Viva Espana

We had Mark & Caroline, our best friends come up all the way from Murcia to celebrate Marks birthday, this weekend. Mark was celebrating 57 years but Caroline couldn't get the number 5 & 7 for his cake, a home baked fruit loaf, which she showed off about no end (bloody Delia), so she got 6 & 0 and wrote -3 on it! Nutter!

It was down to me to book somewhere to go on Saturday night (no pressure then) and I thought it maybe nice to go somewhere with a bit of music, not too far away so we could get a taxi. I just happened to be reading Female Focus, which we advertise in, don't get any customers from it but hey, it gets the name out there, when I saw an advert for a dinner dance on a Saturday night at Viva Espana. Now I'd been to this place many years ago (very touristy), we were meant to see the dancing horses which I actually think is terribly cruel and unnecessary but thankfully it rained and they put on an impromptu flamenco show which was a lot of stomping around on a stage above our heads, the noise was awful to be honest. I don't remember anything else about the night so I figured it was a safe bet as it couldn't have been too terrible.

We arrived at the restaurant at ten to nine, bloody starving, as us Brits do like to have our dinner at a sensible time, not the middle of the night. Thought we may have got the wrong night as the place was empty apart from a few staff faffing around putting bowls of salads in the middle of tables and a guy behind the bar that spent the whole night obsessively cleaning it. However we were soon greeted by a very pleasant Spanish lady who took us to our table. Abba was belting out over the PA system (that was a good sign, our type of music). Red wine was on the table but we soon ordered more, a bottle of white for me and some beers for the men. The waiter arrived. It took a while to remember who he reminded us of, it was somebody off the Adams family. We did kind of think maybe he was really an undertaker, he looked like the living dead and was moonlighting as a waiter to drum up a bit of business. Rich caught him outside knocking back 3 red wines in a row, when he went out for  fag!

Abba type music was still playing as the diners started arriving. Most of them were in big groups, all of them were Spanish, most of the men wore cream chinos, most of the women had orange hair and ALL of them were over 60! We stuck out like a sore thumb being the only guiri's ( not a complimentary word for foreigners) here.

The starters arrived. I'd asked for vegetarian when I booked. It was tapas. We weren't expecting much as it was mass produced but the quality was amazing. We even got Rich eating a little crunchy fishy! Had to take a photo as proof! The mains didn't disappoint, tuna steak and a vegetarian paella for me! Amazing! I can't believe I got a vegetarian dish that wasn't tuna (Spanish think tuna is a vegetable). dessert was just up my street, too, lemon sorbet. Yummmmmm!

Just as the dinner finished and I was about to fall asleep, I can't seem to manage dinner, alcohol and staying awake unless I'm dancing, the music started. It was quite a surreal experience. As the music started, the men in their cream chinos, got up mid conversation, as did the orange haired women, went to the dance floor and started shuffling about with their hands around their women who were all much shorter than the men, so their hands covered their dowagers humps! It was all Spanish, old fashioned music. It was a bit like being time warped back to the Franco era.They then sat down and repeated the process through out the night.

The only exception to this robot programmed dancing was a trio, 2 women and a man of about 100, in the middle, who continuously line danced at the edge of the dance floor, same steps to every song, straight faces, very serious business. After about 2 songs a vision in black appeared. Black tight trousers, black shirt, gold belt and an array of gold medallions. We'd noticed him earlier, looking rather glum sitting at a table for two with a Mary from Coronation street look alike who was tightly packed into a black sequin number. I just presumed they hated each other or hated their pork chops or something. The vison who was an ugly version of Mateo off of Benidorm hit the floor BIG style, arms waving, hips swinging, at one point we thought they may have been hired as the entertainment. 'Mary' soon joined him and they got right into character, he even snogged Mary when the part required it, even though he was very obviously gay. He loved the bull fighting song where he even did the bulls ears with his fingers.

Suddenly, 'You better shape up' (Grease) came on in Spanish and before we knew it, Caroline and I were dancing our way to the dance floor, you know where you do that kind of skip thing with your arms flapping a bit until you find a spot, not next to anybody that can actually dance and in hind sight not next to an oversized mirror where you can witness how bad your dancing actually is. I'd got the giggles by this stage and my trousers were nearly falling down and I was trying not to wet myself. We got right into it, shouting the 'woo woo woo' or was it 'woo hoo hoo?' bits as they were the only words we knew. This caused uncontrollable laughter, so much so that we had to sit down.

Next came 'Achy breaky heart' in Spanish where the whole dance floor started line dancing, they all knew the steps, bizarrely. The line dance trio were obviously delighted and Mateo and Mary strutted on wearing straw cowboy hats. Mateo had an unruly white tie which kept escaping and he had to keep flicking it back over his should, trying to make it look like part of his dance.

Next and maybe the highlight of the night, the bloke with the invisible wife hit the floor. he did 5 dances in a row with a woman that wasn't there. He was holding her hump and everything, talk about bloody funny!

By this stage we couldn't take any more laughter and had to retreat home.

Yesterday morning when Mark got up, he asked if he'd dreamt the whole thing!!!!!