand kids it seems that it's a case of the daughters come over to get a tan come what may, Les only ever cooks or spends the day in the recliner tanning himself, and Lil isn't doing it again whatever that means, and the poor kids are left to fend for themselves its blatantly obvious where the adults priorities are and it's not the kids.

At one point in the afternoon the kids who were bored were told off for getting to near their mother and casting a shadow over her, unbelievable. Anyway Linda enquired if they had any books to read as we still had the ones we had from when our grand kids when they came down, they said they hadn't so we agreed to lend then to them as they were for our kids as we wanted them back.

Later on in the afternoon whilst stressing out in the shade we looked up to see the site receptionist escorting a police car into our avenue and then park at the top, with that the officers got out and after a lot of pointing it was clear they were coming to see us, all eyes are now clearly on the English.

It's fair to say at this point that Linda and I both had different ideas as to what was about to happen. For me, and those of you who know me well, know that for the last 5 years I've been plagued with speeding tickets in nearly every foreign country from Europe to Australasia. I could debate the relevancy of each offence for hours but the result is always the same pay up and say as little as necessary, anyway I digress. I was sure that I hadn't been speeding but one of the Spanish tricks the police are hot on is stopping at a junction with a solid white line. Regardless of whether there's a vehicle approaching or not you must come to a complete stop a rolling reduction in speed noting it's all clear and going is an offence, and despite knowing this I'm often guilty of not quite coming to a complete stop, and it's this I assumed they were coming to inform me of doing, with the obvious ensuing fine.

Linda's thoughts where on a completely different wavelength, she had an awful feeling of dread that something terrible had happened at home and the police were coming to inform us! With that we both watched (as well as just about everyone else on site) the police make their way towards us.

The officers asked if I was Mr Frew to which I replied no its Mr Frewer, they consulted their paperwork spoke to the receptionist who then asked me if I was Mr Drew of pitch Q7 who had his wallet stolen this morning from his car, clearly I wasn't so she got out the site paperwork and according to them this Mr Drew was occupying the pitch I'm on she asked if there were any other English on this avenue and I explained that we'd been here 3 moths and have always been the only English here, with that they went their merry way. So now I'm left wondering which pitch I'm registered to; say la vie.

23/06/11 Hot and Sunny 26 oC

As the prelude to St John's day all the patisseries' bake a traditional St John's cake which we always look forward to, there's always strong demand so it's usual to order in advance or go as soon as the shop opens which is what I usually do on the way back from my bike ride. We had already decide to by the Belgians on site a large cake as a present so I ended up buying a plain and a crème one, not cheap at €18 but oh so worth it as a treat. They're hard to describe and there are different variations plain or with crème or chocolate; if I had thought of it earlier I could have photographed it but unfortunately due entirely to a lack of willpower we've eaten it all.

In the evening we wandered down to the port to watch the firework display on the beach, one of the things about Spanish festivals and the accompanying public fireworks is that the vast majority of fireworks are just bangers in varying strengths from squibs to air blasts which have a physical presence. The actual display was quite good albeit short lived but the kids throwing bangers goes on forever and I mean forever, we never got a wink of sleep, with the mountain behind us it seemed to catch every explosion and amplify it, anyway I heard the last one at 05:10 and then rapidly dropped off only to wake up at 08:00 completely shattered. I just hope that tomorrow being the actual St John's day the fireworks don't go on so long!

Spent most of the day on the beach catching up with lost sleep

24/06/11 Hot and Sunny 27 oC

Today's St John's day a major celebration in the region with 3 days of different festivities from street parades , singing with free burnt rum, and demonstrations from a troupe from Figueres who build Human Towers.

In the evening went to watch one of the parades, which wasn't a lot to write about and then went to see the troupe building human towers of people 4 people high and topped by a young lad of around 5 years who clambered all the way up the vertical tower of people to crown the tower; quite a feat for such a young child, and a pleasant way to end the day.

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