Year: 2025

The day Paula and Gilly were going home so a quiet morning and they left their cases in our room until their lift arrived. They were both sad to leave and we will miss them, the couple of days we have left as they are good fun.

Mal started with a sore throat and the sniffles!!

I have to say what we love about this hotel is being right next to the sea, eating next to the sea and leaving our patio doors open at night and listening to the sound of the waves.

And of course the sunsets………………

Mal’s cold got worse and lots of other people in the hotel coughing!

 

My 75th birthday! A cup of tea and then opening all my birthday cards and presents. A lovely pearl bracelet from Lou and Rhys and a beautiful necklace from Mal. Breakfast and then Mal and I went for a walk along the seafront.

On the way back we met Paula and Gilly just starting their walk. Mal and I went back to the hotel as we needed a drink!

The four of us sat and had our lunch together outside but there was an invasion of loads of French, all quite rude, pushing you out of the way, even when I was trying to get a drink of water!

One of them even took Mal’s seat when he got up without even asking, literally just grabbed the chair! I think Gilly gave him what for! All I can say is none of the newcomers seemed to have any manners at all.

We decided to have an easy day for my birthday, Paula and Gilly had bought me a lovely necklace , a locket with the tree of  life, a silver bookmark and Noel Fitzpatrick’s new book and gave them to me lunchtime. A beautiful pearl bracelet from Lou and Rhys .

Gilly didn’t feel well in the afternoon and so went to bed and Mal developed a sore throat !

When we went back to the room, there was a birthday cake and a bottle of champagne and a note from the hotel. Paula came down and we sat on the balcony eating some!

But the food for my birthday dinner was so good, obviously buffet but I had loads of smoked salmon to start and then such delicious poached salmon and pasta in such a tasty sauce, I couldn’t have chosen better!! However Gilly was still in bed not well, so we had quite a quiet evening.

But such lovely sunsets to eat our dinner by.

After breakfast we all walked to Forum shopping centre.

Mal and I went to Monte Palace Tropical Garden. Paula and Gilly didn’t want all the walking so went to find the local Forum but evidently got lost.

We walked the entire tropical gardens which last time when we went with Paula and Gilly, they couldn’t do. It is so beautiful up there. We ordered a Bolt cab (Uber). The first driver couldn’t find us and so cancelled. The second made it! It was so cheap 11 euros. We gave him a cash tip.

We had two stones with us, one for Torin and one for Stefan (Staklife). We chose excellent places to leave them. Torin’s was the ideal place for him, by the side of the carp lake, in the sunshine.

A beautiful spot. We then walked right to the bottom to see all the plants. We didn’t get that far on our last visit.

As we returned , going up the very steep paths, we heard music and there was a saxophonist playing on the tiny island bit where we left Torin’s stone. She stood literally two foot away from it! So he was serenaded as well! But then she played this………..

I just stood there crying…. we had this tune at his funeral!  Obviously was meant to be, we had chosen the right spot.

Mal and I went down to breakfast about 10, no sign of Gilly and Paula! We decided to go for a walk through the tunnel and along the sea front.

We had lunch with Paula and Gilly but they went off to their room for a “quiet afternoon” (after last night!)

In the evening the dancers arrived, they are always good fun!

Had to do that via Youtube, to big for blog!

 

A brilliant nights sleep and Mal and I were down to breakfast quite early , breakfast by the sea.

We then caught the hotel bus into Funchal. Gilly and Paula were still in bed! The flower festival is on in May and so we wanted to see some of the flowers. Just such an amazing show everywhere.

When Mal and I returned from Funchal, we had lunch with Gilly and Paula and then made the mistake of staying at the same table, drinking and talking until it was dinner time!! We even started on the Black Russians and Espresso Martinis and the barman’s spirit measures are huge!! We were all quite the worse for wear but they had prawns again so we just kept putting huge plates on our table.

Paula didn’t eat as much as us foolishly and the drink hit her the hardest!

We worked out we had been sitting drinking for EIGHT hours…never again!

 

We were up at 2.00am, our packing in the car and drove to Lou and Rhys’s, left Ellie for her holiday with them and then Lou kindly drove us to Gatwick. We were late taking off as it was so busy but the pilot made the time up and we were still early and a wind free landing at Funchal. A mini bus straight to the hotel . Our room wasn’t ready so we put our luggage in the secure place and went and found Paula and Gilly who arrived the previous evening.

We haven’t met up for so long we just sat and chatted and chatted. Our room was probably ready at 3 but we were still sitting by the sea, drinking at 5! Our favourite waiter Mohamed, of course he remembered us and even brought the drinks to our table!

We then decided it was time to find our room and unpack. A honey cake was in the room! That was nice but there is also so much food in the restaurant, all the time! Back down for dinner and we started the line up of glasses again! Hawk man was also around , to scare the pigeons away, who will eat off your table if the hawk wasn’t there!

Huge bowls of prawns on the dinner display. I think our table had quite a lot! We ate as the sun was setting,

After getting up in the morning at 2am, we decided to go to bed a little earlier than usual!

We leave the patio doors open and are gently lulled off to sleep by the sound of the sea.