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Long time no post! But we’ve had a busy week…
We were looking forward to half term, because it felt like for both us and the children we had arrived then pitched directly into work/school, without much adjustment time – well, it’s not easy to be tourists in midwinter in any case. We had plenty to look forward to as we did our best to get the house cleared up and rearranged in anticipation of our first houseguests.
Sunday morning I got up early and scooted down to Grenadella, looking forward to my first ‘proper’ walk, a free guided excursion organised by the local tourist board. It was a 3 hour hike through beautiful countryside, initially well inland and steep hairpin bends that left me without sufficient breath to curse my lack of fitness and embarrassed at being the youngest and least fit person there apart from our guides (who were around my age but in far better shape for climbing I hasten to add). Then we came out onto a slightly scary but incredibly beautiful ridge walk, from which we could see for miles in every direction, from Cap San Antonio in the north to Ifach at Calpe in the south. It’s a shame it was a dull and gloomy day, the views were still quite incredible but I wondered if I would be able to find and follow the intermittently marked path again on a sunny day. We passed down to “Grenadella castle”, the ruins of an 18th Century defensive fortification, after which we appeared to be quite close to the beach. The last part of the trail was extremely hairy however, at one point involving nothing I would describe as a pathway at all, just chains bolted to the rock to help you scramble round – not a little stroll up from the beach I would fancy attempting en familia, unfortunately.
Anyway later that day my sister, her husband, and 2 and a half kids arrived from the UK, and the girls were thrilled to be reunited. Lara wore herself out completely, and spent most of the night awake with earache which was far from ideal as she ended up in our bed (so we had no sleep instead of the other kids), and next day was Cassie’s long awaited 
birthday party – deferred from her actual birthday the week we arrived. Lara perked up magnificently though Richard was feeling unwell too after our rough night, but somehow I got all the food prepared and between us we shuttled up to Pinosol Park, a short distance up the road, where her friends from school all arrived. The kids seemed to have a really fantastic afternoon, all mixing well including her cousins from England, and Lara’s best friend from nursery also came so there was a great spread of ages - although at one point we lost most of the older ones who seemed to set up a tribal camp on the opposite side of the park, only emerging to wave sticks at the grownups and shout a lot, before a quick cake raid. A lot of the food, even the savoury stuff, got eaten, which is always a good sign.
The party ended abruptly when Lara, running on fumes by now but having a brilliant time, suddenly got to tired to hold on to the swing and dived headfirst to the floor instead. Nina rushed the two of us home where I got her cleaned up and tried to calm and comfort her, but it was really scary as she cried for about 2 solid hours before drifting off to sleep, and her face was badly bruised and scratched. As always when a small child is tired and in pain, she regressed a good year or two in age and communication skills, and we had no way of knowing how badly she was hurt. Eventually she seemed to be sleeping peacefully, and thank god woke up more cheerful and apparently with no lasting damage, but it was a horrible moment, and we were rushing round researching hospitals and clinics etc whilst trying to be jolly hosts and cope with post-party clear-up – not much fun.
The rest of the week went well though and the weather was kind – we spent most of the time at local beaches where it was paddling weather, certainly for fast-moving small people, and indeed emergency clothes changes were required on more than one occasion for those inclined to misjudge the incoming waves and suddenly find themselves doing rather more than paddling. Picnics and sandy toes reminded me why we had uprooted our lives from the familiarity our guests represented, and I knew we’d done the right thing watching the children play so happily – all my childhood, beaches were a 2 week treat in Wales every summer, and I always promised myself I would live near the sea sometime, why had I we waited so long to give our children this lifestyle? Well, lots of good practical reasons as it happened, but here we finally were, even though our guests kept saying how it wouldn’t suit them. We checked out new beaches at Moraira, Cap Blanc and Denia, but the kids always loved the Arenal (with its climbing frames and golden sand) best of all.
On their last day we went into Jalon, just to explore a bit of the interior, and although our Nina and Mark didn’t enjoy
the mountain roads as much as we had hoped – we took them the pretty way through Gata and Lliber - they made it half way up the Coll de Rates where we stopped for a picnic in the pineforests with incredible views, across the whole of Jalon valley and out to the Montgo and the sea at Denia. The weather was perfect – just right for picnics without worrying about sunburn – and the kids loved exploring the mountain trails.
At the weekend we were back to the valley for lunch at La Vall with the Montgo Vegetarians, lovely to see Brian and Cindy and everyone again and the food was very excellent – even Richard seemed to like it. The journey back was interrupted by road closures in Gata as the local kids had their Carnavale parade, it appears our kids had theirs a week early due to half term timing, so we got to watch all the village children and their famililes parade past the car in their colourful costumes. On the last day of the hols we went back to the Arenal again to meet Lara’s friend from school, and it has already reached the stage where we can go there anytime and both girls will be pretty much guaranteed to hook up with friends from school or last time. I love it so much that we live 5 minutes away from this kind of fun and the sheer delight they take in dodging the surf… though I hope that as the season and temperature develops we may reduce our laundry load slightly, or simply learn to strip them off in anticipation of the inevitable soaking that seems to occur whatever the our plans/instructions/the weather.
On the final afternoon we drove out to the lighthouse at Cabo San Antonio, for amazing views of the bay, though it was very windy and none of us were dressed for a walk. We drove back via the mirador at Els Molins, from where the views of Javea were simply incredible, and I longed to follow the path back down into the Port – with different footwear and no small children though, so another day. We contented ourselves with a stroll around the pine forests at the top, and once again thanked our good fortune in living at such a beautiful and inspirational place.