5 hours 6 minutes

We’re in the car on the way home from Catalonia. The GPS tells us there is another 5 hours and 6 minutes to go. A planned stop in Zaragoza (and no doubt a handful of other unplanned stops) will mean that we should be home in Biarritz around midnight. The good news is that Gaston has overcome his shoe fetish and is thankfully wearing his own shoes today (we lost count of the number of times we caught him poolside wearing the flip flops of complete strangers); Maxime is feeling fairly philosophical about the loss of one of the five sharks (he suggested that he could go and look for it if we ever go back); and Capucine has her new soft toy with her – a white hand shaped figure called “Parky”. The only worrying thing is that after having stayed in the “Cambrils Park Resort” for the last 9 days, Sandie has only just realized why the site’s mascot is called “Parky”…. Overall the holiday was a success, and the weather was excellent apart from a few hours of rain and two half days of clouds. It was the first time we’ve holidayed with friends, and that worked out really well (thankfully they felt the same, or at least they were too polite to say otherwise). The resort’s pool replete with elephants and pirate boats featured heavily, as did the kids club and the “midday mini disco” which always had a special guest appearance from the famed Parky. We also found it extremely convenient to have our own car with us – this permitted us a certain degree of freedom in terms of exploring the surrounding towns. The food was pretty good but the quality of Spanish desserts only served to remind me and my sweet tooth at how spoiled we are living in France. The only thing that’s left now is to try and hammer the various photos and videos into a little YouTube video which will have the obvious advantage of giving the kids the opportunity to re-live Parky dancing like a drunken uncle every night before bed for the next 6 months…