Holiday F.M.
Puerto Del Carmen is what Broughty Ferry will be when global warming really begins to kick in. Honestly, imagine that esplanade on the Tay estuary and then turn up the thermometer by thirty degrees or so. No difference.
Yesterday we decided we´d seen enough of this little corner of Lanzarote and so went to hire a car. Our needs were simple. We wanted a five door hatchback with air conditioning. I filled out a form, handed over a fifty euro deposit and was given the key to a Opel Corsa. We had driven about ten miles west when we realised the air conditioning was nothing more than a fan blowing hot air around the car. Then the handle came off the inside of the front passenger door and then a rapid clicking sound told us that one of the indicators wasn´t working. All was not lost, however, because the radio was working.
We found another English language station. Holiday FM sounded quite slick but subsequent investigation told us that it was being produced in London and was funded, it seemed, by loads of advertising from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. These ads seem to consist of dire warnings about the number of holiday-makers who have accidents while abroad.
They´re not wrong. Two days ago I slipped coming out of the swimming pool and landed with a crash on the big box with all the pool gubbins inside. I skinned my knee and hurt my wrist, but do I get any sympathy? No, of couse not. I ought to phone the Foreign Office so they can update their statistics.
But back to that car journey. It was too late to take the Corsa back. The hire shop is shut on Sunday afternoons, so we trundled on to the south west corner of the island and to Playa Blanca. This was slightly more upmarket and stylish than Puerto Del Carmen and the beach was crammed with bronzed Europeans queuing up for jet skis and to be pulled across the sky on a parachute attached to a speedboat. As you do.
I actually removed my t-shirt for the first time this year and blinded three hundred people as the sun glinted off my white torso. I was then forced, by public demand, to jump into the sea and actually swim about in this little bit of the Atlantic Ocean.
That was yesterday. Today we took the rent-a-wreck back to the hire company and exchanged it for a roadworthy Nissan Micra with real air-conditioning. But, would you believe it, it has no radio!
I´m not sure if I can cope.
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