A day at El Cisne

...On the outskirts of Benidorm every Saturday and Sunday is the El Cisne market. It is a slightly posher version of an English car boot sale. So as Pete's partner Dave was away in England and I had never been, we decided to go with Pete, Patrick and Neil and make an afternoon of it. With meticulous WWII time synchronisation, we arranged to get the number 12 bus as near as possible to 1 pm and sit on the pavement side of the bus (right hand side here) so that Patrick and Neil could see we were on it, and we gave Patrick a call to say we were on it and to make sure he was at the bus stop near his apartment soon.

We arrived at his stop about 7 minutes later and only Patrick got on. Neil is the chef in the business and he works in a hot kitchen 6 nights a week so he decided to have a really good rest instead of socialising. So it was just the 4 of us. When we got into benidorm, we had to transfer to the no 10 bus which would drop us at El Cisne.

My first impression was good, it did have a car boot sale air about it, and we decided we would have a mooch round first before we considered moving into the bar, food and entertainment area.

I was transported back to my childhood with some of the stalls. One had at least half a dozen hand drills, you may know what I mean, they have a handle on a red disc and the body of the drill originally was silver with a wooden handle and a key chuck to put the drill in. My dad had one of them many years ago. So how this chap managed to have 6 for sale beggars understanding but 6 he had. There were stalls full of assorted goods (if it was yours you would call it rubbish) and some had bicycles, part built bicycles and bicycle parts. There were many second hand clothes stalls, assorted jewellery, trinkets and memorabilia.

Once we had seen all we needed to see the consensus was to go in search of food. Inside the building part of El Cisne, is a maze of bars and food restaurants and it seemed every seat had been taken. However, after some serious searching we managed to get a table for 4. I am not particularly keen on paella, its OK but when hungry I need more carbs to help counteract my diabetes pill, so Patrick saved the table and would order the drinks, Ange and Pete went for paella for the three of them and I went for a doner kebab and chips. We tucked into the food and ordered a jug of sangria for Ange and Patrick, a glass of white wine for Pete and a jug of San Miguel for me. Once dined Patrick suggested he went to find a table near to the entertainment and he would text when he did so. All went to plan and we joined Patrick a little bit cramped but in full view of the acts.

The main act that afternoon was a guy playing an electronic violin, and this chap could play. He did a few Irish jigs, and then played a guitar for a few more and he sang as well. Then he played "the devil rides to Georgia" which really brought out the guy's mastery of his violin. As the afternoon progressed, we noticed that mystic Meg from the bay (one of my previous blog stars) was around and her friend too. She was very well known with many people I suppose the fact she was three parts blotto and dancing on her own made her stand out a bit. The couple on an adjoining table referred to her as Cleopatra, which does Cleo no favours but does describe her hair style quite well.

The violinist introduced about 4 people who he said are not paid acts but had agreed to get up and do a song. The first lady sang more like Tina Turner than Tina Turner, the second did an excellent rendition of Karen Carpenter and then came "Leo" I think that was his name. He started with Frank Sinatra, now if you ever saw the film "Galaxy Quest" which was about a bunch of over the hill 'B' movie actors who were living off their fame of a TV series not dissimilar to 'Star Trek' then you would recognise that this guy, had once done something professional, but maybe slightly past his sell by date now. He could sing, but he was so very cock-sure about himself. He had that plastic look that celebrities have coiffure rather than a hair style and waxy skin as though he had theatrical make up on. And the 40s/50s/60s groupies that were hovering around the stage were clearly his focus. In the wings was Suzy, also a good singer but also well into 'self' and joined Leo on stage and did 'You're the one that I want' from "Grease". Then as time went on they ended up singing the smoochy stage show songs in a bout of over-self indulgence. Having said that me Pete and Ange decided to concentrate of the drink whilst Patrick was rapt at this spectacular. We were nearly as rapt as newts because I was at the end of my second jug of beer, Ange and Patrick well into their third jug of sangria and Pete at the end of a bottle of white wine. This didn't stop us ordering again but this time I was on whiskey.

Ultimately time caught us all up and the fiddle player would things up and did the mandatory encore, and we asked the waitress if she could organise a taxi for us, which she did swiftly and we had to quickly drink and disappear.

The taxi took us down to the Marina bar where we were expecting a group of guys who had been up to Polop for a meal. We had been there a little while when they arrived and we took 10 seats, much to the delight of Antonio the bar owner. Amongst this crowd was Jeremy and Colin, Laurence and Tony, Kevin and Barrie, me and Ange, Patrick and Pete. Our night lapsed into a bit of a drunken gathering, but it was extremely entertaining. Now whilst I was critical of the singing at El Cisne, there can be only one thing slightly more irritating..and that is Jeremy singing "I love a parade...." after several Vodka and tonics.....