Tom continued

The local area in Lecrin is such a pleasure to walk around because its so quiet and has lots of orange, lemon, olive and almond trees.
The almond trees are in full bloom with beautiful pink flowers and many still have nuts hanging from them. After any walk, little pockets are always full of fruit and nuts that have been picked along the way.
Inspired by a book called ‘Driving over Lemons’ the two families drive to Orgiva. This town features in the book written by an English man who bought a farm here. We wind our way up into the mountains and stop off at a fantastic ruined fort in Lanjaron overlooking the valley.
We have a gorgeous lunch in Orgiva and stroll around the town. There is an unusual mixture of locals and ex-pat hippies in the town. One young British hippie, complete with dreadlocks, backpack and a dog on a string asks us for money. We think this might be West Cork of Spain.
On another day the two cars travel together to the Science Museum in Granada. It is so big that even though the crew of Regal have been here before, we see completely different things this time. The Robot exhibition, The butterfly house, The human body exhibition, The puzzles in the garden, the Bird of Prey display and the Health and Safety room. The last room is the kids absolute favourite and I have a hard time getting them out of there. They climb scaffolding with their hard hats on, experience a simulated earthquake and write ‘Margaret is a poo’ on several different ergonomic keyboards - there is nothing funnier.

It is great to have such a lovely house to return to after our outings. We enjoy meals together around the big kitchen table and Ronan always has a gorgeous fire lighting in the evening in the sitting room.
The piano in the sitting room is beautifully played by my brother Tom and he inspires Ruby and Colm to play. They want to ditch the Ukulele and start to learn the Piano. It’s is so much easier, they tell me - I remind them that I after nearly 10 years of lessons, I still can’t play!Read more