So we had to go into Palma to find the British Consulate.  Trying to find your way in a strange city is always tough, especially if you are driving but we had a great set of directions and our faithful satnav also helped, but it still was a real challenge.  The consulate was hidden on the fourth floor of an office building down a little alleyway.  The staff were helpful but what a palaver!  It costs around £65 just to get an emergency form and takes at least an hour once you get there.  I wouldn’t recommend it…

We then thought we would experience the big city and see what Palma had to offer, but frankly having allowed ourselves to slow down the way we had, we didn’t really enjoy the bustle.  We had the opposite experience from our fab time in Pollenca, the places we stopped to eat and drink lacked charm and taste.

We left just as the weather broke and struggled to find our way out of the city.  Back in Pollenca the weather was lovely again, found a great oriental restaurant for our final evening meal.  We lunched in this beautiful little cafe in a small square at the bottom of a long flight of stairs that leads up a chapel called Calvary.

The journey home went without further incident and now we are back to the building site we call home, trying to re-engage with all those little tasks that are required to get us back on track, including posting all these blogs!

So Family Cooke has decamped to Majorca for a week. We had never been here before, and had heard tales of what appeared to two different places. There was the tacky nasty MaJawKa, that was full of drunken tourists screwing and dancing themselves silly and this green and beautiful Mediterranean refuge. Happily we are firmly ensconced in the latter.

This is as a Spanish place as one could hope to find. Lemon and Avocado trees in the garden, palms and blue, blue skies, hot dry weather, spiky grass and tiles everywhere. It is still strange to me how one can, in matter of a few hours, reek such change in one’s life, at 6am we were in a cold, gray Surrey and two hours latter all of this!

My first major challenge was getting to grips with a new car, manual not auto, whilst driving on the other side of the road and trying to navigate in a place that is utterly unknown to me. This is Change with a capital C. Not good, not bad, just different (as change is really).

That night we wandered into Pollenca; it is a lovely old Spanish town.  We wandered down little allies, stumbled into a magnificent church, painted and decorated in the the most sumptuous manner, and then out into an open square teaming with people, sounds and Life.

We found a lovely little cafe in a quieter area and settled down to a very Spanish meal washed down with sangria. Then back to the square in time to hear a medieval band progress through the square playing bagpipes and drums. A perfect evening in a perfect place.

Sometimes change is just opening yourself to something new, and we are embracing it!