Listen, don’t try to buy grilled octopus from gypsies at the flea market outside Portimao, okay? It’s their lunch. I may have slightly failed in my attempt to pick up every nuance and meaning of the response to my request, admittedly, but I understood that goats were involved and that my mother was more than happy with this. I knew it.
The miracle, I suppose, is that I made exactly the same mistake in exactly the same place some very many years ago. Then, however, the beardy gypsy guy merely laughed and pointed me in the direction of a stall selling absolutely miraculous doughnuts. Massive things, sublime, fresher than the future and coated with crunchy sugar straight from heaven. Good gypsy, clever gypsy. Well done.
This time, though, I was cursed to hell and back, or thereabouts, and had some long-held suspicions about my mum adequately confirmed. Is it possible that gypsies have gone bad?
