Double slide injuries and way more than double measures

Blog 2 of Holiday

4th/5th May 2012

Slightly disappointed with breakfast. Mainly because the fruit juices are watered down and there's no decent cereal. Which means I end up with bacon and sausage and bread. We've decided that the apple juice is definitely the best as it actually tastes like apples. The orange and pineapple juices.......hmmmmmmm. I can't even describe what they taste like.

A did a fabulous thing at breakfast today. He got all excited about getting himself a second cappuccino and then accidentally pressed the wrong button and ended up with hot milk. He he. And then he had to add a sachet of instant coffee to it. Lovely.

This was the day where he finally got me in the old bikini. Now I use the term loosely, as it is actually board shorts and a tankini top, which means I am still completely covered up. Not some skimpy thing letting all the flab hang out. No no. But anyhoo, he succeeded in persuading me. We went to one of the pools, which was pissing freezing and then went on the two water slides, repeatedly. There were no kids on them. In fact most of the time there was no one in the pools. It was lovely and quiet.

Needless to say, I injured myself twice on the slides. I cut open my elbow and banged my knee on the floor of the pool. Ah well. I still had a great time! I even managed to swim 3 times around the oval pool without having any panic attacks, which was good news. (The last time I went swimming at the beautifully renovated, Kentish Town Baths, I got half way along the length of the pool, realised I could no longer touch the bottom and freaked out. I had a lovely panic attack, held up loads of people and just generally hated every minute.)

Sweeping aside my irrational fear of deep water, we later headed to another beach on the Papagayo. I of course did not enter the sea (infinitely deep and darn right freaky) though it was absolutely beautiful. I had a paddle and sat on a blanket with my lap top writing what was the first holiday blog. The wind was blowing sand everywhere which completely stuck to my factor 50 suncream (I'm a real sun girl) and with sun hat on and shoulders covered I sat and typed for about an hour. You'd never think a beach would be a positively productive place to write, but you'd be surprised. You concentrate so much on squinting to see the screen and panicking because you lost the cursor again, that you completely block out any other distraction.

We then took our car, Fred, (aptly named as he's a Fiat. Fred the Fiat, with the option of Freddy, if we get attached.) for a drive to the vineyards of Lanzarote. This is an awesome region to visit. You just can't believe that they can grow anything on the volcanic rock that covers 90% of the surface. Each vine is individually encased, either within a short wall of rock, (sometimes arranged in a semi circle, rectangle or straight line) or within a hole dug in the ground. Or in some cases, both. It depends on how strong the wind is in the particular area. The only reason they can grow anything is because the porous volcanic rock and ash soaks up the moisture in the air and gives it out to the plants. Remarkable.

Of course we just happened to stumble past a few vineyards that were open for a tasting or two and we bought a bottle of Lanzarote's finest. We shimmied a little further along and found a wine museum: El Grifo. You got to sample some wine, see all the old tools and even walk along part of the vineyard. Nice!
So whilst we were already far from home (when I say far, I mean like 20 minutes drive from the hotel. Nothing is very far away on this very beautiful but tiny little island) we decided to drive the extra few kilometres to see a famous Monumento di Campisario by Cesar Manrique (by far the most famous artist and probably most famous person ever  to hail from Lanzarote.) We stroll up there around ten past six, in the glorious sunshine. It's an open air monument and there are steps up the side to climb. It looked like the parking bit was closed so we parked up and walked across. Then this guy in an official uniform came out to tell us we couldn't visit the monument because it was, and I quote "so late".

It was ten past bloody six on a Friday and it was open air! What a knob. All we wanted to do was climb the steps, take a few photos.....It's not like it was closed off for pedestrians anyway. A decided to be a pain in the ass but it was hilarious. He pretended not to understand and he was all like, "Can I just stand over there?" Pointing to the steps. And once again he replied, "No. Only here. It is very late." "So I can't just stand here?" A repeated. At this point I was seconds away from bursting into laughter and I managed to drag him off. We took a few photos, scoffed at how it wasn't that exciting anyway and bitched about the guy all the way back to the hotel.

After tea, which for A consisted of a shit load of chicken. (You really can't knock the amount of protein you can eat at this all inclusive malarchy. I think the only meat I haven't had yet is lamb.) We walked down to Playa Blanca and found a wonderful cocktail bar right on the water. OH DEAR LORD. I have never been so drunk from two drinks in my life. In this part of the world, there are no measures. It's just whatever feels right to them. You watch them making the drinks. They just pour and pour and pour.

They came complete with sparklers and umbrellas and all those little tacky things that seem to make them even more exciting, especially when you're on holiday. If they served them to you like that in London, people would not be impressed. Although, tourists might be. Scrap that, I change it, locals wouldn't be impressed. Though the state of some of the people in London, they could do with a cheer up. Perhaps simply putting sparklers in your drinks (although in Britain, that wouldn't be allowed. It's a health and safety abomination) or umbrellas, would decrease the amount of people throwing themselves under a train, thus delaying less trains, thus making the people on the trains less grumpy. It's an idea. I cant believe none of the London Mayor candidates had that on their policies list. Ha ha.

Amazingly, as we sat facing the ocean, watching the waves lap gently on the sand, I luckily looked up at exactly the right time to see a shooting star. My first shooting star. The alcohol was already kicking in at that point so I had to do a double take and ask A if I'd really seen it, but apparently I had. My first shooting star. And no. I didn't have time to make a wish, I was too busy doubting that I'd seen the thing in the first place. Ah well. Next time.

There was a lovely mixture of music on at the bar. We ended up with the Best of the Cardigans and the Best of Keane. Lovely. I think I'd actually forgotten how terrible the Cardigans were. They had two good songs and the rest was just her wishy washy, non entity of a voice, half heartedly attempting to seem interested. And as for Keane. Dear lord. Depressing. Still in our drunken state we managed to sing along to about 70% of them.

I had a weird cosmic line of thought too. As the night drew on, I watched the progress of the moon and one of the brighter stars and it freaked me out, as you could really chart the spin of the Earth. (I've been doing the Solar System with my kids for the last couple of weeks and it just got me thinking). It's kind of creepy when you think about it too hard and also when your body is infused with way too much cocktail........ Excellent night.

But not so excellent morning. Not so much hung over, just feeling a little bleh and neh and other strange sounds too. Nothing the inevitable bacon couldn't cure. Nom nom.

Dig me, 6 laps of the pool this time, interspersed with slides (of course) and no injuries this time. Whoop! A successful morning.

Later we went to Playa Blanca beach, which for once was busy, though unfortunately for A it was busy with a load of Brits. Ha ha. I did the usual sit with as much of me covered up and the rest of me covered in factor 50 and wrote another 800 words of the book, whilst A went swimming and found lots of little fishes and stuff.

Then as it was Saturday night, A decided it was time we ate out of the hotel and he booked us into a lovely little Bodega di Santiago and on the way we found the lovely coastal town of El Golfo and had a drink right on the water. We needed the good old blue dot to get us to the Bodega, just outside Yaiza and when we arrived you would have thought it closed. There was one car outside and no customers. We'd booked with it being Saturday night and we were actually the only table in. But it was awesome!

I actually opted for a fish dish and we had the most garlicky garlic bread ever tasted, and we thought we'd treat ourselves to a dessert, as the hotel selection was dire. 3 courses of wonderfulness, no other people and some local wine. Lovely! Then we went back to the hotel and decided to watch a film, which we'd borrowed from some friends of ours: Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal. He he. It's terrible. Thanks J and T. It was exactly what you said it would be!

Tomorrow we're supposed to be going to Teguise for the market so that should be fun. And an update on the phantom flower cutter of Lanzarote. He has struck again, this time removing several large palms. We didn't see him on Saturday, so we're thinking it's a 9-5, Mon-Fri position............
I hear Boris is Mayor again. I didn't vote for him, but it seems a lot of other people did. Ah well. It's always fun to have a bumbling, cartoon character as Mayor of your city. Let's see what he can do this time.

Enjoy your Bank Holiday tomorrow everyone! (UK. May day) And if you're not lucky enough to have a Bank Holiday, then have a bearable Monday.