More lazy than not

Thursday
A lazy day. Definition: stay in bed late. Have coffee, read, breakfast ( late). Go to pool. Stuart swims about 20 lengths, I float a bit, maybe swim a bit, sit on edge of pool and read book. Back for lunch. Fresh bread, cheese, ham, tuna, salad, fruit, beer. Read some more. Back to pool. This time Stuart swims some more and I alternate listening to iPod, (podcasts and audiobooks usually, at the moment it's Neil Gaimans Radio adaptation of Neverwhere), back for shower, G and T and then dinner in one of local restaurants.

Friday
Drove to the coast. Roof down, we went to La Manga. It's a 21 km strip of sand, a spit I suppose, which forms a huge inland saltwater lagoon called La Mar Menor




It's enormous. Not very exciting though. We drove all the way out along the spit, but it's very built up, not a lot of planning regulation has gone on!
Drove back and to one of the resorts along the lagoon where we had a very good pizza for lunch!




Got back to find two tiny kittens on our patio. One ran away, the other was too weak, and it also had a very sore eye.


Gave it some milk and ham, and it perked up a bit. Always difficult to know what to do with these feral cats. They live wild, catch the odd bird, and rely on tourists. We've been told at other resorts than when the tourists go home, they usually die.

Decided to eat in, so had a great English meal of jacket potato, sausages, beans and cheese. fab. Then sat indoors, first time ever on this holiday, and watched a DVD of Django Unchained we'd brought with us. It was brilliant, I love Tarantino.

Saturday.

Lazy day, see above. Ate at restaurant on resort where our starter of a shared plate of cold meats was so huge we brought half of it home for the kittens, secreted in my handbag!

Sunday
Everything will be closed, so what more is there to do but have a lazy day again.
Went off piste for dinner to a local restaurant in a nearby village. We got a free garlic and cheese bread, had a lovely steak with chips and salad, although something was lost in translation for the salad, I asked for a small mixed salad and got a huge one with tuna and ham. Tuna and ham don't go to well with steak but I managed. At the end of the meal we got two complimentary caramel vodkas which were lovely, and when I said how much I liked the portable wine cooler, (think plastic bag) the waiter went round the back and fetched me a brand new one. All for €30!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Murcia and Cartagena

Monday
Decided to go to Murcia, capital of the region. About 25 mins drive in our little convertible VW.

How cool is the driver



Parked in a back street having got lost, but could see cathedral in distance, so managed to find old town. Crossed the river, with a strange creature in it



The cathedral was in a lovely square and was incredibly Baroque, very impressive.



Went for short walk and discovered The Royal Casino, very impressive and opulent building in a variety of styles. This was the Moorish entrance




The "English" Library




The rather impressive and over the top Ballroom




And my favourite, the "primping nymphs" on the ceiling of the ladies powder room




Wandered round he back streets, and found a great bar for lunch in the cathedral square




Which had a water mister which blew water droplets over you every few minutes, very cooling! Not sure if you can see them in this picture.



Seemed to be a really nice city, and think we'll come back. Loved the name of this shop


Got back to resort about 4, just in time for a relax and dip in pool before heading off to centre for dinner. Tried a different restaurant and had cocktails to start with



Fab view across the resort at sunset



But had to negotiate sprinklers on way back again!



Still, cooled us down!

Tuesday

Lazy day. Got up, just before midday. Breakfast. Read. Lunch. Pool. Read. Pool. Gin. Shop for more gin and brandy as we'd run out.




BBQ. Joined by 5 cats.




Did Times crossword. Cheated. Finished it

Wednesday

Drove to Cartagena. Forgot phone, so no pictures till we get back, have camera but no way of getting pics off it.

Beautiful Roman Old Town. Visited Roman theatre, amazing. Walked down lots of back streets with Modernista Villas lining them.

Lunch by the sea, tuna salad, beer, eggs. Great!
Back in time for swim.
Want off piste for dinner and visited recommended Spanish restaurant in little village near us. Amazing. Just let proprietor bring us what he recommended. This is the starter



He brought me the bottle of wine. Let me drink what I wanted, and charged me €2! Great meal. Got lost on way back and drove into wrong resort. Drove round it a bit, then out again. Security guard who'd let us in said " did you feel like a look round?". Had to admit to being lost. Took 10 mins to get to restaurant, 35 mins to get back. :-).


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The holiday begins...

Saturday
Up very early, for us anyway, 0530, having stayed overnight at airport hotel in Manchester to avoid an even earlier start. Still, we had a good view of the airport




Grabbed a coffee, and a five minute walk to the airport to be met by huge queue for bag drop. Almost as long and slow moving as when they printed off your boarding pass for you and called it check in. By the time we'd got though that and security it was almost time to board. Quite an uneventful flight, thank goodness, still hate them, and we landed at Murcia airport. Very small, but thankfully very efficient and we had our bags and car in about 30 minutes and were off. Nice little car, red VW TVR convertible. Just about managed to get all the bags in it, and drove to resort, after a detour to a hole in the wall of an industrial unit in an industrial estate to pick up the keys. Very strange!

Resort is built round a huge golf course, we don't play golf but it is nice and quiet. Lovely apartment on ground floor with a patio and small garden and 2 mins from a pool.

Here's my feet enjoying themselves, on a very comfy chair!



Did the obligatory supermarket shop, I do like a well stocked fridge on holiday, and spent a couple of hours relaxing at the pool. Got back and disaster struck! Stuart had paid a considerable sum to bring his banjo with us so he could practice every day, and discovered he'd left the key to the case in Manchester. After much experimenting, he managed to get it open with a cork screw. Whether it will ever shut again is a different matter.




After the obligatory G and Ts we walked to the centre of the resort and had dinner at a lovely restaurant where the set menu had three starters and I thought we had to choose one, but they gave us all three, meaning we had little room for the seafood paella. Obligatory Spanish brandy and bed, where unfortunately Stu's sleep was somewhat interrupted by my iPad at the side of the bed which chimed every hour, and ticked all night. Maybe turning the clock application on without checking the settings was a bad idea. Still, I managed to sleep for nearly 10 hours!

Sunday
A chance look at twitter ( forgot to mention that yesterday I fixed the wifi network in the apartment as Stuart couldn't:-) ) alerted me to a potential problem back at base. Logged into our incident chat room to find we'd had a fire on campus and lost a lot of the network. Great team at home pulled everything together, but couldn't help keeping a watching eye on it. Naughty me. Lazy day. Breakfast. Reading. Lunch. Pool. More reading and listening to podcasts. I listened to one on quantum cosmology which was slightly surreal. We both like to do different things in the pool. Stuart swims.



I just float.




Another walk to the centre for a dinner of bruschetta, beer and pasta



Followed by my favourite, ice cream with liqueur poured over.

On the way back we decided to take a short cut across the golf course, which as well as giving us lovely views,




Also meant that we got drenched by the sprinklers that came on!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Murcia