Taking a Rain Check...

Like many bloggers, I obsessively check my statistics. I can tell you how many people have looked at my blog each day, every week, every month, or indeed ever! I know which of my posts are the most popular ones. Interviews are usually high on the list. My interviews with illustrator turned author Curtis Jobling and Bodicia from 'A Woman's Wisdom' have been fighting it out for top spot for months and were way ahead of anything else. Until now.

Elizabeth Chats with...Jane Bidder

[My guest this month has multiple personalities. Known to many readers for her romantic comedies, written as Sophie King, or her family-based novels, written as Janey Fraser, she also writes non-fiction and gritty contemporary fiction under her own name. I am delighted to be chatting with author and journalist Jane Bidder.]

Right Under Our Noses

On our final day, we look closer to home, examining the origins of the Parador Hotel in which we have spent the past three nights. Every nook and cranny is stuffed with reminders of its time as a 'convent' although, as it housed Franciscan monks, we are more inclined to think of it as a monastery. 

Gathering Impressions

Today we wander through the streets of Granada, just gathering impressions, then trying to capture them all as future memories:

Engaging Our Senses

The hotel receptionist has booked morning tickets for us at the Palacio Nazaries and warns us not to be late, 'as the tickets are only valid for 30 minutes' although I suspect something is lost in translation there, as they are actually valid for four hours, but we obediently head across the almost deserted site just before opening time. The signage is not wonderful, and without the long queues, that will form later in the day, to show us the way, we wander round in circles several times before finding what we think is the disabled entrance. A friendly guide takes pity on us and lets us in anyway.

Houston, We Have A Problem...

The cultural - as opposed to socialising - part of the trip begins today. I rise early and pack carefully, checking all the travel arrangements and documents. I have always been the organised (or bossy, depending on your viewpoint) one who looks after that sort of thing, There was this incident, you see, in Edinburgh where Michael temporarily mislaid our return train tickets - and even though it was forty years ago, I've never really forgiven him... but that's another story.

Greener Grass, Bluer Sky

We stand on the balcony in the early morning sunlight. It is already unseasonably warm. Gazing at the view and flicking through yesterday's photos, we start to think in the way that I guess every holiday maker does at some point. We flirt with the idea of selling up and moving to warmer climes.

All About Food...

After a late start and a leisurely open-air breakfast, we head off for Fuengirola in search of bus tickets for later in the week. It is quick, simple and painless - and tickets in hand, we wander into the market where Michael window-shops for spices, fish and meat, bemoaning the fact that 'we don't have food markets like this at home'. [I have the pictures and will remind him of this, when he mocks me, as I'm sure he will, at the handbag and shoe shops.

Sightseeing At The Airport

Since moving to the south-west, we always travel to the airport a day early, even when, as now, our flight isn't until the afternoon. Call it the M25 syndrome - that still makes me leave home an hour in advance of any appointment in Exeter (10 miles away) just in case there's a hold-up in the traffic (well, it does happen sometimes, even in Devon); or call is lack of faith in our public transport system, but a career spent travelling the world has left me with a horror of having to rush to an airport. While this policy adds to the length (and cost) of any trip, it certainly reduces our stress levels. We stroll to the terminal with all the time in the world, smiling indulgently at the harrassed looking commuters who rush from one queue to another.

Travels With My Mother-in-Law's Son

For the second time this year, I am leaving my computer and internet connection behind and heading off for a week of R and R, this time in Spain, with my husband, Michael. I have my notebook and pen at the ready and will blog about the trip as the days unfold.