Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
We were staying on the Mediterranean coast right on the border of Spain and France. Catalan country. Wildly beautiful, rugged and tamed. Hot, lazy days at the beach.. Snorkelling, swimming, napping and people watching. This was not Nice or Cannes, there were families and ordinary folks doing ordinary stuff, whilst wearing speedos and espadrilles. Eating local tomatoes and ham in crunchy bread. Dinner at a beachside restaurant. Shit food but beer in bucket sized glasses and cheap, not nasty wine.
We were staying at a hotel, which could only be described as quirky. Run by two old women, daughters of the original owner, a Catalan freedom fighter. No air conditioning but we did have a private terrace dripping with raucous red, orange and purple bougainvillea. We dragged the mattress onto the terrace and after hilarious drunken sex, flaked it. At some point in the early hours we dragged the mattress indoors out of the rain. In the morning we went to retrieve our towels from the terrace wall, and wondered who had hung a towel up on the bathroom window facing the terrace. Hungover, it took a moment for it to sink in that this was the window of the room next door. Looking onto our “private” terrace. We kept our eyes down in the breakfast room, suppressing giggles and wondering which of our breakfast companions were our neighbours from the night before.