Contagious humour can't be bad
Our world turned round dramatically on BLACK FRIDAY March 13 when, with a bare 24hours notice the plague CORONAVIRUS struck.
The entire holiday trade was crippled, all flying was grounded and tourists were stranded both inwardly and homewards. The Costa playgrounds were very rapidly ‘clamped down’ of course. We were virtually paralysed by this in the recent past yet despite gargantuan efforts, we are still, more than half a year later, battling with the mayhem caused and attempting to get life back to normal. Life goes on!
The stoicism of the man in the street and business in general has been and still is coping extremely well.
I fully realise that having to live through a contagious plague with world spanning effects is no laughing matter but life, even wearing a mask and plastic gloves and revering lockdown orders plus umpteen other dos and don’ts, helps not a lot to battle ahead cheerfully. No one anywhere can laugh off this horrifying disaster but to inject even a smidgeon of humour may ease pressure.
“Can he laugh, can he laugh; he’s never been known to laugh, ‘cos if he did, it’s a penny to a quid, his face would split in half.”
Perhaps the ‘turning the other cheek’ (tongue in it) syndrome is expecting too much. “I laughed ‘til I died” is a bit grizzly as is “I laughed my head off” but what I’m trying to get across is that an occasional guffaw, giggle or joke may not alter dire circumstances but my goodness, it can help.
In my case, it often rebounds. My witticisms and behaviour are not to everyone’s taste.
Take holiday humour. Holidaymakers love coming here. Sadly, this time they have been stymied. Similarly, there are ex-pat Brits living here who like to return to the U.K. for a few days break in the summer. They too have been stymied! Even I, thorough Hispanophile that I am, occasionally fancy a change and take a Peak District Kinder Scout vacation trying to rediscover ‘the wonderful Derbyshire RAM’ and its tricks or seek Little John’s grave (you know Robin Hood’s best mate) who was supposedly buried in Hope valley. However, this was not the funny bit!
Had I wished to observe the historic horned sheep or a fabled relic this year, it would have been a no-no! Coronavirus would have buggered it up.
Needless to say, I still intended to have a summer holiday. Having packed a miscellany of holiday type gear in the trunk, my partner and I hit the N 332 and tunnelled our way from ‘Baja’ to ‘Alta’ to delve into the lush urban campo area that looks down on Calpe. After losing our way via a dizzy maze of country lanes, we arrived at a small delightful private hotel that nestled secretively in the campo.
This luxury Gran Sol hotè pied a terre was to delight us for a week during which, accepting all the lockdown proclivities, couldn’t have been better.
Backing an alluring piscine, this attractive oasis was a holiday dream. I even dipped my feet in bathing pool water for the first time in yonks. On the hotel terrace, we gorged on succulent prawns, melon, courgettes and avocados assisted by my favourite crisp ‘Don Quixote’ vino blanco day after day! It was bliss! The melange of staff, English, Norwegian, Scottish and Swiss were very special making our stay ‘out of this world’ and the dreadfully diseased world we were escaping from.
Barely 16 miles from our Altea home, it was undoubtedly like being in another world.
When we informed our local friends how we intended to holiday and where it was located we were laughed out of sight and considered barmy. Little did they know.
A few days later at Bello Horizonte tapas bar, our favourite watering hole we were queried by a ‘camarero’ where we had been. “En vacaciones” I replied. When we told him Calpe, the place rocked with laughter.
That a smidgen of laughter amidst drear life rather proves that a bit of contagious humour is certainly not to be sneezed at!