Back on the Costa Granadina it’s so nice to have summer back. At least I think so after a great September in Denmark and a not so nice opening of October. Pepe doesn’t agree, though.
I met him on the street in La Herradura the other day, and he was happy. There was no hola or buenos dias, just “Summer is over!” Hands in the air, a smile all across his face all the way to the back of his neck.
Well, it was for a day or two anyway, but as we all know happiness lasts only a short while. I too was happy, learning that my soulmate – though he may not know that he is – Bob Dylan, won the Nobel Prize in literature at last. I’ve been lobbying the Swedish Academy for years. A colleague of his, Leonard Cohen, hit the head on the nail when he said: “It’s like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain in the world.” He’s a bit of a poet, too. Not in the same league, though.
Happiness is short; travelling is long. As the Danish national bard, Hans Christian Andersen, once said, “To travel is to live”. I love HCA, and when in Málaga I always have to pat lovingly his sculpture on the Alameda Principal. When, in the 1800’s, he travelled to Málaga by horse and carriage, it took months to get here. I was only delayed an hour or so getting back to my second home. But even today travelling can be tiresome.
Like the kid behind you kicking for hours at the back of your seat, the parents saying nothing. But there are worse travelling Wilburys. A few Danish travel companies have guaranteed ‘Russian-free travels’ because they have received so many complaints about Russian behaviour, allegedly a little worse than the Danish in the 60’s going to pig parties on Mallorca eating a bit of whole-grilled suckling pig and drinking a lot of sangria, the party continuing on the plane home.
Ryanair considers non-alcoholic flights from certain destinations in the UK. And Chinese authorities had to send out rules for how to behave abroad. For example not sitting down taking a shit on the floor in the airport.
Me, I just take out the garbage. Or rubbish, as they say on Ryanair planes. “Any rubbish? Any rubbish?” Taking out the rubbish in our house on the Costa is a special task, and we are the special task force. Whenever we dine at home – and my wife Gretha is a ‘greata’ cook than most – afterwards we say let’s take down the garbage. Which means going to Café Luciano for a gin-tonic for her and an anis seco con hielo for me. After the rubbish, of course. That too is a sort of happiness, though short lived as it may be.
(Feature/Danish: Jes Rasmussen)