Holiday thoughts

Going abroad with our mates from the Rome jaunt; they want to see Granada.

This is lovely in so many ways, but has two difficulties for me. The first is that if I am in the city, I must go see my family and spend time with Mum and Aunty; it's more than a duty, I should do it and I enjoy doing it; my mates being marvellous would understand perfectly, bu it makes me a less than optimum group member. The other thing is heat and time of year. The time our mates can make is July, and that's not as easy as it sounds. There's a reason why Spaniards and tourists alike flock to the sea in Summer and the Costa Del Sol beautiful and historical though it is, becomes a stereotype of Northern European over-bakers, second only to Magaluf for bad tats and sunstroke.

A solution posited by R would be to go stay elsewhere, and have a day trip into the city, seeing the Alhambra and Generalife and enjoying free tapas at our usual cafe bar. Seven days so we could alternate day trips into Cordova, Seville, Granada, even Baeza and Ubedo, with wandering around national parks that supposedly home lynxes and wolves, and doing bugger all lying by the pool in the shade. Then everyone except me can come back, and I can just decamp to Granada for an extra week to see Mum.

Actually, when I write that out, it sounds rather sumptuous.