It’s been a long 3 months since our last holiday (ok, 12 weeks to be precise). Work has been a bit thin on the ground (graphene thin) so my longest journey lately has been to Ormskirk Market (0.7 miles) so I am getting itchy feet to travel somewhere. I have been getting my travel fix […]
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As well as eating and drinking and generally celebrating Nik’s half century, we have had a couple of days out as well, some which didn’t even involve going to a supermarket. Yesterday we went to the seaside resort of Tossa de Mar (Tossa by the Sea) and it didn’t matter how long we were there, […]
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We were hit by this bank holiday lark before, back in May. On our first night in Colmenar we ended up getting our first evening meal from the local garage. Luckily, this time we still had most food and drink groups in (with us having doubled up), but we were running low on bread and […]
Read More →This weekend was the main focus of Nik’s holiday celebrations (but her birthday is actually on Tuesday). Her friends Helen and Kevin and Anne and John arrived at Saturday lunchtime. It began raining. A lot. In fact it rained so much that we now have a water hazard on the 8th hole of our golf […]
Read More →We headed off to Girona for the big shop. We sort of had a rough idea where we were going, and with it being a big shop we took two cars. Our plan (which was decided at the planning meeting last week) was to have a light lunch at the cafe at Carrefour, so we […]
Read More →Our villa was at the end of a dirt track, past a farm, through a field of corn and it’s there. Over the years we have stayed in a range of villas; Villa Wow, Villa Hollywood and now Villa Rustica. This is very different to our previous accomodation. Imagine a barn conversion combined with a […]
Read More →We eventually took off and had a fairly uneventful flight (unlike last time). There were some noisy, if not offensive women on the flight. I was guessing they were just speaking so loud as their ears hadn’t popped yet, so I slipped on my noise cancelling headphones to drown them out, then wished I had […]
Read More →Nothing quite like half a night’s sleep to start a holiday is there? After approximately three hours sleep the alarm woke us ready to set off on our latest adventure. There was no chance of us over sleeping as we were woken half an hour before our alarm by a couple having a blazing row […]
Read More →Greetings holiday blog lovers. Well you will be glad to know that after three and half long, hard months, I can say goodbye to work and get on with what I do best. Holidays. On Friday, we are heading off the Spain for my sister Nikki’s birthday. Now I’m too much of a gentleman to […]
Read More →The joy of coming on holiday to Spain with a Spaniard is that you never really have to worry about conversations. I mean if Tibu wasn’t here, I’d make a good attempt, but think about it, if you were a Spaniard what would you rather hear; a fluent native speaker, or an Englishman making a […]
Read More →Today, it rained. We knew it was coming so last night over dinner we tried to decide what to do that was dry. We started with the idea of going to Nerja to the caves, but we didn’t want to spend another day in the car going down crazy roads (see blog here about that). […]
Read More →Whenever we go out there is a constant battle between the Tom Tom and Google maps. Today we wanted to go to Colmares. This is a little town right on top of a hill that directly faces us in our villa. In the evening, when the sun catches it, it reflects the sun with a […]
Read More →The other day we went to El Torcal, which is an amazing range of limestone rocks that have been eroded by the wind over time. Rachel and Tibu’s friend had been and said that the easy route was quite flat, so we thought perfect; parent friendly. The journey up there was the usual rollercoaster ride […]
Read More →The other day we headed off to Ronda (the one in Andalusia, not the one in Wales) for the day. We decided to head off early and had breakfast en route. There are quite a few services off the motorways here, but unlike the chains we have in the UK, they are quite often small […]
Read More →Some of you will be painfully aware that I did a sprint triathlon last month, as I keep on banging on about it. Even with less training than my first outing last August, I still managed to knock 5 minutes off my time. However when I got the break down I realised that was gained […]
Read More →The thing about a villa holiday is that you do spend a lot of time, well, at the villa. Some may think this a bit boring compared to hairing around America or eating your way around Europe, but you can make your own entertainment; well the parents can anyway. They have been laying new water […]
Read More →Eventually we got to do “The Big Shop”. For some, their first drink in a sun lounger is the start of their holiday; for others it’s their first meal sat under the stars waiting expectantly to find out what bizarre local liquor the restaurant will offer you as the digestif; for us it’s spending two […]
Read More →We left baggage reclaim (with all 7 bags) and an hour later we were heading off to the villa in our hire cars. The villa is just outside of Colmenar and is about 40 minutes from Malaga airport. We had looked at the place many times on Google maps before, but one thing you don’t […]
Read More →After two and a half hours of hell, we finally got into baggage reclaim, which can only mean one thing…a trip to the toilet. Yep, I stood shoulder to shoulder with all the other men who thought “I’ll hold on until I get off the plane”. When I came out Tibu and dad headed off […]
Read More →So we left you having got through security and on our way to breakfast. The time is now 4:30 in the morning. We had breakfast at the Grain Loft. All around the place they had signs saying “please review us on TripAdvisor”. Don’t you worry, I will do. Actually I have become a bit addicted […]
Read More →Hello. Did you miss me? Yep that was nearly a whole week without a blog/holiday. Well, we are back off again. This morning we started our second holiday which is 2 weeks in Spain with Karen, my sister Nikki, mum and dad and our friends Rachel and Tibu (you can cross reference all these people […]
Read More →So reader, you may remember a couple of days ago we made an attempt at getting the hop on, hop off bus, but failed? Well today we succeeded (and a note to the taxi driver who was trying to get us to go with him on a tour, the bus fare is only 60zl, not […]
Read More →This may be the last time we can come to Poland as I fear we are wanted men. It all started this morning when we tried (again) to use public transport. We had worked out the walk to get to our (sort of) nearest tram stop, and the fact that we had to just go […]
Read More →I’m never too sure whether I like to plan too much on holiday; but I do like to wake up with a rough plan of action. Today’s plan (such as it was) was to take the hop on hop off bus tour. The bus stop is less than 100 metres from our apartment and we […]
Read More →This morning we woke up to the beautiful sound of church bells ringing. Our accomodation is in the old town and we are quite literally down the road from the Royal Palace (which has the most beautiful chimes). The weather here has been, shall we say, variable. By that I mean cold. This morning, after […]
Read More →Well here we go again. It’s holidays month (yes that is a real thing in our world). Karen and I have taken the P’s on holiday to Poland. We have a job share with my sister Nikki where she takes them to Spain and we take them to ex-communist countries. Can you guess who is […]
Read More →Well blog fans, not long to wait now. On Thursday Karen and I are taking the P’s for a few days to Warsaw. Why Warsaw? It’s only the 9th cheapest capital city in Europe, that’s why. Dad has his “Shalloties” ready (he is going to be disappointed when he finds out that the Poles use […]
Read More →You will have noticed I have made reference to Ubers a lot in these blogs. For the uninitiated (basically mum and dad), this is what they are. They are people who are using their cars as taxis. You book them via an app on your phone, so you request one, and about a minute later […]
Read More →Today was, I suppose, one of the highlights of the holiday. We were off to see a real live bone fide NFL game. Now this isn’t my first game of American football, no sirrree y’all. Nikki, my big sis, was one of the early adopters of gridiron (nope, no idea why it’s called that, just believe […]
Read More →“So what brings you to Nashville then?” Seems to be the opening gambit of every uber driver we have encountered since we touched down on Thursday. That’s actually a good question. I suppose a combination of Rayna James and Bob Harris. Yes I am a big fan of the TV series Nashville but I have […]
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