Week 2 of Spain

By our second week we were well and truly in the groove, and had worked out important things like what time in the afternoon the pool gets some shade, how the rubbish works, where to park and which supermarket to shop at.

We swam every single day, with highs of 32-34 degrees it's certainly been hot. In 2 weeks Ethan has gone from refusing to be in the pool without being held to being confident with floaties to swimming like a fish (or a fish that enjoys jumping in and out of the water and spinning around). I'm trying to use the hottest part of the day for some school work and spanish lessons but it's tough on Felix as the younger ones are playing/distracting him while he's supposed to be getting some work done. I've had some great help on that front from Julia, a local who has been coming in 3 x a week on the days David is working to teach the kids spanish and generally help out with the 4 kids. She's been amazing, and really quickly built a good rapport with the kids.

David's parents and Ricardo went to Cadaques for a night. It looks beautiful - we might need to add that as a trip for one day. Unfortunately the day they got back Linda slipped and broke her wrist. At A&E they put it in bandages and told her that it was a really bad break and will need an operation in New Zealand!

We visited the nearby town of Palafrugel and saw the cork museum. It was surprisingly kid-friendly, with lots of interactive exhibits. This area used to be a major producer of corks, and presumably continues today as most of the local wines are in bottles with corks.

After more than a week I finally decided we needed to walk up to the castle which overlooks the town. Ambitiously I set off with the three big kids during one of Rupert's naps (it is very convenient having David working from home). It wasn't a fast trip and we had a lot of snack and water stops, especially considering Google suggested the whole walk would be around 20 minutes each way. The views were spectacular and we even managed to wave to David down at our place.

The next day I was feeling very motivated by how well the castle walk went and David had the day off work so we walked a small portion of a Costa Brava walking trail. David dropped the big kids and I at one end then parked at the other and walked the 15 minutes back to us. The walk was spectacular, with great views and lots of people snorkeling, boating, kayaking, swimming etc. This was a few degrees hotter, it hit 34 °C in the middle of the day and didn't feel much below that! Despite being a short walk it took a long time and we were glad we'd stayed with a very manageable length.

Friday was Felix's birthday. David, Warwick and Ricardo took Felix and Ethan to a water park nearby where he had a great time on the slides. The biggest slide had an hour-long wait but we were there in peak season. Ethan wasn't as confident but had a go at a few of the slides. Tori and I had a girls day and went to a café and the local library as I was getting VERY sick of the books we had. Then we had a lovely dinner out at a pizzeria in Begur.

The next morning we said goodbye to Linda and Ricardo. Linda was flying back to New Zealand for surgery on her wrist, and Ricardo and Warwick have a week-long road trip through southern Spain with Ricardo's cousin/Warwick's nephew before Ricardo then flies home.