Padul

After four days of skiing we head down the mountain to the suburbs of Granada for the weekend before we go back up for another 3 days on Monday. We stay in a cold and dreary love home swap where the electricity trips every time we turn on a few heaters. Ruby thinks the en-suite bathroom is like something from a prison.
This gives me yet another opportunity to lecture the children on how lucky they are - they love it when I do that.
After a marathon home-schooling catch up on Saturday, Ronan and Ruby wander around the housing estate and find a 7 meter high cartoon character in a neighbours garden. As they stand puzzled outside the garden the owner comes out and invites them in. The huge figure is Mazinger Z, a character from a Japanese cartoon the man loved as a child in the 70s. He and his brothers built it from recycled materials during the Covid lockdown. Colm and I go back later with Ronan and meet the maker, his wife and a friend and we have a very animated conversation in a mix of sign language, mime and cupla focail of Spanish and English.
On Sunday after Maths and sugary cereal we go to the science museum in Granada. It is brilliant and full of interactive displays. We see a Foucault’s Pendulum in action, play with lots puzzles and turn on and off the solar powered fountain. We spend most of time in the Biodomo which is part aquarium, part tropical house with lots of fish, birds, snakes and monkeys.
Back at the house in the evening we risk outing the power on the whole street by blasting on the heating in the freezing billiard room and we have a great time playing pool.
We leave first thing on Monday morning and are back on the ski slopes by 10am.Read more