Matt, both of us are happily in Spain,
A proper summer break long overdue.
For days now heavy clouds have presaged rain
But their appearance doesn’t spoil the view:
The hills that seemed so dinky from the plane
Now loom above the mist like giants. You
Will hopefully accept with an apology
This sloppy foray into climatology.
The English call the town we stay in Nerja,
The throaty j a fricative too far
For your retired expat office worker,
Who barely gets the alveolar r.
The locals’ secret? Practice. A mazurka
Of violent expulsions of catarrh
Has acted as the soundtrack to our visit
(I worry that sounds snobbish – tell me, is it?)
The water here is lazier than us,
A monumental catatonic host
That yawns and waves at our arriving bus,
Then pulls its duvet back up to the coast
To sleep. “The Balcony of Europe,” thus
Said King Alonso, patently engrossed
By how the Med can handle us so coolly yet
Its Romeo still captivates one’s Juliet.
Despite the palm trees in the public squares,
The whole place is more English than the Beano.
Great grandparents from Croydon rise from chairs
At glacial speeds familiar from Zeno.
You could divide our ages into theirs
And have enough to buy yourself some vino –
We overheard some scraps from four such sages:
They talked about Scotch Eggs for fucking ages.
It hasn’t all been hundred-year-old bores:
We kayaked Thursday morning with Gen Z-ers,
Through caves where crabs would scuttle from our oars
And waterfalls where sea tomatoes, red as
A poisoned Disney apple, grew in scores
And almost made one long for Mini Cheddars.
Our rowing started strong, but soon got stranger:
Small caves did spit-takes at my Katherine Grainger.
It’s currently the morning and I am
Aboard an early bus bound for Granada
Where Áine’s been distracted by a dam
(It’s only bridges make her fangirl harder).
I think she’s put it up on Instagram
Or else, if you have reservoirs of ardour
A picture couldn’t drain, then even better:
She’ll send you details in a separate letter.
The rain did fall at last. We weren’t prepared,
Of course, and so, untwiddling our thumbs
We bought protection, no expenses spared,
From one of Martin Shkreli’s business chums.
Whoever says that an umbrella shared
Is an umbrella halved should check their sums –
In practice it means you each get a quarter
Of any fighting spirit it shows water.
The famed Alhambra took us half a day:
The gardens on their own took several hours.
Because we went in via the back way,
We wandered up and down fine Moorish towers
With no idea of what they were. But hey,
The gardens overflowed with gorgeous flowers,
And ultimately (boo, my past self hisses)
How true that saying “ignorance is bliss” is.
A sudden leap ahead, I’m sorry, Matt,
To Sunday afternoon aboard the plane.
We nearly missed our flight (long story, that)
But halfway home and things are right as rain.
Hope everything is peachy at the flat,
Meanwhile I’ve pulled off – with my giant brain –
A trick beyond the wit of Penn and Teller:
I’ve managed to remember the umbrella!