Marjal 2nd week

Still Sunday 14th

Went for the 10 mile bike ride to Rojales came back, eat, knackered, Tricia went to bed at 8 pm! I was left to type this and watch “3rd Rock from the Sun” on my laptop with ear phones in, some of it was in 3D!

Monday 15th

Received an e-mail from Fernando Saez from the British Consulate in Madrid; “you are too far away and wearing glasses, so will not process application”. Measured and compared with SWMBO’s picture and we (our heads) are the exact same size. I WEAR glasses!

Went back to the same PASSPORT photo shop another €4 and sent that one off with me wearing a different pair of clear reading glasses, the original are slightly tinted so that might be it.

Forgot, last night I was in the local bar on the site and a Brit camper came, sat down at the bar, and ordered a double scotch on the rocks. After he finished the drink, he peeked inside his shirt pocket and then he ordered another double scotch. After he finished that one, he again peeked inside his shirt pocket and ordered another double scotch. Finally, I said, "Look, I’ve been watching you drinking all night long. But you have to tell me why you look inside your shirt pocket before you order." The guy replied, "I'm looking at a photo of my wife. When she starts to look good, then I know it's time to go home."
Tuesday 16th

Hells teeth! It’s bloody freezing this morning. Looked at the thermometer and it says 13ºC, we are probably getting soft.

Was out riding through Guardamar the other day when this young Spanish kid cycled past us and decided to give his handlebars a tug and then unicycled up the hill. “Stupid twat”. Now that’s not a word I’ve heard from the missus, ever. I wonder who she picked it up from?
It reminded me however of the time she uttered a more basic expletive.

We, the family, Adam and Heather were in their teens, were watching “The Matrix” DVD and it was getting quite tense. When it got to the bit when they were hiding in the wall and a cop thought he could hear something, then the one who turned out to be the traitor coughed. “Oh fuck!” Well the kids had never even heard the wife say “bloody”, so it came as a bit of a shock, I looked at them, they looked at me, we all looked at Tricia, she just stared at the TV and then, nobody said a word.

When we arrived at the site we noticed that there was a notice board and on it was “Cycle with us! Saturday and Tuesdays 10 am”. Well this morning I thought I would check it out. The leader had an upside down sweeping brush, with a tied up washing line attached to the top of it and attached it to the back of his bike. I decided not go.

Guess what? It’s washing day again. SWMBO is obsessive about cleaning things, she even wanted to wash my underpants again and I had only had them on for 4 days and not even reversed them yet!

This also means that I have to fill the fresh water tank and empty the grey waste tank as she washes on board now because we have free electric so she does not have to lug it across to the shower block. I’ve never got time to read my book, busy, busy, busy.

And now by popular request


The Viennese Boys Choir.
This story is true so I will use real names, well up to a point.
During the late 80’s when I was Sales Manager of Gould Computers, we used to run customer events for GUS. (Gould User Group) These things could take many forms but usually revolved about meeting in nice places and having various presentations with the users. I liked these things because, although if we as a company got pilloried on occasions, it usually led to us supplying a better product and in the evening, over a few drinks, we got to know our customers better. Of course sometimes it was just an excuse for a good piss up.
Well as you can guess from the title, we arranged a meeting in Vienna and star attraction was to be the Viennese Boys Choir, not all of them, just those whose balls had not dropped yet.
It was an obligatory black tie affair in a huge chandelier lit hall seating over 100. At the last minute an Australian arrived in jeans and T shirt and was put on our table, at the back of the room and told to wear a paper tie they had given him. He didn’t.

I was at a table of 10 including Derek Leadbetter, my boss, and amongst other people Ray, let’s call him Ray Crawford.

Ray was 6’ 4” and built like a brick shit house. He had a brain the size of a planet and the social graces of a 12 year old. He was also the senior scientist at RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment) at Farnborough. His main job was testing RB211 Rolls Royce engines in a building that could simulate the high altitudes jet engines fly at.

One day while I was there trying to sell him an even bigger (therefore more expensive / cost effective) computer I noticed a pile of frozen chickens. “Er. Ray what are those for”? “We chuck them in the engines to simulate bird strike”.

Ray also liked his beer and food and at lunch he would have drunk his first pint before you had finished ordering and would be rattling the empty glass on the counter. I liked Ray a lot; he was blunt, to the point and in the time I knew him never told an untruth, I always knew where I stood with him. He was also chairman of GUS so some of our meetings became quite heated, as I said, he told it as it was.

Back to Vienna; after the meal and coffee everybody was told to stop drinking, stop eating, stop smoking and keep quiet as the Choir came in. Very impressive.

So they started up and it was very pleasant. I was sitting next to Ray and he was nodding and swinging his arms about as if he knew the tune/hymns they were singing, I don’t think he did actually because on a number of occasions when there was a pause he would clap and of course it had not ended yet.

It was coming to the finale and Ray stood up, the Choir were really belting it out, Ray was swinging wildly, humming away with gusto. The Choir came to a tremendous crescendo and held an impossibly long high note. There was a pause.



Then Ray farted.



My left ear was 10” from his rather large arse, it burst my eardrum, suffered an instant nose bleed and I lost sight in my eye for a week.

It was not your everyday fart, this was one you saved up for week, had been bubbling away all through the meal ready to meet the world. This fart was up there with the greatest cataclysmic events of all time, Krakatoa, a bee fart, Nagasaki, a mere whisper.

This was the big one, it was a room shaker.

Then the applause came!

I did not know if it was for the Choir or Rays fart, who could tell? Derek pointed to the Aussie, who he thought had blown a raspberry, I pointed to Rays arse, Derek fell helpless into his plate.

Our Marketing Director, Phil Martin, came from the front of the hall, “Who moved that bloody chair?”!!!

Derek and I collapsed in a heap in the corner of the room. You know when you laugh so much it starts to hurt, we were miles past that point, we were actually crying. Two grown men standing in the corner crying.

Bob Torgler, an American Vice President of Europe and our boss, saw us.
“The Choir were very moving, weren’t they”?
I wet myself.

Epilogue
I took Ray out to lunch a few weeks later and just had to ask him about “the event”.
“Well, I was trying to get it out while they were singing, just miss-timed it that’s all, where’s my other pint?”