Well, hello, good evening, and welcome.
Now the really observant among you will probably have noticed that although I
have posted an episode of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook every day,
by spreading my post about my trip to Murcia over two days, I cunningly avoided
having to say anything about yesterday. Clever huh? Well, the fact is that
there really isn’t much to say about yesterday or today, so it will be
interesting to see if I can string one episode out of the both of them.
If that introductory paragraph didn’t
manage to put you off, then I applaud your tenacity, and just hope that what
follows will be worth you sticking with. Yesterday, then. Jen left the casa
very early in the morning for an appointment at the hospital. The good news is
that when she returned she said that her immune system has improved
considerably, and certainly she has seemed much more like herself in the last
couple of days.
She’d been given another
prescription, and John also had a prescription which needed picking up, so this
put me onto chemist duty in the afternoon. The pharmacist I’ve been dealing
with in the last week has been a holiday relief apparently. As I walked in and
she saw me, I saw a cloud pass momentarily over her features as I walked in. I
bet she was thinking, “Oh, flipping heck, not Senor Ladythings again.” After I
handed her the prescriptions and Jen and John’s cards, I did for a moment think
that I was actually going to achieve my mission without any fuss for the first
time this holiday. But no. She stood there, looking at Jen’s medicine, then her
computer screen, and shook her head. She couldn’t work out whether she was just
supposed to give the one box, because if she was supposed to give more, then
she’d have to order it. Still, between her uncertain English, and my far worse
Spanish, we worked out between us that I could have the one box, and would come
back if there was supposed to be more so she could order it.
Now, having sampled the delights of
Catral, Dolores, San Felipe Neri, El Realengo and Callosa de Segura over the
last few days, I’d decided to venture in the other direction and check out
Crevillent for a suitable subject for sketching yesterday afternoon. And I
found one. Heading down what I presumed was the main street, I saw a sign for
the centro urbano pointing uphill. – That sounds promising. – said I, and drove
the Smart uphill, and round a complicated maze of streets until we came to a
very promising looking church. Unfortunately there was absolutely nowhere I could
park even the Smart. I resolved to try going around in a big circle, and have another
look for a parking space when I got back close to the church. The only thing
is, in these nearby small towns, the Spanish do have something of a fondness
for one way systems. I could go up, and I did. I could go down, and I did. I
could go round and round and I did. Could I find my way back to the church,
though? Could I heck as like. So I’m sorry, but there’s no sketch from
yesterday.
Unable to satisfy my creative urge
through my pen, last night, I ended up cooking for all of us. We quickly fished
out all of the ingredients, and I got cracking. And you’ll have to take my word
for it, but let me tell you that once you’ve had a nibble on my Bolognese, you
don’t go back. Sometimes you can’t.
Today, then. On a more serious note,
Russ has been worried about John’s feet for a week now, and after yesterday he
saw to it that John had a Doctor’s appointment to examine them. Without going
into huge detail, as I said John finds it very difficult to walk any distance
at all now, and is also experiencing difficulties with his hands. Up to now,
this has been treated as a consequence of a spinal injury which John suffered
some years ago. Now, according to the doctor John saw today, it is a
consequence of his diabetes. His diabetes was diagnosed a few years ago, and
his sugar is stable, but all the years it went untreated did the damage
according to this doctor. He’s making an appointment for John to see a
specialist, so we’ll see what they can do then.
The big event for the day, then, was
lunch out at El Burladero in Catral. Quick trivia question – where would you
see a burladero, and what is it used for? No? Well, you’d see it in a bull
ring. It’s a wooden screen which a bull fighter can cower behind when the bull
finally decides it’s had enough of a big red hanky being waved in its face. To
be honest, it turned out that dining here was a little bit of a gamble, not
because the food wasn’t good, but because there was no written menu and the
lovely waitress couldn’t really understand us any more than we could understand
her. More by luck than judgement, though, we ended up with a rather delicious
meatball starter, and a definitely delicious cod main course. We sat out in the
open, which was just as well. There was a bull’s head mounted on the wall, and
had we been eating beefy meatballs under its nose it would have been rather
insensitive to say the least. In the forecourt, the restaurant had fans which
sprayed a fine mist of water over the diners at intervals, and very refreshing
it was too.
So there you go, dearly beloved, we
made it to the end of the episode after all. Without much chance for sketching
today, I’ve included a sketch made in the station in Murcia, which I’ve been holding back for a sketchless episode just such as this
one. 
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