Wednesday 24th August 2011

We thought about fixing the outside canopy that was still in a state of disrepair and rang our local contact number. A lady told us that she’d see if she could find a chap called Sylvester to come round with a ladder. About this time we also received a recorded message from our boiler insurers, Homeserve, who told us that we were not covered for the type of job required to fix our intermittent hot water problem back at home. This was all a pain; we certainly didn’t want to be dwelling on intractable maintenance jobs while on holiday.

In the evening we felt we needed some excitement - so we went to Belgian Restaurant. It was still sweltering heat which was a bugbear with the staff – a brief period of rainfall earlier in the week had already acquired something of a folk legend. For a bit of shade, they pulled out the canopy which we watched with some envy. On two occasions, I needed to change a nappy – going inside the air conditioned restaurant was pleasant but the toilet was airless and I felt myself sweating while changing the whiffy nappy.

Moving on to the food – it was rather good. There was a Tuesday tapas offer. I had a veggie lasagne, not as boring as this non meat staple usually is - it had a bit of a ricotta take, which I was told was from a Belgian recipe.

Thursday 25th August 2011

The temperature seemed to rise several more notches today. Sam and I got to the top of Cardiac Hill to find that many of the houses had left bottles of water outside, possibly as a gesture of hospitality for thirsty pedestrians. It was a relief to step inside the air conditioned Co op store at the top, a relief palpable among the shoppers streaming in. I think I lingered in the supermarket – a first – drawing on the relative pleasure of this cooler environment. On the way back down the hill, Sam again lobbed the hat away, initially un-noticed by me, but there was, luckily, someone coming down who was able to hand it back without me having to turn around.

In the middle of the day, it was a longer stay inside. We hauled out the house’s model collection to keep the boys entertained. It was a relief to get to the pool. For the first time that the water hadn’t initially felt cold.

Friday 26th August 2011

We were staying a fifteen minute walk from the beach but, up until this evening, we hadn’t ventured there. At the restaurant, the enchiladas went down well, as did the boys’ Mexican pizza, and with a sense of wellbeing we decided to head to the sea front. It was dusk as we ventured to it via a nature trail and a drift of people were walking back. I had been weary about walking long distances in sandals; I walk a lot and prefer the air cushion bounce of footwear but, over this holiday, I became acclimatised. Back home, the rare bits of sunshine bring out your shoulder thrusting sinewy Mancs; there’s nothing menacing about people in sandals: it’s harder to swagger and carry an air of intimidation as you shuffle onwards.

Having reached the beach, another tick box, we returned to the Carabassi Centre for a drink. The guy selling pirate DVD was active and was I about to decline when I halted myself at the thought that we had exhausted our interest in the house’s DVD collection. We bought two.