I’m inviting a rare guest to the blog today – my dad!

As a former English teacher and gifted writer (he’ll cringe when he reads that), I told him the only way he and my mum could join my three year old and I on a review trip to Spain would be if he wrote something about it.

So here it is.

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“Just go!” she orders from the babyseat as the wait to drive into the Big Boat snaps her three year old patience. She’s not concerned about the cars in front of us, bringing back memories of her mother and her sister at about her age, at the start of our annual trek to France. The excitement is an urgent, physical tingling as the adventure is about to begin and I’m pleased by its rippling through the generations from Frog to Molly, to Ghislaine (Molly’s mum) and to me, her dad. Continue reading »

A trip to Northern Spain in September is never going to mean unadulterated guaranteed sunshine. This is what we learned when we travelled to Noja in Cantabria last week with Brittany Ferries. Despite the mixed weather though, we still managed to relish every second of the break.

It’s the first time I’ve been away with just my parents and daughter, so it was a bit of a test to see a) how well we all got on (very well, as it turns out) and b) if there were enough things to do to keep all ages happy (there were).

We stayed in a beautifully light and airy town house  in Noja, an expanding seaside resort about 45 minutes west of Santander. You can find out more about the place itself in this post from earlier in the week. Continue reading »