It seems forever that Richard and I have been asked by the family to translate and find tables, directions, buy things in stores - all rather exhausting. Going to Spain was going to give an extra challenge where no one knew the language… It was going to be a long day of travelling to get from France to Spain.

We started off with the alarm at 6am, of course it was already well light and the roosters had been practising their alarms for some hours previously. Some flurry of activity as we packed, stripped beds, said a fond farewell to our Mas and our hosts (and the roosters)… and we hit the road. We were depending upon the trusty sat nav to take us to Carcassonne for a little sight-seeing, and also an Irish pub that Richard had researched would play the Lions vs Wallabies match at midday.

Three hours of rather pressured (and fast) driving on the motorway later, and we arrived at La Cite. However I could tell the attention of the boys was not there so I sent them off into the Centre Ville to find their rugby whilst Claire and I did a little more exploring of the reconstructed Roman city. Amazingly impressive and giving the feel of how the Romans lived, with several small (and touristy) shops around the castle - again, I feel being a lady of the castle would have been my calling…

Of course we bumped into a family we knew from Wenona. The Joyce's has stayed the night at Carcassonne and were also going to the Irish pub. Claire was very keen to catch up with Em and all her news, and it was nice to see and hear Australian accents again.

We won't mention the match… absolute annihilation, and the Lions supporters took great fun labelling us the Ozzies as we slunk out of the pub as fast as possible after the match was over before the match highlights. Really, we needed to hit the road again as we still had 3 hours of driving - no, really!!

At this stage, it was at least 38 degrees in the shade, the boys were grumpy, and we were all hungry (altho the trusty baguette and rather melted cheese filled that hole). The little Renault burned down the motorway into Spain for some rather uninteresting driving - had we done the wrong thing by leaving beautiful France?

Another pressured 3 hours of driving along the motorway and I was very wary that we would either get lost, as we had no map and were completely depended upon the sat nav. Would we be on our way to a Faulty Towers type place - it used to be lovely, so I was led to believe 50 off years ago, but does it still have its charm?

At least 35 degrees when we arrived at 5-ish, car parked, and the air conditioning struggling to work in the room we were led to - Miles and I were given a suite up a spiral staircase so our bell-boy certainly deserved his tip for taking my case sideways on his head up there - don't want to think how we will be getting it down again in a couple of days time!

I went straight to the pool, Richard was keen to catch up on the first TV he has seen forever - Wimbledon men's doubles were perfectly scheduled to keep him busy for an hour. The swim was delicious surrounded by some beautiful Italians, Spanish and French accents. I could only hear one American family who certainly weren't loud. I went back to collect as many non-tennis watchers as I could, and the swim revived us all.

Dinner is on the terrace tonight, some sangria (surprisingly good) to accompany and we loved the evening colours over the Mediterranean bay - yes, this is the life and I can see why people come back year after year. Many family groups are here with multi-generations (all beautifully dressed) as they went to the dining room whilst we stayed on the more casual terrace. Rory won the plate of the meal with an enormous octopus leg served to him - he actually thought it was delicious!

We thought we would plan the next day just pottering along the coast, but what about all the local Spanish history - oh the choices?!