Country life
Having a
lovely time
Leanda de Lisle
Nevertheless, I was pleased that the Ger- mans outnumbered the Brits in Mallorca by about two to one. This may have been because being surrounded by one's fellow countrymen in a foreign place reminds you what a grockle you are, but I think it's more likely to have been because someone stole my youngest son's inflatable boat on the second day of our holiday. We had left it by the pool to dry and had assumed it was safe there, behind the walls of our rural villa. However, when I rang the
agents looking for sympathy, they scoffed at such innocence. If we insisted on leaving pool things around the pool, what could we expect? I didn't know. What could we expect? That a Spaniard would be mean enough to steal a child's birthday present? Surely only the British could be so petty in their thievery.
I suspected that some south London gangster was renting a villa nearby, so I stomped off down the road — ostensibly to warn our two or three neighbours that their damp towels and water-wings were at risk — but in fact in the hopes of catching a thief floating in a lilac and green dragon- headed dinghy with my wrap around his middle. It was very, very hot and I felt slightly dizzy by the time I got to the first villa. I couldn't see our boat or my wrap anywhere, but a burly pink Englishman peeked out of his pool with a cocktail in his hand. I gave my warnings, feeling increas- ingly like one of those people who walk up and down Oxford Street shouting about the end of the world. `Ah,' the man said, and I left.
In the suffocatingly still air, the wind dropped from my sails. The other villas seemed impossibly far and so I drifted home where I collapsed feeling utterly helpless. Outside the window I could hear the tinkling bells of a herd of goats. 'We'll eat one of those tonight,' I swore vengeful- ly. I don't know why we don't eat goat in Britain. They are bony, but very tasty and with the new popularity of goat's cheese there must be quite a few animals calling out for the pot. Anyway, suffice it to say the next day I awoke feeling quite revived and went to lay breakfast on the terrace.
There, by the table, on the ground, an enormous well-fed tabby-cat lay stone dead. It crossed my mind that it was some kind of message from the toy and towel thief, but in any event our holiday then passed without incident until I fell down the hill.
It wouldn't have happened if we had travelled to this hilltop by horse. The most interesting thing about Mallorca is that every field seems to have beautiful horses in it. Unfortunately, our Rough Guide said nothing about them (it was, without doubt, the most useless guide book I have ever bought). Perhaps I should have asked the Germans about them. They like horses. Which reminds me, how did that Noel Coward song go? 'Don't let's be beastly to the Germans .. .' Perhaps that's right. Coward was a wise man.
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