I am always surprised that there are not more one-eyed people in Mallorca.

On Sunday, we drove to the east of the island, parked under the shade of a pine tree and made our way down the track to the beach. It wasn’t too busy and in this heat people tend to stay a few hours then depart for a siesta, a lunch, so there’s always more sandy real estate available among the beach umbrellas. 

As the afternoon slid along on a timeline eased by suntan cream and a pint of piña colada from the chiringuito, I noticed that the gentle breeze’s soundtrack was occasionally giving way to proper blasts of wind. I knew then that it would only be a matter of time before a beach novice was left humiliated and facing a potential lawsuit.

And sure enough, just a few metres from us, the first beach umbrella took flight à la Mary Poppins. It somersaulted across the beach with gymnastic grace. Would the spike take out an eyeball, impale an abuela, send a cerveza flying? Not this time: its athletic owner leapt into action with a diving save. I held off from applauding.

This very thing happened to me some years ago but my parasol came dangerously close to widowing a member of a nearby couple. So now we always have a screw on the beach – a big one. You corkscrew the plastic contraption into the sand and then insert the umbrella’s stand, which gets held in place with the aid of a bolt. We got ours from a Chinese store in Palma that has everything from paint to Post-it notes and is marvellously called Wan Ke Long. Very handy.

Anyway, I love the drama of a day at the beach and from behind my sunglasses find myself becoming drawn into the myriad little scenes and stories that play out across la playa. My partner gets a little cross when, halfway through one of his fascinating anecdotes, he realises that I am actually lost in the squabbling of our neighbours.
 
On Sunday, however, I caught sight of something that required his advice. Next to us was a man, Spanish, handsome, in his forties, perched on the edge of his sun lounger reading a book. But little did our man realise that he had suffered a gusset malfunction and that one of his croquetas had made a bid for freedom.

After some cajoling, the other half turned over to take in the scene and agreed that it was unfortunate. “Shall I go and tell him,” I asked, thinking that it was the decent thing to help safeguard this gentleman’s reputation. David suggested that while this might be well-received, it could also come across as a little odd. And as I didn’t know the Spanish word for testicle, the whole interaction would be dependent on me doing an unwise mime and lots of inappropriate pointing. So, I left him – and it – to their own devices.

After all, there were more stories around me that required my full attention. Why, for example, did the muscular tattooed man have a bunny tattooed on his bicep (some childhood pet he never got over?). Would the two men playing a vigorous game of padel on the shoreline hit anyone with their ball? I hoped so. Is selling watermelons on the beach good business?

I had barely turned a page of my book by the time we needed to leave this sandy live telenovela whose cast of characters had kept me entertained all afternoon. A Mediterranean beach truly trumps any streaming service. There’s romance, danger and the ever-present potential of an eye being lost. I will be back for another instalment very soon.

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