A beautiful Saturday
morning encouraged ideas to venture out and explore some new places. Having
spent the majority of the past few weeks noting down all the great areas that
we’d passed during our DIY months, we planned to spend our sunny day in San
Pedro (highly recommended to us and we highly recommend it to any of you who
find yourself in this part of Spain). A peaceful drive down to this nature
reserve, passing sun-hatted families with their picnics and old men with their
fishing rods when suddenly Mother shrieks on the roundabout. It takes me a
moment to register what’s wrong and then my eyes fall upon a laminated sign on
one of the exits. Ah, nothing is wrong and actually, according to Mother, everything
is now so right. “Oh. My. God. Oh my
God, Honey! What’s that?! Did you see that sign?! Oh, how brilliant, this is
perfect!”
The sign simply says ‘PORSCHE’.
Quickly, I rearrange
my mind, as clearly the tranquil nature walk is thoroughly off the cards now
(was it ever really on in Mother’s
mind?) and we manage to sandwich ourselves between two shiny Carreras. 30
seconds later we are not surrounded by marshes, salt lakes and flamingos but a
giant, polluted car park filled with beautiful cars and rich Spanish men
parading around in their Porsche polo shirts and hats (yuck). Mother’s natural
confidence multiplies and she heads straight to a man in an official-looking
shirt. Not even a subtle ‘fake-interested’ glimpse at the cars. Straight for
Juan. Juan was in a somewhat unapproachable state as he tried to fix a gauge in
the car but this did not deter Mother; “HOLA! Now, I don’t speak any Spanish
but I need to know everything.
Absolutely. What is this on your shirt? *strokes the logo with the back of her hand…
seductively or motherly I still don’t know* What does ‘PDM’ stand for? Are you
the organiser? Well, if I were the
organiser, there would be hundreds of
people here! Absolutely hundreds!
That’s what you need, you need PR.”
Juan looks terrified.
He is about eighteen and is trying to bat away Sergio behind him, who is in
fits of giggles. To my surprise, Juan responds in English to inform Mother that
he is a volunteer for the day---
“Ohhhhh! *squeal and pat* That is just so lovely! Isn’t that lovely,
Darling?!”
Mother turns to me
(panic, panic) and I exchange a giggling glance with Sergio.
“You maybe must speak
with Ruben, he is organiser for here today” Juan points to another man in a
‘PDM’ shirt who appears to be in deep conversation with what looks like a small
crowd of VIP Porsche owners, quite possibly in the middle of a million dollar
business deal.
“You know I can’t
leave here without a meeting, Darling!” Mother persuades Juan to introduce her
and I crave a swift exit. To no avail, as Mother addresses me to accompany her
– as if this is all ‘such fun’ and not at all embarrassing.
Ruben spins around,
thankfully having just ended his previous conversation. Juan witters something
to him in Spanish and then hands him Mother’s business card (of which he had
been given within ten seconds of meeting us). Poor Juan is cursed as
translator;
‘tell Ruben this… tell
Ruben that’. Thankfully (magically) Mother did not come across as over-powering
and these Spanish men were simply engrossed in this new taste of foreign
insanity in front of them. Sergio was particularly enjoying everything.
A successful day as we
left with a meeting for later this week. Mother’s name will be on billboards
everywhere before you know it. How nice.
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