How do you like your smoothies?

I’m writing this blog update wearing a thick sweater and the heating on, this after spending 7 days in glorious 28 + degrees heat, god it was a shock getting off the plan at Gatwick on Saturday evening.

This was our first visit to Gran Canaria and the jury is probably out as to whether we’d go back again. The hotel we stayed in was more 4* rather than the 5* we were used to staying in with the Barcello Group, and whilst totally adequate it was located a fair was out from the main part of the resort, resulting in either a 40 minute walk or a taxi ride each evening to hit the fleshpots.

I think I’d mentioned in the previous blog that our visit coincided with the annual Gay Pride Festival in Playa De Inglis (Translates as Beach of the English surprisingly enough). The flight out from Gatwick was fairly packed with folk obviously going to PDI for the festival. I think the Head Air Steward thought he’d died and gone to heaven on this Rainbow classified flight. I know that EasyJet are an easy target, but we’ve always found them to be vaguely on time and at least keep you updated if there are any problems. We arrived on time, our luggage was out quickly and we were soon in the hotel arranged transfer. We were on a half board basis at the hotel, with the option of having either lunch or dinner as part of the package. We ate out two nights, the rest of the time choosing to stay in the hotel and then pop out to one of the bars or clubs later in the evening. One of the main reasons for going out in the evenings was discovered when I trusted Carol to buy a drink in the hotel bar on our first evening. I gave her €50, went for a wee, came back to be give €25 change and a TRIPLE Hendricks with one tonic! Carol’s excuse was something along the lines of “That’s all they serve………. Hic” 

The Hotel ran a series of free bus transfers to the main beaches. PDI town beach and the more famous Maspalomas beach with its impressive dunes.

We decided to try the Maspalomas beach on our first day and crammed ourselves onto the beach for the 20 minute transfer to the beach. We were both standing up for the journey and it was then we discovered that there are more roundabouts of the route from the hotel to the beach than in Milton Keynes and Bracknell combined. This resulted in getting to know the person standing either side of me quite well whilst we lurched from left to right every few hundred metres or so it seemed. We eventually arrived at our destination and followed the hordes from the bus in the general direction of the beach. It was here that I first started to get a bit concerned. The wind at the beach was far stronger than it was back at the hotel, and as soon as we reached the beach I could feel the very fine sand that the island is famous for being blown up around my face. We persevered onto the sand and walked about a mile down to the beach to try and find a relatively sheltered part, with little avail. It quickly became obvious that fine sand, plus a strong wind, plus a stoma equals a pretty unhappy Mr Clark. The HME I wear to protect the stoma has, as a necessary part of its design, small gaps to allow air to flow in an out, otherwise I’d suffocate. A slight design fault is that the HME also allows find sand particles to penetrate and make their way down into my lungs. After having to try and clear out three times, each time removing the protective HME and each time getting more sand into my lungs we have up and retired to a bar, before getting a taxi back to the hotel and having a rather pleasant Sunday lunch and afternoon around the pool. We both thought that the chances of getting back to the beach again in the holiday were slim and it put a bit of a downer on the afternoon as we both love to spend time with sand between our toes.

That evening, to cheer ourselves up, we walked into what we thought was the main part of the town (We later found we were way out, but hey ho!). After having a couple of predinner drinks in one of the many “Commercial Centres” we ended up at a typical Spanish restaurant called El Poncho and had a superb meal. The starter of blood sausage with goats cheese in filo pastry was to die for, as was the main of salted cod that I choose. The restaurant had an interesting implement it inserted in the wine bottle that supposedly increased the airflow, but certainly decreased the speed in which wine could be poured. It was here that the Stealth Waiter made his appearance. As soon as I placed my hand anywhere near the bottle, as if by magic a waiter would appear to whip the wine out of my reach and pour a tiny amount into each glass. Through the couple of hours of our stay I was unable to get my hand on that bottle, despite my best efforts. It was a cracking night and lifted our mood, or perhaps the couple of Hendricks we quaffed in a bar following dinner helped. That bar was to become a regular haunt of ours over the week, run by a Dutch couple, they had an impressive choice of Gin and knew exactly how to serve them, be it with cucumber, pepper or even chilli! It was here that Carol decided she was going to play spot “Sam’s Arse” for the rest of the holiday, and point them out to me – you need to read "Why Mummy Drinks" to get the joke, but believe me, it’s worth it.

The next day we again tried the beach but I had exactly the same problem with sand getting into my stoma. This time we were at the PDI beach and after having consoled ourselves with coffee with had a walk around and discovered bars and restaurants all over the sea front. A brilliant lunch of sardines so fresh they were almost flapping followed and a walk back up the hill took us past a shop selling bandana’s……………….. you’re probably ahead of me here, but two were purchased as a potential solution to the sand problem. Despite looking a bit of a twat, they worked and the rest of the holiday could be spent lying on the beach with our toes in the sand. 

I was amazed by the number of obviously school aged kids who were staying at out hotel, not all were British by any means, but a fair proportion were, ranging for I guess about 7 years old up to teenagers. As far as I’m aware our break wasn’t in the school holidays, so I hope they all got permission from their respective schools. One of the kids was a nasty piece of work, she was probably aged about 10 and spent her time in the restaurant pushing past people in queues and generally being an obnoxious little brat! She and her family were say not far from where Carol and I were eating and the Veruca Salt look alike kept staring in my direction. She eventually got up and made a bee line for me, arriving with no introduction and shouting quite loudly, “What’s that in your neck?”. Now I’d made a promise to myself that if someone asked me what was up that I’d be honest with them, but this little shit got what she deserved, my replay to her was “Je ne parle pas Anglais” which seems to confuse her, maybe she should spend more time at school rather than swanning off on holiday in term time! There were a couple of other occasions of being stared at over the holiday, I let them go, but Matt Lucas’s bigger and fatter brother should look in the mirror before staring and commenting on how I look / speak. I was genuinely worried about reactions before we went away, especially as I do the majority of the talking when were away, but with a couple of exceptions everyone was fine, especially the staff at the hotel.

The rest of the holiday was pretty uneventful, with the exception of Carol trying to drown herself. The sea looked like a mill pond when she went in for a dip, but when she emerged back where we’d been sunbathing it was obvious something was up. She was bedraggled and covered in sand. When she calmed down she explained that she’d been in water just above her knees when three consecutive waves hit her, knocked her off her feet and dumped her into the sand. She was really shaken up and when I went to look at the beach it was evident that the wind had changed and the surf was really strong, I saw a number of people, men and women, dumped onto their backsides by the strength of the waves. The part of the beach we were on wasn’t covered by a life guard, so it was a case of buyer beware. I was thinking of going for a paddle myself, but Carols experience convinced me that it wouldn’t be a great idea.

We fell into the habit of beach in the morning, complete with bandana, lunch back either at the hotel or a local bar. An afternoon by the pool or napping (I’m still getting pretty knackered on a daily basis!). Dinner, then a few drinks in the bars. The Cita Centre where we tended to end up was an interesting place, made up of shops, bars and restaurants, mainly aimed at the German tourists. We used the March Bar before our favourite opened, it was quite amusing being there when England played Germany on Friday 10^th November. There was a moment when England looked like they’d score and my hand went up, before realising Carol and I were the only English people in a crowd of around 100 😊

Now it’s Remembrance Sunday evening, the cottage pie is made, the washing machine has been on all day, the red wine is open. Life is good, Lest We Forget –

As always, thanks for reading.

To be continued……

#Shoulder2Shoulder