August 19th San Isidro

Not long to go now. In fact, not long is an accurate description of this particular episode of an English Fool With His Sketchbook. There just isn’t a great amount to say about a pretty uneventful day.

We visited John in hospital this morning. In all honesty I think he’s getting a bit stir crazy. He was sitting in his chair though, and while we were there he was walking by himself, so at least that shows that he’s quite a bit better than he was when we brought him in on Wednesday. Hopefully they might well say that he can come home tomorrow.

We stayed until lunchtime, but John was getting a bit sleepy then, and so it made sense to take our leave. If you were with me last Sunday you might remember that I told you of the family tradition to have Sunday lunch in a restaurant in Crevillente called Las Palmeras – presumably so called because the outside of the place is festooned with palm trees. It was somewhat quieter today than it was last week, as far as I could tell we weren’t contending with a hen party as we were last week. Then it was back to the Casa Me Duck.

After a bit of a siesta, Jen packed the car to go back to the hospital, and I made the watercolour and ink sketch of the main street in San Isidro looking out of town that’s on this page. As for the Japanese characters, well, it’s like this. I also post in a Facebook group called Sketching Every Day. Each day there is a prompt to sketch, although one can always choose to go off prompt. Today’s was to wok in the style of artist Mateusz Urbanowicz. He’s a Polish born artist and illustrator living and working in Tokyo, and his style really lends itself to Urban sketching. So I did try to use as close to his palette as I could get. To pay respect to the man himself, though, I used Google, and if I’ve got it right, it says San Isidro, and my name. If I haven’t, well, I just hope that the translation isn’t too offensive.

Alicante Day Three (written 12th August)

Well, my friends, I’m sorry to report that today’s An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook is another pretty much foolishness free zone. Well, it’s Sunday, isn’t it?

If you read yesterday’s episode, you may be wondering about the Spanish evening at the Cerveceria which I mentioned yesterday. Well, apparently the wearing white is just a convention, nobody seemed to know any great significance to it. If you go the whole hog you wear it with a red neckerchief as well, but I didn’t notice anyone doing it last night. In fact it seemed as if quite a few hadn’t got the dress code memo, but then who am I to point the finger?

So, what was involved in the Spanish evening? Well, if I’m honest, it seemed pretty indistinguishable from an English evening. The only huge difference was that in Spain things do tend to get going much later. Although scheduled for a 9 pm start, people really didn’t start filling the place until about 10. Now, unfortunately Jen was taken quite ill during the evening – and all she had all the time we were there was a bottle of fizzy water. Trouper that she is she really didn’t want to come away, but by half ten she looked absolutely grey. So I went back to the Casa Me Duck, and fetched the car. I could have gone back after that, but to be honest, that sort of thing really isn’t my cup of tea. I don’t know whether it’s my Scottish ancestry or my profession as a teacher, but I don’t really want to see large groups of people enjoying themselves. Joking aside, I wouldn’t have felt right.

So to the sketches. Only two of them today. The first is an old Renault Four which is/was parked up a few streets away from the Casa Me Duck. Now, there were tons of these around when I was a kid, and I wouldn’t have looked at one twice then. But that’s kind of the point. I haven’t been a kid for a very long time now, and this car must have been between 40 and 50 years old. So that’s why I sketched it, enjoying a tranquil (and hot) retirement on the Costa Blanca, as indeed are a significant number of the locals. Having said that, John informs me that due to – and excuse me for using the B word – Brexit, a significant number of the ex-pat community on the Costa Blanca have sold up and moved back, and others have taken Spanish nationality. I’ll be honest, I can’t blame them. If it comes to trusting your future status to the British Government . . . Alright. No more political comments if I can help it.

One final sketch today then. This is the Las Palmeras restaurant in Crevillent. It’s a bit of a family tradition that we eat Sunday lunch at Las Palmeras when any family or friends are visiting with Jen and John. It’s a really nice place – inside, that is – though not much to look at outside. One of the huge attractions is that it has its own pool, and if it takes your fancy then you can spend the day in the pool, and have Sunday lunch – although it is frowned upon if you actually eat it in the pool. I accidentally on purpose left my swimming gear in Port Talbot, so that wasn’t an option. I think of it as a valuable public service. The sight of my near naked body has been enough to drive grown adults to vegetarianism in the past, but I digress. In the pool at lunchtime, though, were a very, umm, exuberant, shall we say, Spanish hen party. At one stage they were so loud that the Head waiter went and had a few words with them. I didn’t understand exactly what he said, but I’d lay odds that he wasn’t congratulating them on the attractiveness of their swimwear.

Well, that’s pretty much it for today. Thanks for staying with me over this relatively quiet few days. I’m taking the 10 am train into Murcia tomorrow morning, so there’s every chance of more entertaining news tomorrow. Watch this space.