19/2003 - Haircuts, Rigorous Tours and Ticket Turmoil
27th March 2004
!Hola Amigos!
First, the Bulletin Ombudsperson would like us to advise you of a correction. Many thanks to our two knowledgeable Songs From The Shows correspondents, interestingly at near opposite ends of the UK - Andrew from Edinburgh and Carole from Eastbourne - who both pointed out that our windy ditties of previous mention have their origin in 'Calamity Jane', not 'Oklahoma'. As Andrew pointed out, the latter might provoke renditions of 'Oh what a beautiful morning!' (could well be true) and/or 'Ah'm just a girl who cain't say no' (no comment, please!).
'So the day dawned bright and clear ... ' - actually the day Jane (not the Calamity one!) and Averil were due to arrive at Barcelona wasn't really terribly bright or clear, weather-wise. Sadly, for several days, it hadn't been quite as warm as we'd promised them, but never mind - it wasn't raining. Oops, except that as the morning wore on and we got ready to leave Vilanova to meet them at the airport, there were a few ominous spits and spats of rain. Bother!
Having tidied the van up in preparation for our visitors, Dave decided that he'd like to tidy himself up a little too. The hair was definitely in need of the attentions of a pair of shears, so we got off the bus in the centre of Vilanova, in the company of Beardy who lead us, en route to do his own errands, down to where he thought there were some men's hairdressers. And thus we found him. A delightfully dapper Peluquero with sharply creased trousers and a crisp, mint-green, fitted tunic. There was a customer already in the hot-seat, with another one to be en-dappered before Dave. Maybe this gave Beardling a chance to get nervous, but certainly he didn't quite trust the fate of his appearance to Jeni's phrasebook-wielding attempts at describing what was wanted. So Dave quickly sketched out a cartoon of himself with the required Number 4 spikes on top, suitably labelled, and Number 2 from the clippers on the sides and handed said drawing to Senor Peluquero before being swathed in the all-enveloping black cape (with vicar-like white paper neck-band). Hmm. A cheeky smirk spread across Senor's face as he looked at the picture - 'Ah! Picasso!' - and put the little piece of paper carefully away on a shelf. Clearly he was going to dine out on that one for a while!
What happened? Well, the Number 2 with the clippers on the sides went fine. Looking good. Then Senor paused for a cigarette and another look at the drawing and started shaking his head. 'No machina aqui' he said pointing to the floppingly long locks on the top of Dave's head. Uh-oh. Then, having hidden his cigarette discreetly behind some bottles of hair potion, he got out the water spray, damped the top of Dave's head and proceeded to blow-dry it vigorously into what can only be described as Rampant Hedgehog Bouffante. Dave, without his glasses, was blissfully unaware of the effect of this manoeuvre and Jeni was reduced to nail-biting silence.
Then Senor proceeded to take a whisker off the hedgehog, if you get the drift. Using comb and scissors - definitely not 'machina' - he snipped maybe a half a centimetre off. 'Un poco mas?' - a little more? - Jeni suggested tentatively a couple of times, and he obligingly trimmed another couple of millimetres off. The third or fourth such suggestion drew a long tirade apparently about the length of the top being crucial in suiting Dave's face shape, during which explanation he waved his hands artistically round Our Hero's head, chucking him under the chin and patting his whiskery cheeks freely. Finally, we reached a good understanding and left the shop with Dave well pleased with The Look - now a kind of low-key Crew-Cut Porcupine - and with Senor Peluquero's artistic sensibilities intact, having told him that he was the Picasso - with hair (at least we hope that's what Jeni said to him!).
Thus it was we wandered back through the town to the station to take the train to Barcelona airport to meet Jane and Averil.
And what a great time we had with them too. Completely exhausting, but huge fun. Exhausting not because of what we Fruitbats did, necessarily, but watching what they did! Their credentials as Serious Sightseers is legendary, but this particular week their determination to pack in as much as possible was awesome. If they ran a holiday company it could only be called 'Jane and Averil's Rigorous Tours Inc' (strapline: 'Pressing On!' - in contrast to Rollingfruitbat Meanders Inc, strapline: 'Coffee stop anyone?!').
We got them ensconsed in their little log cabin on the Camping. It was a bit basic, but once we'd got the heater going they thawed out somewhat (fishing their emergency hotties out of their bags in preparation for night cosiness), then we went up to eat at the restaurant. Barcelona was on the itinerary for the next day (hah! we fondly thought that they might like a resting-up day after their travelling and recovering from work - resting up? hah!). It was their first visit to Barcelona and the first of our promised return runs, having so much enjoyed what we saw of the city earlier in the year.
We did the orientation open-top bus tour which is always a good way of seeing an unfamiliar city, and was particularly agreeable in Barcelona because of all the weird and wonderful Guadi and other architecturally amazing buildings. Given that we Fruitbats had walked our socks off on our previous visit and hardly got beyond the Gothic quarter and La Rambla, we were all in favour of an easier way of taking in the major sights - and this would give the turistically determined a chance to develop their Priority List of what they would like to come back and see in more depth (guess which duo had bought bargain 2-day bus tickets for another onslaught the next day? - difficult question that, isn't it?!). It just isn't possible to sum up Barcelona - you really have to go if you haven't been, it's a tremendously vibrant city with a real buzz and such contrasts - the open, modern waterfronts with a huge section developed for the Olympic Games, medieval areas, breathtaking buildings on every other block (that cathedral!), lots of green space - and they've also got a big world forum event on over the whole summer which sounds fantastic.
It got increasingly cold on the top deck of the Bus Turistic as the afternoon wore on and eventually Dave selflessly handed over his woolly hat, gloves and one of his jackets to supplement The Gals' existing stash of warmer items which had emerged from rucksacks. (Jeni - perhaps disloyally? - adds that Dave, having sacrificed his woollies, leapt off the bus to wait for the rest of us in the warmth of a café. Actually, it's less a disloyal revelation, more in awe of his good sense - by the time We Gals joined him, we were gibbering with chill. But my goodness, we'd Pressed On!) It was a great bus-ride though (which is why we stuck with it), and J&A marked their map for the next day whilst Jeni marked hers for whenever the Fruitbats return.
Poor Jane had had something of a Bad Ticket day one way and another. Calamity Jane after all maybe? It hadn't started too well on the outward journey as the ticket machine at Vilanova station had swallowed up her newly purchased train ticket and, being the only one left on the ticket office side of the barriers, she had to go back and, with her 30-year-old memories of Spanish classes, try to explain that her ticket had disappeared. It was only later on the train when the dictionary came out, that we realised she'd made a bit of a faux pas - Jane reckoned that in trying to find a word approximating to 'disappeared' she had covered a range of applications around disparar (lose control, to go off) and disparatado (crazy) - ! Anyway, she got her ticket back but left a railway employee very perplexed. After that, she became decidedly nervous of ticket machines, but it was only on the return journey that trouble struck again.
Trying to get through the automatic barrier at the station at Barcelona, the machine kept spitting the ticket back out at her. Once again, Averil and the Fruitbats had already streamed through so could only gaze in sympathy at her increasingly wild attempts to persuade the machine her ticket was valid - until, that is, Averil spotted that Jane was in fact trying to travel on her multi-journey Vilanova bus pass. Ah. Short pause with frenzied hunt for correct ticket and we were away. But you can guess what happened on the bus, can't you? Yes, the railway ticket machine had damaged the magnetic strip on the bus pass, leading the driver to believe that the ticket was completely used up. Poor Jane, she'd become inconsolably paranoid by that stage, and all we could do was have a whip-round for the 85 cents for her fare and get her back to the Lorry for a very large glass of wine and a review of the more enjoyable aspects of the day. Both activities, we're glad to report, restored her spirits immeasurably and by the time the food was served, she was up for a spat with any ticket machine that dared to cross her.
So J and A managed not only the next day Pressing On round Barcelona, but had a third day there after the weekend. Yes, they were pretty taken with the city too. We also roamed more of Vilanova, including parts of the seafront, harbour, 'did' the bustling market, and had a warm, sunny day at Sitges, which was hosting its annual art exhibition in a long, long marquee on the seafront. A somewhat mixed display ranging from the worst of the 'sunset in oils' / painting by numbers efforts to some beautiful and unusual work - and the people-watching was fab! We enhanced the latter experience by a two and a half hour lunch sitting at a table outside our chosen restaurant watching the world go by as we ate. Memorable among the people-watching was an immensely willowy, slim-hipped, long-legged guy with the butchest terrier you can imagine, with a ribbon round its chunky leather, studded harness. They literally posed outside our restaurant while he (the guy, not the dog) was chattering into his mobile phone, obviously guiding his companions into the right restaurant. One of those moments to treasure! Sitges also boasts an establishment that is truly Dave's Delight - a launderette where you can log on and do your internetting whilst your smalls twirl and tumble!
By the time it was departure day for J&A, they were really getting into the Spanish way of things - late, long lunches and dinners with moderately severe doses of vino tinto being key to the therapy. We reckon if we could have kept them with us for another few days they might have become so chilled out that they (a) started each Rigorous Touring day with a coffee stop, Fruitbat-style, and repeated the prescription at hourly intervals and (b) interspersed Days of Rigour with relax-outside-the-cabin/Lorry-in-the-sun days (yes, the sun did put in some cameo appearances after the chilly start to their visit). But there, next time.
Sad to see them go but we think they were pleased by their breakette, and seemed to be reassured how easy it was to track down the Rollingfruitbats and inspect them in situ. Courtesy of Easyjet they got ludicrously cheap flights too. Hurrah! Any other volunteers?
Looking at the calendar we knew we were going to have to move on if we wanted to get through France at a reasonably leisurely pace and still be at Calais in time for our ferry in early April. What better way to end our stay at Vilanova than a farewell drink in the bar with Beardy and Ma B? As luck (?) would have it, it was Cuban night. Not much chance of quiet chats, though, with Masha stripping down from glittery top hat and tails to sparkly thong for his fire-eating routine. His friend Roget (who some of you might remember from Bingo) provided the musical accompaniment (i.e. putting on the CDs, doing the whoops and cat-calls and getting the crowd-of-15 whipped into a frenzy of clapping) and Roget's partner Hermione (well, something like that, only with a heavy Cuban-Spanish accent it sounded more exotic) played the female glamour, spangly, lovely-assistant role.
Our not-so-chirpy Danish neighbour (the one with severe pessimism held up by belt and braces) wasn't in evidence but we did notice the Dutch couple with the his 'n' hers Winnie the Pooh and Minnie Mouse sweatshirts were having a roistering time. Mike and Della were slinking into the corner to avoid being spotted by TIM (The Illustrated Man, as they call him). Their description of him is best so we take the liberty of quoting: 'Stout of build, shaven head, smokes roll-ups, every mortal inch of his torso tattooed. Comes from the Isle of Man and "does up bikes" for a living. [They] made the mistake of getting into conversation with him the other evening and without wanting to [they] learned more about timing-chains and valve-sprockets and grunge-wheelies than any human being has a right to know.' No wonder they were trying to blend into the background every time Masha sashayed towards us, rubbing firey brands on his naked belly and arms, and all eyes followed him. Clearly it wasn't just that Beardy was terrified of a sudden facial hair conflagration if Masha stumbled, but also that there might be another unprovoked phlange-springler information assault from TIM if he'd spotted us all lurking at our table at the back. Happily, both potential emergencies failed to materialise, and much later we wandered back to our respective Lorries, leaving Masha remarkably un-singed and the bar staff hoping everyone would make an early night of it.
So, leaving Della and Mike preparing for a visit from their son and new(ish) partner, we said our fond goodbyes to them, and bade farewell to the Danish neighbours on both sides (no hard feelings, huh?!) and the charming German couple, of previous acquaintance, who spoke no English and had been giving Jeni German lessons in the up-waschen raum.
Thus, off we went in north search of volcanoes. Which, of course, is another story ...
Love to you all,
Dave y Jeni
xxxxx