Breakfast

The three palm trees outside the poshest villa on Sitges Promenade

Yesterday I played the " steal your lunch" game with a Spanish lady at the next table.
This was at breakfast, which at the Santa Maria is a large al fresco affair over looking the Prom.
I caught her eye after I watched her make two ham sandwiches out of a baguette .
She was lowering the sandwiches into her handbag.
She smiled as I countered by slipping a boiled egg and an orange into my man bag .
The game was on.
She ambled to the buffet table and replied with a donut and what suspiciously looked like an individual yogurt.
She smiled in that smug way people do when the think they have won.
But the smile faded as, in a last minute dash to the winning post I countered again with two cheese mini baguettes, a large piece of garlic sausage and a banana, which poked out of the side of my bag in defiance.
Funny what games you play on holiday.

46 comments:

  1. You old devil!
    Arilx

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  2. This is all sounding great. I just looked at last night's post. Lots of happiness oozing out. And fun at breakfast with the Spanish lady, I bet you both laughed out loud in the end. You are back to your old self. xx

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  3. We used to like playing Mr Green Trousers, or Mrs lipstick, or The ugly brothers, or Mr Yorkshire, etc. There was little point asking their real names.

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  4. Scottish or Dutch by any chance, for wanting a free lunch? I know my fellow-countrypeople ;-)

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  5. Reminds me (why?) of a game my sister and I used to play at the main meal of the day round the family table. The idea being that you leave the best morsel to last. And just when my poor sister (she was only little, six years younger than me) thought she'd beaten me I'd produce that morsel out of the side of my cheeks. No, not hamster cheeks. Though it can only be a matter of time till they materialize. Sometimes I am not surprised that she severed all contact with me, albeit with a few decades delay.

    Great palms, happy days,
    U

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  6. I stayed in one British seaside hotel which gave you a packed lunch to take out with you. That was no fun.

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    Replies
    1. A couple of friends of mine stayed in a cabin in the wilds of Scotland (run by an elderly Scottish man) and paid for full board; the day that they requested a packed lunch they were presented with 2 hard-boiled eggs and 2 oranges.

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    2. I didn't think you could grow your own oranges in Scotland.

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  7. Clearly, she was stunned by your bold garlic sausage and the fact that your banana noticeably sticking out!

    Have a great day!

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  8. Sounds like your vacation has been a lot of fun and what you needed. "A steal off".

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  9. Ha-ha, that's funny.

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  10. What fun . . .
    Bet ‘Spanish Lady’ is still smiling . . .

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  11. Millions of gay men throughout time have played the "hide the banana" game. That's a really odd game John. Love the palm trees!

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    Replies
    1. Hahaha! Best retort ever!!!

      Jo

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  12. Wonderful ! you are so goofy :)

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  13. I'm still laughing, that was really funny.

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  14. Well that mental picture is going to stay with me for a long while! Too funny!

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  15. You naughty boy you. A buffet breakfast is meant to be all you can eat not all you can stash about your person and belongings. :-)

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    Replies
    1. (Having read more comments) Goodness, I had no idea there were so many secret kleptos out there!

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  16. This was no game when I was on the road. Lunch was whatever we brought away from the breakfast bar.

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  17. She learned not to challenge the MASTER!

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  18. Absolutely brilliant, I hope you share conspiratorial winks when next your paths cross.

    This sounds much more like the John Gray I know and love. You can come back to you through little moments like these.

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    1. Oh and I meant to add ... my 'stolen lunch' is virtually always Pan Au Chocolate, an apple and a banana 😉

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    2. Oh Sue, that sounds like the very best lunch to me !!

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  19. She'll catch up to you at lunch.

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  20. I thought I was living dangerously when I swiped a bagel and 2 (yes two!) packettes of Nuttella from a hotel breakfast bar in Edinburgh. Now I'm feeling like an under-achiever.

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    Replies
    1. I once helped myself to six mini peanut butters everyday at breakfast, used two on my toast and kept the other four to take on our next mini break ... well not many places did them at the time 😁

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  21. Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you really glad to see me?

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  22. Anonymous3:31 pm

    At a wedding reception last weekend I was eyeing the salt and pepper shakers but thought better of it.
    Wouldn't want the newly weds to be charged even more.

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  23. Love it! Good to see you back!

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  24. Presumably there were no Scotch eggs available.

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  25. A friend and I were in Kentucky a couple years ago attending a quilt festival. We stayed and a hotel with open breakfast and my friend who is extremely outgoing and friendly had the wait staff packing lunches for us by the 2 Nd day.
    Ruth in Oxnard Ca. USA

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  26. That would make a great comedy sketch! Very Victoria Wood! x

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  27. That is so wonderfully funnyJohn-you cheeky man x

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  28. LOL! That IS a great comedy sketch, as Simone said. Competitive thievery!

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  29. All sounds delicious!

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  30. That sort of behavior is frowned on over here.

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  31. Anonymous11:35 pm

    Last year in Europe was the first time I had noticed people doing this at buffet breakfasts, and it seemed to be accepted, much to my surprise. It just seems wrong to me.

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  32. One had to keep my mother from slipping those tiny metal cream pitchers into her purse. When she moved house I found three.

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  33. As a film scholar, every watch National Lampoon's "Animal House".....the food scene with Belushi?

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  34. When we used to go on holiday to Nan and Grandads caravan in Selsey Bill when we were kids, Nan used to take us for a cup of tea and doughnut to a local greasy spoon cafe. She would get us kids to hide individual sugar sachets up our sleeves... don't ask me why! Once she got me to put a couple of teaspoons up my sleeves... I was a useless tea leaf.. I dropped the spoons on the way out...my Nan was not best pleased.. I was mortified.

    Jo in Auckland, NZ

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  35. Soon afterwards a Spanish police car came tearing round the corner and the two food pilferers were handcuffed together. Fortunately, the Spanish lady was a cousin of the police chief but unfortunately the Welsh gentleman was not. He was roughly manhandled and shoved in a cell for the night.

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  36. Two handsome souls enjoying their company.

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  37. ...and leave us all laughing here.

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