On The Island

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.

 

I was at work and Jack gave me a lovely card and birthday cake  for my birthday on Sunday.

Back home and we packed to go to Madeira again.

Another lovely day so a walk across the fields before it was too hot.

We then went into Broadstairs for the Stak.life fundraiser.

Broadstairs was so busy as the sun was out.

Perhaps we shouldn’t have rushed home for the football, Spurs lost! What an awful season.

I bought a few more plants for the garden and Mal went to the allotment to do more watering as it was really warm. He also transplanted the squash sweetcorn and courgettes.

In the evening we watched the final of 99 to Beat, possibly the craziest challenge programme. BUT it gives you ideas for Christmas parties!

Mal went to do his “writing a book course” at Birchington Manshed. This time he took this to show them (we have only just got it back)…….

BUT it has to be proof read and this is only up to 2006! That’s going to take a while until it’s published, nearly 500 pages!