Inclement

It was blowing an absolute gale today. The patio furniture crashed around the terrace, palms in pots blew over, the washing, despite being secured by many pegs, blew off the line and S had to pursue it down the garden.

We went into town in the morning to meet our former classmate Michel and his wife Françoise for coffee, having not seen them since last March. Then we did a little light shopping, came home and made a fairly undistinguished vegetable curry for lunch.

Later, to the spa in town, which has now reopened after its extended Covid closure. Very pleasant -- it was nice to get properly warm in the hammam and jacuzzi, and have a swim too.

We'd arranged to meet S and T for drinks in the evening and knowing how the evening was likely to go we decided to try taking the bus into town. S discovered that the bus company website has a live tracker, so we waited for it to be on its way up from La Herradura and then set off to shiver in the gale at the extremely exposed bus stop on the main road. It was good to know we didn't need to wait long.

We then went on an extended bar crawl with S and T. Our second stop was old favourite Los Pajaritos. Despite getting there within 15 minutes of it opening, there wasn't a table or seat to be had -- we couldn't even lean on the bar. But eventually, after a couple of drinks and the absolute best fish tapas in town, we managed to grab a tiny table where we got stuck into absolutely delicious grilled prawns followed by some tuna. Somehow Fernando manages to keep track of what everyone's had by just scribbling on a tiny note pad, and the bill for the four of us after drinks, tapas and raciones that we had ourselves lost count of, came to 42 euros. It is by far the best bar in town but opening is intermittent as and when he feels like it

It was 10 pm by now, so we walked down to Robert's Top for some live jazz and more drinks. S and I eventually decided we'd better head for home before we consumed any more alcohol.  The buses stop running at 8:30 but we had a plan A -- the taxi rank at the bus station -- and a plan B for if there were no taxis. S phoned for one and it arrived literally as he hung up. We were whizzed home in five minutes for just over 7 euros.

We were slightly the worse for wear by now, and my condition was not improved when S opened the door and Mystère instantly shot out into the pitch darkness. There was no point looking for him, so we just had to leave the window open and go to bed. He crept onto the bed sometime in the small hours and curled up as close to me as he could get. He's been very subdued today (Saturday) so I suspect he'd had some kind of unpleasant encounter.