Day 13 - Almost Perfect, But Not Quite!

I woke up too early, read for a couple of hours, then fell asleep and woke up again at 8.30am.

The first negative to our campsite pitch was that we now have a young Austrian couple next door to us with three screaming toddlers, one of which is still breastfeeding. There were lots of spare pitches, but they chose to be our neighbours. Amazingly they all sleep in the one small tent on top of their Mitsubishi 4x4. My mission is to sneak a photo of their setup.

After a shower, we had a healthy breakfast of yoghurt with blueberries and I had the one remaining sausage from last night. We packed our bags for the beach including .75litre of white wine AND my sunglasses.

We had aa nice morning on the beach (apart from the 3 adult women and 3 children with their poorly secured 3 umbrellas, who sat down in front of us hence ruining our view). Around 2pm we headed to lunch at a restaurant, Bar Tratorria A La Playa, that Jackie had seen and was keen to try just set back from the beach. It looked perfect when we walked in and it was quite busy. We sat down at a table, then the gammy eyed owner presented us with the menu of just 6 antipasti dishes. We explained we were from England (probably our first mistake) and he rattled through the menu in broken English. We chose the most expensive dish, €20, of meat and fish to share, plus 2 beers.

A short while later old gammy eyes plonked down a basket of bread and what I can only describe as a plate of scraps. The plate consisted of a little prosciutto ham, salami and pecorino cheese which were ok, as well as 2 slivers of artichoke, 2 eighths of a hard boiled, 2 wilted lettuce leaves, a small triangle of a fried sandwich containing an unidentified seafood and the piste de resistance - 2 tiny triangles of stale pizza.

It was shite, but every time I made any comment about it, Jackie accused me of moaning and ruining the ambiance. An Italian lady had the same dish, which seemed decidedly more appetising than ours. I mentioned it, but apparently I was moaning again.

We grabbed the olive oil and balsamic vinegar for our bread and as we squeezed the balsamic vinegar it poured out of a crack in the side of the bottle creating a sticky mess on the table cloth. This had been our 2nd balsamic incident of the day, when earlier Jackie found that our food bag and hiding place for the car keys was dripping in balsamic vinegar. For those who know her won’t be surprised to learn that she hadn’t tightened the lid when she last used it before putting it in the bag!

When we left the restaurant, I did let the owner know what I thought of his food. He didn’t seem concerned, but Jackie was annoyed and didn’t speak to me for several hours.

We left the beach too early for my liking, collected the car and drove around to a beach I had seen up the road on Apple Maps. It didn’t compare to ours, in fact nothing compares to our beach. We continue on to Lidl in Saint’Antioco and bought loads of stuff including 2 steaks and litres and litres of white wine for Jackie.

We returned to camp where we (Jackie) cooked up steak, chips and salad. It still amazes me how we do it!

I listened to the England v Oman T20 cricket match, which was over in a flash. It was a still evening and we got bitten by a persistent mosquito. Come back wind all is forgiven. And then it was bed.

Song of the Day - Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O’Connor.Read more