Callaghan una familiá holiday - Porto Colum, Mallorca, Spain

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It’s holiday time and we are off to a villa in the south east of Spain’s Mallorca, super excited for a week off from work and life in general, time for a San Miguel, beer us, stat!

Preparation time and Narla is not happy at been dropped off at the cattery, our parting words consisted of “bye Narla, see you in a week…. Narla, urmmm, hiss!”. Sad times for the fur-baby.

All packed and parked up at Gatwick and looking forward to some Airport lounge champagne and Eggs Royal, we head to the Gatwick Lounge, or at least we thought we were about to... we apparently didn’t book “The Lounge”, we booked, “My Lounge”… oh no…

On checking in, it was not as fancy as the other one and was a bit basic on the food and drink options, no champagne and beige food was the order of the day on the buffet…

That said, it was still better to be in My Lounge than out with the rabble, a bit quieter and good views of the planes coming in.

A few hours later and we’re in the sky and heading off to Palma Airport, we’ve gone off grid and decide to take the local transport, bus number 1 from the airport to Palma and the 491 from Palma to the other side of the island to Porto Colum. All in all, it was painless, a bit sweaty on the bus and the walk from Porto Colum centre to our Villa was a bit steep with all our gear.

Arrival and its finally beer time, thankfully the house had been fully stocked and food ready to be eat, can’t complain about the Callaghan welcome and the amazing villa! ? Into the roasting hot pool, must be 30⁰C in there.

Day 2 and it’s got to be a pool day, the views from the villa are stunning and we have a nice room with two balconies and the all-important air conditioning.

Pool sports afternoon, using the pool cleaning net as the net for some hardcore water volleyball, I think we won, but I think we were a few beers in by this point so who knows…

Isobel introduces us to “The Salmon” dive into the pool, pretty fun but a bit like a side body belly flop, ouch!

What’s a pool day without a BBQ, Alan nails the cooking and managed to get the BBQ light with a bit of “advice” from Andy, which I’m sure, like all men doing a BBQ, what they want is advice on how their doing it all wrong! Lol

Day 3 and I’m burnt to a crisp on my shoulders, rocking the red lobster look, yay! We go on a little hike to the local vantage point over the cliff edge which I can imagine would be amazing at sunrise, not that I’m likely to make it up there that early… It’s a day for shade and I manage to get through a book, Wild Animals I Have Known by Ernest Thompson, really good and recommended by David Attenborough, couldn’t go wrong. 😊

The evening brings some rolling storms with full on lighting out at sea, a great show was put on for us!

Day 4, exploring around Porto Colum bay, all the way to the other side of the bay opposite the manned lighthouse. The other side is mainly hotels and a few standard Spanish/English pubs, looks a bit dated and not as local as the other side of the bay.

We meet up with the rest of the team and have some local ice-creams, cocktails and snacks at the La Roqueta at the Marina, really strong Spanish measurements and lots of good service, not very Spanish that bit!

We continue into town and the others head back to the villa, we have a slow walk down the coast back to the villa.

The villa is in full karaoke party when we get back with the gin club in full swing, it’s do or die moment, try to catch up or drop out… we go for a nap! ? Lol

Rested, it’s time to try and catch up and enjoy a bit more alfresco feeding and singing time, lots of 80’s tune, something about chicken fried and the chicken song from spitting image, not to mention a bit of Chaz & Dave, rabbit rabbit rabbit!

Day 5, Paddle boarding on a windy and wavy afternoon, it was tough standing up and even tougher trying to make any kind of distance with the wind pushing you back to the beach, I think we all managed to stand and there were some injuries from the jelly fish, both Helen and Isobel got attacked, before you ask, no, I didn’t pee on it, apparently that’s a myth!

A lazy afternoon and back into town for a few pre-evening cocktails at the blue bar in the marina, Pedro is getting to know us now and I think Alan pulled!

A romantic meal, for two, not Alan & Pedro… me and Helen! We get a table overlooking the port with the moon rising at the HPC Restaurant, recommended in our Lonely Planet book and not let down at all. A bit tipsy on the red wine and champagne sangrias but some great food and a really nice evening with my beautiful fiancée. Taxi back as I think we would get lost if we tried to walk back… early bed that night!

Day 6, the last full day and last night, all packed up and didn’t wear half the clothes that we brought with us, we’ll need to remember for next time.

A chilled-out day, playing Shithead and Gin cards, will have to try and remember Gin as we’re probably a bit to adapt at reading the cards when it’s just me and Helen playing.

We’ve booked in for all 13 of us in town, a bit like the last super but with 1 extra person! It’s the blue bar and we are treated to a very orange and large moon rising over the bay whilst we chow down, just three mains for me and some spaghetti ice cream, I now know that the spaghetti ice-cream is meant for kids, still delicious as it was covered in Blanco chocolate!

Absolutely stuffed with both food and frozen margaritas we retire to the villa for a relatively early bed, about 12:30!

Day 7, up and packed, Helen makes it up to say by and is treated with a sunrise at 7am just before most people get their taxi to the airporto, I miss them by a few minutes, doh..

A dip in the pool and a lift from James & Helen to the airport and we are ready to head into Parma town, but… not before we see if we can get the 17:30 plane instead of the 23:30 plane…. There was a bit of language barrier and we think we have a yes and get new boarding passes for what we think is the 17:30 plane… on heading over to security, we check out tickets and it’s the 23:30 but different seats, so, we had paid to have different seats on the same flight, great!

I guard the bags and Helen runs back to the Norwegian customer service desk to try and sort it out… they can sort it and reimburse us for the seat change, but, it’s an extra £385 pounds extra for the 17:30, dam, back to plan A, or some we think. The agent accidentally cancelled out ticket for the 23:30, removing us from that flight and leaving us a bit like Tom Hanks in Terminal, without a plane to catch… long story short, 1 hour later… they have written authority to get us onto the 17:30, result and they waivered the cost for the inconvenience, great service after a bit of a stressful moment or two.

Home and onto a diet to shift this extra stone I’m carrying, jog tomorrow anyone!

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