Spain Trip - Saturday 10th September 2022 (Our Deborah's Birthday). 4am at Janet and Terry's house, suitcases in the car (only allowed 20kg which is 44lbs our first weigh in was 77lbs yikes). Manchester airport parking booked as 'meet and greet' and the barrier wouldn't open - pressed the button and a voice said 'you're not booked in mate' re-read the number plate and he thought it was N should be M, ok and we were in section pink. Dropped the keys off, short walk to terminal 3 Ryanair to Corvera (RMU) to Murcia. Janet frisked and shoes taken off her because she bleeped.

Wow it was hot while we waited for our taxi - straight to the door of the villa No. 40 Eucalypto Drive, Caleia Mar Menor Golf and Spa Resort, Torre Pacheco. Lovely place, settled in and sat with our feet in the pool ready to sort out 1st option for tea. Route 66 American Diner. Very nice.

Sunday - big shop. Stayed by the rather chilly pool, 'it's alright once you're in'. Struggled to get the TV to work so Geoff (the villa owner) arranged for his cousin Christine to come round to sort it plus another guy who was a tech guy. About an hour later they had fixed it and so Colin could watch Formula 1. Terry cooked salmon and fried rice, lovely.

Monday - made arrangements to meet Nigel and Tina in Benidorm. On route Janet not getting any message back from Tina. I made sure Terry had his sunglasses up, lights on going through tunnels and off again once out (this happened in 2004 Spain trip), eventually we had to just say I concur to each other. Arrives in Benidorm to hundreds of cars all looking for somewhere to park, Colin says just pull up behind the police car so that we can get our bearings and Janet calls out of the window 'ola Tina' as they are sat in the cafe we pulled up next to. Janet and Terry found a car park nearby that was free for the day! Janet stood in the space before any one could take it. (Colin's parking Angel came on holiday with us).

Nigel and Tina had found a lovely place to have lunch, it was a bit of a walk and red hot, but the place was lovely and fabulous food.

Colin did his heroic act, as an older couple walked out the lady had left her hand bag on the back of her chair and he chased after them to return it to them. Gracias.

Nigel and Tina showed us their hotel and they had got an extra 3 days for £20. The reason Tina didn't message back was because Janet had left our villa when she tried contacting her and had no wifi! Amazing that we found them. When we got back to the villa Terry made us a paella. Fab.

Tuesday - Los Alcazares. We went for a walk along the front and kept seeing seahorse signs, we found out that it meant SOS Mar Menor, in 2019 all the fish in the lagoon died due to contaminated water. It is a unique salt water lagoon that is divided from the Mediterranean by a strip of land known as La Manga. We could see this across the water and we nicknamed it stone henge. My shoes disintegrated! We went onto the small pier for a cocktail and drinks, when Terry ordered a coke the waiter said 'Ahh bambino' which we carried on for the rest of the day. We found a small shop and bought some lemons in order to make a rum punch, when I announced I had never had one before Janet and Terry were shocked as they thought I had talked about it in the past. In 1996 Yvonne and Frank had got married in the June in Barbados and talked about the rum punch out there so I said before I got married I could do with a rum punch!

That night we went to the Shamrock bar and restaurant and Colin shocked us all and ordered a Guinness!! Wish we had a camera ready for our faces. Who is this guy, he doesn't drink. Also during the day he was drinking coffee!

Wednesday - Murcia, quite a large city, we found underground parking.

Managed to buy a new pair of shoes from Ulanka!

We actually walked 6 miles this day. There was a fish sculpture in the river. Beautiful Cathedral. Fabulous outside bars and cafe's.

Lovely photo of Janet and Terry on the oldest bridge in Murcia. Ahh.

Me and Colin in a Flower pot. When I showed Stuart our holiday photos he laughed his head off at this photo and called us Bill & Ben the flowerpot men. When we got home Terry mad Pasta Carbonara.

Thursday - Cartagena (we thought this place was off the movie Romancing the Stone but it might have been Mexico). We did lots here we walked along the front naval base area and saw a massive brass sculpture of a naked man (and bits) crouched which represented people dealing with terrorism, when Colin had his photo taken next to it and leant on it it was boiling hot.

El Zulo Sculpture in Cartagena, Spain

Along the harbor in Plaza Del Puerto de Cartagena is this dramatic bronze sculpture of a man sitting with his head buried between his knees. His nakedness represents everyone’s vulnerability to terrorism. The two ton, 19.5 foot statue is the work of Spanish sculptor Víctor Ochoa. The former architect turned artist specializes in very large monuments like this one dedicated to the victims of terrorism.

We booked onto the bus tour which would take us around the roman sites and places of interest also the amphitheatre museum, the panoramic tower and castle all included for 12 euros each.

We could see these spears from miles away not realising how tall they really are seeing Terry next to them shows this. They are on the top of the castle.

We went up this tower in a lift and along the gantry to get to the castle. Colin said 'where's he going' about a guy at the top of the lift and he turned around a said 'I'm trying to get my Mother down who is in a wheelchair' we didn't realise he was a brit. Oops.

The Amphitheatre was superb, first of all we toured around the museum seeing excavated rocks behind glass. I was corrected by the guide that I thought it was a mosaic it was actually a painted floor that they had found all the parts of it and stuck it back together. There were columns of inscription that they had recovered and made the parts that were missing. There was a small model of the amphitheatre and Janet said that's it, that's all you are going to see. I thought we would see a bit of a theatre then we walked through a tunnel entrance and then out into this enormous Amphitheatre in the scorching heat it was amazing, me and Colin are on that photo. Terry did his Friends Romans Countrymen bit on the stage.

Even Janet said that was brilliant, Terry nearly fell over. We walked 5 miles on this day.

Friday - decided to have a bit of a quiet day in the pool and sun bathing. Terry and Colin tried to get the BBQ to work but something not working right and they chatted to Geoff (the villa owner) to see if he could help. Never mind the BBQ was cooked indoors and was still fabulous.

Saturday - Cabo de Palos we walked up to the lighthouse and saw divers going out to the wrecks. There was a lady at the top (Alejandra) explaining about the marine ecology and rare sea plants that had restricted areas in the sea that were monitored. Then we drove along La Manga 21 km long and this is what we had seen across from Los Alcazares. We stopped off at a market for a nosy.

Photo by Alex Kazachok.

Sunday - San Pedro del Pinatar. This is the opposite end of La Manga and was very blustery, there were lots of kite surfers in the sea. We ventured into a bar/restaurant for a drink and was pushed into the bottom corner and not served for quite a while. Then 2 drinks turned up and not the other two! Janet was giving the waiters 'the paddington stare' and eventually we were served. Poor service, we think it was because we didn't order food. We stumbled across a protected wildlife reserve of salt flat water with flamingos in - wow. We loved these kind of adventures where we found things by chance.

We did miss Las Charcas which I only found when we got back to UK it is the Mud Baths (Banos de lodo) which are good for arthritic joints.

Monday - Janet and Terry go off on adventure to visit friends Jaci and Ian near Almeria . Me and colin have a quiet day in the pool and then watched all of The Queen's funeral. Sad but fantastic pomp and pageantry only us brits can do.

Tuesday - Torrevieja again a lovely town to visit.

First we walk up to a viewing spot on the edge of a cliff - the drop off! Why not just serve me up with some chips (finding nemo).

There were water holes in the rocks so the sea gushed out of them for

Janet to pose next to.

We spotted Instagram girls posing on the beach so Colin had a go next to a palm tree! He was actually standing in the shade of the tree it was that hot.

At Pilar de la Horadada there was a market there. Also some very interesting information about how they quarried the stone here in roman times, after accurate measuring they chiseled out a gap and fit some wood in so that when the tide came in the sea swelled the wood and cracked the stone.

The best part was of course ordering Grande Beers por favor.

We also visited Gaurdamar del Segura and ventured into the Mediterranean Sea for a paddle after doing the Dudley Moore run on the hot tiles to the shaded ones.

Wednesday - Today we ventured towards Cartagena to a shopping mall called The Mall Espacio Mediteranio Categinia. But Spain are on an economy drive and the mall was not really as cool as we thought it would be. So we arranged to meet up in an hour for a drink. Unfortunately I had a vertigo issue where I could hardly stand up and was very hot, also very worried. Colin managed to get me to the McDonalds cafe for a coffee and a calm down. Managed to get back to the car and back to the villa. Terry was booked in to play an 18 hole golf course nearby. When he came home he fixed the BBQ and made tea for us all, in the dark.

Thursday - Last day. Finished packing and clearing up the villa. We went back to Los Alcazares to look around the town and a bit of last minute shopping.