Our day out

Yesterday we got up very early to join the Pensionistas on a day out to Benidorm for the princely sum of 7€ each.
The usual form for these trips is that you are taken for breakfast then they try and sell you something, you have lunch and finally visit a few places of interest.


So after our coffee and ham sandwich we were taken to this room where there was a display of goods on sale. There were glasses, cutlery and crockery at one end; and various household appliances at the other.

The main items though were a chair and a bed which the sales lady proceeded to describe in great detail. The main virtue of the bed seemed to be that you could tilt the head and foot of it much like you can with hospital beds. For 1,400€ you got the bed, the chair, the mattress, cover, pillows etc etc. There was even a magnetic mat that would cure you of almost every illness and pain known to man thrown in.

However, nobody seemed to be interested in buying a bed which really frustrated the fiery Spaniard. She stormed out of the room several times only to return refreshed ready to try a different pitch. Short of torturing us; that lady tried everything to sell us a bed.

Eventually she gave up and sat in the corner with her head in her hands whilst her assistant sold a few jars of face cream and some throws to put on sofas.

We were then taken to another, altogether more interesting, shop that sold wine, spirits, cheese and cooked meats.

Whilst we were there, several of the ladies from our coach went searching in the scrub land opposite the shop and came back with armfuls of wild fennel. These ladies certainly have an eye for the stuff. You regularly see them walking down from the Pedrera carrying bunches of what look like weeds. Now we know what they are.

Then we returned to the warehouse for lunch and finally we were taken to "Molino" Benidorm for a drag show. The costumes were spectacular and the artistes very polished. It wasn't hard to understand the topic of the humour and we followed bits of the jokes but without a grasp of colloquial Spanish we missed some of the punch lines.

The best part of the trip though was being in the company of such wonderful people. The members of the Pensionistas' Club went out of their way to make us feel so welcome. We look forward to going out with them again in the near future.

Many thanks to John and Carol Thorpe for inviting us and for being such good company.