Ray and Moira in Salou

Every now and again Chris and I find ourselves talking about living in another country. This morning the conversation was prompted by one of those TV programmes where you watch Ray and Moira from Runcorn being shown round five flats in the Costa Brava to decide which one they want to make their holiday home and eventually retire to.

More often than not the Ray and Moira in question have a budget which doesn't match their dream and we watch them traipse around, after the ever suffering presenter, complaining that they want a finca that overlooks the sea, has its own pool and roof terrace, four bedrooms (for the grandkids - there are always grandkids to consider) and is both modern and traditional at the same time, with no work needed. For this list of features and benefits they have the grand sum of fifty eight thousand pounds, but for the perfect place they can stretch to sixty.

If we ever do it I'd like to have a place here and one abroad. My preference would be a flat in Barcelona, down in the Barceloneta area, with the beach on my doorstep, the park and zoo round the corner, and the Gothic Quarter a stone's throw from our front door. I want somewhere we can get to easily once we land, without the need for a car, and there's a train straight from the airport to Estació de França.

We last went to Barcelona at the end of September. Charles and Paul were getting married and having their celebrations in Sitges, where they'd met, so Chris and I decided to make a week of it. We started with a couple of nights in Barcelona before getting the train down the coast. We'd toyed with going to Tarragona for the next two nights before heading to Sitges for the wedding, as we'd spent a lovely drunken afternoon there a few years earlier. 

The first time we went the Junior Chamber of Commerce was having an international conference in the town and we found ourselves chugging beer with a handful of future business tycoons. There was a stall selling bottles of beer and olives for pennies and we'd gorged ourselves on both while watching a wedding party leave the church in the square. 

That had been one of those days where my vegetarianism had been tested, not because I wanted to test it but because the bloody olives had anchovies stuffed in the middle of them and the Spanish tend not to count fish as part of the animal kingdom.

We decided against Tarragona this time, as beautiful and charming as it is, and instead, like the adventurous souls we are, chose to try somewhere we'd not been before. A little further away from Barcelona, past Tarragona, is the seaside town of Salou and we plumped for this as an option for a couple of days between our city break and the wedding parties.

We'd been told by friends they didn't think we'd really like Salou, that it wasn't our kind of place, but we like to find out for ourselves so we went anyway. Besides how bad could it be? we asked ourselves.

As the taxi from the station to the hotel drove through town I thought, this isn't bad. It looks clean and tidy, there's not a tattoo parlour or karaoke bar in sight - more than can be said for Palma Nova where we found ourselves for a major anniversary a few years beforehand - and the people seem alright. We pulled up to the hotel which again seemed alright, it was an adults only hotel and the clientele was predominantly over sixty five but you look on the bright side, at least the stairwells were quiet. 

The room was huge. Chris had booked a superior double which was three times the size of the room we'd just come from in Barcelona. It had it's own sitting room area and a very large roof terrace overlooking the pool, with sun loungers, table and chairs and to add an extra touch of luxury, it was astro-turfed so it felt like we were sitting on a penthouse lawn.

Dinner was an all you can eat buffet, Chris's idea of heaven, but within two minutes of arriving he'd already started a fight with a surly restaurant manager. A fight he knew he could win because he was the customer, so one he pushed as far as he could which included reporting her to reception immediately after dinner.

Salou at night was a different story to the genteel town we'd driven through that afternoon. I've never been to Benidorm but I've heard the stories and imagined that this is what it was like. It became apparent that the tattoo parlours and karaoke bars of Salou had been restricted in the part of town that lay between the station and our hotel, and instead were to be found in these huge pedestrianised party streets.

We find the only thing to do in these situations is to embrace it and fall in line, so we got pissed. Chris went shopping for tack while I wandered the streets looking for things I could share on Facebook. As we walked past a nightclub a Spanish chap came over trying to convince us to go in by offering free shots of something sugary, we declined, saying it was too early and besides, we lied, we were leaving early the next day for a flight so we were heading back. Undeterred he turned to his second line of business - drugs. 

"You wanna buy any cocaine?" he whispered in a gruff Spanish voice.

Admittedly I was surprised because I assumed he was simply a PR person for the club and replied "I'm sorry?"

"You wanna buy any cocaine?" he stage whispered, slower and even louder.

Understanding what was happening, and seeing how far I could push this, I pretended to be a little deaf and unable to hear him I said, "What? I can't hear you. Speak up."

To which he bellowed at the top of his voice, in what I'm convinced was an estuary English accent, "DO YOU WANT TO BUY ANY COCAINE OFF ME MATE?"

"Oh! I see!" I replied politely, "No, thank you very much." I smiled and we trotted off on our way.

As the phrase goes, Salou is what it is. It's a cheap and cheerful holiday resort, You're not going to find swanky restaurants or cool bars, but we enjoyed it for the two nights and a day we were there. That being said, it's highly unlikely we'll ever go back.

Our next stop was Sitges, a town we know and love and have been going to for years, to meet the gang and go to the wedding. We've often talked about buying a flat there too but it's so expensive I'm not sure we could stretch to what we'd want. We would in turn become Ray and Moira on A Place in the Sun. 

So in the meantime, we're left with our lockdown daydreams of holidays and of splitting our time between here and there, wherever there may be.

I started writing this blog again as a way to record life under the shadow of Coronavirus and I've barely mentioned it today so to summarise, on the 8th April 2020: The UK is to remain on lockdown as deaths keep increasing, the Prime Minister is in intensive care - which is mad isn't it?  I'm still working from my dining room table, Chris has no work or income at the moment so spends his days gardening, and our elderly neighbour Mary continues to be a super spreader - she's just headed out to the shops again despite receiving a letter from Number 10, like the rest of us, yesterday.

Rosemary

I used to work for MORI Telephone Surveys - or MTS for short. The offices were on the edge of Clerkenwell in London and I worked there for just over two years. They were interesting times and, without wanting to sound dramatic, they were also life changing times.

I was one of three people interviewed for two roles as research executive. They initially offered the jobs to the two other candidates and told me that unfortunately my services would not be required - that's until one of the people didn't turn up to work on their first day, or any other day after that... Not the best way to get a job but I took it all the same.

The woman who ran MTS was Rosemary. She had started her career in research - as far as I remember - working as Bob's assistant. I only ever met Bob once - an American who desperately wanted to be British or at least to have a knighthood or some such accolade. Previous to working for Bob's MORI I believe she worked at Colombia pictures with her husband Donald and also for Greenpeace at some point - but that was all thousands of years previous.

Rosemary had a wicked sense of humour and was somewhat eccentric. On my first day at work she took us all out and got me drunk - little did I know that this would be a regular occurrence - and when I say regular I mean most days. She smoked and if anyone wanted a cigarette we would go and smoke in her office with her - it was whilst smoking in this office with her that we saw the twin towers of the world trade centre come under attack and collapse after being hit by two aeroplanes. She had some funny stories - like falling down the back of a filing cabinet whilst trying to retrieve some papers and being rescued by the actor Sidney Poitier who grabbed her ankles and hauled her out. She used to have an office cat which lived in the bottom of the filing cabinet - and a range of spirits which lived in the top of the same filing cabinet. When one of Rosemary's cats- Trotsky I think - had developed diabetes she joined an online group called Sugar Cats, well who wouldn't? And who wouldn't travel to America to meet up with the sugar cats team and go sky diving with them?

Rosemary once invited us all for a weekend away in Walton on the Naze up in Essex. It was a boating weekend and was incredibly drunken.

Chris & I slept on one of the small boats in what felt like a coffin - my face was about six inches from the top of this box and condensation kept dripping onto my face throughout the night. - Chris was not happy. We ached the next day whilst sailing around the estuary the next day.

I remember Chris Downham playing his guitar and leading a sing along to Van Morrison & Beatles songs at sunset on the deck of a boat. It was a good time.

Rosemary died in the last year that I worked at MTS. She had travelled up to the forest in Essex where her husband was buried, sat at his graveside and injected herself with a massive overdose of insulin which she had kept to one side since his death. She had always said that when the time was ready she would do it herself and that she never wanted to be sick. It was her time and her way.

http://www.sugarcats.com/communications_area/message.asp?message=589309890&messageboard=967975216

Maria! Maria!

For the last week and a half I have swung calamitously from one hangover to another via extreme excesses of alcohol and absences of sleep. It all began last Wednesday with a trip to London. Half cut before we arrived we quickly checked in, dumped our bags and headed into Soho. A bottle of wine in the first bar, an early meal and another bottle of wine in the next, two killer cocktails each in the next and then beer with Christian before jumping on the tube and going to the Brits.

Sadly (ahem?) we missed U2 because we were late and drunk and really needed a wee. We did however see Duffy - who was very small and very far away despite her quite large head, Girls Aloud - great stage show, shame about the music and Take That - although technically I did not see them because I was refueling on white wine and trying to convince the bar lady that she should take my five pound note even though it was now cleft in twain.
I nearly wet myself when Estelle and The Ting Tings came on together (secretly I am a thirteen year old girl) and the Pet Shop Boys were very exciting and quite brilliant.

After the show finishes we trollopsed down the stairs and straight to the tube. I seem to remember getting off at Piccadilly Circus but I can't be completely sure. I do remember going to one of my favourite bars - The Friendly Society - and was pleased to see that they had been partially re-vamped. Many of the Barbie dolls had been removed as had the fur on the wall of the grotto and the ceiling is now adorned with a large selection of Trolls.

I do not remember what we drunk there but I do remember that when we were asked to leave (the bar was closing - it was nothing personal) we still had a drink each in our hands. This is when Maria came to the rescue. Maria told me that she had owned the bar since it opened - strange because of all the random nights that I have spent in there I had never seen her.

Whilst socialising with the adorable and slightly curious Maria we were introduced to two chaps (I think one of them works there and the other is a DJ but for all I know they were Russian political activists with a penchant for sea horse meat - I was so drunk by this point.) These chaps then led us across Soho on a magical mystery tour and took us to another bar where I think I danced a little bit and I may have had another drink but that escapes me - which is exactly what we did soon afterwards. 

We discreetly did one and headed off toward Trafalgar Square, down the Strand and to a club which Chris had sorted out guest list places at. Heaven - as I'm sure you can guess by the name - is a gay club. Normally. Last Wednesday night however it was more of a black R&B club. So we went to be frisked, wandered through the metal detector doorway to ensure that we had no weapons (I'm gonna stab you man!) and I think Chris discussed the guest list. The rest of my time in there was a bit of a whirl. I vaguely remember pushing my way through a very packed bar area, I actually do remember dancing badly in one of the bars and apparently Chris gave me some money to buy another drink which I found in my pocket the next morning. We didn't stay there long for some reason. We left through the brick lined arches narrowly avoiding a bitch fight which was about to break out between a couple of young ladies and at this point I don't remember much at all - the lions in Trafalgar Square - being cold - a book shop on Charing Cross road? And then it was morning! Ta da!

The Cool Kids

As I have written previously, pubs have played a pivitol part in my life and just so you know - so have night clubs... To think about it my experiences in nightclubs seems interesting and varied but in reality I just got wrecked and danced strangely whilst wearing a variety of fashion statements.

My first night club at the age of sixteen was Henry Africa's in Oldham. I distinctly remember wearing a shirt, tie and jacket because that was what my dad used to wear when he went to night clubs - in the late sixties... I spent many a pointless night in there drinking blastaways (a pint glass with one bottle of castaway mixed with one bottle of diamond white - I've always been classy.) and pretending not to look at Stan the man (the stripper) and vice versa pretending to be interested in Sexy Sue (the other stripper.) One of my enduring memories of this place was Alison going arse over tit on a wet patch on the dance floor and flashing her undergarments to one and all as she lay there splayed across the middle of the dance floor.

I used to go to a club called Ambition - again in Oldham. This was known as Oldhams best alternative night - it was actually Oldham's only alternative night. The music was quite a range from Metallica, Nirvana and Rage Against The Machine (who I insisted on calling rage against the washing machine much to the chagrin of the alternative fans) to Blur, Adam Ant and Madness. There were lots of people with long hair, lots of people with shaved heads, lots of ripped jeans and a sea of Doc Martins. I fit in there very well...

Bowlers was interesting. A club that opened at eight and closed at two, sold no alcohol and had a massive following right the way across the north west. You were frisked by the doormen - who were terrifying - and the only words you needed to make a new friend for life were "What's your name? Where're you from? What've you had?" Which invariably would be answered with "Alright mate, I'm Gaz from Warrington. I've had a gram and a pill. Safe, I'm going for a dance now." I would leave Bowlers dripping with sweat and once even had an imprint of my tartan trousers on my legs when I undressed later that night.

I remember going to Sankeys Soap in Manchester for the first time - it was very exciting at the time! I didn't know where it was so we jumped in a taxi and had him drop us off. He pulled up outside a closed door at an old warehouse on the wrong side of Great Ancoats street and said here you go. There was a funny little, rough looking pub on the opposite corner which we went into for a pint and about twenty minutes later came out to find a queue outside the little door. We eventually went in through the door to a courtyard and then into the building. The music started incredibly slowly - almost a just a deep drum beat and over the course of about an hour slowly sped up and people started joining the dance floor. A couple of hours later I was dancing to very hard, very loud techno.

One of my favourite clubs was Paradise Factory in Manchester. I went there for the first time on my twentieth birthday and hadn't ever seen seen anything like it. On one night in there I found myself dancing with a roller skating nun called Sister Marta and a giant piece of toast called Mrs Crusty. I nearly got kicked in the face one night by Fernando doing high kicks in his high heeled platforms - Fernando is now April. There was a guy there every week who must have been in his mid sixties. He was called Tony and he always wore a dinner jacket and bow tie and smoked what looked like huge joints firmly jammed into a cigarette holder. I also remember a woman who was a regular who wore a long trench coat and had big eighties hair. Underneath the trench coat she just wore a skimpy bikini and she looked and danced like one of the women from that Robert Palmer video.

On the door was Nicki Pennington who always had a clip board for the guest listers and grilled everyone else about their gay credentials. She would ask if you knew that this was a gay club, then she would ask if you were gay, then she would ask which magazines you read - which you would have to reply Gay Times and Boyz magazine - well you could hardly answer New Scientist and The Times Sunday supplement could you. She would finally ask you what your favourite page of Boyz was and the standard answer had to be - the back page. That's where the naked man picture was. Whilst waiting for this grilling you would be entertained by Lady Lola who would tease people in the queue and give out lolly pops. I believe she went on to be a producer for The Trisha show.

Also amongst my favourites is Space in Ibiza - not so much inside but definitely the outside terrace. There's something spine tingling about dancing, off your tits, in the middle of the day and watching an aeroplane coming screaming over your head as it goes in to land at Evissa airport down the road. You can read the letters on the bottom of the plane and everyone throws their hands in the air as if to touch it as it comes in. It's thrilling.

I met Chris at the Hacienda in Manchester on one of their Flesh nights. I've still got the ticket. It was called Flesh FC and had a football theme. I was dancing up on the stage when I turned around and saw him there. He was the boy I had been dancing with at Paradise Factory the week before but hadn't spoken to. Fate or just the small world of clubbing in Manchester in 1996? That was the first night that I went to Danceteria at Central Park. A dirty, nasty club if ever I've been to one. It started at midnight on Saturday and closed at ten thirty on Sunday night. Oil from the Chorlton Street car park above would seep through the concrete ceiling and stain your clothes as it dripped through to the club. I far preferred The Breakfast Club which ran from three till six after Paradise Factory had closed. No booze, just soft drinks and coffee and after a quick sit down and chat the dancing would begin again. This is where the cool kids went - and I was one of them. What happened?

She seemed pleased...

For about five years I have been looking for a family recipe for stuffing. After hunting high and low on many occasions I finally gave up and then on Friday I found a letter from my mum in which she had written the recipe! It was quite odd reading a letter from my mum that I hadn't read since before she died but quite comforting at the same time. I found the letter inside an old diary from when I was a teenager and after reading the letter had a quick flick through the much scrawled pages of the diary. It is full of gems...

Monday 20th January 92
It's 11.39pm, mum and dad are in bed already and Robert's snoring - wish he'd shut it. Hadn't done my maths homework for school and I still haven't. I've just been gluing monsters, men and dogs on the ceiling...
Mr Turvey asked Matt Haynes if his thirteen colour biro was a vibrator or a pen - ded funny.

Thursday 13th February 92
Last weekend I went to Jonny's - his mum wasn't there. Me and him and Darren got rat arsed. Darren porked Simone.

Tuesday 19th January 93
Nearly got in trouble because of my foul mouth again in Biology 'cause that cunt Haynes put prit stick in my hair and forehead - little bastard.

Wednesday 5th May 93
I'll start with what's going on with me & Shan. Last Friday I saw her after school and we were in the church yard on the steps, I ended up fingering her - she seemed pleased.


There are some notes in there from when I did a week's work experience at Oldham hospital:

Fri 9.20am Woman fallen suspected fracture of sternum
10.15 am Outside N wards meeting Harish in approx 15 mins, he'll probably be late.
This nurse is doling out coffee from this big jug with a ladle. Half of them are having it in beakers with mouth spouts like babies, it's really sad to see these women deteriorate like this.
Harish is talking to some doc at the bottom. This big fork lift has been shifting a big concrete planter about. I'm in N now There's this old lady whose wig has fallen off - total baldness.
Harish just asked me if I'd had a late night because my eyes were all frogged up.

Other notes from my work experience include:
Old biddy had arm put back in shoulder socket.
Contact lens stuck in eye
Bead in ear
One bad fracture, bone sticking out of leg.
Stroke - didn't see it
Heart attack - just missed it.
Thursday - sod all so far.

Violent Vera

Christmas day this year was an interesting one. Interesting? In what way Richard? I hear you ask. Well for one I managed to get a photograph of every one of the sixteen guests wearing a false moustache - quite an accomplishment I'm sure you'll agree. Secondly I had the great fortune to referee a very drunken conversation between one of my cousins and one of my brothers about the true reason for the invasion of Iraq and the state of the situation in Afghanistan. Neither Rachael nor Matthew had the slightest clue what they were talking about in their drunken state and I, in my drunken state, grasped the opportunity to throw in all manner of pointless - and in some cases untrue - tit bits of information just to encourage more ridiculous claims and counter claims regarding the various situations.

It was also on Christmas day this time around that I learned of my cousins' grandmother's nick name. When Vera arrived my dad asked her in a loud voice, "Have you got your machine gun Vera?" which struck me as quite odd. Vera being nearly ninety and not so nimble on her feet. Within half an hour someone else asked her the same question which again was a little puzzling. Anyway it turns out that Vera (pictured with moustache) is also known as Violent Vera and has a reputation for fighting, using excessive violence and killing people with semi automatic weapons.

Other highlights of Christmas day included a walk on the beach at Rossall near Fleetwood (picture taken about 2.30 in the afternoon on Christmas day) and the hunt for spirit orbs with my Aunt Amanda at my dad's house - made all the more amusing by the fact that my cousin Rachael kept referring to the whole experience as 'hunting for oicks.' Rachael is 33 years old.

Blackpool - again

We're going to Blackpool tonight. We're going to get on a bus, get drunk, eat chips and drive the length of the illuminations. Thankfully it's not a public bus.

This is what happened last time I got drunk on a bus in Blackpool...