Our first soirée

On Saturday night we were invited to a golf and charity dinner. Having discovered the location beforehand, Mother needed to have the upper hand amongst our fellow guests with a pre-visit and we had spent an early evening making friends with Diego the waiter.  Our security guards gave us the number for a taxi firm… actually, the only taxi firm. Mother soon discovered that ordering a cab is noticeably different to the British procedure. One cannot ‘order’ a taxi, one must simply call when ready and then wait. Not something Mother was remotely willing to do; “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?! I want a cab here at 7pm! You’re telling me I have to telephone when I’m ready to leave?! This simply doesn’t make sense. No wonder Spain’s in a crisis. You’re doing it all wrong. What if the cab takes 20 minutes to get here? I won’t arrive on time will I?!”

I presume the taxi firm ‘forgot’ to send a cab as we were standing at the edge of our road (not waiting in our home – impossible address problem again) for another 30 minutes. Eventually Santiago came to the rescue. “Thank GOD you’re here! I’ll tell you – let me tell you, your company is UTTERLY USELESS! I shan’t be using them again!”

Santiago was a joyful Columbian man who agreed with Mother and gave us his personal number; “Here, you call me directly and I take you where you want to go – you wait fifteen minutes and I am there! I promise I come!”

We are given the receipt:

Several glasses *bottles* of wine later, it is time to drag Mother away from Hugh and his fellow golfers and head home. Santiago to the rescue… Or so we thought.

Here, as we stand and watch guests climb into cabs, a large, angry-looking man walks over to us; “You for Santiago? Come. You come.” It appears Santiago has sent his ‘friend’. He ushers us into his unmarked car (suspisions increased). Feisty Mother gambles with our lives and grills Alternate-Santiago with questions; “You’re not Santiago. Where is Santiago? Why are you here? What is your name? Are you a friend of his? Did he call you? How do you know we are the correct people? Where is your meter? You ought to have a meter. I need to know you’re going to give me the right price!”

Alternate-Santiago barely responded. Instead, we are tossed around the giant cab and we are now undeniably in the uncut version of Fast & Furious. The bits too terrifying to make the final cut. Unmarked roads are lit only by moonlight and we are definitely not going the way we came. Mother is only mildly concerned and more interested in the whereabouts of the real Santiago. As we reach the gates to our urbanisation we stop *exhales*. Alternate-Santiago hops out and spends five minutes mumbling into the intercom and then gets back in the car, starts the engine, spins us around and we rumble off in the opposite direction. Getting further away from our home. This is it. This is where we die. We have been abducted. Au revoir. Adios. I haven’t written my will yet! I’m not ready for this! No no no no, should I do my own stunts and  jump out? Yes. That’s the only option---

“Excuse me! What are you doing?! Where are we going?!” Mother addresses abductor and he tells us (I think) that we have to go through a different town and come through the other entrance. An extra ten minutes that felt like hours.

Heart returning to a somewhat regular pace as we spot our security guards and we pull up near home. I am alive. We are alive.

Mother insists upon a receipt and she is given this: