Happy Campers (Beth)

We have all settled into life at Cabopino now, each enjoying our own little routines. Alfie is swimming most days and slopes off to reception to borrow the restaurant’s wifi at regular intervals. Tom is making the most of having found an English friend - Jack - to play with and they alternate between cycling, football and visiting each-other’s vans to play Lego, Moshi Monsters and board games.

Scrabble lessons from Alfie

The all-important tongue for concentration

Here, let me help you in Tom..

No Alfie, let me help YOU!!

Nathanial thinks he is in a health spa. He does Yoga, Pilates or ‘stretching’ (??!) five mornings a week, occasionally followed by a workout in the ‘adults only’ park. He is also swimming regularly and in between has developed a very close relationship with his garden chair.

Turn me over when I'm done, Love

I have also been getting comfy in the sunshine and have been reading, sewing and knitting. Chores like laundry and cooking are mostly down to me, but I don’t mind because Nathanial is on permanent loo and grey water emptying duty and regularly washes the pots, something that was at best an annual activity back at home, usually when his Mum was visiting! I am also swimming (less often) and doing quite a lot of chatting to the neighbours.

That's my concentrating face (minus tongue)

Our little feline friend has become an almost permanent fixture. He/she (I can’t quite tell which, don’t want to study too closely) is always waiting outside in the mornings and is managing to extend the nightly eviction time by curling up and looking cute. Our immediate neighbours have christened him ‘Houdini’ as despite their best barricading efforts he is regularly sneaking into their awning at night and making himself at home on their cushions, leaving a tell-tale sprinkling of white hair behind. Even Nathanial was honoured with being lap-of-choice one evening and endured the torture surprisingly well. We all think he secretly enjoyed it.

Houdini, our new van-mate

He says he's more of a dog person.

The facilities on the site are of a very high standard and are always spotlessly clean. There is an optimal time to visit the showers to ensure hot water but unfortunately, the optimal time is subject to change every day. Nathanial reckons he has never encountered a lack of hot water in the gents’ showers but he isn’t such a regular visitor as me. Tom and Alfie are sure that the regular swimming negates the need for a shower at all but we do wrestle them in every once in a while.

I'm swimming Mum, the dirt comes off in the pool!

We have already had our English half-term break from the books but this week it is Spanish half term, so there are different activities on offer at the campsite. We have been getting up earlier to get some school work done before going out to play. Yesterday morning we went down to the beach (thankfully it was too early for the nudists) to try kayaking. Nathanial is an old hand at this and I had canoed a few (ahem) years ago at school but it was new to the boys. Alfie wasn’t keen at first and we weren’t sure how he would handle being ‘instructed’ by Manu again, after his reaction to archery but he actually dealt with it fantastically and we even had an admission of enjoyment and a request to repeat the activity next time it’s offered. We all enjoyed this activity together and think we might try and do it more often once we get home.

I wasn't actually planning on going in the sea. I got very wet.With no spare clothes.

Getting the hang of paddling.

Come on Dad, Alfie is going faster than us!

We have decided to order an ‘iboost’ device to beef up our wifi reception so we can stop having to spend so much time in MacDonalds or huddled outside restaurants, etc at night. It may take a few weeks to come through, so will carry on soaking up the sunshine for a bit,  after which we will be dashing around the coastline to Pisa for Easter. We have started looking at routes and have decided to drive rather than get the Barcelona to Rome ferry, as it will only actually save us a few hundred miles and the price has been creeping up since we looked at it back in December. We should have about three weeks to travel about 1500 miles, so hopefully we’ll be able to have some breaks in between the driving and are looking forward to the French and Italian aires.

This boy misses his cats.

Houdini is very tolerant, luckily.