Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now (Again)

"The air line's not working. Just used it. One of the front tyres has deflated". "Oh, is it not working? No. You're right. Has it gone down much?" "No, but it's still gone down. Look, I've got an appointment in Palma." "I see. Ah, look, here's the 'chico'." Always a chico, I think. Where's he going though? The work round the back. On what was the area for the car wash. "Shall I wait a bit?" "Yes, yes, no problem." No problem. It's never a problem, even when it is.

The Porsche roars into the bay. I know that car. Know that driver. We shake hands. Neighbour. Ish. "Fucking weather," says he. "Problem with the air line," says I. "Spain," says he. (He's not Spanish.) "New tyres for the Audi the other day," he starts to say. Am I really interested? No. I'm going to have to get a shift on, and it's bloody freezing cold. Fifty euros, he instructs the pump attendant. Fifty euros!? I've never put fifty euros into a petrol tank. How far will that go from Alcúdia? Pollensa? "Hey, it's working!" shouts the garage bloke. The chico has come across with the pressure goods. How unusual. I never found out what the issue was with the Audi tyres. The Porsche screamed as it left. A wave, and I'm trying to make sure that air doesn't escape, courtesy of the Heath Robinson affair that is now - allegedly - working.

Oh well, seems ok. Car's buoyant enough. Is that how you describe a well-inflated set of tyres? Did you know that the Trafico boys check tyre pressures if there's an accident? The contemplation of the inflation or otherwise description disappears quickly. What a foul day. Grey everywhere. I change the CD to a summer flamenco chill. Inappropriate. I need Stephen Patrick, Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake. My mistake for not having them in the car.

Down to Palma. The Llevant industrial area. What a mess. The building work. It's all to do with the convention centre. Perhaps. How damn big does this all have to be? What's the point of it all? Who's getting a rake-off from this little lot, I wonder. These damn projects in Mallorca, and underlying them - some of them, any of them - is the pay-off, for someone or some several.

The roads, narrowed by temporary barriers, wind into the Poligono. They're like country lanes in an urban zone. All is red or brown, on the roads. Sand, earth, turned to mud. What a mess. A slow-moving earthmover pulls over. I go by, and do at least acknowledge the driver. He's covered from the rain by a canopy, not like those poor bastard cyclists I had passed before. How they must hate this. I have no desire to gloat. No, not at all. I'm full of sympathy. Come to Mallorca for some late-winter wheeling and get your bits frozen off and your face ice-rain-blasted.

The gravel car park at the offices of the "Diario de Mallorca". Mud. More mud. I'd buffed up the Camper shoes. Shouldn't have bothered. I'm late, my footwear is dirty, I'd rather have stayed under the duvet. It's ok, it's quick - the appointment. Then I leave, going back the way I came in, along those orange-brown-muddied lanes. How do you go left!? Back towards the north? You don't. Sod it. Hack along to the Avenida, go up to the first centre-road petrol station and hang a U-ey. That's how you get back north. Oh, ok, I know. Now. I should have gone left out of the Diario entrance. But how would you know that?

Along the motorway, past Inca, towards the Pollensa-Sa Pobla end. Shit, look at that sky. Black. The rain begins to hammer down. Merciless. Should have stayed under the duvet. And finally I'm back, but then the Germans, the neighbours, are at the gate. Getting wet. Would I like some coffee and cake? Always coffee and cake. Don't mind if I do, though not in a house with no heating, thinks I. Foolish. They've cranked up the wood-burner, the radiators are filling the coffers of the electricity company. Things aren't so bad after all, even if it's slating down. And a couple of days, they say, certainly Thursday, it'll be sunny again. Yep, it probably will be. Heaven knows I'm miserable now, or was. But then there's always the next day.

Oh, and because it's flamenco chill, it's summer (eventually), it's anything other than grey, it's great and it's something you should hear - the brilliant "Tan Cañi", Alhoeverha ... Not sure what it is with the bloke in the video, but there you go.





QUIZ
Today - Not even worth asking. Yesterday - The Saturdays, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnChMXROzBk.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.