Ges on the Box; Adventures on the Costa Drencha

THE man in the film would have you believe the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. Don’t be seduced by his smooth talk. The rain in Spain falls everywhere. I know. I was there.

To say last week was a bit damp north of Malaga would be a lie. It was soaking. And, apart from one glorious day when the sun shone, the wind dropped and the shoulders burned, it was a tad chilly too.

Indeed, Him Indoors lost half a stone through shivering. Sometimes, I hate that man I married — same holiday, same shivering, yet I come back 8lbs heavier.

How? I ask myself, and anyone else daft enough to listen. We ate the same things: mainly unidentifiable fish, tomatoes, bread and fruit.

We drank the same things: red wine, water and non alcoholic beer (a slip-up on the shopping front, I thought “sin” meant something naughty when, actually, it means “without” in Spanish).

We did the same things: read books by the dozen, watched the entire first series of some weird American sci-fi adventure called “Carnivale” on DVDs, and slept.

He did, it is true, venture out for a walk, twice, but then I had to do the driving, Him Indoors still being a motoring virgin, or something of that ilk. And what driving! Short stretches of Spanish motorways where it’s every man for himself and beggar the consequences; S-bends on single-track roads clinging to the edge of cliffs with sheer drops; off-road rallying down rain-soaked dirt tracks (the run-up to our idyllic “villa”) where the potholes were big enough for elephants to hide in.

You think I exaggerate. I do not. Well, apart from the elephant hidey-holes bit. But some were about 3ft deep. Honest.

I sweated, I shook, I swore. I drove like a demon possessed. We took wrong turnings down dirt tracks — unidentifiable from the hand-drawn map loaned to us by mine hosts — which forced us into three-point-turns on roads barely wide enough for a single car, with drops down the mountainside all around.

And every inch of the way I thanked that angel who sits on my shoulder that I didn’t hire a Smart car, though sorely tempted, and opted for a Ford Focus instead. Next time I’m getting some gas-guzzling 4x4 with huge tyres and a lofty vantage point and to hell with my carbon footprint.

Because there will be a next time.

OK, the shops were half an hour away on, truly, the very worst roads I have ever encountered, the weather was bad and the beer non-alcoholic, but the views from our log cabin home in the sky were breathtaking, the silence absolute, the peace and quiet exactly what the doctor ordered. And we loved absolutely every minute (ok, maybe not the S-bends).

And what did I miss here while I was away? A man dressed as Darth Vader, wearing a white glove and singing “Thriller” on “Britain’s Got Talent”.

I can hardly contain myself.