If you have kids then Hotel Orquidea Bahia Feliz is the place to go. It is seriously fantastic. If you have a wheelchair, do not. It is increasingly unfriendly in design and the hassle, stares and outright ignorance just is not worth it. J was using the disabled toilet and the door was tried a couple of times. When she came out she found it was a Thomson rep waiting to use the disabled toilet. The rep was of course fully fit. That sums up much of the experience.
Anyway, airline was good, Customs on Gran Canaria had one evil bitch on duty who we managed to get really really angry – which was sort of fun. After all, if she takes some spirits saying “100ml, no more” and I point to a 500ml bottle of water and a 250ml tin of Red Bull in my bag and ask what about that 100ml she said they are okay, just water, it’s okay. Asked for the spirits back she said no, 100ml! I said what’s that – and held the water. She said water so I put it back in my bag. Asked for spirits, she said no. Saying ‘But how do you know it’s water really’ caused her to get really mad, ripped open my bag, pulled out the drinks and headed to the large box for confiscated material. I did ask for my water back – it’s only water – but she was too busy stomping, gesticulating and informing all her other .. colleagues .. of what we were doing. I did ask where my water was when she got back and enquired why because it was actually only water. She probably could not swear given the presence of her colleagues. Had she listened however I could have taught her some. Stupid woman.
Summary: started ‘Anna Karenina’, am some 500 pages in and it is wonderful, started ‘No Plot No Problem’ which has insights I want to use away from any sort of writing. Love my Sony Reader for the above and I’m in the middle of another book on it the title of which I forget. New Bluetooth kb to use and learn as keys have changed slightly – should be fun. Not so many pictures taken this time and almost all are of youngest and her boyfriend so I’d not publish those anyway. Not sure if I like that pic above. Orquidea do not serve coffee – they serve ‘brown’. Broken Dreams across the road do nice Calypso Coffee. There is no diet Red Bull or variant anywhere. Really.
And as with everyone who returns from holiday I’ll slide slowly back to those little ruts where in that short space away I saw there was something I could do better but I’ll never get round to them, something will always need doing first and in a year I’ll do the same again.