I’m merrily spending money waving my phone to use its magic to get things like food, drink, bus fares, and entrance tickets. Every now and then I do use cash.

My plans for this evening were to have a bite to eat (finishing off today’s supplies of bread and sweaty cheese), then back to the hotel to change into my swimming shorts and drop off everything of value.

It is said that if you want to make god laugh, tell them your plans! The divine loves to insert sticks in the spokes of our lives.

I only had €24 in cash on me, and I might fancy a beer or a mojito after the beach, so I waddled down to a cash point.

Spanish cash points allow you to use contactless to withdraw money. That’s even more advanced than the UK. Excellent!

Unauthorised!

I insert my card.

Unauthorised again, but it returned my card.

Hmm. Worrying. I’ll try a different machine.

Contactless first:

Unauthorised

I inserted my card.

Nada. Nuffink.

Not unauthorised.

It just ate it.

Didn’t even burp.

Fuck. Fuckity Fuck. Oh dear.

I called the number on the machine. The Spanish gentleman on the other end told me to phone my bank.

They were as much use as a chocolate teapot. At least I could eat a chocolate teapot. They are sending me a new card. To my home address.

So I will have to make do.

I went to the beach and walked it’s length, with the warm waters of the Mediterranean washing my feet. I stopped and read until the swallows and bats were in the sky hunting the same prey and the sun was long gone. Small groups remained in the beach looking after I left, playing Latin music and being happy.

Knowing that I needed to be out of the hotel room at 11am the next day, I set an alarm for 9am. I finally turned the lights off at about half-eleven.

At approximately midnight, a brass band struck up in the square. They sounded like they were stood underneath my window!

I have no idea what they were playing. They had an attitude of enthusiasm over accuracy. It was, however, a surprising and enjoyable suprise. I was starting to think about getting dressed and seeing what was going on when they stopped.

In the wee hours, a Spanish couple had a domestic in the street below my room. In the UK, I might have been afraid that it was going to get ugly, what with the elevated voices, but I’d seen a couple of Spanish arguments and they are expressive and colourful, but I don’t think they’d seemed particularly likely to end up coming to blows.

The only thing that really suffered from any violence was my sleep!