daddy swipe
this time. my dad looks like lou from neighbours and has a yorkshire accent you could cut with a butterknife. although he is now fluent in spanish they can't understand him because of the accent. before he learned spanish, he subscribed to the "just speak english a little louder" theory. in fact, he invented the theory. now, he just speaks spanish to everyone, regardless of provenance. this is always amusing in indian restaurants.

so we're in cephalonia and i am a rather sarky 17 year old. we wander into the middle of nowhere looking for somewhere to have breakfast and there's a greek guy, complete with bristling zappata moustache, alone in his rural restaurant.

"we are 4," my dad shouts unnecessarily loudly, pointing at us. the guy looks up and stares at him. "FOUR!" dad bellows again, gesturing at the table. the guy continues to stare.

"we. are. FOOOOOUUUUURRR," dad howls, purple in the face. "table. for. four. four." eventually the lean greek guy grins, his white teeth gleaming in that massive moustache.

"i can see that perfectly well, mate," he drawls in a cockney accent...

fast forward a few years, and my parents have bought a house on a beautiful clifftop in southern spain. it's about 20 mins on foot from the nearest town, so we were wandering along the coast road for dinner when we saw a sign that said "RESTAURANT" with an arrow pointing up a dirt track. a bit further up was a sign saying "los olivas" and a quaint little restaurant with a beautiful garden with a few people sitting at wrought iron tables.

"i'll check it out," dad said, and blundered on through the gate. he sat down at a table and was promptly ignored. after a few minutes he got up again and approached a huge spanish gentleman. "la carta?" he demanded belligerently. then we saw him get redder and redder.

he'd only walked into a private garden. the restaurant was up the hill...

and finally, when my parents were putting the house together, they rang me for a chat one night. dad said, "your mother's in a mood with me because i ran over a garden gnome at the garden centre."

garden gnome? when i spoke to my mother, she said he'd reversed into a ten foot ornamental stone fountain, knocked it flying into another display, and promptly driven off...

given that as an example, is it any wonder i have such shonky experiences with men?!!!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 17:11, Reply)