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It didn’t seem like five minutes since I’d left the Alameda and found myself having my evening meal with Carol, Sheila and Joe at (once again) Jury’s on Main Street – a place that over the course of a week we had all become extremely found of. The food and customer service were always excellent and of course we never forgot their honesty in looking after our expensive camera after we forgot to pick it up, leaving on the table. Sure enough there it was behind the bar waiting to be collected in the morning from a smiling member of staff.

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During dinner the conversation revolved around how much everyone was enjoying Gibraltar (which I loved) and with tomorrow being our last ‘full’ day how they would like to spend the morning shopping. Readers will know by now (as a people-watcher who would rather be parked on a bench) I’m not someone who particularly likes shopping but I nodded my approval thinking ‘yes there may be some trinkets I’d like to buy for the children’ – after which I could sit on a bench (people-watching) and wait for everyone else to finish 🙂 

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Knowing the shopping expedition would end with lunch (probably at the Gibraltar Arms) after which everyone would want to slob around the pool (panic-tanning) I knew exactly (looking up Moors Castle and the North face of the Rock) where my final afternoon would be spent. Seeing me gaze skywards Carol asked “Are you really going up there?” yet before I had the chance to answer she had already answered her own question in her head. “Mad as a box of frogs”, she conceded “I’ll wave to you from poolside”.

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Sure enough the following day (Friday 19 May 2016) after traipsing up and down Main Street carrying everyone else’s shopping bags we finally landed-and-lunched-out at the Gibraltar Arms where I viewed my sole purchase – which now resides on my fridge door (see above) and there are no prizes for guessing what it was. A little later (back at the Bristol) – after checking everyone was comfortably ensconced on their sun loungers with drinks and books to hand – I picked up my bottle of water and turned to wave adieu, which I did, absolutely honourably, totally unfazed by their snoring, then hit the road.

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The afternoon was warm. No it wasn’t, I’m lying. The afternoon was hot, baking hot and I knew the further I went up the Rock the more exposed to the heat I would become so I decided to make a plan. Even though I never stick to plans my plan would be to do things in stages (even though I never do things in stages). Having sorted all that out I set off down Main Street (with my bottle of water), turned right somewhere just before Casemates Square and swiftly found myself (where I’m always very much at home) smack-bang in the middle of that wonderful labyrinth called the back streets; a place that could well have been designed by David Bowie himself.

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If I tried to explain what it was that I loved about the back streets of Gibraltar I’d be here all day; in fact (truth be told) I’d need to write a totally separate book (which now I think about it I might just do). Meantime though if I were to offer a brief (plausible) explanation – Gibraltar’s back streets are (first of all) very reminiscent of the streets in Geordieland where I was raised and so feel very safe and familiar to me. Secondly they are also oozing mystery which I love; so many times I’ve gone from knowing exactly where I am going to becoming totally lost up some dead end within seconds and (strange as it sounds) that’s something that fires my imagination – more so if I bump into someone I don’t know! Lastly (though very much not least) is the sense of belonging I feel from seeing Union Jack flags in house windows and steps patriotically painted in British colours from years gone by. I’m a British man out enjoying a stroll in a distant, small yet beautiful part of our British Nation.

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Slowly but surely as I navigated the back streets, got lost up a few alleys and had help from a fabulous group of teenage boys to guide me through a housing estate I finally managed to find my way up to Moorish Castle which I decided (as part of that plan I never had) would be my first Pitt Stop. 

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(A favourite view showing my old abode of Edinburgh House)

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As I looked down on a lovely panoramic view of Gibraltar the reality that within twenty-four hours I would finally have left this beautiful place and that my reality would be consigned to history hit me hard. Very hard.

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