When the sun has left the building on a decidedly autumnal and blustery UK, there is no better tonic (preferably with gin) than a quick trip to Spain. Civil war looming aside, Marbella in October has possibly the best climate […]
GREETINGS FROM TUCSON ARIZONA!! In the midst of a conference so no time so far, but here’s a little message to my children… UP YOURS FROM TUCSON (meant in the nicest possible way)…this is the view from our room and […]
A walk in the park. Not always as simple as it sounds – especially when worried about getting gored by a very loud stag every time you turn a corner. However, nothing better as a restorative tonic after a stressful […]
I’m a little disappointed because I came back from Italy convinced that I had finally found my ideal drink. Firstly, it was cheaper than the Italian wine on the menu, secondly I did not wake up with a hangover and […]
Oh. So my daughter's GCSE's have actually FINISHED today. Seemingly about a month earlier than everybody else's. I don't know how that's happened...
So. I've segued effortlessly from being anxious and worried about her exams to being anxious and worried about her not having exams. Because. Now it is of course time to celebrate and that in itself brings all sorts of other worries.
She's now with her friends and of course she has forgotten to text me to tell me how the exam went. Instead of having a stressed daughter in the house I'm going to have a relaxed daughter out of the house. Which is worse???
SO hot today. All the deer in the park were under the trees cooling down whilst all the mad Englishmen were directly in the sun:- 
I know my teenage son would argue that the best party town in the world is Vang Vieng in Laos where he is currently holed up (literally) in a tube - cruising down the river whilst not wearing any armbands and drinking 45% Mekong whisky served in a bucket. Sounds amazing, but I've missed the moment where that sort of thrill seeking is remotely attractive (if I ever had that thrill seeking gene in the first place). So. I might beg to differ on the prime location for fun. I've just come back from a fantastic weekend away in Marbella to celebrate my friend's 50th. He very generously invited about 30 of us out to stay and put on three days of fun filled activities (well, that's if you can call golf for the boys a "fun filled activity"). We have all just had the best time. So much laughter. Just brilliant (even if they were all MUCH older than me *cough*).
I emailed my son to let him know that a group of us would be away this weekend partying and told him that he should be very worried about us all - we may or may not go tubing in the sea whilst drunk.....I haven't even had a reply. Rubbish.
We got the very early British Airways flight over to Malaga which meant we had all day to enjoy being in the sun - you feel immediately different in that sunshine with all the amazing colours - so far removed from the horrendous weather going on in the UK this weekend. Day one involved a ridiculously long lunch that merged into our evening festivities which meant that as usual I peaked too early and felt awful the next day:- 
The next day was glorious sunshine so we spent it at the beach chatting and reading and generally chilling. That evening we went to one of my friend's favourite restaurants - Rama a lovely family owned restaurant overlooking the sea. They were unbelievably accommodating and looked after us all very well.
Day three was spent strolling about Marbella old town looking at the beautiful buildings and boutique shops and then we all went for a walk along the beach called "The Golden Mile" which takes you from the Western edge of Marbella city into Puerto Banus.
Marbella Old Town:- 
Orange Square in the centre:- 
The Golden Mile walk:- 
We stopped on the way back at the Cappuccino Restaurant - excellent food in a relaxed and trendy environment:-
Here are some of the girlies and the gorgeous view:- 
That evening was spent at the Trocadero Arena - very cool and buzzy - there was a wedding on that evening as well so fantastically lively:- 
- very cool
Cake for the birthday boy:- 
We left there at 5am.
So you see?
Age is a state of mind.
Even if it's going to take me a week to recover.
Then look. We dropped my friend off who has four children - what a lovely welcome:- 
OH and if you've got this far would you PLEEEEEASE click here and vote for me? It's the last day today you'll be pleased to know so I won't be asking again....
To vote for me you just need to click on the link below and then scroll down to the number 10 category in the "GO" shortlist and my entry is under Family Affairs and Other Matters:- http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/bibs_shortlist Thank you!
ps - sorry about the previous post about "best cup of tea" = I failed to add the link correctly so nobody was able to leave a photo. Let me know if you want to tell me about your best party town and I'll try and work out how to do it properly!
I haven't had a chance yet to write about our mellow girly weekend to Marbella. My friend has bought a holiday home out there, so six of us went out from Friday to Monday last week. It was just lovely to go at this time of year - the weather was still gloriously hot and we booked it months ago so it really didn't cost any money for flights. We are all old friends back in the dim and distant past when our children were all still at nursery and between the six of us we were abandoning 19 children - all of whom are still living at home so you can imagine the organisation required to leave the country. You can also imagine the delight of escaping (once of course we were on the plane and over our trauma of only being allowed to take hand luggage - although have you seen the size of the bags that are now allowed on as hand luggage? HUGE! and I'm going to have to invest in one immediately).
We didn't get to the villa until sundowner time and then spent the first evening at a very lovely Beach Bar, called the "Beach House" - not sure of the address. Very upmarket and delicious food and right on the beach:- 
Yummy Creme Brulee with a display that says it all:- 
Saturday we went to Puerto Banus - first to the market:- 
and then down to the port for lunch on the beach and to look at the big cruise liners in the marina. What a lot of money there is there - the shops are majorly top end and clearly mainly Russian Oligarchs own all the boats - interesting to see that the estate agents only had details in Russian in it's window:- 
The beach:- 
The Buddha Bar:- 
Lunch at a beach bar:- 
Then later that evening we went into Marbella old town for dinner. It is beautiful. Lots of little narrow lanes leading on to yet more restaurants and bars and churches and gorgeous old buildings. First stop was a bar where my poor friend nearly died after eating "the wrong pepper". A whole plate of roasted sweet green peppers interspersed with two or three peppers SO hot she had no feeling in her lips, tongue or entire head for about an hour:-
We were here - be warned:- 
It was a buzzy little square, complete with resident Flamenco dancer who I thought was amazing - all the more so for being almost an octogenarian:- 
Then we wandered about a bit deciding where to eat:- 
Here are the girls:- 
THEN because we'd had a few drinks we decided to wander down to the port area which is a little more lively in a different sort of way - lots of bars. We found one that looked suitable for our age (ie that had available seating) and promptly settled in for the evening. The bar was called "Lemmon" and was offering two for one drinks. WOOHOO. So we got stuck in and then decided that we would take to the dancefloor at the back of the bar. Nobody there so we were fine. Settled in at the back and "got on down" in only the way that mother's out on the town who no longer give a shit about what they look like can. Several of us broke into the VIP area and danced wildly in front of horrified cool people knowing full well that we would be removed immediately BUT WE DIDN"T EVEN CARE - such is the joy of being old (er).
In our enthusiasm we failed to notice the club filling up and before we knew it we were surrounded by 12 year olds. "OH WELL WFT", we shouted loudly to each other increasing the size of our ridiculous dance moves exponentially. "You really shouldn't wave your arms in the air like that" one friend commented to me "much better waving them side to side" and I was thinking "don't be ridiculous - I AM Beyonce - I have to wave my arms in the air I don't care what I look like" and so we all agreed to just not care that we looked like Grannies - "we'll show them what we've got" we all thought to ourselves - you should have seen us dancing to Maroon 5's "Move Like Jagger" - I mean these young things probably hadn't even heard of Jagger, let alone knew how he properly moved - WE DID - HE'S OUR AGE (nearly). Anyway, for some reason the gorgeous young things didn't find us as cool and amusing as we found ourselves and at one point my friend nearly got into a girl fight. I actually had to get involved and offer to dance in between the two of them whilst quietly mumbling to my friend that I'd appreciate it if she could stop telling her to "f*ck off" because if we ended up getting glassed in the face and taken off to a Spanish prison how was I ever going to live it down with my son who I had just got over doing the same thing in Krakov.
We had a great evening and danced the entire night away - well until 4am which was pretty good for us.
Sunday was spent recuperating quietly on the beach:- 
Here we are back at the Beach house again for lunch which had everybody dancing thanks to their live music:- 
All in all an excellent weekend and highly recommended. Any questions, I'll get my friend who speaks Spanish to answer them x
It’s just been glorious being in London this Easter – apart from the smog! Boiling hot. Temperatures hitting 27 degrees C. Hotter than Rome! Went for an early morning jog(ette) with my youngest son yesterday to run off our Easter […]
