Things seen and lost from the terraza. Invitations.

Years ago, when "Friends" was still at the height of its popularity as a TV series, there was one episode where the very juvenile young adults gathered to look excitedly through a window into the flat opposite. One of then had discovered that the bloke who lived there tended to walk around without any clothes, disregarding uncurtained windows. They referred to him as the "ugly naked guy", largely because he was rather plump, not a perfectly toned, sun kissed god of a man. (I have read that the latest fashion is not for toned and tightly-muscled but for a slightly plump man with just a hint of beer belly. I so hate being told what is the ideal man!) 

I was reminded of this episode of "Friends" as I sat on our terraza this morning and, chancing to look up, saw a large, naked male backside in a window opposite. The owner of the aforementioned backside must not have realised how close to the window he had strayed nor how visible he was. One should always be careful about displaying one's charms in windows. This is not Amsterdam, after all. 

That was not only terraza incident this morning. Some time later I heard an expletive. A chessplayer of our acquaintance was looking down from a balcony round the corner and one floor up from our terraza. On enquiring, I discovered he had hung a towel and a pair is swimming shorts on the balcony rail and they had disappeared. The obvious answer was that they had fallen but he could see no sign of them below. I saw him at the pool later and had been able to reclaim them, so all was well. Otherwise I might have thought they had gone the way of my towel and Phil's cushion. 

Yesterday, at lunchtime, we arrived at the dining room to find the door closed. This was a short while after the usual time. Other people were also waiting. Eventually word filtered through that we had all been moved to another dining room on the lower floor. A notice to that effect would have been useful. It turns out that they were preparing the room for a wedding party. As the room still looks as though it is being prepared, I do not know whether the wedding has taken place or not. If it has, then they have been a very quiet bunch of wedding guests. We have heard no music, no sound at all in fact, and I have not seen hide nor hair of a bride! Another mysterious disappearance! 

Tonight we shall eat "arroz con bogavante", a local speciality dish with rice and lobster. It's the special chess tournament supper event. We feel privileged to be invited. Not everyone in the tournament gets to go. Perhaps you have to be staying at the event hotel. Perhaps you need to have got to know the organisers quite well, which we have over the years. Anyway we look forward to this event every year and had begun to wonder if it was cancelled or if, even worse, we were not among those invited! Shock! Horror! 

But invitations were issued over lunch yesterday, along with free passes for those accompanying chessplayers, but not the players themselves, for a free session in the "piscina dinámica" (whatever a dynamic pool is!!!) and for the "sillones relax (again, whatever, exactly, a relaxation armchair is). 

Hmm, they do head massages here, I wonder if I could swop those free sessions for a free head massage!