Viva Espagna

Yesterday we popped across the border to Spain for a spot of tapas which made me feel suddenly very European and glamorous, until I took a good look at myself with my hair everywhere and the spud slapping me around with his droolly mitts, re-awakening old yoghurt stains on my shoulders. Once I forgot myself however it was a lovely day. We very nearly didn't go, however. When the frog's smashing Parisian cousin rang to ask if we'd like to meet him and his partner and his parents for tapas in the evening, the Frog originally turned him down on the basis that tapas bars in Spain don't really open until about 9pm and by that time the Spud would have been in bed for at least an hour (ahem). 'Who was that' I asked as the phone went down and about two minutes later the frog had to pick it up again to accept the invitation, I having decided that we could feed the spud his dinner, change him and put him to sleep in his stroller, then eat a relaxed tapas meal while he slumbered peacefully beside us.

It's not as farfetched as it seems, we've done something very similar before and he slept like an angel while we carried on at a wedding. We were, however, at a nice quiet vineyard in the middle of nowhere where-as last night we were in the middle of a Basque town full of people and with its own marching percussion band. Resultantly the spud was awake shaking his maracca to the band until 10:30 which made me feel awful until I noted that all around us were smiling French and Spanish infants sitting with their parents stuffing down tapas and icecream and enjoying the evening - even until midnight. I realised what I truthfully knew already which is that the bedtime we enforce on the spud is not some sort of Universal Constant.

Here are some of the things I saw yesterday:

While floating gloriously in the sea a few yards from the shore, my husband and our tiny son playing at the edge of the surf, the spud happily slapping the waves and holding up rocks and shells to his Dad who patiently got a sandy bum while following him around and sitting beside him to show him things.

A man so blackly tanned he looked featureless and somehow spongy like a prune. His trunk-line clearly displaying that here, once, was a white man while the rest of him lay rigidly accepting the sun as if he could possibly get any darker.

A dreadlock mullet!! I thought part of the point of dreadlocks (apart from their religious significance) was not having to cut one's hair however this dodgy looking white boy clearly thought differently. I wish I had had my camera because this is one thing that the imagination can only hint at.

A shoal of fat grey fish waiting patiently at the boat dock for someone to throw them bread-crumbs like sleek underwater ducks.

A family crossing the road after midnight, their two year old son waving to us happily while his older sister stifled a yawn.

The spud sleeping. Finally.

onwards