In Search of Crumble Mix

Sunday 12th May

Woken up by a terrific thunderstorm - don't know what time it was as neither of us could be bothered to switch the light on. Eventually got off to sleep again only to wake up to the sound of rain hammering against the skylight - great! Used the last of our free coffee and sat watching the rain thinking perhaps we should have done some shopping yesterday after all. The rain finally eased off enough for us to venture over to the market where we stocked up on fruit and veg. Just as we had completed our purchases the heavens opened again and we got soaked dashing to the car. Stopped off at the local supermarket and got another soaking but managed to get some essentials e.g. coffee, wine and beer for me and bread and jam for Jill. We drove back up to the villa and sat in the car watching the rain.

The next time the rain stopped we drove to the SYP supermarket - bit of a joke really as although it's the biggest shop round here it's about the size of two Spar shops back home. The world and his wife had unfortunately chosen the exact same time to do their shopping so the place was packed. I suppose in retrospect, we shouldn't have been surprised as they obviously waited for the rain to stop just like we did. After seeing the length of the queue we hurriedly put back the few items we had selected and retreated to the Hyper shop in Puerto Pollenca. I spent 10 minutes waiting at the meat counter watching one of the standard issue locals - short and with glasses - buying all the bits left over after the chicken breasts were cut. Says a lot about Majorcan cookery, doesn't it.

We decided to hold fire on the purchase of charcoal and lighters for the barbecue until we see what the weather hold in store for us. Managed to buy enough bits and pieces for tonight's meal (Chicken casserole) although the casserole mix came from Safeway as they don't believe in them out here. Rusty would probably throw up her hands in horror and say we should have made our own mix with fresh ingredients but we prefer eating to cooking. Anyway it tasted delicious, and we had strawberries that we had purchased at the market for pudding.

	The weather cleared up beautifully mid-afternoon, not a cloud in the sky, but what a wind! It was gale force, so no shorts today, the track suit trousers were still needed, we did manage to dry our wet shoes and tops. Had a scan of the skies with our binoculars, thought we saw an eagle, it seemed to high for an ordinary bird. The binoculars are really good for being nosy and scanning the square!
No shorts today!

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