Too Much Information

We enjoyed our Majorca weekend even though I suffered from the effects of my radio therapy treatment. Things started out well with lots of leg room so that I could get stuck into a good book in comfort. No problem with the flight; we picked our car up but really struggled in the dark to get going. To start with I couldn’t get out the car park as I had overshot the machine where you put your ticket in to open the barrier and several cars had backed up behind me; even if I could have found reverse gear in my little Smart hirecar. Claire came to the rescue by running back with the ticket; trouble is I gave her my boarding slip the first time which was also in my shirt pocket where I keep all my important documents. Finally we escaped but the satnav was still trying to calculate the route from Giffard Park to our final destination in Majorca as there was no satellite reception in the car park. Claire couldn’t sort it out in the dark and I needed to get the window holder out from my bag so that I could see the screen anyway so I pulled into a garage. Finally got on the way; trouble was that the garage exit took us into the capital city rather than on our natural route out of it. Once we had finally got going on our proper route the satnav started bleating; complaining that it was running out of battery. Another stop required to get the cigarette lighter charger out my bag. Another problem; the charger socket didn’t seem to work however hard we twisted and turned the connector in the socket. We know that the lead worked as we had tested our new satnav out at home before coming away. I decided to continue for as long as the battery would last and if we got really stuck we could always get our laptop out and plug the satnav in to help us out. Although it kept complaining, the satnav didn’t run out of charge until about 5 miles from our hotel but luckily, ours was the first one that Claire spotted. By this time it was 11.30pm and the food from our all inclusive hotel stopped at 11pm but the bar was still open until midnight so we took the receptionists advice and left our bags with them and headed off for some relaxant. I think we managed to get our monies worth in that 30 minutes alone and we even managed to stack up a few extras at the end to take up to our room with us.

By the time that I had got to reception to pick our bags up the two ladies that had looked after us had gone home and had been replaced by a night man who had no idea where our bags were. After ages of looking we finally found them in what looked like a locked telephone box and I could join Claire on our balcony before she had polished off all our bar extras. Straight to sleep for a well needed sleep but I still managed to wake at my normal unearthly hour but somehow managed to slip onto our balcony with my riveting book for a couple of hours without disturbing Claire. I hadn’t realized how interesting dust could be.

I woke Claire with a kiss and we headed downstairs for a very substantial 5 course buffet breakfast. I exaggerate a little; it was probably more like 8 courses. However hard you try; when faced with all inclusive it’s impossible not to try everything on offer just to make sure you are not missing anything. We waddled off to the coast in our little Smart Car which is great; it has a fabulous aircon system, a huge sunroof and a semi-automatic gearbox. However, don’t get one if you intend to carry more than a set of golf clubs in the boot. We even struggled with a backpack each. We parked up and had a very pleasant walk along the cliff road that lead to the overcrowded beach. Very enjoyable, all the same and we even managed to work up an appetite ready for lunch; trouble was lunch didn’t start until 1pm and it was only 10am. Next time I will leave Snow White to sleep a little longer.

I’m not sure if it was the amount of food that I ate or the amount of beer that I managed to consume but the effects of my radio therapy had really kicked in and I suffered badly. Every time I went to the toilet, which seemed to be all the time, it felt like I was passing radio-active waste. In actual fact, if you think about it, I probably was. The most powerful reaction in the universe is anti-mater annihilating with real mater, turning completely into energy; heat energy. Thank goodness for my liquid paraffin. By the time the day was over, my bottom was throbbing with pain continuously and it felt like I was peeing razor blades. Time, I felt, to stop taking the laxatives prescribed by the hospital. I spent the rest of the day laying in a darkened room learning all about dust but somehow, this experience didn’t stop me making a pig of myself at the restaurant and bar again that evening. However, I suffered so badly that night that I haven’t had an alcoholic drink since, and it wasn’t because of a hangover this time. Isn't it funny how when something is on your mind, you seem to hear related subjects everywhere you turn? What should we hear being played on the radio but that Johny Cash song, "Ring of fire".

I felt a little better on Sunday and was more careful what I ate and also drank copious amounts of water all day with the occasional coffee that we had at the Sunday Market we visited. I still managed to eat plenty that day so I guess that it must be the alcohol more than the food. I thought the food at the hotel was quite good; not first class but nice all the same; especially if you were selective in your choice Claire. I overheard a child asking her Mum why they had a lot of food that she wasn’t used to and didn’t like. Her mum told her that it wasn’t only English people that were staying at the hotel there were other nationalities that are used to different food to us. I guess that she was right; we spotted plenty of Germans, especially at 8am when the sunbeds first became available. There were also plenty of Welsh people and even Scottish so you have to accept the odd haggis, deep fried mars bars, lashings of sauerkraut and leeks. Don’t you just hate it when people stereotype other nationalities? I can’t imagine what they could possibly say about us well behaved Brits. If we can’t sort out this racist problem, then nobody can.

I managed to read 2 books, The New Scientist and the first unit of an Earth science OU course while we were away, all in one weekend; it must be a record for me. However, Claire managed to read her 5 books and another 2 that she had swapped in the hotel reception and still leave time to earwig on every conversation around us. I am really enjoying learning about geology in preparation for the next chapter of my book. In previous chapters I have been underlining the bits I want to remember in pencil and then typing them out when I have finished the book into a small text file before erasing all the pencil marks in the book. This seems to take forever so this time I decided to take advantage of the camera on my i-phone to photograph the relevant sections. This is still a pain, but so much quicker and easier than my previous method. However, now I have just copied all these photos into a subdirectory I realize that it will take me forever to go through it all again to tease out the relevant bits from all these pictures. Sometimes, it is possible to have too much information.

Our flight home was also great as we were given seats at the front of the plane with lots of leg room. As we only had hand luggage we expected to be out of the airport in no time. Wrong! It was the worst cue that I had ever seen for passport control even before luggage pick up that we didn't have. Even worse than imigration in the USA in the 1980's. I thought that if you travelled within EU contries it was supposed to be like a bus trip with only minimal customs and passport control? No wonder we don't use the buses anymore.

Oh, and we had a puncture in Claires car even before we got out of the hospital car park when we got back on Monday and it was raining. The spare was one of those small wheels, just about big enough to get you to a garage.