Wednesday morning, our fourth full day, I spend at least an hour trying to look gorgeous in the bathroom. I think I am now immune to Clarins for men, and will have to start using 'no more gaps'. I have to appear at my best at the breakfast table. It helps me looks assertive in the eyes of the German couples that have been targeting me for some days now. The after shave splash also seems to help keep flies away.
Wait!! Is this a trick? I run up the lobby steps to the fruit section with gay abandon, and there are no Germans !!! It is obvious, there are no glum, morose faces, and everyone is smiling and seems happy. Therefore I deduce, no Germans or Russians. Are they hiding behind the noodles? are they about to ambush me from behind the rice crispies? Crafty lot, I remember my Dad telling me the story of building a POW camp in Italy to secure captured Germans, and one of them gave my Dad his Iron Cross (1st order) in order to get chocolate and cakes. I still have that Iron Cross, perhaps I should wear it at breakfast, that would confuse them !!
I carefully plot a path past the baked beans, swiftly and elegantly glide past the pickled onions , and assume a position close to the toaster. I can see Ibu Omelette looking for me over the beef sausages, I need toast to go visit. Today, the toast needs two journeys around to get even the slightest tinge of brown... was this the Germans parting shot? To sabotage the mechanics? Hah !! I fool them again, I turn the knob around to 5, and all is well. You don't beat me that easily!
Toast safely anchored to the plate with both thumbs, I approach Ibu... 'sunny side up' please. She laughs , and she delivers two incredibly uniform sized eggs ( I think the rings have something to do with this) straight onto my toast. Superb, we swap some niceties, and I'm off to the beef sausage without more to do. I love these, nice firm cuts of meat ( I think) and supplement this with baked beans, a grilled smiley tomato, and a mound of bacon that I can drizzle my HP sauce atop. But please stop putting the damn butter in ice...I can't spread it, and I look clumsy trying to hack it out of the container. I regain my poise soon, and no-one had noticed my fumbling with a butter sachet.
I arrive at the table, my wife is not well, and says she does not feel hungry. She tries to be a martyr ( you women are good at this) and picks at the melon, paw paw, and fruit salad whilst trying to look as though she is enjoying it.She puts her hand over the top of her cup as the tea/coffee heads our way. I ask if the tea is ENGLISH breakfast , I do this to see if there are any Germans incognito. I get no response. They must be gone.
I alight from the breakfast table, I dab the side of my mouth with a tissue, and I head back to the lobby. I bet they are hiding in there , or, have they been really cunning and camouflaged themselves as Koi carp? No, not here either, but a rabble is entering the main reception area It's the French!!! A major load of nattily dressed madams appear, and I see a hastily prepared blackboard and easel that says 'BienVenue Citroen'... oh no...are they dodgy car dealers , or well respecting executives. Their luggage suggest the latter. They strut towards check in, everyone wants attention at the same time, arrogant lot , the French. Will these become my new adversary? Are they pool lounge hoggers? It is all too much to expect me to fight off two nations in one week. Even the RAF struggled to do that.
I'm not expecting too much out of today, my wife is very pale, but insistent that we go out shopping.We go back to our room, I spend another 5 minutes ensuring my comb over doesn't look too stupid. She says she would like to go to Bali Collection again , but I think this could be a really bad idea. She assure me she is OK, and that there are nice toilets there that are air conditioned, so, if the worst comes to the worst, she could sit there for an hour or so. We stop and change money at the Kodak shop, I cram in $200 worth at 8700 .Soon, I will need a wheelbarrow to carry all these notes around, its plain crazy.
Off we go to Sogo,to Coco-mart, to D & G, to Ulawatu Lace, to shops I have been in a thousand times before, but hold some sort of strange attraction for my wife. I am dragged from aisle to aisle from pillar to post. It's bad enough trying to fight off Germans, but the 'mother-in-law' glare I get from the boss is more than enough to have you reaching for the surrender papers. Anyway, we go to Optik Melawi, purchase one set of blue contacts for my absolutely , stunning, delightful, irreplaceable step-daughter (can you tell she reads these?)...and order another two sets to pick up tomorrow. That means...YAY! I can come back to Bali Collection again...woo-bloody-hoo. I then decide to treat myself to another England Polo shirt, a different colour this time, a white one, so as to show the Germans, and now the French, that I am unafraid to show blood spatter.
Oh dear, those dreaded words ' I need the loo, quick'....are uttered, we dash back into Sogo, poor love just make sit in time.She really should not have come out to play today, and I decide, ( get assertive Wharfie), that we are going to the chemist to get Immodium [flame shields on] , and then back 'home'...you call it that after a while eh? Off we go to the little chemist neighbouring the Italian restaurant and I ask for Immodium... the girl recognises my wife from her trip in March , and she asks where my gorgeous step children are ( they may still be reading) this time. I purchase 20 Immodium tablets and she charges me 280,000rp....sheesh , I paid less for my Ralph Lauren top !!
We were lucky, a Bluebird rescued us as soon as we exited Bali Collection, and I asked the driver to attempt to beat Donald Campbell's land speed record to get us back to the hotel....after all, the late Sir Donald did gain the record in 'Bluebird'.....{Useless fact #25} . We arrive, back to the room in a hurry, she takes two tablets and is relived to be back.
Basically, that's where my recountment (is that a word?) ends for this particular episode, as we then spent from 3pm Wednesday until 8 am Thursday morning in our room . I wasn't going to leave her in the state she was in, so I got my laptop, and we watched some DVD's we bought earlier in the week in bogan Kuta.Good old Novotel efficient staff had already made our room up, so all was good, and the toilet paper was plentiful Also, what if there was a German straggler still in the hotel grounds who could sense a moment of glory. I am still on my guard, the boss is still on the toilet. I could not take the risk of infiltration..my nation's defence was paramount
I tried to get her to eat something for dinner, so we ordered an Hawaiian pizza and Burger, fries and salad via room service. We both only picked at this, although it was beautiful food, we just didn't have the hunger we first thought. We had showers, we switched the lights off around 7pm, and hoped the screaming brats next door would have a night off!! ......
.....they didn't........ (to be continued, thanks for reading and your very kind comments)