Spain - Part 3

The weather has gone off again - last night it rained and rained and rained.  This morning it rained and rained and rained.  What to do with a toddler in a small villa in the cold and wet? Well we've done all the indoor activities there are to do.  However, Matt managed to break the cafetiere yesterday so we thought we would seek out a shopping centre and see if we could replace it.

Two Toms

We headed off to Velez Malaga to a shopping mall we had seen on the way here.  First stop a huge hypermarket that sold everything and I mean everything, you could even buy a 125cc scooter there.  Found a replacement cafetiere but at a price, so left it there and got ourselves some bits for dinner and breakfast tomorrow.  Tom was given the job of pushing around a mini trolley on wheels which he took very seriously and did very well, didn't bump into anything or anyone which was brilliant for him.  We then looked round the rest of the Mall, Tom leading the way running ahead - he was in a really good mood.  I can't understand it, he expended more energy and had more fun today in the shopping mall than he did down on the beach - can you explain that?  I can't!

We found a more reasonably priced cafetiere in another store, had a look round C and A's for nostalgia more than anything else, and then decided to head back to Frig for lunch, there was a food court at the mall but it looked like nasty fast food - why have that when you can have good food elsewhere?  So, we had another €9 menu del dia at the Balcon de Frigiliana - and very nice it was too.

Came home to a damp villa with lots of damp washing (we did our last laundry yesterday).  Problem, there is a heater in the villa - but no remote control, which is the only way to use it.  There is also a gas heater, but that ran out of gas.  Last resort - a log burner for which we only have massive damp logs.  Matt tried very hard to get the log burner working, but with no kindling and no paper it was pretty hard work, and in the end we gave up.  Oh hum, lets hope the washing manages to dry overnight.  Spanish houses really aren't set up for cold, rainy days (just as ours aren't set up for hot days).

An interesting night - the torrential rain didn't let up for a minute. Neither of us got much sleep, mainly because we were worried about the villa flooding and the dirt track down to the main road washing away. Tom, of course, slept his usual 13 hours without stirring. How does he do it? There was thunder and lightning as well as the insane rain.

Business class

By morning, the rain was coming in through the roof, windows and doors. We set off earlier than planned for the airport, thinking that the journey might be difficult. In the end, it wasn't, so we had to hang around a bit before we could check in. Sadly, Burger King was the least ghastly option for an early lunch - our first trip to such a joint for a long time (since the night Tom was born in fact). The flight back was very good - Tom behaved well and slept on my (eventually dead) leg for an hour, and we landed at Brum about 15 minutes earlier. Then bus to the car park and the drive home, the last 15 minutes of which was in pretty much the same weather as we'd left behind in Spain.

All in all, it was a very nice holiday in a lovely area. Yes, we had some spectacularly bad weather, but the other days were nice and we made the most of them. The villa was comfortable, Tom liked the mule in the olive grove next to the villa, I liked the big ginger cat next door the other way, Frigiliana is one of the most charming little towns we've ever seen, and we all ate some excellent food. I should also point out that none of us consumed even a drop of alcohol for the entire duration of the trip, largely because the Spanish seemed to have cracked the art of making non-alcoholic beer that actually tastes like beer. Shame you can't get any of it over here.