Thursday 19th July

Graham

Hi,

Yesterday I went with my son Victor to El Mastren (which is the best traditional Spanish bar in San Pedro.)

We take our breakfast there every Sunday, so yesterday was an exception to the rule. They do great bacon and eggs on toast.

As I have a severe back problem, I cannot sit in a chair and at the moment must use a sun-lounger. We carry a lightweight-folding version in the back of the jeep. I also need an Invalid parking space if possible, as I have to carry the lounger form the car to the bar.

There’s a 50/50 chance of finding the parking space near the bar free, but often it is blocked by a delivery van or occupied by a car which is not displaying an Invalid parking sticker.

Normally I don’t take offense at all this and just double park and then when a police patrol arrives I explain that I couldn’t use the parking space for whatever reason. They are pretty good and just say. “OK double park until you’ve finished your breakfast and we’ll turn a blind eye.”

Yesterday I noticed that a white Renault Megan (not displaying a parking sticker) had been parked in the invalid space for 48 hours and decided that, the line had to be drawn somewhere.

After making about a dozen calls and being pushed from pillar to post, 2 police motorcyclists arrived. They called me over and assured me that the offending white Renault would be towed away within minutes. Within 2 min they had used two trolley jackes to extricate the car sideways from the tight gap it had been parked in and had one end of the car up in the air at which point I noticed that a myriad of Spanish people on the El Mastren bar terrace were looking daggers at us and saying. “That’s Sofi’s car and she has a child in a wheel chair”. There were two really heavy guys sitting on the next table, glaring at us and making sure that everybody new that we were behind getting Sofi’s car towed away, at a recovery cost of at least 150€.

Typical of Andalucians, nobody wanted to take responsibility and tell the policemen that the owner of the car did after all have the right to park there, so I went across and spoke with the officers, who confirmed that they were taking the car away, but when they had hoisted the car up in the air, they had already seen an Invalid Sticker poking out from beneath the sun shield.

I asked the officer's if it might not be better to leave the car parked where it was, as although technically it was wrongly parked, as it was not displaying a sticker, it would be rather harsh to tow the car away, under such circumstances.

At this point the Officer asked me if I knew the lady owner and her invalid daughter. I decided a white lie might save the day (and 150+ euros) and said yes I did know her. “OK then”. He said we'll put the car back.

An so an awfully embarrassing breakfast was concluded on the terrace of El Mastren bar San Pedro De Alcantara. My stone cold bacon and eggs were just great!