RANTING ABOUT THE PASSPORT OFFICE AND SMOKERS

Hola....the sun is shining again on spain! Lexy is leaving today so the sun has come back to apologise for the last week of awful weather and she´s grabbed a desperate hour on the beach. the car was like an oven, just the way we like it.

Bingo is bringing my two oldest grandsons out tomorrow. Passport problems abound; they should have got them done last year when I told them! (I haven´t worked out what I want to rename them so they are still N01 and No2) She had to pay fifty quid to upgrade N01´s passport and, travel down to Liverpool to collect it! So, his passport will have cost over one hundred and fifty pounds! And they were all fast-tracked by the post office! Bingo´s was supposed to be in Manchester getting printed, so hers is not here yet either; she called me ten mins ago, but I know that their postman doesn´t arrive till about now. I told her to go ask her neighbours if he´s been. What a farce. No2´s arrived over a week ago! This holiday is costing me a fortune.

We´re off to the quizz tonight in one of the ex-pat locals, Dick Turpin´s. Thursday night is darts night - men against women. The whole pub has to play, it´s great fun. The only thing I hate about it all is that these pubs are so small and the cigarette smoke so thick; I´m watching the clock, waiting till the entertainment is over so I can go home. The other night was pretty bad; even though windows and doors were open, I was surrounded by six smokers at my table alone. It was really hard to breathe all night and I was looking forward to leaving. So, after the darts I was watching the level of the drinks going down, and we´d been joined by a few friends. It was after midnight. I said it was time to go home but Lulu and Chris didn´t want to go. It had been decided earlier that I was driving, so Lulu was pretty pissed. She was urging me to stay for another drink, but by this time I was desperate to get out of there, so I said that I wanted to go home. I began to look like the party-pooper, there was silence and crumpled faces. Lulu took some of Chris´ beer. I told them that I couldn´t breathe, that I´d been watching the clock and really had to get out of there. I felt bad but I couldn´t stay. I then suggested that I might stay while they had another drink if they didn´t smoke...there was silence. Then Chris said that she didn´t want anyone telling her that she couldn´t smoke. I stood up then, and they had to follow.

I felt that they´d put me in an awful position. When you think about it; I´d sat, breathing their smoke for 3 hours but they wouldn´t sit in my non-smoking air for 5 minutes! I´m not imagining this...that is selfish. I spend a lot of time with smokers and never normally mind (whether I catch cancer or not) because that´s life. I´ve never given it all a moment´s thought. Smokers are selfish. These people are my friends; they profess to love me, but they apparently don´t give me, as a non-smoker, a moment´s thought - they won´t give up one cigarette for me.