A Second Chance
“I'm glad you're going somewhere you've been to before.” Ali's elderly mother had obviously been thinking about our troubles in January during our last holiday in Egypt with two galloping cases of the Pharaoh's revenge. I'll say no more on the subject. She went a bit quiet when reminded that on our one previous trip to Gran Canaria somebody had broken into the boot of our locked hire car and stolen our mobile phones. I suppose at least this was in 2012, before either of us owned the modern smartphones that contain every single detail of our existence down to our shoe sizes and without which we're worryingly lost these days. But on mine was a treasured picture of me with John Noakes, a much loved former “Blue Peter” presenter and childhood hero. I'd bumped into him at Gatwick Airport on the way home from a seminar in London. A lovely man who was more than happy to chat about those shared memories of the days when he was on my TV screen every week. The picture was gone forever, and sadly so has the great man himself.
Our previous visit, thirteen summers ago, was also the holiday when the hire company ripped me off, taking advantage of the fact we'd been travelling all day and were very tired after changing planes at Madrid, charging an exorbitant amount for a tank of petrol as the clock ticked towards midnight. More than three times what it cost at the pump. I complained bitterly about the sharp practice afterwards, but the hire company maintained a stony silence in response to my messages. Eventually the price comparison site sent me a cheque to shut me up. Neither of us were in an almighty rush to return to the island anytime soon. Gran Canaria appeared to have joined Italy (except for the Alps) and the Oxfordshire town of Wallingford on the list of places where things seem to go wrong whenever I visit them.
But there was an enticing half board deal on offer at a swanky looking kind of place in the hills above Maspalomas and we'd decided to give the maligned Gran Canaria a second chance. Everyone deserves a second chance. Well, almost everyone anyway. Besides which there was a complimentary safe in every room at the hotel and we wouldn't be leaving so much as a stray hiking sock in the car that I'd arranged to hire from one of the Canary Islands’ tried and trusted local companies. My mother in law was reassured by this news and having evidently forgotten that Ali is in her sixties, offered her a bit of spending money, which was politely declined. And declined a second time. And then reluctantly accepted. She does an awful lot for her frail and ancient parents. And I've been long convinced that they've got a money tree under the bed in any case.
And so we packed Giant Haystacks, the enormous borrowed suitcase. It seemed we were going somewhere a bit more upmarket than usual and there was a dress code for dinner. Normally I just throw in a couple of pairs of shorts, a few tee shirts and enough underwear to last the holiday, but this time I was packing long sleeved tops and of all things a long unworn pair of red chinos. When did I decide that red chinos were an essential item of clothing? With Bill Bryson's forthright opinions on men in red trousers firmly at the forefront of my mind, I shrugged and put them in the case. You can often get away with wearing funny coloured trousers in Europe. Meanwhile Ali was preparing what I'm told is known as a capsule wardrobe. You see while I'm watching photography videos on YouTube, she follows clothing gurus who've recently picked up a few pieces on a trip to Bhutan. Just enough to fill a dozen packing crates. Like me, you were probably thinking the phrase “capsule” meant compact. Try again. I paid an extra luggage fee because it was clear to any fool that the case was going to weigh more than twenty-three kilos, even though my side of it contained just two pairs of shorts, a few tee shirts and enough underwear to last the holiday. And a pair of red chinos. Was any of the bonus spending money offered to pay for the extra load? What do you think?
And apart from both of us being ill from day two until after returning home, things went more smoothly this time around. No breaking into cars, no shape shifting hire operators. The dress code didn't appear to be rigidly enforced so I only wore the chinos once, while the capsule wardrobe was rotated with a poised elegance I failed to match with my own sartorial offerings. The second chance hadn't been grasped as firmly as we'd have liked, but we'd seen enough to remove the island from the naughty list. It's hard to keep a grudge going when it has landscapes like this.
A Second Chance
“I'm glad you're going somewhere you've been to before.” Ali's elderly mother had obviously been thinking about our troubles in January during our last holiday in Egypt with two galloping cases of the Pharaoh's revenge. I'll say no more on the subject. She went a bit quiet when reminded that on our one previous trip to Gran Canaria somebody had broken into the boot of our locked hire car and stolen our mobile phones. I suppose at least this was in 2012, before either of us owned the modern smartphones that contain every single detail of our existence down to our shoe sizes and without which we're worryingly lost these days. But on mine was a treasured picture of me with John Noakes, a much loved former “Blue Peter” presenter and childhood hero. I'd bumped into him at Gatwick Airport on the way home from a seminar in London. A lovely man who was more than happy to chat about those shared memories of the days when he was on my TV screen every week. The picture was gone forever, and sadly so has the great man himself.
Our previous visit, thirteen summers ago, was also the holiday when the hire company ripped me off, taking advantage of the fact we'd been travelling all day and were very tired after changing planes at Madrid, charging an exorbitant amount for a tank of petrol as the clock ticked towards midnight. More than three times what it cost at the pump. I complained bitterly about the sharp practice afterwards, but the hire company maintained a stony silence in response to my messages. Eventually the price comparison site sent me a cheque to shut me up. Neither of us were in an almighty rush to return to the island anytime soon. Gran Canaria appeared to have joined Italy (except for the Alps) and the Oxfordshire town of Wallingford on the list of places where things seem to go wrong whenever I visit them.
But there was an enticing half board deal on offer at a swanky looking kind of place in the hills above Maspalomas and we'd decided to give the maligned Gran Canaria a second chance. Everyone deserves a second chance. Well, almost everyone anyway. Besides which there was a complimentary safe in every room at the hotel and we wouldn't be leaving so much as a stray hiking sock in the car that I'd arranged to hire from one of the Canary Islands’ tried and trusted local companies. My mother in law was reassured by this news and having evidently forgotten that Ali is in her sixties, offered her a bit of spending money, which was politely declined. And declined a second time. And then reluctantly accepted. She does an awful lot for her frail and ancient parents. And I've been long convinced that they've got a money tree under the bed in any case.
And so we packed Giant Haystacks, the enormous borrowed suitcase. It seemed we were going somewhere a bit more upmarket than usual and there was a dress code for dinner. Normally I just throw in a couple of pairs of shorts, a few tee shirts and enough underwear to last the holiday, but this time I was packing long sleeved tops and of all things a long unworn pair of red chinos. When did I decide that red chinos were an essential item of clothing? With Bill Bryson's forthright opinions on men in red trousers firmly at the forefront of my mind, I shrugged and put them in the case. You can often get away with wearing funny coloured trousers in Europe. Meanwhile Ali was preparing what I'm told is known as a capsule wardrobe. You see while I'm watching photography videos on YouTube, she follows clothing gurus who've recently picked up a few pieces on a trip to Bhutan. Just enough to fill a dozen packing crates. Like me, you were probably thinking the phrase “capsule” meant compact. Try again. I paid an extra luggage fee because it was clear to any fool that the case was going to weigh more than twenty-three kilos, even though my side of it contained just two pairs of shorts, a few tee shirts and enough underwear to last the holiday. And a pair of red chinos. Was any of the bonus spending money offered to pay for the extra load? What do you think?
And apart from both of us being ill from day two until after returning home, things went more smoothly this time around. No breaking into cars, no shape shifting hire operators. The dress code didn't appear to be rigidly enforced so I only wore the chinos once, while the capsule wardrobe was rotated with a poised elegance I failed to match with my own sartorial offerings. The second chance hadn't been grasped as firmly as we'd have liked, but we'd seen enough to remove the island from the naughty list. It's hard to keep a grudge going when it has landscapes like this.