Summer 2019 - Episode 2 - 25th August - San Isidro

Good evening, and welcome to episode 2 of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook, summer 2019 edition. I went to bed last night about 11:30 after posting episode 1. I woke up this morning at just after 7am. Almost 8 hours of sleep is pretty much unheard of for me – except that I did the same on Tuesday evening as well. And like yesterday morning, for the first half hour or so after waking up I was stumbling round, feeling rather unpleasantly like being drunk. What’s unpleasant about being drunk? Ask a glass of water – boom boom.

John’s home help, a really nice guy called Russ, was in this morning, and after he’d been for about an hour we adjourned to the nearby El Rekreo Bar for a spot of brekkie. I wish it had only been a spot of olive oil that I spilt on my light coloured shorts, but it was enough to cause a stain rather like the outline of Antarctica on them. Guess where? That’s right, just close enough to the zip so that anybody looking would unavoidably draw the conclusion that some of the worst things they’ve heard about Englishmen must be true. Much later in the day I did return to make the sketch you can see with this post, but I did it during afternoon siesta time, when I knew that the bar would be a snigger free zone.

Before we went out for breakfast I’d put a load in the washing machine, and so when we got back I pulled it out and took it upstairs to peg on the line. In my bare feet. I think I took about 4 steps in all before running back into the shade. Maybe the smell of burnt flesh was all in my imagination, but the burning sensation on the soles of my feet wasn’t.

So to the hospital. Now, I don’t wish to go over old ground here, but following the experience in the chemist’s yesterday, what with taking Jen into hospital I’d had no opportunity to go back for the personal lady things which had caused so much furtive discussion. On the way to the hospital this morning I did pick them up, and I’m sure the two of them were laughing as I went through the door. I did consider turning back and telling them once again that they really weren’t for me, but thought stuff it. When we saw Jen this morning no decision had been made about how long she was going to be staying. If we were looking for omens, well, we had to mask and glove up before being allowed in her room. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried putting on surgical gloves, but they’re fiddly things at the best of time. Okay, I’m still fairly dexterous, but I do suffer from arthritis in both hands. John’s fingers are in a far worse state than mine, and so I guess that the 15 minutes or so it took us to put them on can be looked on as a success. Still, if that was an unhelpful omen, a helpful one was that she certainly looked and sounded a bit better than when she was admitted yesterday. By the time we left the hospital the doctors hadn’t yet been round to make any decision about how long she’d be there.

On the drive home, John discovered that just because Dave remembers the way to the hospital, this has no effect on whether he remembers the way back from the hospital to the Casa Me Duck. I wouldn’t like to say how long the unscheduled detour added to the journey, but I’ve now seen more than enough of the mean streets of Dolores to last me for this trip.

We got there, though, and after a light lunch of my Spanish speciality, un sandwich con queso, which funnily enough closely resembles a cheese sandwich, I asked John if he minded me going out for a sketching walk.

“I’m not going far.” I assured him.

“Go as far as you like.” He replied. “Jen won’t be ringing for hours yet, not until after 5.”

Which is when I made the sketch of the El Rekreo Bar. I would reckon that I was back in the Casa Me Duck by about quarter to three. Of course Jen had rung before then, to say that she was being discharged, and could we please go and pick her up. There you go.

To be fair, by the time we got to the hospital this afternoon, Jen looked and sounded better again. Even when I managed to take another wrong turning – this one being a little closer to home than this morning’s, and on a road which at least offered the opportunity for a three point turn. Personally I thought that there was little need for quite so many gestures from the driver whose car I nearly hit.

And that, good people, is pretty much it for today. Doubtless there will be more sketching in tomorrow evening’s episode, but I’m not making any plans about going further afield than the village until I see how everyone is and what everyone’s plans are tomorrow. Hopefully see you then.