S MAGAZINE ★ 4 AUGUST 2019 75
Mindy Hammond
Every week in S Magazine
As waiters struggle to fix beach club parasols in the heat of the Spanish
sun, our columnist’s sense of humour evaporates... Illustration by Susan Hellard
minutes he succeeded. “Well done,” I said, but
buried my head in my hands as he cut the ends
protruding from the central pole so short, when
he released the mechanics of the parasol it slid
straight back down over the cut ends and
enveloped him. He fetched a new parasol.
“Can we order?” my sister Sara said as a
large crash sounded behind us and a harassed
waitress gathered broken glasses on to a tray.
“Ah yes, of course,” the waiter smiled.
An hour later, after watching our waiter
manoeuvring his way around colleagues
dressed as American football players and
cheerleaders, my sister Nicky asked to speak
to the manager (Basil?) to discover what had
happened to our food order. It had been lost.
They would make it post-haste and offer us a
complimentary bottle of champagne.
We were starving, but one chicken dish was
raw in the middle, a steak was boiling hot and
dry in the middle yet lukewarm and fatty on the
exterior... Microwaved? And my chicken Thai
green curry had been made with so much
cabbage it tasted like Thai green cabbage curry.
Our sense of humour was failing. It was over
34°C and we had spent over two hours at
the Spanish equivalent of Fawlty
Towers with our very own Manuel.
My sister sought out the
manager (Basil?) again.
He became animated,
insisting the chicken was
cooked, until I mentioned
I had photographic evidence.
Then he gave us 20 per cent off
the bill. We saw him giving our
waiter a serious dressing down.
Worried that “Basil” might
“explain” and stab a finger in
the poor chap’s eye, we slipped
our waiter a large cash tip. We
told him, “It wasn’t your fault- we thought you were fantastic,”
to which he replied, “I am so sorry,
I am pool boy, I never done this
before, but we are short of staff.”
Bless him. Although it was comical
to the point of being painful, we will
never forget our birthday experience
at “Fawlty Beach.”
We were hot and hungry, so made for the
restaurant and our prebooked table. The
receptionist was busy acting out her role as
a cheerleader (it was July 4), but when she
finally took my details she scowled,
“No, there is no booking for you.” We had
a brief exchange and she sighed, “I can let you
have a table for two hours... we are full,
celebrating Independence Day.” We were happy
to comply, although the lady who showed us to
our table whisked away the American flag, hats
and other decorations, breaking a wine glass in
the process. We began to snigger.
The sun had moved by now and Willow was
squinting. I caught the eye of a waiter and
asked him if he could find a parasol.
When he found one, guess what? The pin was
missing. Not to be beaten by the lack of a pin,
or finding a rare, fully operational parasol, we
were treated to a display of whittling by our
waiter. He found a chopstick and began using
the knife on his corkscrew to make one end
narrow enough to act as pin and fasten the
parasol in the open position. After about 20A
s you may know, I recently went on a
girls’ holiday to Marbella with Willow,
her friends and my three sisters.
While there, we were celebrating my
sister Marianne’s birthday, as well
as my own, the day after hers. For a treat, I
booked a day at a well-known beach club. It
was quite extravagant, but there was the
promise of a dedicated waiter, entertainment
and wonderful food. The booking confirmation
advised early arrival, so we were there at
11am, but it was worryingly quiet.
“I’m sure it’ll be rammed within an hour,
we probably did right to get ahead of the rush,”
I reassured my group.
The receptionist took my details and
checked the booking, but surprised me by
waving her hand in the direction of the beach,
“Reservations... there.” After a few moments
of confusion, I scanned the area and noticed
a small podium at the far side of the pool with
a queue of people, so we headed over.
The girl at the desk was in a bit of a flap and
seemed to have a problem with her computer.
After 15 minutes and much harrumphing, two
couples ahead of us decided to leave.
Glad to be promoted to the front of the
queue, we were shown to our
reserved “bed” and sofa on the
beach “for eight persons”. Unless
each person was an underweight
12-year-old there wasn’t much hope
of us all getting a seat, let alone
basking in the sun... and where were
the parasols? It was 30-plus degrees
and we were glowing.
An hour later we practically
rugby tackled a wandering waiter,
who was miffed at our order of iced
water instead of the bottle of
complimentary champagne (it
wasn’t complimentary, it was
included in the extortionate
booking price). We asked him for
a couple of parasols. Some time
later one arrived, although after several
minutes the guy realised the pins
to keep the shades up were missing,
so we continued to fry while we waited
SUSAN HEllARD C/O ARENAfor replacements. ●S