Bike Ride-out

We went out to El Campello and Relleu again, with Ian and Deb and Tracey and Dale. We had a coffee at the seaside which was nice and then headed out to the wonderful restaurant for lunch. The roads are lovely around this area, (find La Carrasqueta on a map and go south!) and the scenery is amazing. However, when we go to the restaurant, although the door was open, there were no customers and no sign outside. It was open, but there were some new faces behind the bar.

It turned out, that the lady running it last time we went, was actually only managing it, and ‘managed it’ €50,000 into debt. Along with a similar amount at another bar as well as some local businesses, she had run up debts of over €100k, all in the name of this business, so destroying the life savings of the real business owner, and necessitating her returning to work. We hear of this happening so often over here. It is as though corruption and deceit are acceptable by products of living in Spain. Thank goodness Ed is the only one who will drive the machine, so we don’t need to rely on anyone else for their ‘skills’.

As we left the restaurant (having had a lovely meal – the same chef was still there) I suddenly got this stupid idea. I saw some unripe (green) lemons on the roadside. I picked one up, with the intention of throwing it a Deb ~ I would call out to her, knowing she wouldn’t catch it, and frighten her. However, as I threw it, I realised that I had thrown it too high, and it was about to hit her on her helmet, but I was too shocked to shout out. As I looked at her, she was looking at the floor, then in the sky, trying to work out where the lemon had suddenly dropped from. She and Tracey were looking at the trees (olives) and the birds, trying to figure it out ~ then they saw me doubled up with laughter and knew what had happened. I have no idea where the silly streak came from (Mother), but I did have the decency to apologise afterwards. (Even though I kept laughing.)