The English abroad

When events seem to time themselves to match each other and reinforce a fine impression, that’s what we call synchronicity.

We got some of of that on the first day of spring, here in Valencia. It dawned clear and fair, and kept on going in the same vein, warm, under blue skies. Quite a change after the rain we’d had for several days before.

It was just as well, since it was also the day we’d booked to join a bird-watching cycling tour, through the orchards and market gardens north of city, running down to the coast with its kilometres of golden sand behind low dunes.

A spring day to enjoy. And we did

Our guide was Virgilio, which was just splendidly apt. Decades ago, as a student, I found myself having to get a bit acquainted with the work of Dante. You know, ‘abandon all hope ye who enter here’, and all that cheerful stuff. Powerful and splendid, but not a bundle of laughs. Dante’s great work is an account of his guided tour of the afterlife, through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. And his guide at the start? The great Latin poet Virgil.

Our own Virgil skipped Hell and Purgatory and took us straight to the countryside outside Valencia, heavenly on that day, especially the beach.

The tour was hardly strenuous, since we kept stopping to look at the birds. In fields. On roofs. On electric cables. In a watercourse.

The watercourse also had a tortoise sunning itself, but I didn’t want to make a big deal of that, since we weren’t on a tortoise-watching tour. On the other hand, our rate of progress was slightly tortoise-like, but no one cared – the atmosphere was much too pleasant to be in a hurry. 

Down on the beach we got to watch several types of bird which, to my untrained eye, were just ‘gulls’. It seems ornithologists like to be slightly more discriminating than that. They insisted on distinguishing different types of gulls. I nodded and tried to look intelligent as they pointed out the difference.

I was more struck by the people walking their dogs on the beach (it made me want to bring ours some day soon) and the size of the waves – there were even surfers out, an unusual sight in the Mediterranean.

Surf’s up (the two dots in the distance are surfers)

After the tour, we went for lunch with a couple of friends in one of the local towns. The place we chose for our meal was more of a café than a restaurant, but then we weren’t after a five-course gastronomic delight. Basically, just a snack, which was what we got. 

It was on the main square of the town, and the place was flooded with sunlight and warmth. It was a wonderfully comfortable to be eating outside again, something we hadn’t been able to do for a couple of weeks. The end of winter hadn’t been kind around here: it had seemed to promise us something mild, only to turn wet and a lot colder while we weren’t looking.

The pleasure of basking in the sun over lunch, in thoroughly congenial company, meant that, snack or not, we took a couple of hours over it. No problem with that. The Spanish approve of enjoying a meal, however simple it may be.

Then they brought the bill. It was wonderful to see that they’d identified our table not by a number or anything that dull, but by the description ‘Ingleses’, ‘the English’. They’d heard us talking, identified the language, and put us down as English, even though Danielle, to be strictly accurate, is actually French.

A bill for the ‘Ingleses’

Anyway, we settled up and started, slowly – there was no rush – to think about going. Until one of our friends made a remark on the bill.

“You know – I don’t know whether we ought to say anything now – but I think they’ve undercharged us quite a lot.”

We examined the items listed. She was right. There was only one glass of wine shown (we’d had two) and only two meals (we’d had four).

So we did something which did the reputation of the English no harm at all.

“You know,” I told the woman who ran the place, “I think we’ve paid you too little.”

She looked at me as though I was crazy. Ours was clearly not the kind of complaint about a bill she was used to getting. She stammered her thanks, as she checked and confirmed that we were right: we’d been undercharged.

“My husband…” she said, and didn’t need to say any more.

We paid the extra, which converted our meal from ridiculously cheap to just plain cheap. And she was so pleased that she even served us a round of little liqueurs.

Which left a pleasant glow. Brought on by the drink, no doubt. But also by the sense that it was important to help small businesses like cafés, which have suffered so much in this time of Covid. And also by the pleasure of having done something for the reputation of the English.

The English haven’t been much admired around here since Brexit. We’re not perceived as particularly honest or smart. 

I suspect we’ve done our standing some good as far as the honesty bit’s concerned. But as for smartness, or at any rate wiliness? Perhaps less so.