Beside the Seaside

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In Which I Wuz Robbed

April 14, 2008 by Mike

Benicassim

Route: Malva-Rosa - Villareal - Castellon - Grau - Benicassim

I was saying yesterday how good the campsite was, wasn't I?

Hmmmm. Spoke too soon. Soft ground to pitch yr tent and a ready supply of both loo roll and loo seats are all well and good. And the people I met last night? Ace.

This morning, I took my mobile in to Reception and asked to charge it up. Done it a hundred times in 50 campsites. Never a problem.

"No, no!", said the excitable woman with the bad peroxide hairdo behind the desk. "You must use the electricity points in the toilets!" (They had power points as well as loo roll and seats.)

"I would be much happier doing it here," I replied. "I trust you, after all. And I don't want to spend the next three hours in the toilet block keeping an eye on my phone."

(It's quite true. I didn't.)

"No-oooooooooo," she said. "On this campsite you can trust everybody. They are campers, yes?"

I had to admit they were campers. I trusted her. She trusted them. And so I plugged my mobile in to charge and stepped off to the beach with a carton of pineapple juice and a good book. As you do.

I checked the phone 30 minutes later and.. of course.. it was gone.

"Dangnabbit," I cussed [or something along those lines.]

I ran straight to reception and.. well.. she didn't seem in the least bit surprised to hear that the phone had been stolen. Hmmmmm.

She also neglected to apologise, or utter a word of sympathy. Hmmmmm again.

"Of course you shouldn't have left it there. You can't trust anybody these days, can yo?"

Her hair really was a mess.

There are a couple of hundred caravans and campervans and tents on the site. Most are empty at the moment. There were German, Dutch, Spanish and French people on the site as I walked round, jangled, *seething*, asking if anyone had seen anything.

"Excuse me. Did you steal my mobile phone, you *******?" (Was what I wanted to say.. but didn't.)

Everyone was concerned, sympathetic, kind - and no help at all.

Everyone except a rat-faced German in a shellsuit, who was the closest person to the toilet block. Hmmmm. He offered lots of advice about who might have done it and muttered something about how you can't trust anybody these days. Hmmmmm.

That phone.. it's only a phone, I know.. but I've got txt messages stored on there from the day Ma died, and the days after, that I value. And nearly 20€ credit.. I value that too.

My temperature was rising, and I made sure that people could see it. The thief was still on the site -- the phone had disappeared in the last 30 minutes or so -- and I wanted him or her to see just what it meant to me. And that I was clearly a Mad Biker quite prepared to rip the limbs off anyone who crossed me. Grrrrrrowl, (said Mike the Pussycat.)

But it worked! By jimminy, it worked.

I was still stomping, when Rat-boy's wife emerged from the Ladies'. "Has anybody their handy lost?", she asked, looking straight at me. Sickly sweet smile. "Look what I have in the Ladies' toilet found." She held out the phone and charger in her hands.

(I know what you're thinking. After getting a bit tipsy last night I'd wandered into the Ladies' this morning by mistake. Believe you me, I still have the smell of the Gents' in my nose even now.. I had been in the right place.. at the wrong time.

Whether Ratboy and his wife were tipped off by the receptionist, I don't know. They *all* had bad hair.

Maybe they were all innocents and I'm being unfair.

I was just pleased to see the phone. (And pleased I'd switched it off when I left it. And pleased that it's protected by a PIN code, so when Ratboy or Ratgirl fired it up to see what it was worth, they found it was worthless.

Which is a longwinded way of saying: Got up this morning; my mobile was stolen then returned; decided I didn't really want to be in this campsite anymore.

A roadside poster campaign. I think they're known as 'false friends' -- words in a foreign language that look like a word in English, but mean something completely different.

For example: despite all appearances to the contrary, what this man thinks he needs is.. a new flat ;-)

I had choices ahead: after a detour to Villareal to see the teenyweeny Madrigal football stadium.. turns out Villareal is just an extended indstrial estate downwind of the provincial capital, Castellon. Which was OK-ish without being anything special. It's also a it inland.

El Grau is the coastal end of things, and this *had* been recommended by my long-suffering chum Colin. (Every time he recommends somewhere I sail past it. He keeps plugging away. I really appreciate it. Cheers, Col.)

However, one of his reasons for pointing me towards Grau being "it's quite close to Benicassim", I thought it just as well to come all the way here. Another five whole miles.

This is.. excuse the gross oversimplification.. Spain's Glastonbury. Except that the Benicassim Festival FIB every July involves lots of *sunshine* and long, fine *beaches*, rather than *rain* and *mud*.

And in April, it still has beach and (some) sun without tens of thousands of young people having a brilliant time. In fact, I'm the youngest person in the whole town.. and that's saying something.

More tomorrow. I need to go and find somewhere to charge my phone.

Beside the Seaside

In Which I Wuz Robbed

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