Above and Beyond

Chapter 7

  Being ‘by Royal Appointment’ gets you certain perks, and one of mine was Rolls Royce deciding that I was now a ‘privileged customer’, or rather the Lady S was. Her engines were arguably still on the secret list, but as I actually owned two of them it was a moot point, and as they had been used to pushed the monarchy around the high seas (with a Royal Navy crew on board), I was now due an upgrade. They were continually upgrading the naval ones so they decided (for a princely price of course) that it was about time they did mine as well.

  I was quite fascinated that the four ‘Engineers’ arrived at el Campo in three piece suites, and carried brief cases, and when I asked them ‘if they wanted to change first’, all I got were funny looks. Two disappeared down into the engine room with a couple of small boxes, and the other two disappeared inside some computers, which was not a very rewarding ‘spectator sport’ so I thought ‘as I own her perhaps I could have a deco at real engineers strutting their stuff’, so changing into a pair of virtually unused immaculately snow-white overalls I made my way to the engine room, just in time to open the door for the two Engineers to exit out of it, one wiping the merest hint of a spec of oil off a finger with a silk handkerchief. ‘I bet he will get a new box on expenses’ I thought.

  ‘Well sir, that’s the hard part over with, let’s see how the computer whiz kids are doing, shall we’, and with that they let me show them the way.

  Watching four ‘Engineers’ stuffing DVD’s into computers is not my idea of fun, what I had expected to see was someone ripping the guts out of the engines, but no such luck, so I decided to go and have an ice cream.

  After visiting my favourite heladería (ice cream stall) on the public side of the dividing harbour wall, the only place that I could actually go too on my lonesome (in one of the by now many small harbour craft bobbing about the place), without a small army of knuckle draggers (close protection specialists) in attendance, I sated myself with a tub of mora ice cream (blackberry flavour), and as I dangled my feet over the edge of the harbour wall, gazing on the tranquil scene, I idly wondered how many sniper scopes were zeroed in on the locals that wandered blissfully around me. They were not the problem, they had gotten used to me a long while ago – it was the odd grockle (Cornish for holidaymaker) that they were after. As San Miguel started to bloom again it was now getting quite a few coach trippers, and they inevitably started invading my ‘quiet moments’. When this happened, after a few minutes of idle chatter, and the obligatory photos, I then dropped down into my escape craft and beat a hasty retreat, BUT if one of them happened to have an AK47 in their beach bag then I hoped that David was paranoid enough to have made preparations to counter this slight inconvenience, I must have a word with him when I get back – any AK47’s withstanding.

  After my comfort break, and looking at a black box that looked exactly like the last black box that had resided there, I signed the paperwork, authorised the cheque (if it had been made out to them then I would imagine that they would now be going off to retire) and had it in writing that the Lady S was even more sprightly than ever – by at least 2.4 knots, then I had an idea (I’m famous for them), ‘CAROL, let’s take her down to the ‘measured mile’ to prove it, and ‘bags I’ I drive.

  After the scheduled visit to the ‘measured mile’ to verify that everything was working just fine (she could now go 2.6 knots faster – but who cares?), Alice (my Daughter), Algernon (her husband) and I sat down for a leisurely meal at the stern of Lady S, – they had something to tell me, yes – I was going to be a grandfather yet again. Robin (my son) and Emma (his wife) had already provided Mark (my first grandchild) with a sister, (Macey), and it was ‘work in progress’ for yet more, but as we watched the sun slowly disappear below the horizon I yet again reflected on the fact that the money was handy, and it gave our children unheard-of security, but I know that the three of us would give it all up in a flash to have Sheila (their Mother) back. Since Sherri’s tragic departure I had half-heartedly dated a couple of ‘friends of friends’ but things weren’t the same, ‘perhaps I was just getting too old for that sort of thing’ I melancholily thought……

  ‘…… and when are you going to visit the Broads Daddy?’ I was back to reality.

  ‘Soon’, I said, and with that the horse trading started.

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