We are now much in sympathy with one another, the Spanish and ourselves. They assert that they always lose the first match and then come good, citing the Swiss. We could say that we usually enter the final match needing an algorithm capable of solving the riddles of String Theory, in order to work out all the permutations by which we might still qualify. We all know both teams could on the way home early. The Captain is very bleak about it all.

When we arrived back yesterday, David’s Restaurant was festooned in a multitude of flags and with red bunting, featuring the Spanish team, hands on hearts, promoting beer. A big Union Jack was flying in front of our berth. We commiserated with them on their result and ate in the restaurant watching Uruguay go down to Costa Rica, not great news either. David came round giving out red hats with yellow sashes and a waiter took our photo, threatening FaceBook. Apparently the Dutch had all sported the hats the previous evening. None of the staff had the stomach to stay open till twelve for the England match, so we retired. The match was not broadcast on normal Spanish TV and our own BBC would not let us even listen to the commentary online, a scandalous treatment of the license payer. We called home on Facetime and they were wearing an assortment of old England shirts, all set for a late night. The Captain was distraught. I started to relay comments from Twitter, but he found that too stressful to bear, so we went to bed and slept through it all. Probably for the best given how it turned out.

We woke to the dismal news of our defeat and it rather put the cob on Father’s Day, though John cheered up talking to the girls and opening his present long distance. This afternoon we went to the beach for a swim, but the water was icy and suddenly the surf was up. A man of our age and natural agility came back from a swim, to be caught by a wave, go down and roll around for some time floundering to stand back up again. Retiring to the bar seemed the better part of valour.

PS For anyone interested, with the hotel broadband I was able to load up photos from before Gibraltar and insert a post about the monkeys that must have failed to load fully before.