Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Day 284 - Tuesday 23rd Oct - Gibraltar


Off to Gibraltar today. I’m not going to lie; I really don’t want to go. I don’t mind working but I’m basically going to be accompanying someone around, staying at their place so I will have no time to myself, can’t do what I please or have any alone time. I’m a little funny like that. I don’t mind if I’m staying in a hotel as I can excuse myself and have a bit of privacy. Guess I’m a bit of a loner and like my own space. Good job it’s only for 36 hours otherwise I’ll be clucking.

It was a 10am flight so I left loads of time to get to Gatwick through the M25 rush hour traffic. 35 minutes. (Should have been 2 hours.) The traffic parted like Moses and I got there in time. Obviously my cunning plan to sabotage the journey & miss the plane backfired. I got through check in with handbags of time to spare and had just enough time to get an overpriced tea in the Red Lion pub. What a great experience. Celtic FC were playing Barcelona in the evening so the pub was packed full of Celtic fans slamming down the beers & getting right on it. Good lads. 9am and everyone at the bar was ordering ‘Full cooked breakfast and 4 pints of lager please wee man’. The Breakfast of Champions.

It was great as literally everyone was dressed in a tracksuit. I felt the odd one out in a suit. As Martin Aimless once said, ‘dressed for the track built for the pub’. Never have I seen a finer example of that than the Red Lion Pub, Gatwick Airport Departure Lounge at 9am. It was like the Olympic Games opening ceremony but with fat Scotsmen holding pints of lager instead of the Olympic Torch.

It reminded me of the excitement of holidays in my early drinking days when the only place to drink in the morning that was socially acceptable was at an Airport Pub. It’s almost as part of the ritual of holidays as spending a fortune on shit you don’t need as you wait for your flight. Luckily I had no time to drain my cash in the House of fun called ‘The departure lounge’ the Jobs Seekers Allowance doesn’t stretch to that much anyway.

It felt totally wrong to be going away in a suit with no luggage for an overnight stay. I’m not much of a business traveller so Airports to me are for holidays. To be in surfer shorts and flip flops hell bent on buying as many Haribo sweets as you can for the long journey to your beach destination. Being one of ‘those people’ in a slick suit and mini man bag felt alien. I felt an imposter. Like the sort of person I would look down on if I was a holiday maker. Gutted.

The Flight was OK, though when we came to land in Gibraltar it looked pretty much that he was going to land in the Sea. All you could see was water until it touched down on land at the last minute. It was so scary that I actually touched down 1st, in my pants. It was only getting off the plane I saw that the runway was actually out in the sea right next to the rock. Then I was told it is the 5th most dangerous runway in the world. I’m so pleased I found that out after landing, not that I’m a nervous flyer.

I was met by my boss, who's a lovely man. A proper man who looks after people and is proper old school. A handshake means someting and he does what he says. I admire that in people very much. We had a pleasant lunch, I ordered spinach and prawn salad and Jesus Christ I’ve never eaten anything with so much Garlic in my life. They actually think whole cloves are a garnish. I'm pretty sure the garlic outweighed the prawns 3:1. Grim.

Then it was a tour of the island. Which took 3 silk cuts and a snickers. 20 minutes. Done. It’s only 5km. There’s a big rock. There’s an old fort. There’s the Atlantic. There’s the North Africa coast. There’s the Spanish border. There’s an English pub, fish and chip shop etc and there’s a mobility scooter. It’s a British colony, so of course there are loads of mobility scooters. Strangely you don’t see any on the Spanish side.

Then it was out to dinner at a highly recommended Italian restaurant in a British colony in the Atlantic on the Mediterranean. Weird. If you’re American that whole sentence would have passed you by. Let’s just say it’s all near Moscow. The dinner was delicious. Fresh prawns, whitebait, sea bream & of course garlic, although there was slight confusion with the waitress when I asked for a toothpick and pointed to my mouth. I think she thought I was asking to be sucked off such was the horror on her face. Good job I was dining with a Spanish speaking friend who smoothed over the potentially awkward situation. (See there I go again talking about getting sucked off or wanking. Humblest apologies for being so utterly base and one dimensional)

Then it was back to my friends' gorgeous apartment overlooking the sea and an early night. I’m not a big fan of kipping in other people’s beds. You feel a certain obligation to be on best behaviour. Not like a hotel room which you can utterly trash. It's nervy. You do your best of course to sleep without messing the covers up, you daren't do anything you may do at home and it's inhibiting having a shit as you're scared of leaving militant skids. I find the whole thing uncomfortable. Even if he's the best host. It's just funny old me.

Instead of ferociously masturbating (there i go again, i can feel some of the more prim female readers wincing - can i not go 1 day without mentioning this?) I caught up on my blog comments. Two people commented on my double cardigan from yesterday and one person left a comment about why I’m always talking about wanking. They asked me if I’ve ever had a girlfriend. They clearly don’t know me at all. If they only knew the truth! Plus in answer to the question why do I mention it so much. Err, it’s because I’m a man. All I’m doing is saying what’s in the head of most men. I’ll leave out the XXX stuff in the name of taste though.

Right thats me done readers. Only 20 hours to go until I can get out of here. Gibraltar is not a place I feel much warmth and affinity to i must admit. Although it was lovely to have lunch outside in the Sun today. Let’s end on a positive note today hey?

Day of work and then fly out at 7pm tomorrow night. I can't wait

Xx

2 comments:

  1. Just curious, what work did you do in Gibralter? All very odd? Flown all the way out there at considerable expense by your host. For what?
    Mysterious.
    Surely you're not a....... no, you wouldn't, would you?

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    Replies
    1. What a male escort? Of course i would much better pay than a marketing consultant for a security company. And as for considerable expense - it was Easyjet. Have you seen the prices? Hence 8 hour delay.

      still if anyone does want to employ me as male escort, now theres a thought......

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