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Just as I am hoping to fall asleep my girlfriend insists that we set off for the fair. After a while I feel better and even
venture onto a simulator. How scarey can that be? The answer turns out to be "very" - it is all I can do hold on and avoid
being thrown around the cabin like a car crash. Quite what it was simulating I have no idea. In future I will content
myslef with looking at the pretty girls in costume.
When we get back to Gibraltar there is a cloud over the rock every bit as impressive as a fairground ride. We walk to Casemates Square and get a taxi home. As we walk up the stairs (the lift is broken) we try to work out how many floors we are climbing but are too tired to do the complex mathematics.
Although it is still cool for this time of year, it is very humid and we decide to get a bus back up from the Kings
Bastion to the Rock Hotel. This turns out to be a number 4 which is one of Gibraltar's more exciting buses as it goes
round in circles reaching parts that other buses do not reach.
Neither of us feel too well but I don't think it is swine flu - maybe guinea pig flu.
At about 2.00pm in the afternoon various important (and self important) people start to turn up at the cafe next
door. The vast majority of the Spaniards coming to Gibraltar come to sweep the floors and break people's ear drums with
their motor scooters but today we have top Spanish dudes arriving. "Foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos was greeted
at the frontier by Spanish protesters accusing him of treason and, once in Gibraltar, by balconies and windows festooned
with Union flags", says The Guardian.
Actually, for every Union Jack there were a dozen pairs of knickers (I counted them).
By early evening the press have given up and the police then stage a "count the police bikes" competition (there are
six).
In the evening we go over the border to eat at the Taste, which badly needs air conditioning. We then watch an exhibition of dancing on a big stage in Casemates Square. We are so exhausted watching this that we get a taxi home. Amazingly cheap at £3.20 and amazingly quiet - no Spanish radio chatter or inane radio station. Bliss.
Time for another boat - this is
Atlantic Salvor
which is wandering around the bay looking for something worth salvoring.
In the evening we set off for an ice cream but the traffic across the border is backed right up and across the airfield -
tough if you are a Boeing 747 trying to do an emergency landing in Gibraltar.
We arrive at La Canada just as the ice cream place closes but the charming girls serve us anyway - if I ever meet Ben &
Jerry I'll put in a good word for you, girls.
In the morning my girlfriend goes down town and comes across a man wearing a funny hat - some people will do anything
to get on TV.
Late in the evening we go down to Casemates Square to see what is going on (bands warming up) and then on to the fair - again.
In the afternoon we decide to visit the mini zoo in the Alameda Gardens. It only costs £2 to get in and is very small with
some interesting animals - most of which have come from Customs and Excise who have confiscated them from smugglers.
I believe the bird above is a starling of some sort but maybe not ...
And this is Algy Pug, the wise friend of Rupert Bear - whose trousers are worn by a whole generation of Americans.
And this is an ... er ... coloured plant of some kind. Nice though.
Later my girlfriend goes to see a dentist who fits her with some kind of brace which excites a lot of interest in the Little
Rock Cafe.
Morons keep leaving the umbrellas out and they blow into the pool.
We set off for Ronda where we eat what purports to be coffee ice cream but is really toffee ice cream. Yuck.
Later, I replace the failed 5 amp fuse in my girl-friend's hair straightener with a 13 amp fuse with the result that the
subsequent bang and flash is just so much more satisfying. Half an hour later my ears are still ringing.
SNAFU - Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.
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