Replies

The place we stayed in Mallorca was very interesting. Entirely made of stone, no walls with sheetrock or even the old laths and horsehair...just stone. It had a large walled courtyard, a bathroom with floor to ceiling doors you could open an entire wall to the outside and sit in the bathtub, a large balcony overlooking the courtyard...it was very cool. It had a huge, polished stone shower with glass walls that you could have fit ten people into. No joke. I thought that was grand.

In the courtyard, it had a large, tiled immersion tub you could fill with water and get in, sitting straight up the water would be up to your neck.

The bedroom had two small windows, probably two feet wide, a foot tall, no windows or screens. Only shutters.

And the beds. They had pads filled with something, resting on...ropes.

At that time in my life, my back was causing me serious problems, and I was having a flare up and no way I could sleep at all. So, night after night, after trying to sleep for a few hours, around 3 AM I would go out and sit on the large stone balcony (again, all stone, probably 30 feet wide and 10-15 feet deep) overlooking the courtyard, and also overlooking the entire town. I would bring a blanket and drape it over myself, because it was mid-April and still kind of chilly at night.

I couldn’t sleep on those torture beds, but the rocking chair with a blanket, well...that was nice. I would look out over that dark town, sometimes smoking a cigar, wool blanket draped over my shoulders, and see the sky slowly brighten.

Around 4 AM...you would begin to hear them. First one. Then another...and another, then soon, it was a countrywide cacophony of roosters!

I have to admit-it made me smile.

All those roosters.

Those people in that town were quite proud of them, too.

My wife, inside the stone bedroom, didn’t really hear them, but those were the days when she slept soundly and I didn’t.

Now, I sleep soundly (relatively speaking) and she doesn’t sleep at all...:)