Wonders Will Never Cease

Well – will wonders ever cease? Another Mansion and only a matter of weeks since the last one! Your Laird would appear to be getting his act together a bit finally. (It was my fault that I forgot to actually print it on time - sorry Bruce - ED) Of course, the above is only true if I finish writing the wretched thing this week – there’s always the chance of getting unexpectedly sidetracked along the way.

One such example of sidetracking unexpectedness occurred recently, when youngest DD Shana fell a couple of metres from a statue on which she’d previously been cavorting. Luckily for your Laird, this befell while the DD’s were in their dad, Eric’s charge, so no blame lay at my door! The long and the short of the story was that I received a call from my manic mademoiselle Farida – somewhat apanic – from the emergency clinic in Corralejo.

I hiked me to the scene, in time to say hello and goodbye before they were transported by ambulance to hospital in Rosario. Thereafter I collected the uninjured DD Melody from Imagine and brought her back to the Mansion to sleep, for ‘twas Thursday night and school was beckoning the following morning. Fari and Shana got back around midnight and it appeared that the drama was over.

Needless to say, the wee lassie had Friday off school and spent a very subdued day on the couch, very much under the weather and clutching her left wrist which she claimed was hurting her. As the staff at the health centre had botched the first three attempts to put a saline drip into her vein the previous night, we put her discomfort down to this and thought little of it.

When, finally, she allowed me to examine it, I was less than happy with this simple explanation and on Saturday morning we killed two birds with one stone – as Fari dropped Shana and your Laird at the hospital, while she and Melody continued to Antigua for the car’s ITV (Spanish MOT). After hours of waiting, examinations and X-Rays we found ourselves in the Plaster Room, where her stookie (Scots for plaster cast) was applied.
 

Your Laird wasn’t backward in coming forward in letting the hospital staff in on his opinion that – given a history of falling over six feet onto concrete – they had miserably failed to spot the extent of her injuries on Thursday night. I can only hope that, having pointed out various failings (and incompetence) to them, nothing happens in the next few months that might require your Laird to require their services – at least, not while they remember me!

On our way back from Rosario, we happened past El Campanario shopping centre where Fari slammed the brakes on and we all got out to say hello to the dozen or so horses that were gathered there. Once again the local publicity machine had totally failed to advertise the event – a display team of caballeros from the Peninsular on a tour of the Canaries. Let’s hope some of the other islands let their inhabitants in on the secret.

Did anyone else see the wonderful corona around the sun during the last mini-kalima? I was enjoying a Dorada with one of the deaf lighter sellers at Vista Lobos overlooking Muelle Chico (town beach – for those who don’t bother with the proper local names), when the phenomena occurred and took this photo with my phone – but few I spoke to later that day had even noticed it! Come on, people, take a chance with the dog shit and potholes and look upwards occasionally – there’s a whole universe to see!

I mansioned last month that my friend, Jeff from London, ripped his big toenail off on Solbank’s door, but I didn’t mansion that he has been advised to sue the bank for compensation. Imagine his surprise when he received the following missive;
Corralejo
1 de abril de 2008
Esteemed Señor Jeffrey,

We have been receiving from your abogado the details and claim following an alleging incident supposing to have been occurring on 17 march 2008.

As a result of this, we have been instructing a design engineer to make the examinings of our door in order to be discovering the extent of the damagings. We have now been receiving his reportings and it is being confirmed that the door is truly damaged as a result of having the impactings with the big finger of your left foot.

It is with much happiness that I am saying to you that the door is not having to be replaced. The engineer is saying to me that it can being repairing, as the impacting with the footfinger has not been damaging the door very strongly. He is estimating that the price for the repairings will be 3000€ (+ iva @ 5% = £2420 Sterlings) and we will be asking from you to make the transferring of this sum to your account with us.

Señor Jeffrey, may I be saying personal thank you. Sadly, we are not having as many customers being so honesto as you are being about this unhappiness incident. A lot of them would be damaging our door and leaving without making the confession and the offering to pay for the damagings. You are being a true caballero – a gentle man who is honouring his errors and making the offerings. Solbank’s head quarter would be asking me for the money for the repairings if not for your honest kindness.

If you are having any queries or askings further in this questionings, please be feeling happy to telephone me on 00346 4921 47 73 and I shall be feeling happy to be speaking with you. Solbank are thanking you very for being the valuable customer.

With very happy regards
Primero Abril
Manager

Postscript We are all at Solbank doing the looking forwards to your next visit and are hoping that you will be doing the looking forwards and not doing the damagings of any further doors.

Thus far, I don’t think he’s received it – due to the vagaries of the postal service ‘twixt the rock and the UK – because he hasn’t phoned me in a panic to sort it out. Oddly enough, an incredible number of local residents who have read the above actually believed it – but I won’t embarrass anyone by naming names!

A gap of a week or so since punching the last paragraph – so your Laird isn’t quite as punctual as he was bragging in the first paragraph. Of course, the intervening period has encompassed the birthdays of the lovely Fari and daredevil DD Shana, the former celebrated at John and Lynn’s (ex-caravan owner scarers now partners with mate Maitland at Whereabouts) and the latter with a bunch of other demon children at the bowling alley. Happily, Shana had her plaster removed the previous day and has made a remarkable recovery.

Sadly, international news has been focused on the Far East where the loss of life and devastation has been enormous. The Myanmar cyclone has killed countless thousands and destroyed the crops and livestock across the country and the risk of disease from unburied corpses doubles every day. The earthquake and subsequent aftershocks China has suffered have also claimed a hundred thousand lives and seriously damaged that country’s infrastructure. Both of these situations will be ongoing for many months – already Myanmar is having to cope with earlier than usual monsoon rains.

The chief difference between the two catastrophic events has been the attitude of the respective governments. Myanmar has excluded foreign aid workers – mostly medical teams – and only grudgingly appears to be allowing emergency supplies to be flown in. Foreign journalists are excluded, but the stories that are making their way out are telling of a picture far worse than is portrayed on state television. The orderly, well supplied refugee camps that they show are providing for less than 10% of the sick and homeless and the body count is reported to be many times the official government figures.

China, on the other hand, has been more than happy to welcome foreign rescue workers from neighbouring countries, realising the need for a rapid response to a disaster on this scale. Some of the reports of people being pulled alive from the rubble a week later were close to miraculous. This more open face of Chinese government may be genuine – and we can only hope so – but it may have much more to do with their recent realisation that the rest of the world actually cares about Tibet and human rights abuses and the Olympic spotlight on Beijing in August may yet be something they will have cause to regret.

The US Democratic Nomination bandwagon still rolls along – even though it’s evident now that Obama has it in the bag. He’s even taken to attacking Republican John McCaine directly now instead of his current opponent. Ex-First Lady Hillary hasn’t really got a hope of another 4 year holiday home at 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue. Interesting though, when the Democrats go for change they really go for it – first ever female President or first ever black President. Either way, I don’t see such a first being a big vote-catcher in the redneck electorate – they thought JFK was a pinko!

Postscript to the Jeff’s toe letter above. He didn’t fall for it - his bank statements come in envelopes with holograms on them, so immediately knew it was a hoax - but several of his family and friends have expressed outrage at the iniquitous nature of Spanish banking. He’ll be back over with his brood in July – and with his new steel-toe capped flip-flops!

And so, verily, it came to pass that yet another Mansion drew to a close. How much time will pass before the next Mansion? They don’t seem to pass that often, pass me that Dorada . . . .

(0034) 649 214 773) or dutchbruce@gmail.com