The Village of Barking Dogs

"Part I - we enter Spain Illegally"


Butter wouldn't melt, eh? Yeah, my daughter is drop dead gorgeous, I know - but she is not a good flier! In fact on our flight to Spain she was very nervous, in fact she was so anxious that she had a mild panic attack when the plane landed. She was in such a state that the stewardesses called an ambulance for her. She had stomach cramps, difficulty breathing and was very distressed. Not the best way to start a holiday! Shall I start at the very beginning? (Don't burst into strains of 'Do Re Me' please! - just agree with me, because it is a 'very good place to start'.)

We were travelling as a foursome - Mel (my daughter), her best friend Rosie, my best friend Cathy - and me. Cathy had come over from Ireland on Saturday so that we could all travel together on Sunday to visit my mother in her house just outside Palma, Mallorca. It was a 'girls only' holiday, planned months ago and long-awaited.

Four days before our flight there was a major air crash in Madrid. Over 150 people died. It was widely covered in the news and no matter how many statistics you can quote about how safe flying is, you can probably imagine how my nervous flying companions felt. Cathy, Mel and Rosie are all inexperienced fliers. Cathy had to fly over from Ireland on her own (a first) and then fly on to Spain with people she didn't know that well (apart from me).

Back to the flight and Mel's panic attack. She tried very hard to keep it together, she was so good, but when the pain in her belly started she was very distressed. (Mind you, even so she still managed to acquire the email address of a handsome young Spanish lad sitting next to her.) The air crew called us a paramedic and this lovely looking Spanish doctor (yes, I know, I was paying attention to my daughter but I coulnd't help noticing that he was rather handsome). Mel and I left the airplane by a side door on the disembarcation ramp and went straight onto the tarmac and to the waiting ambulance. We'll meet you by passport control I said to Cathy - and then went off with Mel and the medics.

We were driven to the emergency room where the doc and his nurse gave Mel a thorough examination. She would be fine, no problems realy, but he helped calm her down and reassure her. But ... I realised ... our passports were still in Cathy's bag! No worries, he said. After taking her blood pressure, pulse and checking her over, she was given a clean bill of health and we were taken through to the departure lounge - the Spanish side of passport control!

Palma airport is huge and to travel from one end to the other can take 20 minutes walking. Mel and I had cheated - we'd taken the ambulance! In the time it took us Even though we had got Mel examined, discharged and delivered, we managed to beat Cathy and Rosie to passport control. In fact we arrived at around the same time and, amazingly, we begun our holiday at last in good spirits.



Part II - we finally see some summer sun

My mother, Sally, lives in an old, old house in the village of Genova, just to the west of Palma. It was described to her once by a disentfranchised ex-resident as 'The Village of Barking Dogs' (which indeed it is!). Opposite is a small dog, next door are three dogs, and every morning dogs are walked which set the others off in a cascading cacophony of barking that echoes round the whole village.

But it is a beautiful place - peaceful and bathed in history. The casa (house) is several hundred years old and filled with books and miscellaneous items collected by my late stepfather, Orlando. It is somewhat primitive in its facilities and not a huge house - Cathy, Sally and I all slept in one room and the two girls in Sally's double bed. Though tired from the journey, a day at the beach was planned and the weather did not disappoint!

This is still in progress ... lots more to come.

New business launched

"The baby has arrived, let's hope it grows up to be a beauty!"

Oh my - after months of preparation work, hours of figuring stuff out, working with web designers and trainers and ... and ... well, the new business has launched. Now totally separate from where I used to work, I am running the whole show more or less on my own. Well, actually, not really - I have an 18 year old assistant for a few weeks. And she's brilliant!

What next? Well, there's all the marketing to get people to visit my site, and hopefully BUY something, and then the tweaking, refining, adding more products and generally doing everything I can to get us higher in the search engine listings. That's a challenge!

But one I am looking forward to, really looking forward to. What is this wonder site? The Complete Trainer - a site to sell stuff to trainers. Wish me luck, I need it! Timing is not great, we are hitting a bona fide recession and training is usually one of the first things to go (but then, saving money, perhaps in house trainers will buy my stuff instead of going to agencies - who knows!)

The Great British Summer

"We take a UK holiday in mid-August"

The picture may not be that clear so I will describe - it is the window of our holiday cottage in beautiful North Norfolk, showing the streaming rain running down the glass. Yes, we picked mid-August for a UK holiday and, of course, though the week previous was very hot, our week was wet and windy. Not as bad as our Yorkshire trip a few years back (we came home after just three days - everywhere was flooded), but still wet.

However, undaunted, we explored the locale. We stayed in Cley (pronounced clay) in a neat little cottage opposite the 'smoke-house'. The smoke house sold all sorts of smoked fish and meats - lovely! Except I'm the only one who likes them so I never bought any.

Cley is right on the North Norfolk coast and the view from our window was amazing - the windmill and the reed beds. There is a beautiful coastal path from Cley to Blakeney (and beyond too) which we walked a few times. 2 3/4 miles amongst the reeds with the marshy fields either side and inlets with small sailing boats and, just a bit further out, the sea. It was a nice walk and we managed it a few times without being rained on, though it regularly threatened.

Walking and beach visiting were how we spent most of the time - the children are too old now for visits to the zoo or adventure parks but we did revisit the Sea Life Centre at Hunstanton (Alex had his 5th birthday party there 12 years ago). We visited beaches such as Holkham and Cromer (you can clearly see the rain coming in from the sea on this picture of Cromer beach) and enjoyed driving down country lanes and visiting local pubs. Midweek we swapped our son for Jack (Melody's boyfriend). Wells beach was a late discovery with wide open sands and channels with slow flowing water. The beaches were, on the whole, huge expanses of sand or pebbles. The only beach we never actually made it to was Cley's own.

One afternoon I was indulged and went off to the nearby nature reserve to birdwatch. The reed beds and mud flats are perfect for waders of all kinds. In my brief visit I saw avocet, dunlin, ruff, plovers, marsh harriers and, to my great delight, a spoonbill. If you are not familiar with birds, these are the oddest looking creatures. I was very content to sit and watch the world and the birds. Other visitors to the reserve were friendly too. One man showed me a photo he'd taken of a bittern - a rare bird known to be in the marshes but as yet unseen. The others in the hides had cameras and binoculars, some with huge lenses, but the immediate cameraderie was comfortable and not competitive.

On our last day we visited Holkham Hall - not the hall itself but the grounds. We walked round the lake and enjoyed a brief hint of sunshine (well, the absence of rain to be more accurate) and managed to spend an hour on the beach before the rain arrived. This tree trunk struck me as rather beautiful.

Thursday night the storms hit. Lightning, thunder and fluctuating power too. The streets were awash with rain water and the little house made its own set of sounds as the wind and rain battered it. Morning came and the rain still fell but we were due to leave for home. As we headed inland and South, the rain slowly abated and were were home in time to watch the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

I have one more holiday planned this year - a trip to Spain with my daughter, her friend Rosie, and my friend Cathy. I hope - oh how I hope! - that we don't experience mad Spanish storms. I could really do with seeing the sun.