Beat The Clock

By -





Last time Plum and I were in Evora we went to a nice little local's restaurant where we had a laughably inexpensive feast; it turned out we were staying within a couple of hundred yards of the place...so that was dinner sorted.  Or rather, it wasn't.  They were busy and couldn't seat us so we implemented our standard fallback plan: head towards the centre of town and go in the 1st open place we find.  This turned out to be an Indian where we had what passes for a curry in Evora.  

When I look at an Indian menu I note the price of a main meat dish and make the assumption that the total cost will be a bit higher.  Of course, bhajis, rice and a naan effectively double this and once you have thrown in a mandatory Cobra it is an expensive meal!

My mention of imminent bad weather was premature due to my inability to read a weather forecast.  Those delights will actually be tomorrow.  Today was overcast and we caught a few drops of rain but still warm and very pleasant.  It was hillier but we put our big boy pants on and got them done.  About 5 miles from the end we cycled past an abandoned concrete pre-Schengen border checkpoint and we are now in Badajoz, Spain.

The Song?

Now that we are in Spain we become subject to the draconian 'Dinner Laws', which make it a hanging offence to serve anyone their evening meal before 8pm.  In fact you musn't even open your restaurant until 8 and aren't really supossed to serve any food before 9!  This is always a source of irritation but, as I cycled across the border, the solution struck me like a bolt of lightning.  A quick call to my lawyers and they confirm that this is 100% legal:

Passing into Spain we are supposed to put our watches forward 1 hour and....drum roll...we HAVEN'T.  This means that tonight, at 7pm, we can go out and buy dinner without breaking any laws.  Even better, this neatly solves the problem of hotels that don't serve an early breakfast.  Why I never thought of this before is beyond me... though it will mean it gets dark a bit early.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Now That's What I Call Music Vol II

By -
Image
Real Gone Kid Having arrived a little late at the start, Nick made up for it by leaving a day early.  There was a tear in my eye as I waved him off...then I realised I could take his bedroom.  This was particularly welcome since Plum's snoring was so bad last night I ended up sleeping on the sofa. Not Fair The Spanish do not appear to have any concept of 'weights and measures'.  In Blighty we have rules about such things and people to enforce them.  If you buy a pint it will contain 20 fluid ounces....or if it doesn't you are required, by law, to make a sarcastic comment to the barman.  Something like "could you fit a scotch in there?" is traditional.  Because Malaga is an area with many Brits, every bar offers a beer size called a "pinta".  If you are very VERY lucky this may indeed be a pint but usually it is just the biggest glass they have, which could be anything from about 40cl upwards.  You won't ...
Read more

Ruby Tuesday

By -
Image
Last night we have found a cunning loophole in the Spanish 'no dinner until midnight' laws.  Our apartment is close to a shopping mall which seems to have some sort of exemption from the normal rules of Spain.  On the upper floor is a food court where we found restaurants open and happy to serve us food at 6:30.  We had pizza.... not very Spanish but did I mention it was open at 6:30? Nick rocked up at about 9pm.  Lorraine, we now discover, is pushing 74 and looked like she had wafted here from Luton Care Home rather than paradise. So we are now at gang of four until David joins us on Saturday. Today we went for a ride.  It was a simple 'there and back' ride along the coast with a loop up into the hills which, on paper, looked like a piece of cake.  Getting out of Malaga requires 5 fairly poor miles, with the same on the return.  The other 40 were nice BUT there was a bit of a hill.  It was 5 miles long and mostly bottom gear...not...
Read more

Escape (the Pina Colada song)

By -
Image
We went to the Brazilian and it was magnificent. There were hot dead animals of every kind and we ate lots of them.   Our new arrival, David, is not entirely aligned with corporate policy vis a vis drinks.  We all ordered a large beer but David went for a Pina Colada.....yes, I know!  I will take him on one side tomorrow and explain that this sort of nonsense just isn't acceptable, even if he does like making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape. Today we did a 60 mile ride with clear blue skies and highs in the low 20s....which was nice.  Slightly less nice was the ruddy great hill we had to climb right out of the door.  Distance, grade and total climb are numbers that won't convey the true horror of this bastard so let's describe it in simpler language....2 hours in bottom gear at walking pace.  David redeemed himself after his big drinks faux pa by being slower than me.  Cresting a hill in anything other than last place is an exp...
Read more