Right, welcome back to Benidorm, the spiritual home of the neon vest, the €2 pint, and medical marvels that would baffle science.
Narrator: Today on Bargain Loving Brits, we’re observing a very special migration pattern. It begins at Gatwick Airport. You see them in the departure lounge, bless them: Sheila and Duncan from Bristol. They’re in the priority boarding area, looking frail in the complimentary wheelchairs, gathering sympathy from fellow passengers as they are wheeled onto the easyJet flight like precious, fragile cargo. It’s a solemn moment.
Fast forward two and a half hours to Alicante arrivals. The doors open, the warm Spanish air hits them, and suddenly… Hallelujah! It’s a miracle! Priority assistance? Left in Row 12 with the empty Pringles tube and a neck pillow. Sheila has sprung out of that chair like a coiled viper and is practically sprinting to passport control to beat the queue, while Duncan is already power-walking toward the duty-free fags, hauling three suitcases.
The healing powers of the Costa Blanca, folks. Truly inspirational.
But the miracles don’t stop there. Oh no. Once they get to resort, it’s time for transport. Now, back home, a mobility scooter is a necessity for getting down towards Asda. Here? It’s a lifestyle choice.
You’ll see them on the strip: groups of six lads, all perfectly capable of running a marathon, but they’ve hired tandem mobility scooters for the week. Why walk between bars when you can form a mechanized convoy?
They’re doing 4mph in a pedestrian zone, holding a plastic pint glass in one hand, leaning into the corners like they’re on the final lap at Silverstone. It’s essentially Mario Kart for people on an all-inclusive.
Meanwhile, away from the bright lights, we meet the real bargain hunters. The expats living the dream on a pension and sheer stubbornness.
Meet Barry and Maureen. They live up in the hills. They’ve realized that tap water costs money, and buying bottles in Mercadona is a rip-off at 25 cents a litre.
So, every Tuesday, they load twelve empty 6-litre containers into their twenty-year-old thirsty Land Rover and drive an 18-kilometre round trip up a mountain road to a free village fountain.
They spend €5 in petrol to save €3 on water, and by the time Barry has lugged 72 kilos of water back to the car in 30-degree heat, he needs a lie-down and a stiff brandy.
But as Barry says, wiping the sweat from his brow: “It’s the principle, isn’t it? I’m not paying for water that falls out of the sky for free.”
And that’s Bargain Loving Brits in the Sun in a nutshell:
Hire a tandem scooter for a 50-metre bar crawl.
Get priority boarding for your “bad leg,” then sprint off the plane like Usain Bolt.
Drive 8 km into the mountains to save 2 euros on water.
Living the dream. Saving a fortune. Sort of.
God bless ’em.
