One of the more unusual features of La Villa Wow is the inclusion of a desk in the lounge.  The desk comes from Ikea  as does everything in the villa from the furniture to the crockery even down to the towels. Perhaps that’s why we like it so much.  It’s like an Ikea show room but without the arrows on the floor and there are no little pencils by every doorway. But it is at the desk that I have mainly been writing my blog.  Having showered and changed I sit here with a glass of whisky and start typing my thoughts.  This area has had some great writers pass through it and I feel like I am following in their footsteps.

Ernest Hemingway spent many years in Spain and wrote some of his most popular and critically acclaimed novels when he was here.  I can imagine, like me, him sat at a desk like this (well probably not one from Ikea), drinking whisky (that bit fits), typing on his typewriter (well an ipad in my case), listening to the new Daft Punk Album on his iPod (ok maybe not Daft Punk on an iPod but he may have had a wind up gramophone.  Note to self: pack wind up gramophone for next holiday to improve my writing.  Must weigh less than 20Kg or be able to fit into my hand luggage), with Sky News on mute in the corner (well in Hemingway’s day  it would have been a newspaper, but that would have been silent as well) as he wrote.   Ok, Ok, so at first sight there are not that many comparisons between me and Ernest Hemninway but we do share some similarities.

He wrote about the passion and drama of the Spanish bull fighter in his seminal novel “The Dangerous Summer”; I wrote about how expensive it is to watch bull fighting; He lived through the horrors of the Spanish Civil War; I suffered a night of Flamenco; and if that wasn’t enough he had his final birthday in Churriana about 15 km from here.  And what is at Churriana today?  The Ikea where this desk came from.  It’s fate I tell you.

Hemingway also went mad and committed suicide, so perhaps I shouldn’t really aspire to be like him. Michael Palin, now there’s a thoroughly nice person who knows a bit about travel writing.  He’s been around these parts as well.  Perhaps he could be my writing role model? I’m just reading his diaries and  what strikes me about him is his attention to detail and the way he constantly writes and re-writes his material.  He is very workman like and obviously labours over his writing.  I just write the first thing that comes into my head, get Karen to proof read it, publish it, then have a Bellini cocktail.  Maybe I’m setting my aspirations a bit high with him
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I know Bill Bryson.  He writes light pithy travelogues doesn’t he?  Hmm, my writing style is more akin to Bill and Ben than Bill Bryson.  If I went into a bar here and said “flub a dub a dub” it would probably be more understandable than my Spanish.

No, to quote Gloria Gaynor, I am what I am.  A daft dyslexic bloke who amuses himself by writing silly stories.  They’ve probably amused me more than you, but if you haven’t enjoyed them…well stop reading them.  No I’m serious.  Stop reading them.  Now.  You still here?  Well I’ve nearly finished now and this is my last blog of the holidays.
If you have enjoyed them then the good news is that myself, Karen, Nikki and my parents are coming back to Spain in 6 weeks’ time.  It’s mum and dads golden wedding anniversary and so we are all going to Barcelona for a long weekend.  Now bearing in mind that my dad’s Spanish is worse than mine and mum has a propensity to fall over (even when sober) I feel that this trip may turn up some comedy gold.

So it’s not “adios Espana”, its “hasta la vista”.