There is a change in the air - Sandra’s weather App tells us that there is the likelihood of rain at 10:00 today, but as Matthew explained last night, there is no guarantee as to which part of the island it will fall.
There are dark clouds to the East when I open the curtains, after another decent night’s sleep, but they seem to be moving away further east, so perhaps we’ll be lucky and have another nice day.
We pop down to breakfast on the stroke of 08:00, grab a table at the side of the restaurant and think that we’re becoming predictable when Maitre D’ Toni comes over and announces that he has already ordered our coffees (un muy caliente / otro muy fuerte) - creatures of habit!
Other than that the meal is unremarkable and we head back to the room after a trip onto the Balcony of Mallorca which looks lovely this morning, then head back to plan our day, which is not the usual format.
We have reserved a table for lunch in Port D’Andratx for 13:30, so need to fill in three hours or so this morning, before driving over to the Western extremity of the island.
Porto Pi
When discussing the problems of parking in the Porto Pi shopping centre with Pep the other day, he alerted us to the availability of spaces across the Passeig de Maritim in the vicinity of the Museo Historico Militar de San Carlos, which we’d always thought was off limited to the public behind the Naval Base at the Western end of the Porto.
So we head there and find it just where we expected, with ample parking and decide to pop into the Museum, which has defended the Port since the 17th Century and which has seen many diverse uses over the years, including service as a hospital, prison and battery.
The military paraphernalia on display was quite interesting, as we wandered through the Museum, but this was just really an excuse to avail ourselves of their free parking, as our ulterior motive was to get some exercise.
From the base, we strode down the hill to the Passeig de Maritim and then past the Porto Pi shopping centre where we are due to meet Inge on Monday and along the sea front, eventually reaching the point where we turned around and headed back to the City Centre two days ago.
Mission accomplished, we’ve clocked-up 5.14 Kms and filled in another hour, so take the car back to Son Vida to change for lunch.
Oliu
Both Pep and Ramon have recommended this restaurant for lunch as the young chef is making a name for himself in an unlikely location between the Port of Andratx and the main City, inland.
We miss the entrance on the other side of the road at the first time of asking, but do a u-turn at the Port and head back on the Carretera soon enough, arriving in plenty of time for our reservation..............
On being welcomed into the restaurant, however, the very pleasant waitress makes clear that we are unexpected, as they have only re-opened yesterday, so there is a limited menu of dishes available, but more worryingly, the deserted place smells strongly of paint from another room, where a decorator is happily brushing away.
On balance, we decide that it’s not perhaps such a good idea to eat today, so we make our apologies, which are accepted gracefully and suggest that we’ll try again next week, when things are more established.
On returning to Son Vida, we discover that Pep had made the reservation online and received confirmation, but clearly a system glitch means that it had not been processed at the restaurant.
No worries, we decide to eat dinner tonight instead and canvass options with Ramon, as Pep is taking his usual Friday / Saturday break.
R&R
Whilst it might have been tempting to have a bite to eat at the hotel bar, we contented ourselves with nibbles accompanying a drink and chatted to Francesco and Antonio, even digging out some photos that I have on my iphone from 2003, when the decor was a little different, but then so were we!
Back in Room #653, I while away the rest of the afternoon jumping up the Duolingo league table by completing my one remaining module of the Shopping 6 lesson, then all five modules of Work 5, and then a further three of Travel 8, before Sandra puts a stop to my obsession.
There must be better ways to spend your holiday, surely?
Bruselas
I had taken the opportunity to pop back to Recepcion to ask Ferran to book an old favourite of ours for dinner tonight, Bruselas, an Agentinian Steak House that we first tried in 2012 on the recommendation of then Customer Services Manager, Alex Simon, and we have returned most years since, as it reliably serves fine meat.
Our taxi whisks us into the City in record time as the young driver ignores speed limits, red lights and whatever other obstacles might hinder his progress, such that we arrive at 19:45, and the place doesn’t open until 20:00!
We kill time by wandering through the nearby Rialto Living, an interesting store in Palma that stocks fashions and unusual homewares right next door to the restaurant.
When we are shown to our table down some vertiginous steps by the familiar waitress, we find a Swedish couple are already ensconced in the small room where we usually sit and soon enough the other tables are full.
Despite her hunger, Sandra foregoes a starter and orders a Solomillo, whereas I fancy the Wagyu beef tartar to start and then select a ribeye for my main course, choosing a bottle of Castell Miquel Stairway to Heaven red wine from Alaro to wash it all down.
It all goes down nicely and as has become our habit, we forego a postres course at the restaurant, as we know that there are Capuccino cafes in the vicinity who will indulge us with a cafe con leche and torta de almendra - duly scoffing the last slice in the cafe beneath Palau March across the Passeig de Born.
The Idiom’s Guide to Mallorca
We are now officially intrigued as to how he has arranged for the daily slips of paper with the thought for the day idiom that accompanies our turn-down service, but it works on Pep’s day off regardless! I must ask him about the logistics on his return to work on Sunday.
Anyway, today’s traditional Mallorquin phrase is signed by Jose and reads as follows:-
‘Mesclar OUS amb Caragols’ which translates as the rather unlikely ‘ Mix Eggs with Snails’
Not something that I’d want to see on a plate of food in front of me, but in actual fact this has nothing to do with food!
It is usually said when things in a conversation are mixed or things have nothing to do with each other - mixed messages, I guess.
The Broken Streak
Having persuaded Sandra to walk to the top of the Passeig de Born, I had assumed that I would naturally have hit my daily Apple Watch exercise target, a 310 unbroken streak...........but I was so tired on returning to our room and resolving not to write-up the rest of today’s blog, nor indeed to fire-up Duolingo that I completely forgot to check my figures before retiring.
I managed only a couple more pages of Laidlaw before my head hit the pillow and I was out like a light.........only realising when I woke that my 310 day streak of hitting all three exercise targets had been broken by falling a mere 44 calories short of the Move goal.
Damn & Blast, if only I hadn’t sat at my iPad all afternoon Duolingering; if only I’d remembered to twirl my arms a few times before going to bed; if only I’d walked another couple of hundred metres.............any of which would have sufficed - If only!
So near, yet so far - 10 months of wasted effort!
Now I know how my friend John Payne felt when he broke his own Duolingo streak a few weeks back - but at least he had the excuse of having been hospitalised.
On reflection, as I write this two hours later and past the midnight deadline when I can no longer do anything to rectify the oversight, I come to realise that it is perhaps no bad thing, as it was becoming a little obesessive! Yes, there you have it an admission of guilt to do with my OCD.
Now I can relax and not worry about it any more - there are bigger and more important things in life........like Sandra’s birthday tomorrow. She deserves my undivided attention more than anyone as she has suffered my self-obsession.
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