DAY 199

Thursday 26 January 2012

The day began early for Charles, who tossed and turned all night on "the worm." Even after six months, the sleeping rotation was still not a thing of grace. Something we usually said to each other first thing in the morning was "Did you sleep well?" Interesting how different the priorities of travel could be from the priorities of home life.

Pam and Dian. Photo by Charles

So up at 9, he headed for the camp market to grab the coveted cereal breads (last two). We wondered: do others notice that there's new guns in town who scarf the best breads early, not leaving any for others? Early worm, too bad. The cereal bread was equal to anything La Brea Bakery puts out, but costed less than $1.70. Yes, we loved Spain. We found out you could "reserve" the bread, so we did, for our last three days.

Nibbling at warm bread sufficed for breakfast, and much of the rest of the low-key day was spent in the adjacent restaurant (with wi-fi) posting blogs and downloading photos by Nicole, with Dian filling in the downtime with original art for postcards to be sent. Charles did some van rearranging and joined the ladies for the El Pino restaurant's dinner special, 2-for-1, for 6.95 Euros. We decided to go for two 2-for-1s and save the leftover meal so we got one one scampi, one pork chop, one chiken tikka and one fried fish. All very good, but the one we skipped, the quarter chicken (which we saw on someone else's table), looked the best. 

At some point Dian made a remark to the couple who sat down at the next table, and.... whoosh, we were off! Pam and Harry were Scots, in their 70s, who lived in Spain and were as lively a pair as you'd want to meet. Nicole and Charles tried valiantly to continue working on the computer and hand-writing a blog, but it was useless. They had too many stories, we had too many jokes and riddles, Harry gave a Robert Burns recitation (he knew the entire "Tam O'Shanter" by heart but didn't recite the whole thing) and he also had a marvelous voice and a packet of Scottish songs. We hoped we would run into them again.

Nicole and Harry

Dian and Nicole retired to the van with NightHawk Charles left to squeeze out more Internet time, and again it was hard. A ladies group soon trooped in and took over the pool table and, possibly aided by the lubrication of liquor, proceeded to have a fine, long time at a volume level achieved only by the Who in their heyday. A little distracting but heartwarming, to see half a dozen mature birds out on the town, as it were, having a rowdy time with no inhibitions, rather than sitting at home and sighing, wishing, hoping, watching the telly. God bless 'em. Despite Charles probable hearing loss.