THE AWNING ASSEMBLY (1st PART)

Not all things that happen in Coroleu 66, actually happen in Coroleu 66, sometimes, things happen in other sites, right there where their inhabitants are displaced.

Long ago, Mar bought an awning for her terrace in her Palamos flat, where she's living now, and she had the brilliant idea to call Álex to help her to assemble it, and he, at the same time had the brilliant idea to take me along as a work assistant.

Alex's breakfast, delayed the leaving from Barcelona almost an hour, and obviously, for a man, food is the first priority, and it's better not to play around with it, but we will justify that we seized the opportunity to see his future oficial protection apartment.

We arrived at her apartment at lunch time, and there was Mar waiting for us with a suculent apéritif, beers and a pleasant surprise: lunch.

Before eating, we made a declaration of intentions, marking the places where the holes should be made and talking about whether it was better to put the awning in the beam or in the terrace wall, if the awning dimensions allowed such a deed or not....

That effort of 30 min approximately whetted our appetite and we put ourselves to work properly, we began with some Palamos prawns with wine, we went on with some sardines coated in batter, next some stuffed squids with souce and finally a "paellita", all this dressed with cool white wine, and the result was, all three sat down on the sofa, drinking our cofes thinking about whether it was the best hour to go to the beach or not.

At 5 o'clock we began the activity again, we needed to go to the hardware store of the village to buy a bit and the drill consequently. Afterwards, Mar showed us the village, the harbour, the fish market, the museum, the kings in training.... That ones, we wanted to go to the manifestation at 19h.... sorry, I wanted to say, the ceremonial reception, prepared to them, but at the end, working we exhausted the time.

In the flat again, we had to rest and Mar prepared some milk shakes with rum, juice and ice-cream.... Well, when there wasn't sun,we decided to labour, we began making two holes in the wall. We tested and they didn't grasp well. We made two new holes with the same result... we needed a rest to think of a new strategy.

Another round of milk shakes to think of how to install it, perhaps putting chemical nails as a climb equipment, what kind of material is needed? How are we going to obtain then?... Somebody stands up and looks at the blind. Yes exactly, we have drilled the blind site, and luckily we haven't drilled the blind.

We reactivated ourselves and made two new holes to check if all the wall was made of brick or perhaps the workers, had overlooked a place to install a future awning.

Five holes later were enough to realize ourselves that the wall was made with the same material. At that moment was the moment to do arm and coordination exercices, now the activity consisted in picking the awning up, it was very heavy, until the beam height, one, twice...

Finally we decided that there was only one place where to install the awning and it was the beam. New hole, but this time in the beam, and new awninglifting, perhaps is the right solution, the support tolerates the weight and the awning fits.

Good heavens, an all day to know how to make it, the awning si not installed but now we know how to make it, and this was very important and we had to celebrate with a new beer.... Tomorrow, perhaps? No tomorrow no, we haven't come prepared to spend the night in Palamos, we had gone to install an awning simply.

Coming back home, it's late, perhaps we could stop to have supper, ok, that's good for me. We stopped in Blanes to taste the Terrassens squids.... fancy that, the kitchen is closed and with Alex´s hungry face, the waiters were hurrying up keeping the bar food. An ice-cream?... The ice-cream shop is closed too.... So I need to stop.

We go on forward, but a Blanes-Barcelona trip without stops, they are so much km, we had to do stops, first to collect my federation card, later a vital necessity stop, later a little walk through Mataró, later a new vital necessity stop, later.... Why don't you go through this way? Perhaps because it's longer?

It may be increible, but we arrived to Coroleu 66, in some moment of that night, thinking that 6 holes and 3 awningliftings afterwards we were obligated to come back to Palamos, at least to plug the holes.