Don Quixote 3

Tonight at the Brasserie, David's (pianist) wife was in situ. Johnny greeted her accordingly and David couldn't stop laughing!

Don Quixote 2

Don 3

Sitting in sunshine outside the Brasserie, Johnny finally recounted the events of last night.  ‘I’d had three vodkas – no more than that – I’m doing really well! Anyway, I’m going in for my fourth.  The sun was glaring and I wouldn’t move out of its path – I could feel it infiltrating my soul – I fucking needed it.   So, I go inside.  Well as soon as you get through the door, it’s an intense black because of the sun and you can’t see anything, except vaguely – you know your way to the bar, sort of thing.

David’s playing the piano and in the seat opposite was a woman.  When David’s wife comes, she always sits in that seat.  So I went up with my glass in my hand, boomed, ‘Hello Darling!’ and went in with the lips.  I got about this far (hand-span) from this woman and suddenly realised that it wasn't her!  It was a complete fucking stranger and there was a companion, a younger woman sitting opposite. Anyway, I kind of backed off and I said, ‘I do apologise, it’s a case of mistaken identity – I thought you were David’s wife and she said, ‘he should be so lucky!' So I kissed her on the cheek anyway, said it was nice to meet her, you see and made my departure.

Anyway today, Mike (perfect bartender and host) came across and told me that the women were transvestites - I thought she had a very low voice for a woman.  And not only that, eventually when I realised – I mean it could have gone really badly couldn't it? But I didn't get that sort of response from this woman.

The thing is, that is eccentric behaviour – it’s like Don Quixote’s windmill – he thought there was a giant there, but it was a windmill - like an illusion and this is the same thing – I thought it was David’s wife, but I couldn’t see her and this woman had the same kind of long hair.  I wondered why the companion was looking at me in a very strange way.

Anyway, I've learnt my lesson!  I could make that kind of communication with completely the wrong kind of person.’

‘You could get thumped,’ I said.

‘So I'm going to change my behaviour and stand in the doorway until my eyes adjust.’

‘But that could be another kind of eccentric behaviour,' said I, 'people may wonder why this man comes in through the door and stands still.’

‘You know,' Johnny continued, 'when straight people come into the Studio, they blink and can’t see anything.  Then they fidget, don’t know where to look, think let’s get out of here and run out, saying they've forgotten to do the shopping!’

Don Quixote 1

Yours truly has been basking in much needed 70 degree sunshine on the Costa Blanca for the last week: Benidorm to be exact. It's a strange place, dedicated to bargain-basement hedonism for northern Europeans, but Spain is there, even if it is well buried beneath tons of tourist tat.

I stood on my balcony every morning and gazed at the implacable  crumpled, silver-grey mountains of Puig Campana that loom over the resort and wondered what they would make of the carryings-on of these funny little beings on holiday.  The mountains have outlived the Moors, seen Franco come and go and they'll still be there when we've long gone.

Musing, whilst gazing, Don Quixote came to mind.  I've always loved Don Quixote.  Even as a little girl and didn't know the book, I had learned that Don Quixote was quirky; a possessor of an impeccable, left-handed sort of logic that got him into all sorts of scrapes, but because he had a good heart and an innocence, in the end it would be alright.

Don Quixote and Sancho hang on the wall in my hall.  I bought the painting when I was twelve on a trip to Paris with my mother.  It's painted by Pedro and cost £10: all of my spending money for a week.

Me, Montmartre,age 12

I look back now and it was a strange thing to do, because at twelve, paintings weren't the sort of thing I bought.  My £10 would usually have been destined for Parisian tourist tat.  But I do remember having to have it and it's turned out to be prophetic because thirty-eight years later I met my own Don Quixote and he was in action whilst I was away.



At  my post-holiday catch-up with Johnny last night,  he reported, rather mysteriously, that there had been an incident in the Brasserie the previous night. More than that he would not say.  'Later on Gill,' he said.




As we walked into the Brasserie, barman Joe began to laugh.  'You should have been here last night - it was a scream,' he said and unhelpfully, from my point of view, dissolved into further fits, incapable of coherent conversation.

The tale will have to wait until tomorrow as the words and thoughts are going blurry and I need to make some sense of it all.

It's nice to be back!