And a similar one to you too, Patricia!
Made myself some tea and toast a few minutes ago after feeling quite odd for about an hour... I'm starting to think that this season of 'happiness' is one of the biggest con tricks of the lot. The more people talk to me about it, the fewer and fewer seem to like this time of year. I thought I'd have lunch out today, having made my own yesterday after a rotten one in a different bar the day before. Anyway, the place I intended to grace with my presence was closed, and the place that had served me the rubbish earlier had upped the price 50%, which they all do on holidays and Sundays. Cool. So back to the domestic drawing board and more pasta at lunch. Could have made paella, but I reserve that for Sundays because I can make it quite well, and won't break my lucky Sunday/paella streak.
Funny psychology some places have: used to frequent one restaurant five days a week for perhaps two or three years, and then I noticed that the owner was getting into the habit of moving me from my usual, preferred seat to another, smaller table at the very back, close to the entrance to the toilets. Now, okay, I used to use a table able to take four - at a crush - but I would roll up at 1pm like clockwork and be out as soon as they could fill me. Perhaps thirty-five minutes? I don't remember queues for tables, but I do remember getting really annoyed that a regular customer, worth several grand a year to the guy, would get treated with less respect than a one-off visitor. Bad business technique: I stopped going there two years or more ago and that's that.
Part of the trouble is that off-season, most places close and choice becomes so limited. Also, it becomes difficult to avoid other expats; after a while, the same conversations become worse than solitary eating which, by now, is second-nature and the only person I really want sitting opposite me every day can't be there. Anyway, we both eat better at home, so the matter hardly ever arose unless we both wanted to go for a drive and sit admiring the sea and enjoying really good, off-piste cooking from a lady from Zaragoza who taught my wife to make the paella that I learned to imitate, years later, from watching her...
Oh well, we shall see what joys 2016 has in store.
All the best,
Rob C xxx
