Its sunday afternoon, hot and the holiday is about two thirds through, so while I sunbathe what a time to start my holiday blog I thought.

The holiday got off to an amusing start with me driving and Mick, Nicky and Maddy as passengers on the way to Jackies with all of our luggauge. Needless to say it was tight.

Maddy was great the whole way here: airport, flight and all…sleep, sleep and more.

We arrived in Gib airport which shocked me to start by the act that the airport doubles as a public road. The airport was small but enough and Gib otherwise reminded me of home…english money, english speaking…but overseas?

We crossed the border into spain to collect the hire car and then the drive to nanny Nicky’s. A brand new Seat Leon – very nice, with enough airbags to even please Dave

Carmens house is what could be said a little sticky, but in a lovely surrounding. The road to the estate is half real road, and half mountain pass that’s loosely tarmaced, however I wasn’t too bothered by that due to the view. Carmens house is a wooden bungalow built on the side of a hill which looks down over most of the rest of the estate, with a sun terrace, a view one way to Gibralta and the other way all the way across the Med looking out onto Africa and the Atlas mountains, but I’m sure you’ll all look at the pictures.

The first day we did basically nothing but unpack, sunbathe a little and eat which came in the shape of a chicken paella

Madison was as good as gold and enjoyed her cuddles from her great granda-ma and grand-dad much to their deleights.

As for the not doing much – that’s the way all good holidays should be and that’s the way ours has gone. Maddy has leisurely woken me and Nicky up at about 11am, eat breakfast, walk up to Carmens and enjoy the sun.

The main confusing thing for me out here is the eating. English people eat little lunches and big dinner. Well here is the opposite, with many a tasty and delicious lunch along with bread, wine and alcohol tasting (all being uber strong liquers), but I settled for a mixture of the anice and the ameretto. The other thing which confused me here is the portions of the alcohol: english would give you a single or a double at best. A measure? What’s one of those out here? Here, you ask for a drink, you get half the bottle in a glass hence how Mick and Diego are clearing about a bottle a day of Anice.

This goes on until the first Monday when a trip to Gibralta changes the scene. This day was hot much to Maddys dislike…afterall, how is she supposed to sleep in the pushchair up cobbled streets and in the hot?

Mick was very naughty and bit Nickys hand because we attempted to pay the bil – afterall, how dare we! So in the end Mick paid the bill and we continued our shopping travels. 200 cigarettes each as afterall, who can resist bringing fags back for friends (non-profit obviously). Even Mafison brought one back inside her pushchair . I bought a pair of sunglasses in Topman and Nicky looked to no avail. Later that afternoon Mick gave Nicky a present he’d bought on his shopping journey…an iPod Video 30GB – don’t get jealous Dan.

We had a lovely chili cheese burger with chips for lunch…thought I’d break into the latino spirit early

We walked from the shopping high street and the bobby on the beat to Morrisons to get some shopping…being how hot it was however, we stopped via McDonalds for a drink: they don’t do milkshake!!

Good old mature chedder, real milk not the UHT stuff, Mick got some more pillows and some Branston – knowbody should ever be without Branston.

And that was the best part of the day besides Carmens sandwiches and my introducion to Yatzee.

The next few days made up of us sunbathing again, but like I said – that’s the purpose of a holiday.

I’ve learnt some more Spanish and I can now actually say some things in Spanish which is cool. Wednesday we all got our glad rags on and head out for lunch to a very typically Spanish restaurant with a lovely sheltered outdoor eating area.

The restaurant was obviously specialising in fishes and lovely they where, although not prepared to try a whole fish I had steak and a delicious one it was.

We got to the restaurant at about 2.30pm and after a swift drive to one of Diegos old hotels where he used to work for an espresso, we got home at close to 8pm…I’m told that’s how lunch is done here, leaving us to have dinner consisting of sandwiches at about 11pm.

Thursday I was forced to get up early – how rude! We took the morning out from our sleep routine to head down to Algezerious and enjoy some Turos and coffee from the shop next to the Turos van. What can be said? Fried stuff and sugar? Is there any way I wasn’t going to enjoy this one! Looking around the town and the market was something that didn’t so much appeal with me and my nose due to the number of fish stalls and raw meats hanging from every corner possible, but I’m sure it tasted good :S .

We then walked up to town square where we were serve by probably the slowest waitress ever but we enjoyed the none-the-less and laughing at a little girl pushing and pulling her pushchair up and down some steps. Shame we never got a picture of that one.

Friday we went out on a day trip to a town called Mijas (pronounced Mihas). This is a town up in the mountains which meant a one hour drive on the nice new motorway which runs almost the whole way from here near Algezerus to Mijas however its like the M6 Toll just with more tolls. The closer you get to Mijas the more it gets and the whole motorway experience cost a round-trip total of €20 – not bad when the toll costs £7!

I drove this day and being my first proper experience of Spanish roads except for a quick whip to a shop earlier on the holiday:

• Wrong side of the road
• Wrong handed gear changes are the most confusing.
• Don’t try to out stay your turn in the left lane
• Wrong speed measurement type!

I found driving on the right fairly comfortable expect for changing gear the wrong way round. That was the worst part, besides trying to judge KPH and not MPH, but 120 KPH certainly seemed slow as the Spanish rep-mobiles creamed past at around 150 KPH at least.

The town is as lovely place with lots of nice scenes as you’ll see from the pictures galleries. Plenty of tourist shops for presents to be bought for people and enough of real Spain not to spoil the place. A totally pleasant day which I very much enjoyed – including the purchase of my new wallet which will gladly replace the old. I’m really glad we went there as it was a day worth doing.

The number of golf courses we passed in the car makes this place a golfers dream too. Shame there’s no time to see the town of Ronda as Carmen really recomends that place.

Saturday wan’t a good day on all accounts as Maddy wasn’t well – something got to her poor little tummy and she was up all day crying and aching, but the power of Daddy provailed and she got through it by the evening with nappies back to yellow and lumpy and back to sleeping for 4hrs on the trot – that’s Maddy for you.

Sunday came with Maddy back to normal sleep eat sleep routine which is good. The addition of the supersized swimming pool was nice too. Mary bought it on a super special deal yesterday for Diego and Carmen to our amusement of putting it all up and filling it to Diegos disgust (all 500 gallons of it).