Beside the Seaside

« In Which I Pay Homage To George Orwell | Home | In Which I'm No Longer In Any Spain »

In Which This Entry Nearly Didn't Get Written

April 26, 2008 by Mike

Lloret de Mar

Route: Barcelona - Lloret de Mar

32,500 miles on the clock, 18 months after I started the trip..

(not to mention 42 years since I started this life, the little white-walled house by the sea, all that slog through skool, college and mortgage payments, one marriage, three adult and one teenage broken hearts (Harriet Peel, for example: Harriet gets a name-check because she's least likely to read this..), hitchhiking in Greece, hundreds of gigs, holidays, hayfever, three long-term jobs, sticky pavements after Notting Hill Carnival, the Northern Lights, ski-ing with Marco, playing football in the Avenue, Support The Miners, a disastrous attempt to work in the music bizz, dancing like a loon, being rained on in Death Valley, meeting Rick Hall, Ma's 70th birthday, books books books, Brian Wilson, my drums, too many dodgy haircuts, Macchu Picchu, Ushuaia, New Orleans, Great Yarmouth, kissing, the 24-hour period I worked full freelance shifts at four separate radio stations, getting drunk and talking way past dawn with Remy before his wedding, redcurrant bushes, Norwich City beating Bayern Munich, the smell of hot sun on your skin, house red, dreams... and lots more besides that I've edited out for public consumption)..

.. nearly came to a sticky end this afternoon. By 'sticky', I mean 'blood-splattered corpse found on the bonnet of crashed car'.

I was a few miles south of here, on a small country road close to the sea, winding round low hills on a beautifully curvy road. You know me by now: taking it nice and slow, visor up, enjoying the smell of the pines, always slightly wary of having to actually turn at each corner, alert and attentive and--

WHOOOSSSSHH

it was there. And it was gone.

A small red car.

Overtaking an old Renault on a blind corner.

He was using three-quarters of my side of the road when I first saw him.

Cutting back to his side.

Not that he had time to react to seeing me.

Not that I had time to react to seeing him.

Or did I? Thinking back, I think I did exactly the right thing by *not* reacting. If I'd steered away, I would have hit a tree. Splat. Or fallen into the path of someone or other. Splat again. Instead -- and I can still feel the rush of air alongside me -- I stayed up, stayed on, stayed alive. No thanks to the danged fool in the small red car. If you're in Catalonia this summer, watch out for him.

--

Leaving Barcelona

Well, I didn't want to, frankly. But there comes a time..

This was, I suspect, the first sunny Sunday here for a while. Everyone was on the beach or, and this was the first time I've seen it this year, out on the water in boats. Sails as far as the eye could see. Man that looks fun. Summer's a-comin'.

--

And why have I only come this far? 30 miles or so up the Costa Brava? To a *grim* uber-resort?

Because I was here for a night when I was 17: InterRailling with a skool chum, Andy Blyth, and we diverted here because a couple more boys from skool were here on holiday. We lasted a night -- Doff had gastroenteritis and we had no idea if it was infectious -- I've just glanced at that link -- "most forms of gastroenteritis are highly infectious" -- but if it hadn't been for that I'd like to think we'd have fled because Lloret is so phenomenally tacky. One thing that shouldn't surprise me but has -- it's an almost completely Dutch resort. A few Germans, a few Brits, a sprinkling of French (who only have a few miles to travel to get here.. though why would they want to?)

Still, in honour of this being, probably, my last night in Spain, I treated myself to a bloody steak in an Argentinian restaurant.. yes!, a restaurant!.. and bloody good it was too.

Comments

Leave your comment

Back to Top

RSS feed | What are feeds?