Paella and tapas

We had friends from Portugal over two weeks ago, and last week we entertained our old chum John Walters from Botswana. John is a missionary working out in Rakops, the dust riddled one horse frontier town you pass through on the way up to Moremi and Chobe. He flew in from Zurich after visiting his brother in Switzerland, and is off to Holland next to meet with some people who have helped to finance the building of a mission station primary school. We grilled dorado on the barbacoa, sipped at some very reasonably priced Valdepeñas (€3.95 for a 1999 Gran Reserva) and enjoyed good company and very bad table manners (well, what can you expect when John lives out in the bush!). Intended for his last supper we bought in the ingredients for a Valencian paella but we ran out of evenings! We just caught a tour of the tall ships in Alicante harbour on their way up to help celebrate the end of the Americ's Cup in Valencia before dropping John at the airport. He'll head back to Botswana later in July.

Jan chose to cook the paella on Saturday for the family. A very commendable first attempt...in fact, almost perfect, so you know what to expect if any of you get over to visit in the coming year....and to top it all, the girls are all on a sleep-over tonight and we managed an evening out with some tapas and a cool drink on Altea prom. How very pleasant, with balmy summer temperatures and a cooling breeze off the sea.

Reality check though...we are setting off for the UK on Monday morning we think, taking a few days to get up to and through France before crossing on the 19th. Let's hope the weather improves over there!

Cath, I'll be in touch before the end of the week...and well done Julian for more positive puiblicity - only a one liner but the name was there as bold as brass and anyway, Jan tells me that beautiful things come in small packages. Wish I was a bit more beautiful myself! I need less good food and more strenuous exercise.

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in the near future. Love from us all.