Week one Journal notes April 22nd - April 30th
Sunday 22/04/12
Stayed in comodor class which is lovely, huge cabin, twjin beds with a sofa area looking at tv / dvd, complimentary fruit, macaroons, tea and coffee, papers etc mini bar available and priority booking in a restaurant far too nice for us to frequent! Although when we were checking in (like a hotel reception!) they were saying about the gales and people were booking dinner early to allow themselves to buckle in for the ride after!Note on ferries, bring foreign plug adapters! Always book a good cabin, appears to be worth it. Don't forget nappies. We did and had to squash her into little ones. Very very bumpy ride, 34mph winds through bay of biscay, all Ellie wanted to do was play outside!
Monday 23/04/12
Had a lovely breakfast in bed brought to our room, ellie counted as a person so three lots of pastries (several perperson) and a bunch of coffee and juice, lush! Very rocky on the ferry this morning, struggled to stand. In the night i'm sure i braved myself a couple of times to stop falling out! Got off ferry and changed plan from traveling to San sebastian to Pamplona! Reason being the weather, we were hoping would be far better, it wasn't, we walked for 20 mins into town, had tapas for dinner then the heavens opened, Ellie jumped through the puddles the whole way back to the hotel and loved it! The hotel operated ac so had a real problem drying off three waterproofs, a pram and mini converse.
Tuesday 24/04/12
Refuelled Maxine at €1.34 pl, still trying to escape the rain, receptionist said it has been raining since Easter! Visited jaca and had some tapas for lunch and found a park for Ellie to play in, beautiful town, low level (height) ski resort. Now heading to panticosa further up the mountains, it's currently 8 degrees and we only have thin water proofs so may be too cold for us! Well, we went to panticosa and it was completely closed, it's a ski resort, so literally, all shutters down until presumable the summer walkers get there... So we went to France!! We have driven over the top of the Pyrenees which was great, as soon as we go over the top and over the French border, the snow became about half a foot deeper, due to there being less sun on the northern side and so it doesn't thaw anywhere near as fast. We have come to Laruns which I think may be famous for geothermal qualities, there have been a couple of signs up for services on rheumatism but only between may and october. We have a very cute little hotel, right on the main square called hotel ossau. The only two problems we've encountered, they don't serve dinner until 7.30 ( we had a screaming two year old at 17.30 yelling for chips, beans, dindins) and for some reason, in this Newley decorated hotel, they have failed to add a bathroom door.... I won't comment further on how that plays itself put.
Wednesday 25/04/12. (fuel in France €1.54 in places, €0.20 more pl)
So we got around the bathroom issue, we're all a little closer. However, highlight of the various bathroom sagas was jim rattling the showroom door for approx 20 seconds, until I heard, "er, help" I went in and looked at the issue, the door was just plain jammed, I joked to jim about standing back to allow me to kick it in but chose not to as it was made of glass, so just as I was thinking about throwing a towel over for him to cover up while I called reception, I tried pulling it, et voila!! The bloody door opened! We made our way through the French pyrenees to arreau and on the way Ellie suffered with one of her travel sickness bouts which resulted in her wearing my black jumper over her jeans for the afternoon. Arreau was a lovely ski town with a river running through, but, as usual, pretty much all of it closed, so we stopped in a park, tried to explain to the local kids why a. Ellie stank and b. why she couldn't talk to them, we then sat and had a panini on the bench for our lunch. We decided to drive on and stop in st lary which, again, predominantly just a ski resort. We booked into the arches hotel and jim went off and figured out how to use a laundrette which completely rescued our impending clothes / smell situation from the journey. For diner we went to a pizzeria and the lady was great, she kept pinching Ellie's legs and squeaking, she brought her colouring in, farmyArd animals and a bib, a very kind lovely lady at pizzas a emporter (pizza was great too) .
Thursday 26/04/2012
Woke up to horrendous weather; rain, wind, fog etc so decided to head back to Spain. But first, we had our breakfast and ellie, as always, refused to sit still so went running off into a pain of glass -ouch! Bless her, we all have to do it once in our lives (aunty char char ran through one!)As we crossed the border tunnel it was 6 degrees. We drove over and along the beautiful river
Barossa (?) and stopped off at l'ainsa which is claimed to be one of the most beautiful towns in Spain. we stayed at hotel meson de l'ainsa which was right over the river bridge and had lovely views of the old town and mountains in the back drop. The room itself was odd, it had just been redecorated purple and white over their wood chip with 70s style purple and black throw over the bed, this was my favourite room though so far, it had a minibar to keep Ellie's milk and huge quantities of dairy products cool, a nice balcony (which we could watch absolutely huge birds swooping around) and a tiny bit more space. We went for a walk up about ten thousand steps with ellie's pram (!) up th the old town which was stunning, we walked through a very narrow old cobble street with buildings dated 1833 which was lovely, it then opened up onto a hilltop square with restaurants all around, the view varied at every angle you looked at, it was very spectacular. By now, the temperature was in the early twenties, we'd finally found heat! For diner, we went to a road side hostel and it was shite... Unsurprisingly on reflection...
27/04/12 Friday
We've been keeping an eye o n weather reports and essentially, there is a line down the centre of Spain. To the left of it it's around 10 degrees and raining, to the right it's dry and up to 26 degrees in places, so it's unsurprising we've headed east. We had a small surprise last night when we looked at places to stay in Barcelona having decided that we needed to settle Ellie for a few days, the moving around is taking it's toll as she's not getting enough sleep making her a bit moody and not wanting to eat and all listings pretty much said full so looking at the rain outside our window in l'ainsa and using another kind dose of free wi fi we panic booked a room just down the coast near Tarragona in a town called Cambrills, the apart hotel is platja pins, we've gone for this as it's two bedrooms and a sitting room, trying to get the girl back into a routine. The room itself is advertised as sea views, it's on the other side of the road so there is a tiny view, what's impressive are the views of odriscolls rugby tavern and the mucky duck!! We'll be trying them out tomorrow. The town is a typical purpose built tourist trap on the costa dorada, not very nice, but - we have a supermarket below our room - usefull... Also, the beach is just over the road and is nice and long so we can go on some nice walks and take Ellie's scooter, you can also hire bikes with seats on the back so maybe we'll give that a whirl. Ellie's gone down to bed tonight with minimal fuss, I'm sure she'll be glad of the break from us too - it's all been a bit exciting for her, we're looking forward to a nice quiet day tomorrow without traveling. On a plus side though, we have made it from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean today so had a toe dip to celebrate!
Oh - we stopped off in Leida for a stretch, another nice river front town, there was a really nice park for Ellie to play in, we then walked around the whole town to find a wc and found one in the car park where we parked Maxine as we left! Grrrrrr..
Saturday 28/04/12
We spent the day hanging out in Cambrills, went for a walk but had to turn back as it looked like rain...
Sunday 29/04/12
The weather was beautiful we we spent a lot of the day at the beach over the road and Ellie played on the park there. We used solan once on Ellie, however, it wasn't dummy proof and she had a big red goatie by the end of the day from burn!
Monday 20/04/12
Thankfully Ellie's goaty burn has gone! We did a bit more beach playing today, the waves were maybe 2 meters at times, we sat and watched for an hour or so, it was amazing. We also went and bought supplies thinking it'd be cheaper then Mallorca. Currently sat at ferry port which was a nightmare to find but now sat queuing for our 11pm ferry to Mallorca, due in at 6:45 :( my highlight currently is a shipment of approx sixty or so little peaugots being moved by 8 men at a time, a minivan drops them off to the cars and then they race Italian job style to the ferry, then get brought back for next batch, brilliant! Might think about that as a career when I'm ready! Hopefully we'll sleep well tonight...
Week two Journal notes - may 1st, Mallorca
Tuesday 01/05/2012
Alarm woke us this morning, well, me, hoping to get going in time, the night before had been very exciting for Ellie and you could see she couldn't get her head around why we were all sleeping in one tiny room and why daddy had a bunk! She was super desperate to get up there so once the ladder was attached, she was off (she's built quite a ladder climbing skill set after climbing up the attic ladder at home!), then, as the cabin was so small we put her in her own bed for the first time, so when I got up after hardly sleeping all night from being cold, Ellie was essentially, where the pillow should have been, lying sideways across the bed at the very top and with no bed covers on but bless her she was spark out (as I write this she's nearly four hours into a nap in our bed so am going to have a think about putting her into a big bed!) anyway, best laid intentions with the alarm didn't work as we left the room key with reception and she pulled an odd face, having walked into the garage and realised our car was only one of two left on the entire ship, I now realise it was a "oh my god, there are still passengers on the boat?" face... Thinking back, i think what i thought at the time was the ship's wake up call may have been their get out of your cabins call!
We drove through Palma at 7am which was lovely, not a soul around as it was a bank holiday, as always, we got lost trying to find the highway up to inca / llubi and slowly made our way to the house, we were running early as we weren't due to meet John at the house until 8.45 so we went into inca and got a nice coffee and croissant. The house was just like the pics which was reassuring considering the length of time we are going to spend here, we did our best to get shot of the very helpful agent as quickly as possible so we could play out in the sunshine, low and behold, once he'd gone - out came the clouds!
Jim arranged to go visit mark, so we spent the afternoon at his and then once Ellen got home from work we headed into the German restaurant in sineu and had four amazing steaks, jim and mark also had enough beer to make more use of the local park and it's rides on giant prints than Ellie!
Wednesday 02/05/2012
It took a while to get ourselves sorted today so spent the morning at the house. At about 11.30 we decided that I'd take Ellie upstairs to try and finish unpacking and jim was going to make lunch. So we went up and Ellie wasn't happy so I said to sit under the duvet, a couple of minutes later, I turned around and she was all snuggled up and asleep, poor dot it worn out from all of excitement. She slept in our bed for four hours... So we didn't get chance to hit the road until about 4 where we decided to head to c'an picafort to go to the beach, it' a lovely sandy beach and bright blue sea, but there is sea weed where's the waves lap on the beach which is a pity. At one end of the beach it's a massively naff German resort with white block hotels but the other end is much more relaxed with some nice beach bars and a protected area of beach. After skyping William, Ellie got ready for bed and is hopefully looking forward to a massive lie in! Myself and jim had dinner by the pool and watched the sunset - gurt lush!
Thursday 03/05/2012
We did a whole lot of nothing today, Ellie likes to be spun around in the pool and likes to try and walks down the steps on her own, we all had a nice barbs together, Ellie went mental as she wasn't allowed to spread butter on the same bit of bread for hours and chew it so managed to fob her off with some ceam cheese, a lot easier. We were in bed by 9!
Friday 04/05/12
We went off to ikea to get some bits and bobs such as tea towels and chopping boards, it was a total mission to get there ( forgetting we have a sat nab, this would have been a much easier day if we remembered this and looked up the details to plug in), once we got there, jim took a trip to the ladies loo by accident and that was ikea highlights for you!!!
We headed home, Ellie had another monster nap and when she got up we had a little walk up and down the drive as jim had gone shopping and we thought we'd meet I'm at the end, but he took ages. Anyway, over the next hour or so we had a swim, put ellie in the bath and she wouldn't put her nappy back on, so just leggings it was after repeated pleas to her to tell us when she's going to have a wee. About ten minutes later she was in the kitchen with jim and he said she suddenly stripped off her clothes and ran outside to the potty and had a wee! The rest of the night, she refused to wear anything and frankly was like running round after a puppy, dribbles of liquid everywhere! Not sure I'm ready for this! She's in bed now, with a nappy on thank god! And looking forward to seeing "raybumbum" (Mark / Rumbumbo) tomorrow... Just to clarify, mark is called rumbumbo "because he likes rum and he looks like Colombo" James ball 2005
Saturday 05/05/12
Today was a lovely day, we chilled out around the house all morning, Ellie did her usual look like she's mooching around the top step of the pool dipping her toes (obviously, with us right by her) and then before you She's another two steps down, fully clothed in her iggle piggle pyjamas!
By 12, mark, Ellen, sue (Ellen's mum) and addy we're all at ours and we were planning to spend the afternoon in sa calobra, this was an hour or so's drive away over the very, very beautiful mountains of Mallorca on the north coast. This area is very popular, obviously, with tourists, so on the very narrow winding roads poor jim had the coaches to worry about, but also, Mallorca is very popular with road cyclists in training, they are known to train here for tour de France so they were those death defying, must be clinically insane, cyclists to deal with, they really do think they own the road! When we got to sa calobra it was just beautiful, bright, bright blue sea; we had a snack lunch at a self service caffateria over looking the sea and treated Ellie to a calypso while we all had mars ice creams (except for sue and her very healthy bananna, she has some will power) which kept Ellie quiet for a couple of mins. We then walked around the cove to the beach which was more of the gorgeous sea and a pebble beach. Ellie had a whale of a time with rumbumbo (mark, or ray bum bum as she likes to call him) and jim, they looked like my gay two dads... Jim was wearing camo shorts and a camo hat with a top gun tea shirt so looked totally camp! And him and mark together are very cute! We headed back after half an hour or so and the journey back was much easier, far fewer bikes and no coaches.
We spent the evening at addy and john's (John had been working all day as his boat's owner was in town for the weekend so they have to be there) and had cheese and meats, Ellie played with the duck thermometer over and over after spreading the whole of the table contents with humous (lucky they're pretty relaxed). We managed to switch her off by putting peppa pig on, they could't get over how she literally switches off! A good day all round had by all (except poor John who was working)
Sunday 06/05/12
This morning it rained - a lot! Not everyone woke up in great moods so luckily all three of us were trapped in the house! We went over to mark and Ellen's at 12ish so we could head on out for lunch, the route we take normally takes about 20 minutes, but today, there was some kind of festival / tractor fest thing happening so we were diverted around town in all kinds of wrong directions by the police. They signalled for us to pull up next to them and so I thought to myself, be brave! "hola" I yelled, he said something I didn't understand, then I commenced into one of my few Spanish sentences "no abla espanol muy bien - ingles" quite pleased with myself he repeated the word, which jim then clicked was "parking" the guy was speaking English to me and I didn't even click! So we explained we were off to montuiri and we didn't need parking and carried on our way. A few turns later, we had been sat in a long long queue to get back to the main road and we decided to do a u turn. Right in he middle of jim's marvellous manoeuvre the police pulled up on us again and spun his finger round indicating to stop turning around and stay in line!!! He then pointed a road we could take, we did, and ended up driving around some very bad single track roads in the middle of some very large fields a little panicked.
We eventually got to Mellon's (recognised collective noun for mark and Ellen) and headed on over to the restaurant for lunch, which was delicious (once we'd swapped food around with Ellie and she was finally happy with what sat in front of her), we had three courses of real treats (I have to mention sue had a very healthy fruit platter again putting us all to shame. Fruit is her absolute favourite and always on the top of her shopping list I discovered when I dug a little deeper into her persistent healthiness). It was all really great, they even sat us near a large open fire which was appreciated in this weather.
We headed back to Mellon's after for some drinks (and to collect jim's sunglasses he'd forgotten earlier). Luckily the weather had got better so we were able to stay outside and Addy and John made it over after John had finished work. All non drivers (the men) had a nice few drinks and then as they always do, mark and jim took it to the next level. At one point I heard the, talking about maybe trying rum and tonic as mark had no coke and jim didn't want gin as he wanted to feel mallorquian, I think they settled for gin (after about two bottles of wine each), the next "moment" I caught them in was mark pouring (yes I did mean to type that) a bottle of port into jim's mouth and then jim returning the favour. At this point Ellie and I decided it was home time so Mark kindly gave jim a San Miguel for the road and some tips on how funny it was to knock the car out of gear when you are drunk and your better half (my words) is driving and we headed off.
Not too troublesome drive, I had a few songs sung to me, a couple of cuddles whilst driving but no gear tampering. We got back to the house and jim's jobs were to bring his beer can and my two pairs of flip flops in the footwell into the house (it turned out if brought 3 flip flops and emptied the beer down the side off the now sticky car). I brought all of the bags in first thinking I'd go back for Ellie and after jim had finally gotten up off the drive after falling out of the car he looked at me all panicked "where's Ellie? Where the f**ck is Ellie?" I think, presuming we'd left her a Mellon's! I explained she was in the car and I was going to fetch her out now. As I was carrying her in jim asked "is it late night or early morning?" I explained it was late night. I got the girl ready for bed and jim managed to get her a bottle together and he said "I'm so confused, are we just getting up or going to bed? " this carried on for a while until I put him in bed. Thank god he's a very innocently funny drunk and not an angry drunk! He'll sleep well, hopefully won't be too bad tomorrow, he wouldn't have any dinner so that won't help...
Monday 7/05/12
Predictably, today was a quiet day... Ellie and I hung around and had a girl's morning, watched toy story together and generally snuggled up and went for walks around the garden. After several very well meaning attempts, jim made it out of bed around 2pm and came down to the pool with some chicken soup for us. Needless to day, except for a quick dash to town to get milk, we generally chilled out. I really enjoyed today, weather was beautiful and it was just nice and easy.
Tuesday 8/05/12
Another slow morning, I think we've come to the conclusion that nothing is ever going to happen before Ellie's nap and it's so lovely and quiet when she does go to sleep, it's a pity to pull her out of the pattern. So we did nowt, shared a pizza for lunch, let Ellie watch a couple of episodes of Tom and jerry on you tube (current new favourite) and put her to bed.
On the way out to the pool for my two hour rest, jim walked through a door at the back end of the garage, I double took, and there is a bathroom there! I have been here a week and never new we had an outside shower room and have been walking the whole way back to the house to use the loo! Ellie got up after two hours and we had a nice play in the pool, we found some frog arm bands so she wore those and was tootling around the pool without being held! Also, she finally caught a ball that was thrown at her - yay!
We've been looking for a nice close beach that isn't full of seaweed and large white buildings so we tried out alcudia today, at just 20 or so mins drive not too bad and it was just beautiful, light blue turning into bright blue turning into dark blue, still as a pond and shallow for ages, perfect. We sat for an hour or so late afternoon, jim dug a big hole, Ellie ran in and out of the sea with a bucket filing up and I watched. It was brilliant. We then found a beach bar so we sat toes in the sand and had some great food which was cheap, Ellie played around, all of the staff loved her and the three of them lined up and just watched her and laughed as she was eating! (I have to say this is a relief as where I'm used to people finding her cute and entertaining, most people here in the supermarkets don't tend to give off that vibe and I was scared she was passed it) we will be taking everyone who visits to the beach and hopefully we'll be going ourselves 2 or 3 times a week. We joked that mark took us to his very lovely mallorquian restaurant on Sunday and we'll take him to our beach cafe this Sunday! Great day all round. One week here done, 7 to go!
Week three Journal notes
Wednesday 9th may 2012
Completely contradicting what I said before, we did something this morning! We headed off to sineu market with the fun police ensuring Ellie and I were at the door ready to go at 10am prompt. We got to what we assumed would be a couple of stalls with some overly warm cheese and it's a full scale tourist attraction, we probably saw 10 coaches there! Parking was a nightmare and the market covers the whole sleepy square where we go for dinner sometimes and a load of side streets. There were sunglasses, cheese, clothes, food, plants, leather goods- all sorts, it's a nice place to spend a morning.
We got back and put Ellie to bed and had a sit outside, my god it was hot! We're operating off a completely different weather system today. I ended up in the shade and jim spent significant time in the pool with two bin liners and eight rocks. Want to know more? Caroline and Tom heated their small pool in Croatia by dropping their yoga mats on the pool, sucking the sunlight in and warming the pool, so we now have two bin bags in our pool, I'm assuming it's a bigger pool. Sadly, when we went down to the pool after dinner and Ellie had a dip, I checked the thermometer and it was still 22, the same as it was earlier in the afternoon. We think the temperature hit 30.5 today, that's where the car temp seemed to settle. Very, very warm...
Thursday 10/05/2012
Another hot day, Ellie was awake shouting for mummy (never daddy, the only time she wants me grrrr) at 7:15 and we decided at 9am that it was the perfect temperature and you don't really need it any hotter, is that a sign?!! We went down into the town of llubi, our local town for the first time as if we're going shopping we tend to go to inca. It's a lovely little town, a slightly unloved park but it had a slide so it kept Ellie fairly happy, although, she'd have preferred swings. We continued up into the town to the old square to the church and there was a nice little cafe which we may head back to another time. We also went to the local pastry shop and bought some nice treats for lunch. By the time we got to lunch Ellie was to hot / tired/ angry to eat anything so a rushed effort at beans on toast was completed, of which she'd only eat the beans, naturally, and off to bed it was for her!
In the afternoon we were trying to keep her out of the sun/heat so we played wash the ducks and then we washed the car which was great, Ellie ensured the headlights were very clean indeed. For the rest of the afternoon, we read every book here and had dinner (forgetting to put a nappy back on her after swimming - oops!) then after swimming, our very smart daughter managed to con daddy into yet another swim, slowly but surely, she never takes no for an answer, and she comes out shaking as she's so cold but we have to make her get out as she just wants to keep going!
Friday 11/05/2
This morning the fun police set the "go" time for 9am, but it was 9:30 before we set off for cala ratjada. We went to cala agula, the beach we go to over on the east side of the island, it was beautiful as always, the weather was hot again but the sea breeze kept it cooler and Ellie agreed very easily to wear her uv suit so we played dig a hole and fill it full of water again for a couple of hours, until the point where the only thing Ellie seemed to be able to think about and say out loud was "chips" so we packed up and went for lunch at the same pretty crappy and very outdated italian which we usually go to at cala ratjada port, it was very nice once we got home and ellie had her nap we hid from the sun for a while, then played in the pool, she's getting very good with her foggy armbands. Jim made us a lovely dinner which we ate by the pool watching the sunset.
Saturday 12/05/12
We had one result today which was discovering rtl, a German Channel which showed the grand pix/ qualifying. So on one hand, we were watching a grand pix in Spain on German tv, but we didn't have to watch the alonso fest on Spanish tv.
Quali done mark and Ellen came over, jim, mark and Ellie played in the pool ( still too cold for grown up girls) and we settled down to a night of bar b q, drinks and jim and mark talking crap to each other, it was a lovely evening, Ellie is turning out to be one of rumbumbo's biggest fans so she loved it. Mark and Ellen stayed over for the night.
Sunday 13/05/2012
Disappointing start to the day when I discovered that ants had gotten into one of the bags of croissants, jim and mark cracked on with those and the girls ate the other bag, all became sorted...
Mark and jim had a manly walk around the garden, fiddled with the generator and mellen headed off ahead of us as we were meeting them at John and addy's later at one. (it's just started raining as I write this which is a relief, maybe it will col down, mark has confirmed it's unseasonably hot and been around 30 most days this week)
At addy and john's we watched the grand pix (Lewis had to start from the back - knobs! He made it to 8th though) and they put together a lovely barbq, I highly recommend getting an invite to two chef's house for a barbq! Their friend russ and his daughter Megan who is nine months younger and was nice for Ellie to see another child after three weeks!
We got home to the hummmm of the generator! Oh no, the thing is meant to come on for an hour in the morning, jim and mark (apparently more mark, jim was just showing him) and their manly review of the generator, broke it, or rather, "fixed it" so it was permanently on, after mild panic / fiddling with large scale power equipment unknown to us and a million missed calls to mark, he called back and hopefully, it's now off (check), our electric is back on (check) and the generator should come back of for an hour tomorrow morning... We'll see.....
Been away three weeks today, hadn't clicked until just now!
Monday 14/05/12
We had a quiet morning today, the generator started but the sprinklers didn't... Then it didn't go off. More fiddling done, will see what tomorrow brings, we're meeting john the estate agent for coffee in the morning so may be fess up time. Ellie ate much better which was a relief to us as she's becoming more and more fussy, I think it's her concentration levels that suffer and she gives up. She tends to go for the easy stuff.
Once we'd got her up after her nap, sorted ourselves out etc it was 16:15, so we headed off to the beach in alcudia and had a lovely afternoon (suits us much better to avoid early afternoon sun due to the girl's skin being sensitive) and then some tea on the beach. We went to the same place as last week, jim walked ahead to get us a table as Ellie was putting her crocs on with the backs in the over the front position, running about four paces, they'd fall off, she'd sit back down on the sand, put them back on the wrong feet and start the process again, so it was taking a while. When we did finally get there, she walked straight up to the table we had last week like it was her place she'd sat her whole life! Then proceeded to demand the crisps we got her last week, this argument, for once, we won! The weather was a lot cooler today, a little too cool at the beach due to the breeze.
Tuesday 15/05/12
This morning we went to sineu, we thought we'd take Ellie to the park there ( last played on the night we got here by jim and mark), we had a coffee on the square where we usually go and thought we'd take a look around the town, as we always park up on the square, eat, leave. It's a lovely town to mooch around, we found another square higher up which appeared to have some nice restaurants on so I think we're going to try one of those next. We also found a little cake shop which had a wood burning pizza oven (the only one in sineu) run by an Italian who moved to Mallorca 7 years ago and it was only a margarita, doughnut style with a hole in but it was bloody lovely, we'll definitely be back there (his cakes were crap) I made a mental note it was 12:30 when he was pulling the pizzas out of the oven in case he's a creature of habit.
Ellie had a mega nap that pushed 3 hours long so we spent the rest of the day here, naturally, Ellie and jim had a swim. Funny point of the day was I reached under the sink to get a mug, looked in it and there was a cream blob in it, I showed jim and he said, "that must have been where Ellie put her cheese when I asked her to put it in the bin! The cupboards are right next to each other and have cloth covers so easy to do! Especially if you're a cheeky little bugger!
Week four journal
Wednesday 16/05/12
We woke up to a very gloomy day, so we decided to go to Caves de campamet. They are an amazing place to visit, 4 million years old and discovered by a shepherd in 1945 who was sat on the hill side, knocked a rock and felt fresh air come through the ground. He kept moving rocks out of the way and made a hole one meter by 12 feet, went down and discovered this amazing place. Ellie was fairly well behaved but a little challenging at times. We then went to pollenca (port) and had a walk around and got a kebab for lunch which was lovely!
We didn't get back until about 4 so we relaxed, jim cooked up a lovely casserole and for the first time in blooming
ages we sat and ate in front of a DVD it was lovely!
Thursday 17/05/12
The sunshine's back today so we took a trip into Palma in the morning, we had a nice walk along the harbour looking at the many, totally stunning yachts. After about 45 mins we were sensing the vibe that Ellie wasn't in a mooching around the shops quite of mood so we headed off and started back heading via decathlon on the way back to buy her a beach tent and McDonald's as a little treat.
We had a nice afternoon by the pool, only disturbed by a little lamb who had gotten through the fence and was apart from it's mum. We spent a while trying to usher it in the right direction, in the end the poor thing ran at the fence, I assume thinking it had seen a hole where there wasn't and startled itself, so at this point jim managed to grab hold and put it over the fence, and it went straight back to it's mum for a feed, poor little mite, I think they must have been separated for a couple of hours.
We had dinner in sineu at the other square we found by the church, we got to the square at 6.30 and everywhere but the crap looking bar in the corner, so we went there expecting the worst, hoping for the best and were pleasantly surprised, we had a very nice meal, I was fond of the part where Ellie was putting her hair clip in daddy's eyebrows, obviously the only obvious area for her!
Friday 18/05/12
Today we went to Palma aquarium as the weather was cloudy and it was such an impressive place to visit. Floor to ceiling tanks where you can see right in. Ellie absolutely loved it. The shark tank there is 8m deep, the deepest in Europe. When you first walk into the room it's impressive but nothing to low your mind, then you realise the exhibit is built on three floors around the tank and it truly was spectacular.
After that we had a short walk along platja de pamla, palma's beach and got a drink ina beach side cafe, I didn't realise that behind all the nasty buildings,the beach is lovely! Mallorca really does pride itself on it's cleanliness.
Saturday 19/05/12
We went into inca this morning to find a park for Ellie and get some supplies. We've driven through plenty of times before but never had a walk through as it's a bit shitty looking really. However, jim went to supermarket and so I took Ellie for a mooch while he was in there and I found a nice bit! I didn't realise there was one but I found a nice little town square with cages and a street of little shops so looking forward to going back and having a proper look in the next few days. The park we found is along a kind of promenade in the centre of the road and it's quite clever as you get to a slide, then about 20 meters along there's a seesaw, then there's something else. It's quite clever.
Mark and Ellen came along in the afternoon for some tennis, both of the boys took her on but am pleased to say she has remained undefeated! That evening we went for pizza in sineu. It was a lovely place to go to, the boys love it as the very pretty waitresses wear tiny vests and it was a very lively bubbles atmosphere. Mark said we had to get there early as they queue for tables and come half eight, people were giving us daggers to move on! The owner, Thomas, pretty much announced everyone on their way in, he seemed to know everyone. Apparently, he closes the restaurant down three times a year for a month because he can. It was a great evening (except I got my cheeses mixed up, I ordered a pizza with Gorgonzola on which I don't like). The highlight was mark's insistence in making everything jim ate hotter, this culminated in a famous chilli oil in the restaurant being tested by them. They literally put their finger over the pourer which was probably no wider than 3 or 4 mm and put it on their tongue and oh my god, the mess they were in! Mark's eyes were so tears I thought he may lose a contact! They giggled about it for about another fifteen minutes until we left! Mark said he felt the heat again when he took his contacts out again later that nigh - ouch!!
Sunday 20/05/12
Sundays are always quiet as the shops are closed, so if anything, you can't go faffing around buying food / milk / water. We headed over to mark and Ellen's at three ish as Ellen was serving tea and cake. It was lovely and relaxed without any jim / mark stunts. They planted out some of their tomatoes so hopefully they'll work after the disagreement in location. Ellen made carrot cake In cupcake and loaf form, it was lovely and tasty. She even wrote our names on them! Ellie loved hers.
Monday 21/05/12
Worst day of weather so far, as I type I'm in jeans, long sleeve t shirt, jumper and socks! It looks like it'll get better tomorrow, we had great storms to watch thou last night. Due to this it was a pretty uneventful day, we cleaned up the villa ready for John and Maureen's arrival tomorrow, read some more book and had a walk around Santa margalida in the afternoon.
Tuesday 22/05/12
John and Maureen arrived today, we waved their monarch as it came over and a couple of hours later, we took a walk down the drive and as ellie was about to dive into the road John and maureen drove in! We spent the afternoon relaxing in the cloud and wind as they had a 3am start. Jim then cooked us all a bar b q for our dinner, which I mistakenly bathed Ellie just before, but I think she went to bed a little cleaner then before the bath.
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