Home Run – 1st Leg

Home Run – 1st Leg

The run home has not started particularly well. Transmediterranea Acciona, the ferry company operating the original ferry service between Cadiz and the Canary Islands, is an un-principled operator with no concern for its customers. In full knowledge of the detrimental effect that sea water has on the bodywork of automobiles they insist on placing their customers cars on the open deck of their ferries. Bridget has a glazed coating of crystallised salt thanks to Transmediterranea. To anyone thinking of taking a ferry to the Canaries I would strongly recommend the alternative company that operates. We arrived in Cadiz and disembarked at 12:30 on Monday. From there we drove the eighty miles to Seville, my first overnight of the run. Bridget and I visited Seville on our first ever run together in 2006 and I was scathing in my summing up of the city. Although I only had a few hours to explore I have to say my previous comments were both...
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Canaria Final Post

Canaria Final Post

Having received an e-mail from my ‘conscience’ in Abingdon pointing out that it has been four weeks since my last report I thought I had better make the effort. My apologies to those regular readers that may have wondered what had happened. This will be our final post from the Canary Islands before starting the run back home. In fact I have been enjoying a very entertaining time. First, my very good neighbour came visiting for a week bringing all the local news for the past eight months. We spent six of the seven days she was here walking in the mountains and were fortunate with mainly warm and cloudless weather, important if you are to be able to appreciate the breath-taking views. The next week I got back into some serious training in the gym and obviously overdid the whole thing because I pulled a muscle in my groin and had to rest it for most of the following two weeks. It...
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The Fat Lady Is Singing

The Fat Lady Is Singing

The ferry trip from Cadiz to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, was civilised by any standards given that it was forty hours long. Bridget found it a breeze. In Cadiz the queuing, bureaucracy and high temperatures took its toll and when some cars started to queue jump I could not help myself from jumping in front of them, thankfully bringing them to a halt, and berating the second in line, the first having escaped. He rather sheepishly slunk away and even though I hadn’t achieved anything, other than establishing that the British queuing system is right, returned proudly to Bridget. Later that evening, following the consumption of a well-deserved dinner, I suddenly felt that I was being watched. I looked up and some 20 feet away a slightly merry gentleman was grinning and when he realised I had seen him called out “Mr MG. You shouted at me and I am in terrible trouble”. We soon established that he was the driver...
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Jerez

Jerez

There are times, rare indeed, when everything just seems to go your way. This past weekend started that way. It began when I arrived at the Montecastillo Golf and Health complex and told them I had booked a room for four nights. “Oh yes” said the receptionist, “you have a villa”. Whatever, I thought and was told I could drive my car around to it. What I wasn’t told was to leave it in the parking layby and not follow the golf cart road right up to the door, so I got it a little wrong. I have found, people allow classic car owners to do all sorts of things that ordinary drivers are not allowed to do and so everyone smiled politely over the weekend and said nothing about my parking. I was speechless when I entered the two story villa I had for the weekend. It was the same floor area as some two bedroom houses. I thought “If only...
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Swimwear and The Economy

Swimwear and The Economy

My previous post mentioned, in passing, the financial difficulties the bikini manufacturers are obviously going through, given the lack of material used. I have received an unprecedented amount of feedback regarding my comments on present day swimwear, or lack of it, and felt that further clarification for the case for woollen, neck to knee, one-piece costumes should be made. Basically the feedback falls into three groups and I will handle them in that way. First, and easily the most proliferate are the licentious requests for photographs of nubile young ladies unknowingly captured on film (digitised images actually) in immodest poses. The gentlemen making these requests should be embarrassed and ashamed of their own behaviour and should consider how they would feel if their identities were published. They should have received their merchandise by the end of the day and I would remind them that payment is required by return, or the afore mentioned publication will appear on Monday. The second group are...
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