High Points And Home Comings

I love to go away but I love to come home too. I'm sure a lot of people feel the same to a degree... once I start the countdown to the journey home I just want to press fast forward and get back.

Our first six days in Puerto Banus were fantastic, just as last year. The sun shone, the water shimmered, the wine flowed and the chorizo, bread and tomato and onion salad begged to be devoured. Small Child was in her element splashing about in the pool, inhaling ice cream and pointing out all the differences between Spain and home.

We returned to the marina and went back to Picasso's for dinner. I'm sure I said it before but this place provides people watching opportunities like no other! Amongst the excessively large yachts and fast cars there is a definite hierarchy of those who frequent the port but more on that another time.

Small Child decided that every time a Spanish person coo’d over her paler than pale blonde looks, which was pretty often, she would poke out her tongue and arrange her face into the most striking grimace imaginable. For some reason this only seemed to endear her to them even more so she made many friends!

We drove up to the mountain town of Rhonda one day – certainly the highest point in literal terms. After lunch next to a bullring we found ourselves atop a magnificent gorge under the shade of a bandstand, eating ice cream and listening to a classical Spanish guitarist – pure bliss.

El Toro

El Small Child

The day we’d flown out Small Child had woken up with a dry cough that sounded quite nasty and prematurely set me into panicked mother abroad mode. Despite my misgivings she was fine and it didn’t effect her enjoyment of the first part of the holiday. I knew something was up on the Saturday when she burst into tears and said she wanted to go home back to England and her own bed.

Then came the four days from hell – a cough that made it difficult for her to catch her breath and kept all of us awake at night and a fever that topped out at 104 at one point. By this time I would’ve given my right arm to go home early and we did try and get an earlier flight but without success. Ryan Air you stink by the way!

Nurofen and Calpol sachets were running low so we obtained the Spanish versions from a local pharmacy, both of which were coloured nuclear orange and red respectively and not at all pleasing to Small Child's taste buds. This meant for some interesting medicine bribery techniques and sometimes a few parental lies. The favourite being to give a spoonful in a dark room and say, yes it is the English Calpol this time - a lie that I had no issue with whatsoever.

One stressed mother at the end of her tether, two phone calls to a GP helpline and three nights spent poised to either dash to the hospital or call an ambulance later and it was finally time to come home. As kids do, she perked up for the journey home and having been diagnosed with a viral cough and been prescribed a Flixotide inhaler she’s back to her normal feisty self!

As for me, I’m still in kissing the ground mode – loving more than ever being back in my own home with all its creature comforts, conveniences and village Doctors surgery to hand. Next time I will be ignoring the stingy baggage limits and pack those glittery red shoes so that I can click the heels together three times and whisper “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there's no place like home…….”