Here we are again, sitting on the upstairs balcony at Alex’s house, the private park with the swimming pool is in front and the Mediterranean is a minute’s walk to the left. What more could you want? The sun is full on and it’s very hot, no breeze and only a gin and tonic to keep us cool. What more could you want? Well a BBQ actually but it’s a long story.


It’s Saturday and we decide on a BBQ for our evening meal which takes place out here about nine at night. The late dinner seems to work well, we have a ‘put me on’ about six o-clock and then Dave a I go down the bodega for a few ‘sherbets’, meet up with others doing the same thing and then back home in time for dinner. Well usually late for dinner but that not really our fault It’s hard to get away when you like a cold beer and have no willpower. But today we are having a BBQ so Dave will have to be back early to do the cooking.


There is only one problem, we have a brand new gas BBQ but we haven’t any gas, so off we go to the garage to buy a bottle. Now although Alex’s knowledge of the Spanish language is improving it was proving difficult to understand why the garage would not sell us a bottle of gas but after quite a few minutes she got the problem. The garage would only re-fill bottles, so you needed an empty bottle to take back to get a replacement and as this was our first gas BBQ we had no bottle, so off we go to the camping shop.


They only have small camping gas bottles and don’t sell the big ones for a BBQ but they know where we can buy one. We are now on our way to another garage on the main dual carriage from the airport to Barcelona, for those back in the UK this is like the A1, for those out in the Bahamas it’s a big road without pot holes and with tarmac on the surface.


We get to the garage and pull into a parking place and sure enough there are the bottles of gas, we are in business we can BBQ tonight except that when we go round to the garage door there is a notice ‘Closed for personal reasons’. This is a major garage on a major road and it’s closed for personal, the result is no gas. We try two more garages on the seven mile round trip to the next exit on the dual carriage way before we arrive home wondering if we can cook steaks on Joe’s small portable charcoal BBQ.


The problem is that it is now four o-clock on a Saturday so Dave and I have to be at Alfonso’s bar to watch Arsenal play Manchester City so again Alex is out in the car taking us the three miles or so up the coast to Alfonso’s and all thought of the BBQ is replaced by the excitement of another football league season.


Just by chance as we pull up outside Alfonso’s, a very large lorry is parked in front of us delivering gas bottles to all the local cafes and bars. This lorry must have hundred of these very large bottles all lined up ready for delivery. Having a few minutes before the match starts Dave takes the opportunity to have a word with the driver who seems taken aback when Dave asks him if he knows where we buy a gas bottle.


Although Dave’s Spanish is coming along very well the driver obviously realises he is not Spanish and assumes he has got the question wrong. The driver simply looks at his lorry loaded with hundreds of gas bottles and then looks back at Dave, scratches his head and says “gas bottle?” “Yea, gas bottle” says Dave. The driver looks at his lorry again and then back at Dave and points to his lorry and again says “gas bottles?”


With a stroke of inspiration he assumes we want one delivering and tries to get our address. Dave then asks if we can buy one from him and as best we can decipher his reply was along the lines of “of course you can buy one you English muppets, what do you think I do with this very large lorry full of hundreds of bottles, it’s my job to sell them, at the end of the day I want no bottles and lots of money in my pocket, it’s called business.” With that he put a bottle in Alex’s car boot, a few euros change hands and the BBQ is up and running and fortunately so are Arsenal so it turns out to be a good day.


The steaks are very good, the beers and the wines have been flowing freely and it’s now midnight and we still sitting outside round the dinning table. We are still in t-shirts and shorts and all-in-all it’s been a good day. What more do you want?

.........Nothing.