Rish's Holiday Diary - part 2

The saga continues:

Day 4: We went to the beach - well it is the done thing when on holiday on the Costa Blanca! Unfortunately the sun went in, so we ended up giving up and going home. When making dinner, I managed to slice my thumb open - luckily, it did not bleed too much, although I am sure it added a bit of flavour to the meal(!). Worse than the robbery, and the thumb injury, was the appearance of a cockroach in the flat that evening - urghh! I had no insect spray, but managed to make do with some air freshener. I cannot say for certain that the cockroach was dead when I expelled it from the flat, but it sure would have smelt citrus fresh!

Day 5: We went to the Police Station. Reassuringly, filing a Police report in Spain is much like in the UK; you wait around for ages, because there is only one officer taking reports, while about ten coppers stand around scratching their arses and going outside for a fag. After waiting for three hours, we eventually got it done. By then, we had to abandon our planned trip to Alicante. We got home to find three more cockroaches trying to get into the flat - still without insect spray, I found that furniture polish worked effectively - I never realised that Mr Sheen could multi-task!

Days 6 and 7: Went to Alicante. It was not very exciting. The next day we went to Murcia. It was better, but no-one spoke English, and having had our phrasebook stolen in the burglary, we struggled at times. The only person we found who spoke English was a Polish waitress, who remarked that it would be "easier to swim the ocean when you cannot swim, than it would be to spend time in Murcia without speaking Spanish". That told us! The waitress, Aleksandra, was lovely and a bit bonkers. Unfortunately I have lost the bit of paper which she wrote her email address on, so there is no chance of going for a barmy night out with her next time we go to Spain (not necessarily a bad thing - I have heard the Poles are crazy drinkers). I also discovered that the Matiz cannot make it past 65 mph without starting to shake!

Days 8 and 9: Pleasant days, spent at the beach. Lovely, but ruined by the sixty-something woman sunbathing topless nearby - yuck! The following day was packing up, featuring the heaviest hailstorm I have ever seen - it was like the sky was falling in, and I am glad we were indoors at the time. We unfortunately had to continue our battle against the cockroaches (now armed wth insect spray) and then the holiday ended as it began - with queues at the airport, and having to comply with the ridiculous situation of not being allowed to take a bottle of water on the plane with us.

This may sound a little ungrateful, as not everyone can afford to go on foreign holidays, but I didn't really enjoy myself much. Murcia was a good town, the beach was pleasant, it was great to not be at work, but a combination of robberies and cockroaches took the sheen off the holiday. Now I am just waiting to see if the insurance will pay up so we can get a new camera, and still paying off the hire of the crapmobile on my credit card...