Plans for the Upcoming Months

So, here we are, already at the end of April, and from tomorrow, only 9 weeks away from our summer holiday.

Before that, we celebrate two birthdays: a friend's on May 2nd and my husband John's on May 14th. Therefore, on the Sunday in between those two days, which this year is the 10^th, I am organising a birthday buffet at our house. A few mutual friends shall be invited, and I am sure we shall have a fun time.

However, as always with these things, we have suddenly realised there is a bit of tidying up to do, outside on our patio. The pool is currently covered and, even if it is not warm enough to swim in on the 10^th, it will be nice if it looks clean and tidy, as the pool cover incurred some damage with the high winds we had over the winter.

I also have to take stock of the plants that need tidying, trimming and replacing! I am quite pleased that I do not have to buy too many new ones, as with careful tending over the winter, I have manged to keep most alive, including some that are only supposed to live for one year! However, I am determined that the garden will look lovely for our guests on the 10^th.

Going back to the holiday we have booked for two weeks in the summer, we have made a few changes along the way. It was to be the holiday of five regions, but now there are only four. This has occurred because one of our planned cities we could not find enough to do, so therefore we decided to change it for another city which had more interesting attractions and museums to see.

Once we found one, we then realised that our first stop, which was to be Valencia, was an awful long distance away from stop 2 to do in one day. So, a complete re-route was organised and now we are going to start in Toledo, where we have been before but, when we left, we realised there was so much more to see. Now we have the opportunity to revisit a city we love, go to those places that we missed on the last visit and rationalise our travel with more manageable distances.

While John is at work, apart from some housework, some reading, organising a post for social media or watching television, I am the one that plans the things to see. So, I start by looking on Google Maps, clicking on the attractions, and deciding which ones would be interesting for us. Then I sort out restaurants and tapas bars to visit. There are also things of interest in between cities, either a landmark to see or a museum to visit, and somewhere to break the journey for a coffee, or even lunch, when we have a check in time at the next hotel of 3pm at the earliest.

It is nice to plan, it brings the holiday closer and also ensures that we have enough to see and do, and whilst we do not keep to a regimen on the holiday, we do not want to miss anything. So, we have lists of places to visit and places to eat and drink. Every hotel has to have a pool, because we love to cool off in the afternoon and doing research beforehand, we find it good to have places near to the hotel, for breakfast or a last night drink, and places near where the attractions are, to have lunch. If there is a restaurant we want to go to in the evening, we generally like to be able to walk to it, or get a bus, then get a taxi back later.

I am sure I shall tell you all about the holiday in my July blog, with lots of photos too.

Now finally, I shall give you a quick update on the progress of “Unforgiveable Sins”, book 4 in the Morgan Morales Murder Mystery series. I am nearly halfway through and hope to finish it before we go on holiday. Then its edits and re-writes, designing of the cover, arranging for the text to be justified and the cover to be re-sized so that the book can be published in September!

Lots to do and organise, but I like being busy and having things to do, otherwise life would be boring, and we don´t want that, do we?