Perhaps I’m the only one with that psychosomatic clock which kicks into overdrive as the end of May approaches. Let me explain. You’ve bumbled along happy as Larry since Christmas, sure, at times it’s perhaps been a bit chilly or rainy and you might still need your coat, but generally speaking not much weather wise that a decent pullover and a pair of jeans can’t head off. Then, all of a sudden Easter looms, arrives and passes, at which point things become a tad more complicated because the uncomfortable months are just around the corner. The problem is, everyone knows the Spanish summer is coming; it’s going to be hot and humid and for those that live on the coast, manic and high impact too. This is the point at which that mental timepiece I mentioned earlier begins to mess with the mind. As May gently gives way to June, nothing whatsoever changes discernibly, but the invisible pessimist inside me starts worrying and just doesn’t relent until the sun sets on August and a few hours later rises on September. At this point, the transformation is even more bizarre, an uninvited wave of relief, heaven only knows why, envelopes me simply because I can write the date with a nine and not an eight.
Anyway, for the three months from June to August, quite a few places along the Costa Blanca seaboard resemble Margate, Skegness and Clacton, as the Spanish do what the Brits did years ago before Sir Freddie Laker and Stelios buggered everything up. They head for the seaside. For the old style Bognor Regis, Scarborough and Southend of the 1950’s read Torrevieja, Santa Pola and Guardamar, the only difference being the visitors arrive by car and not the hot, sticky and very full trains of yesteryear. I wish they’d stuck to RENFE; none of our local towns appear able to cope with the influx of cars from as far afield as Bilbao, Madrid and Zaragoza. Unfortunately, every vehicle has a minimum of four occupants, each of whom needs a bed for the duration, feeding for a fortnight, their own personal spot on the beach and the local health centre on standby just in case. Somehow, our popular coastal resorts have to cope and do so brilliantly. It’s not all gloom and doom though, whilst the local law enforcement operatives have to spend quite a bit more of their shifts actually enforcing the law and maintaining order, not simply supping coffee and browsing today’s Marca in a local café, loads of their colleagues fill their boots hoiking away badly parked cars. A bit of a money spinner for the town council then those gruas.
The point is, all good things come to an end, and for the towns of Torre, ‘Pola and Guardamar amongst others, that good thing sounds suspiciously like the “cha-ching, cha-ching” of a cash register rapidly filling up as visitors frantically race to get rid of all their cash before their fortnight on holiday finishes. By about the middle of August everywhere is just about full up; the streets, the restaurants, the beaches, the car parks and the leisure ferries to and from nearby islands, some of which resemble Indian trains with people and animals clinging onto the sides. For three weeks no-one in most kinds of service industry has time to breathe, the pace is relentless and then, suddenly, the last Sunday of the month arrives. Up and down the coast the sound of wheeled suitcases clacking over those pavement tiles you slip over on when it rains is quickly followed by the thump of car boots. Gentlemen, start your engines, it’s time to leave. And so begins the exodus as Madrileños and Basques retrieve the road maps and begin their long treks back to the Capital and San Sebastien, whilst trying not to think about work tomorrow. Meanwhile, tumbleweeds bounce aimlessly along the deserted streets of what were until a few hours ago bustling neighbourhoods, or do they?
Life still goes on though long after the tourists head home to start saving for next years visit, and the first job is cleaning up streets that resemble a football terrace an hour or so after the final whistle. In most of the eating establishments, stressed out, hard working and exhausted staff give themselves a thoroughly well deserved pat on the back and look on with envy as their bosses head off to the bank with suitcases stuffed with cash. The very few Chinese people who haven’t opened a cheap supermarket or a take-away melt away into the ether and take with them their counterfeit DVD’s, all wrapped up in a quilt cover, they’ll be back but not for a few months just yet. With considerably less restaurant customers, the friendly, respectful and not remotely aggressive coloured immigrants “manteros” moth ball their dodgy watches, Lacoste polo shirts and cheap imitation sunglasses to start training in earnest for one of the numerous spring time half marathons around the region, for each of which one of their number will emerge victorious. Permanent residents, not more than three or four in each apartment block, revel in the sound of silence as unruly kids and bickering parents take their temper tantrums and late night domestic quarrels back with them.
One by one, local people tentatively emerge blinking into the still bright sunlight and reclaim “their” spots in favourite cafeterias and slowly begin the onerous task of re-learning how to nurse a coffee for two hours whilst flicking though the provincial newspaper Información. At the bar, Policia Locales, often in threes but more likely in pairs, keep a low profile and chew the fat with a cigarette as life on the, by now, incident free streets outside carries on uninterrupted, the static hiss and chatter of hip mounted radios is ignored as far more important things are talked over. Just down the road, the constant flow of visitors to Tourist Information offices dries to a trickle and hitherto rushed staff members busy themselves looking for menial chores to fend off the onset of boredom, the opportunity to practise English, French, German and a whole host of other European languages now gone for another eight months. On the beach, the “Chiringuito” temporary bars, their work for the season done and dusted, stand boarded up, seemingly abandoned and look pretty sorry for themselves, a far cry from the recent days when the adjacent sands were packed with random strangers laying on towels just feet from one another, periodically wandering back and forth for beers, ices and cold drinks for the kids, the oily whiff of sunblock long gone.
Elsewhere, the flow of traffic on the N332, road which neatly bisects residents out in the campo from their coastal counterparts, is altogether more fluid. A few short weeks ago cars and coaches were crawling along nose to tail, a/c units flogging themselves half to death keeping the occupants oblivious to the sweltering temperatures outside. A little further north, Alicante airport also breathes a huge sigh of relief; a typical summer day at this crucial regional hub resembles twenty four hours shot with time lapse photography. This isn’t any kind of time lapse trickery though, it’s the speed at which flights come and go in real time intervals of two minutes, the arrivals disgorging yet more pasty faced visitors into an already creaking system. Eventually, the balance between incomers and leavers is weighted in favour of the latter and the terminal buildings, never not chaotic at the best of times, settle back into something nearer to normality, whatever that is. The queues at the car hire desks assume manageable proportions and harried staff everywhere have more “time on the ball” free from the interruptions of equally hot and irritable customers and airport users, many of whom have left their manners at home, just one small and often overlooked aspect of being a public servant during the high season.
As the days grow shorter, images of cloudless blue skies and golden beaches immortalised on a million postcards become harder to recall. It’s like the weather gods save the bad stuff for once the tourists have left and unleash bits of everything unpleasant on the unsuspecting citizens; howling gales, biblical rains and, once or twice, storms that leave whole streets submerged underwater. All of this is unseen by those whose contribution to the local economy is immeasurable, their abiding memories aren’t of scraping ice off the car in gloved hands or wrapping up well beneath a huge coat and a scarf. After a few too many weeks of this around the turn of the year, I yearn for the springtime when I can start to worry all over again about trying to survive another summer.
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