PERSISTENT PESKINESS

The day so far had been less than tranquil. I had fallen over for no reason, the component parts of the pool cleaning apparatus had wilfully disengaged themselves mid-clean, and the instruction manual for Pete’s camera had disappeared into the ether and not left a forwarding address.

To the annoyance of the Mischief Imp that caused them, we had surmounted all these irritations. However, any Mischief Imp worth its salt is not to be beaten quite so easily, so it turned its attentions to the washing line.

The washing line was a battered old campaigner, bearing the scars of years of conflict with the elements, and the Imp had no difficulty bringing it to the ground in a soggy heap of bent aluminium, towels and twine. This was not the first time it had fallen in combat, but this time it was the last – it was beyond repair. Nothing daunted we betook ourselves to the huge Chinese shop, where we reasoned there would be a plethora of whirligig washing lines for sale. There were three – but the whirligig top was echoed by whirligig feet, and the whole lot was packaged in plastic with an illustration of a manically smiling young lady holding up a very small tea towel.

I looked at them glumly.

There is no way that these elegant art forms in aluminium would stand up in Limaria, the birthplace of Spanish hurricanes! Free-standing whirligigs would be less use than the standard chocolate fireguard - I needed something that could be anchored to the bedrock as securely as a lighthouse.

We then tried the large Chinese shop, which had no whirligig washing lines at all, so we paraphrased ‘should have gone to Specsavers’ into ‘should have gone to Lepanto’, a Ferreteria small enough to fit several times over in either of the Chinese shops.

And hey presto! There was the whirligig washing line of desire propped against the doorframe! ! As I picked it up I thought I heard an evil Imp-like chuckle, so I checked it over – it was missing the crucial piece - the bit that gets hammered into the ground!

I relayed this information to the girl at the till, who hollered for José in tones that would have secured her employment anywhere as Town Crier, and which caused temporary deafness in those queueing nearby.

José returned with the vital piece. We paid, returned home, and lost no time erecting Whirligig #2 –That persistently pesky Imp will find it has met its match – it will not defeat us! !

PS. But it did, I'll tell you another time!