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There is trouble in the forest

Bean Counter was unfortunate enough to inherent nine Leylandi trees from the previous owner of her house and they have grown and grown. It is no wonder that they have been called the Rottweiler of the botanical world. For some time many well meaning people have promised to come and take a look at them and maybe fell them for her as the height reached over 40 foot and blocked out most of the light into her garden. However over the years no one has actually come along and done the job, so after a few beers one night Ted Magnum and me thought, well how hard can it be?

I picked Ted up from his house one morning over the Easter weekend and armed with a bow saw, an axe, a couple of machetes and a raging hangover we set to. After an hour it was obvious that an axe and a bow saw with all the best will in the world was going to be no match for these monsters. There was only one thing to do and that was head out to B+Q for a chainsaw.

Some time later we returned to BC’s house with a shiny new McCulloch chain saw and let rip. Three hours later, several heart stopping moments and much humming and ha-ing we had daylight in the garden. Of the 9 trees only 4 were left standing. I was persuaded by Ted not to juggle the chain saw as it was going and in the cold light of day it was probably a good thing. It was probably a good idea that the axe was taken away from me and I was handed the prestigious job of supervising and chief morale booster. After handing out the beers and starting rousing choruses of “I’m a lumberjack and I’m ok”, I feel pretty sure that I carried out my duties rather well.

I am sure we could have finished the job completely but trying to get the damn things to fall exactly where we wanted them to is a science we have not yet mastered and after a few close shaves and many nervous neighbours peering behind twitching curtains we called it a day. There are far too many logs in BC’s garden and these have to be taken away before we can continue.

Sterling work was performed by BC’s two sons who formed the Cutting Crew and delimbed the trees as fast as Ted cut them down and I could drag them into a clear patch. At the end of the day the beers came out and the Barbie was sparked up. The wood was too green and wet to be turned into a bonfire but they will almost all end up at Tedstock for this year’s bonfire. BC’s garden resembles a napalm strike and it will be some time before we can restore it to its former glory but the deforestation will continue.

No date has yet been set for part two but I am certain that we will all be in fine form and raring to go. As Rush once sang “There is trouble in the forest”

 

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The first of the season

The clocks had only just gone back and Ted Magnum and I were called upon to cook a baby pig over open coals at a 50th birthday.  Naturally neither of us was going to pass up on such an offer especially as the wages were as much beer as we could drink and we duly arrived clutching implements of destruction and an assortment of sharp knives. The weather was glorious and we sparked up and set about preparing the pig or piglet as it turned out to be. The animal such as it was, was only small and I felt pangs of guilt when I noticed the trotters were still pink. This one had never seen green fields or mud.

We had set up the spit prior to preparation and the skin was scored and rubbed with salt while the coals were ignited. Within an hour the pig was trussed and impaled and hoisted above the coals and Ted and me got down to the serious business of the day, turning the spit keeping the fire going and drinking beer. By 8pm the meat was cooked and we basted the crackling with honey and lowered the spit to the flames to give an intense heat and make the crackling crackle.  So far so good and as the crackling was peeled off and dished out it was all going well. By 8-30pm the light had gone and Ted and me had to make a decision to take the meat off the spit and cut it up. This presented the first problem of the evening, actually trying to see what was going on. The dainty slices Ted and me had imagined turned out to be great big slabs and as it was a small pig it was not long before we had a skeleton.

In hindsight we would have been better off taking the pig into the main gazebo and letting everyone hack pieces off as they saw fit but it was not to be. I will never forget the look of horror as one small lad turned up with a plate and bun and was handed a lump of pork with a trotter attached to it! I think most people expected to be given a few slices of hot pork thinly sliced as if by a mechanical slicer. Clearly this crowd had no concept of roast pig cooked barbecue style upon hot coals.

In retrospect we have learned never to attempt to cook anything less than 70 pounds in weight as by the time you have taken the bones out there is not really a lot of meat left. Secondly when slicing meat, make sure you have enough light to see what you are doing and do not hand young boys cooked trotters.

Still it was the first of the season.

 

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More news as it happens……..

So I woke up only just remembering that the clocks had gone forward. Ted Magnum was due any minute providing he had not overslept. We all had hangovers from a get together at the Revellers house the night before, and we were going on the Egg Run! For the benefit of my foreign chums let me explain. Every year there is a meeting of bikers that go for a bike run from the waterfront at New Brighton and ride in convoy to Clatterbridge hospital collecting money for a children’s charity as they go. The distance is only 20 miles or so but each year the number of participants has risen enormously. Traditionally they used to take an Easter egg for the children at the hospital but there are now so many participants that they ask for donations instead.  The total amount of riders this year was 10,000. Yes that is Ten thousand and they come from many parts of the country and from the continent.  You can imagine what 10,000 chocolate Easter eggs would do to a bunch of kids teeth.

Again and mainly for the benefit of any one who has never seen this spectacle or taken part in it, at a given signal hordes of bikers set off in a sort of orderly fashion and in some sort of order. This means that for those at the back it may take an hour of slow moving inch by inch until you are on the open road, all the while breathing in exhaust fumes from some serious petrol heads who may or may not decide to see who has the loudest set of exhaust pipes in the pack. The normal rules of road courtesy go out of the window although speed limits are adhered to through the many police that line the 20 mile route. You overtake as and when you can and this means being overtaken on the inside and out usually at the same time. It is exhausting, nerve racking but tremendous fun and I was glad to be in amongst the pack.

I lost TM within minutes of setting off but met him later on at a pub called the TAP. With many hundreds of bikes all setting off for the same location parking was at a premium and after only an hour we set off for another watering hole called the Swinging Arm. This was also full but we found some space and parked there. The amount of bikes and sheer range of models and makes is truly staggering and I was lucky to be able to take a photo of one of the best Trikes I have ever seen. It was pulling a trailer and was undoubtedly a show stopper. By the time I was home I was exhausted and shattered from the stop, start, go fast, go slow procedure. My arms ached and my legs and both hips ached from the strain of keeping the bike upright and not running into any one and from getting out of the way should they decide to run into me. Twice I had to stop as cramp in my hips got to me. It just shows I am getting old or arthritis is setting in. Beancounter felt as tired  although mainly from petrol fumes.

I did notice that the back brake is so ineffective it may just as well be there for ornamental purposes and I have to give some serious thought to the amount of weight I carry on the bike. A short run is planned to the Lake District in a few weeks and from there we will decide as to whether or not BC and me will actually take Rhonda to Portugal in September. More news on that as it happens. Right now it is Roger Moors birthday and we are about to do some serious damage to a bottle of Jack Daniels and Little Miss Sunshine’s daughter is in hospital waiting to give birth. As of 30 minutes ago her waters had just broken. I did ask LMS if this was a good thing and could it be fixed. I have been assured that waters breaking are a good thing. Strange that, I thought you went into hospital to get things fixed not broken!

More news as it happens……..

 

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Le earthquake, it demands respect.

It has been a funny old week, knowing just where to start is always the problem.  Tuesday evening and my good friend Roger Moor popped into see me. We watched my beloved LFC wipe the floor with Real Madrid and we had a nightcap or two I can’t really remember how many. However, we did and we decided to try out the allegedly favourite drink of Toulouse Lautrec. This is called Le Earthquake and consists or equal measures of Cognac and Absinthe. The taste does grow on you after a while but the effect is truly devastating. After 3 I had started to hallucinate and the last thing I remember is RMstaggering out of the door. I woke up on the couch at approximately 10am. As it was it was my day off work and I had to stay in anyway as a gasman was coming to service the boiler.

I was still feeling out of sorts when RM came home from work and we had a “livener”. It started going downhill from there. I went to bed early acutely aware that I had to be up for work in the morning. The rest of the week flew by and on Saturday afternoon I made contact with the Driver and promised to ring him in the evening. Before that I was drive to Manchester Airport to pick up the Traveller who had flown back from Greece on a reconnaissance mission for some land and property.  As I picked him up he promptly said “within 24 hours of landing I remembered why I left there all those years ago”. I got lost coming home from the airport, the signs all seem to have changed and after driving around in Manchester city centre we headed for the M62. It was not the way I would have chosen to come home and it took us a lot longer but it was the start of a downward spiral.

We arrived at Château Ghastanbury to be greeted by Beancounter and RM and a quiet drink to welcome the traveller back home that descended into farce. Le earthquake re-surfaced and at some point in the evening RM staggered home again, I demanded that BC give me back the keys to the house for some completely unknown reason and the Traveller collapsed into the fireplace. It took me all of Sunday to recuperate and three of us to sit down and try and work out what happened the night before. As a result we have collectively decided to ban Le Earthquake from Chateau Ghastanbury. I have lost two days of my life to the green fairy and I do not wish to lose any more. The travellers head is fine and me and BC are still speaking.

To the Tiler, the Printer and the Driver apologies for not getting in touch as I promised but I was a little bit out of it, the only consolation I have is that I was not on my own! How Toulouse managed to drink that stuff on a regular basis is completely beyond me, but I can understand why Van Gogh was so wasted he cut his ear off. Le earthquake, it demands respect.

 

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the bitch is pimped

Rhonda is almost complete. I took her along to Ted Magnums place at the weekend just gone where she received a full service and all of the accessories that I have accumulated over the last 6 months were bolted in place. Considering that I purchased Rhonda for a specific job, I have discovered that any maintenance on her will not be a roadside job. Thoughts of taking tools with me to complete any task out on the highway have almost evaporated when I discovered that it took 2 hours for the pair of us to take the tank off the bike. Sadly this was necessary because the air filter is housed under the tank and the fairings are clipped into the tank.

Taking the endless chain off involved the use of a grinding wheel to remove the chain plates. Changing the oil required most of the guards and plastic bash plates to be removed in order to gain access to the drain plug and oil filter. It was no easier to drain the forks and replace the oil in them, the oil was changed to a heavier grade than the factory fitted stuff. I get the feeling that half of the fairing will have to be removed just to change a light bulb when it eventually does go on me.

A repair was made to the speedometer drive and I gather this is a regular bone of contention amongst Transalp owners. Taking the degenerated bits of nylon sprocket from the speedometer drive housing was a real pain. What should have been a simple job took another couple of hours.

I am pleased to report that the Scotoiler went on with a minimum of fuss even without instructions and the satnav was a doddle to fit and hard wire. What has not been added yet are the tool tubes. I have simply run out of room on the bike to bolt them onto anything. This may be an omen as I hope I never have to do anything to it.  All in all Ted and myself spent two days pimping and servicing the bike.

Apart from the previously mentioned tool tubes, there is only 1 item left to attach to the bike before I can say it is fully and comprehensively pimped and that is the cigarette lighter socket that is on order as I write. Needless to say many people have chortled when I mention this item. As most people in the biking fraternity will realise this is not for lighting cigars as I scream down the motorway at 70 mph. It is to charge portable electrical items such as a phone or laptop.

I hope I have not bought the wrong bike but it appears to me that anything that is important lies behind a myriad of parts such as frame work and fairings that have to be removed to access them. By contrast anything on Ted’s Africa Twin seems to be in the most accessible of places and his bike by comparison is a joy to work on. As the clocks are nearer to changing and the weather warms up I can gladly say the Bitch is fully pimped.

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Paris Rocks

Paris in springtime, what could be better, well watching ACDC in the Bercy stadium which is what Bean Counter and I did on February 27th. We had flown to Paris courtesy of Ryanair that very morning and landed at Beauvis airport at around 11pm. We then took a bus journey to the centre of Paris and then a combination of metros and taxis to get to our hotel. All in all a flight time of 1 hour was only a small part of a journey that took 7hours door to door.

Let’s get the bad things out of the way first! We spent more time hanging around waiting for security clearance than we did travelling. The Gendarmes are not very helpful sending us the wrong way when we asked for directions and the prices are extortionate. Paris is without doubt the most expensive place I have ever been to. A pint of beer during happy hour cost £5.50. I will never again complain at the cost of British beer in pubs. Add to this the Parisians themselves, aloof smug and with an air of superiority that even other Frenchmen hate.

The good things about Paris are the historic buildings and culture. There are so many buildings to see and it was impossible for me and BC to see everything in the three days we spent there. We took in Eiffel tower, the Louvre, (saw the Mona Lisa, nothing to write home about and vastly overrated) Notre Dame, plenty of pavement cafes and some very good food. There was also the concert. ACDC were magnificent and played 4 tracks from the Black Ice album and a host of other favourites. The Bercy Stadium puts the MEN in Manchester to shame and the regulations about standing and dancing are not vigorously enforced as they are by the jobsworths in Manchester. It was fair to say that me and BC rocked that night in an abandoned drastic effort to recapture our youth.

All too soon the concert was over and we made our way back to the hotel with the aid of some interesting characters we had met in the stadium, one of whom produced a photo of him between Ronnie Woods and Keith Richards. This guy had a history and was almost as entertaining as the band. The following day we had to move out of the hotel and make our way to another for the next two nights. The tickets I had bought only included one nights stay. The second hotel turned out to be a mere few yards from the first one and very close to the Follies Begere. It was sad to see the Follies, the old building looked very run down and the place looked as though it was closed.

By comparison the Moulin Rogue is still going strong and we sat and had a glass of Absinthe each across the way looking for Toulouse and any of his mates. To point out the expense of Paris the absinthe cost 20 quid for two glasses, one each for me and BC. We also managed to obtain refreshment in a pub called the Frog and RosBif where I indulged myself with a pint of Parisalyser. A very strong local brew made particularly for the pub chain. Due to the fact that the 6 nations competition was taking place that very weekend it was full of well mannered but very drunk rugby supporters. The English section decided on a pavement singsong and promptly forgot the words to Jerusalem but launched into New York York, You really needed to be there to appreciate how funny this was.

No matter where in the world you go you will always find an Oirish theme pub. There were two next to each other in a small section near the Bastille and we popped in for a quick drink. At this point BC desperately needed a toilet. As she discovered to get to the ladies cubicles she had to walk past the men’s open pissoire. It was a bit of a shock for her especially as the washing facilities for both genders were next to the pissoire. This was the very, literally, essence of Paris. A meal in the Hard Rock Café took almost an hour to serve reminding me that the service in Paris has not improved at all. The waiters were not apologetic at all and I suspect it may have been because we were English. The Americans sat next to us on another table waited almost as long and were served with the same contemptuousness that we suffered.

After the experience with the Gendarmes it cemented my belief that the French hate the English, never forgiven us for Agincourt let alone Waterloo and Trafalgar, and probably the Americans because the French were incapable of liberating themselves in 1944. The Parisians have a belief that they are better than any one else and I cannot understand why. They have not had the need to build a victory arch since Bonaparte. What the Parisians do have is a sense of style and mini skirts and high heels are very much the fashion for this year. Sadly so is the fashion for fur coats and I saw more there than at any other time in my life. The crepes from the pavement cafes are fantastic, almost as good as my own I should point out, and watching them being made show they are a work of art.

The best way to see the city is take advantage of the open tour busses that run on four different routes and you can swap routes and get on and off at almost any point. The metro system, once you have fathomed it out is simply fantastic. It is cheap, reliable, quick, clean and no matter where you are in the city you are never more than 500 yards from a metro station. It makes a mockery of any underground system I have travelled upon in the UK. There is so much to see that the batteries in my camera ran out due to all of the photo’s I took.

I have to go back to Paris, there is unfinished business there. BC and me did not have the time to walk hand in hand along the Champs-Elysees, nor did we get to tour on a Batteau Mouche. We did not manage to travel to the top of the Eiffel tower and enjoy the view. Paris is a wonderful place despite all the things I hated, the good things far outweigh the bad and this includes the beggars whose numbers increase year upon year. Upon reflection, Paris Rocks.

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Roll on Easter

February 25th as everyone knows is Pancake Day or to give it its correct title Shrove Tuesday and the evening preceding Lent. Strictly speaking Pancake Day is not a universal term and in some countries it is called Carnivalle and a host of other names around the globe. In 2008 Bean Counter and me had spent a wonderful evening at the home and in the company of Sophia Loren and her mum where we were treated to a sumptuous feast. I decided I wanted to return the favour this year and duly concocted a myriad of recipes for the pancakes I was to make.

These included, curry, chilli, crispy duck, sweet and sour pork and spinach and cheese for the mains. For desert I had decided in my mind upon a mixture of Crepe Suzettes, cherries and cherry sauce, chocolate and ice cream and strawberries and cream. Surely a feast in the making? BC did question as to whether or not we could possibly eat one of each but the Traveller decided it would not be a problem and was backed up by Roger Moor.

I had spent a day preparing all the fillings and the evening was spent making the batter, a task of no small feat considering the amount I would need and was helped along the way by BC and a couple of bottles of inspiration. As the evening arrived things got a little hectic as guests arrived and cooking everything got under way. I even managed to flip a couple of pancakes with as much flamboyance and panache as I could muster. This was mainly due to good luck and the Traveller recorded it in on camera for posterity.

Halfway through the evening it became apparent that BC was right and it was impossible to eat one each of the 9 pancakes no matter how much we drank. RM gave up after the chocolate one and SL and her mum shared each one from the crispy duck onwards. By the time the liqueur coffees were ready I no longer knew what I had eaten but knew I could not manage another mouthful. We did try and the cheese board was presented with a bottle of port which I apparently finished off as no one else liked it very much. I can report that not much cheese was consumed.

As the photos suggest the evening was a roaring success and will probably be repeated next year and is another event that will become a regular fixture on the Ghastanbury calendar. In keeping with the spirit of Lent I have given up biscuits and chocolate until Easter. Although not a religious person I have decided to follow the Eastern style of abstinence. This is different from the Western churches idea of Lent in which Sundays do not count. I have thought this style as being a bit wishy washy and not hard core enough for me. Abstinence is abstinence and should be for a set period, not one with regular breaks in it for good behaviour, roll on Easter.

 

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White Pudding and dragons blood

At long last I have found the time to get to my computer and type out another post. With Chateau Ghastanbury being as busy as Grand Central Station it has been hard to make time without offending or ignoring guests. The Traveller is staying with me for six weeks until he swans back over to the Southern Hemisphere once more. I think the cold weather has taken him by surprise, indeed it took many Brits by surprise. It is hard to believe that a few inches of snow can make the UK grind to a halt. You have to wonder what the Swedes, Fins and Norwegians make of us. They must be bemused that most of our schools were closed and the transport system shut down completely and all for a sprinkling of snow. Did out forefathers really make an empire upon which the sun never set?

The occasion of my 53rd birthday came and it seemed like the whole world descended upon my front door. The Prince of Darkness (formerly the taxman) arrived bearing greetings and gifts. The Tiler rang up and was on the phone for over 2 hours. It was great to speak to him and he described how the temperature in Oz was a blistering 46 centigrade but his fridge was working and his beer was ice cold. I promise I will get to go and see him one day. Sophia Loren arrived with greetings and bearing packages and the Animal (formerly the beast) arrived. Naturally Beancounter was with me and spoiled me rotten with gifts and Roger Moor came in for a birthday drink.  The day was looking up.

In the evening we went along to the animals’ house and I cooked what was supposed to be a Chinese banquet.  The first thing to go wrong was the soup, I overcooked it and the eggs separated horribly. It tasted wonderful but it looked as though it had curdled. Naturally I thought things would pick up on the second course but the pancakes for the crispy duck were unlike any pancakes I have ever seen in my life. They were translucent and sticky. The animal threw one against the tiles in his kitchen and it stuck. We gave up on the pancakes and the duck I had cooked was served in slices of wholemeal Hovis, basically crispy duck sandwiches. I figured I could still turn it around with my famous ribs but disaster struck when I realised I had used the wrong sauce. I had cooked them in my homemade Chicago rib sauce in stead of the home made sweet Kentucky sauce I should have used. To say they were hot is a bit of an understatement. There is an awful lot of chilli and cayenne in Chicago sauce and they are really for extreme heat aficionados, in fact they are second to the Texas sauce which has hospitalised some people!

It was at this point we gave up, being really full from the duck sandwiches and quite merry on Tequila slammers, and conversation turned to culinary items and the way they are made. I got around to describing to the animals long suffering wife the difference in the way white pudding was made as opposed to black pudding. His wife loves white pudding but did not know what was in it. I told her that it was the same ingredients as black pudding and made from pigs blood. She asked why it was white and I explained the blood was put in a centrifuge and the smaller red blood cells were spun out leaving only the larger white blood cells to make white pudding. The black puddings were made from the red blood cells. At the end of this elaborate and totally believable description she vowed never to eat white pudding again.  The youngest son who was enjoying the hot ribs asked about chilli sauce when I told him that was what made the ribs so hot. I told him about the dragon fields in China and Nepal.

Everyone knows that dragons breathe fire but what he did not know was the Chinese and Nepalese have herds of dragons and every day the dragon keepers would round up the dragons from the famous dragon fields and lead them to the chilli sauce factories. It was here that the dragons would donate some blood every day to go into bottles just the same way that us humans go and give blood at the transfusion services. The really big and older dragons had the hottest blood and that was why some of the sauce was very hot, the bigger and older the dragon the hotter the sauce. The sweet sauce came from the baby dragons and it was very precious as the baby dragons did not stay small for very long. After a lot of bottles had been filled up the dragons were led back out into the dragon fields. I also explained that this was why the Chinese loved dragons and they featured a lot in Chinese festivals.

I was going to explain that St George had killed the last Welsh dragon and that was why we could not make chilli sauce in this country, but the look from his parents rather suggested that perhaps I should end this line of conversation! After more than a few Tequila slammers, plenty of port and several large glasses of gin and tonic me and BC headed home. It had been a fantastic day and who would have thought you could have so much fun with white pudding and dragons’ blood.

 

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Back home

I have not been horse riding for some 30 years or more but when a chance to get in the saddle came up me and BC jumped at it. Having taken a few lumps of sugar to the stables the stable hand must have assumed I was an experienced horseman and put me in charge of some feisty little filly that I called lightning. After only a few minutes I realised I should have worn a cricket box. Lightning was determined to jog out of sync with me and as I went up he went down and when we did met it was painful. As painful as this was it was even funnier to watch BC try and get into the saddle. Being only 5 foot nothing she had to stand on a wall to get on the horse. Getting off was even funnier and when it came to the time to remount she gave up and got into the horse and cart.

It was a wonderful morning and set us up for dinner so we decided to go to one of the local restaurants. The local food is excellent if a little heavy on the olive oil for my liking and the owner apologised for not having any wine in the building and even offered to take us somewhere where we could buy some. In general most of the locals I met were very friendly and away from the tourist traps the people seem nice. There are lots of places to go in this wonderful country and I spent a few hours in Yasmine Hammamet at the harbour and some time on the beach at Hammamet.

Recycling is not an item that seems to feature heavily amongst Tunisian culture and I was saddened and angry by the amount of plastic waste that floats by on the breeze. You do not expect to see Tesco carrier bags drifting by in the Sahara. In the camps fire were continuously burning as people burnt rubbish and plastic releasing god knows what into the atmosphere. The government seems to pass this by as in the case of the cheap petrol being ignored and livelihoods by beggars being encouraged. Tunisia has a lot to learn in the tourism stakes.

I am glad I have been to Tunisia but I will not be in a hurry to go back there. Being accosted by beggars and pestered by people at every opportunity for money, looking at the rubbish flying about, having to barter for every item (which strikes me as dishonest because they are not selling something for what it is worth merely for as much as they can get and this can change depending upon who they are selling it to). For everything that made me smile in this country there was something that me cringe. There are many things it has not been possible to put within the confines of this blog, both good and bad in equal measure, but it was almost a relief when the last day arrived.

The last day came and we said goodbye to the many wonderful people we had met, amongst them Chubby and Gill, the Newlyweds from Doncaster, Sheldon and his crew, the two Scottish lads who were larger than life and twice as much fun, the RAF dentist and his wife Sue and finally the staff. It was great to be with you all and I won’t forget any of you in a hurry. May you all continue to enjoy your travels.

 

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Tunisa part four. New Years Eve and justice Tunisian style

New Years Eve arrived and BC and I went along to the restaurant for the celebratory gala dinner that was being prepared. For some reason the hotel staff had split the tables that we usually sat at. This meant that we sat at our table for the evening with strangers instead of the friends we had made during our stay at the usual tables next to us.  Rumours spread that it was to keep the Germans and the Brits apart but in reality this had already happened. The evening showed how the cultures from Europe celebrate differently. The Brits wanted to get their food down their necks as quickly as possible and then get smashed, The French wanted to have at least an hour between courses sipping wine and chatting and the rest seemed hell bent on a quiet evening.

Between courses BC and me slipped out to the bar to obtain drinks with the other Brits complaining that a five course meal should finish well before midnight and not take five hours to complete. Neither of us waited for the last two courses as boredom was setting in after three hours and drinking red wine and chewing jellied octopus is not my idea of a celebration of any sort. It was with this in mind that on the stroke of midnight I stripped down to my shorts and dived in the empty pool. A couple of hours later and with several large gins inside me I was standing on the balcony of our apartment and stripped my wet things off and peered out across the water. BC had mentioned that a few of the items she had left to dry on the balcony rail had blown off and as we were on the ground floor I jumped over the rail in pursuit of said items. It was at this point that the motion sensing security lights came on and a couple of passing security guards started to cheer me. All I could do was to smile and take a bow. It was a memorable new years eve.

It does not matter where in the world you go there will always be some Brits who are that little bit louder, more boisterous and ruder than is absolutely necessary. Sadly I met a few on this trip. One is Richard the retard who wanted to fight with everyone and was always complaining. In the end the management did not even bother to take up any of his complaints, mainly against other holiday makers. More than a few people were glad to see him go. The other was a slightly more serious and disturbing matter. One of the attendants at the hotel was dismissed for grabbing a young boy around the throat. So far so good you might think but it transpired that the young boy in question had been tormenting the life out of the pool guard for some hours by throwing things at him and splashing him with water and finally throwing a plate of food in his face. The attendant was immediately suspended and then sacked with a few hours.

The parents wanted a prosecution and pursued matters taking things to the local police station whereupon the attendant was arrested and the father asked if he wanted a prosecution. When he answered yes he was invited by the local police chief to enter the cell with a rubber truncheon and was told not to use his knuckles and not hit him above the neckline as it would leave marks, and was informed no one would be passing by for five minutes. When the father was let out of the cell he was asked again if he wanted to prosecute and he said yes. The attendant was bundled into a police van and taken away to the local prison to await trial.

How do I know all of this? Well the father was bragging and boasting over a good many drinks around the pool to anyone and everyone  who would listen that he had knocked the living daylights out of this guy and left him in a mess and was going for a full prosecution. The fact that he was leaving the next day and would not be able to attend and give any evidence was not his concern. He seemed quite pleased with himself over it.

My own take on it is this, if he had of spent less time getting hammered by the pool and kept an eye on his little darling (who was not quite the darling he made out) then an attendant with a wife and two kids would not have been made jobless with no means of supporting his family and would not be requiring hospital treatment and would not be facing jail. Of course the indignant father now had proof that a prosecution was taking place and would be suing the holiday company for compensation. A nice little earner for him. According to witnesses the little darling was smashing glasses and causing mayhem the very next day causing him to be told off by more than one person but not his parents.

I was not proud to be British that day.