Now never let it be said that I am tight with money. It may be suggested that I am a little careful at times but with Christine I need to be careful. Regular readers will know with her taste in designer clothes she is high maintenance in the wallet department. So it was with this in mind that Alex, Christine and I set off on an expedition from Gava Mar where the family live on an adventure down the coast to see where the day took us.


The reason why we went on the trip was obvious to me although others didn’t see why we had to go so far, but only travelling a short distance was not an option. You see we had rented this car for a few days and what I didn’t know when we rented it, is that you have to pay for a full tank of petrol and in this little Corsa that meant a lot of miles had to be driven.


So with the car due back tomorrow we had three quarters of a tank of petrol to use up. OK I could have left the engine running all night with the air conditioning cranked up to the full to use some petrol but even on the streets of a genteel neighbourhood like Gava Mar that may be a little risky, so the alternative was to drive a lot of miles. What I couldn’t bring myself to do was to take it back to the hire company full of petrol I had paid for.


So we drop the kids at school and set off, no idea where we are going, just somewhere down the coast. We go up the mountain and drop down into Sitges for morning coffee at the local yacht club where Christine is impressed with the fashion sense of the local men! The coffee and croissants are excellent and we order one each, Christine doesn’t want to share one in case the locals know all about pensioners sharing scones which would give away her age. Then it’s off down the coast.


We have a beautiful drive up in the mountains overlooking the coast, reminds us a lot of driving along the French Riviera from Cannes to Monaco. Somewhere south of Tarragona we decide it’s time for lunch.


We drop out of the mountains and suddenly we are on a seafront promenade lined with cafes but with very few people, it’s so quiet we talk in whispers. There is no one at all sitting in any of the cafes, no music, no noise at all, it’s very weird. We have no idea where we are it feels a bit like a ghost town.


We come across a queue of people outside a locked and barred building and just as I am going to ask them what they are queuing for the doors open they all go inside and the doors are again locked and barred. Did they really exist? Has dementia set in? Is it the alcohol? Is this place really here?


We finally come to a cafe where some locals are eating so we decide this is the place for lunch. This isn’t the best looking cafe we have been in and I wonder if it’s up to standard for Christine, it certainly wouldn’t have done for Sam the dog but never the less at least some other people are in here so we go ahead and order.


I start with what turns out to be the best bowl full of mussels I have ever had. Superb. Christine orders ‘Mountain Ham’ thinking this was a type of ham but is delivered a plate with a mountain of ham on it, just ham, delicious ham and a lot of it. Alex orders butifarra, the local sausage which comes with a large portion of fries, garlic mushrooms and green chillies again delicious but a lot of food. Christine has now decided she wants a side salad with her ham so orders something that turns out to be a main course tuna salad with everything. We now have a lot of food on the table to say we only stopped for tapas, and we are having beef casserole for dinner tonight.


We still manage a couple of creme catalans and a flan to finish off, all too good. Even the coffees are good, this can’t last something must go wrong, maybe it will be the bill. The waitress puts it on the table and we turn it over with trepidation. We have had four meals, three puddings, three beers, two waters, and three coffees and the bill is 35 euros, that’s less than £24 for the three of us. If we knew where we where we would come back.


Dave who stayed at home working and didn’t get the very good lunch also didn’t get his beef casserole for dinner as Alex was far too full to bother cooking. He wasn’t happy! But the real problem at the end of the drive was the Corsa still had half a tank of petrol, we will have to do this all over again tomorrow.