We went to Spain for 10 days before Easter which was a pleasant change. The weather was only okay until the last 4 days or so but it was good to get away!! Loads of British shopping in Iceland - you have to be a Brit to even get that one I think - a good haul of Crunchies came back and so far I have managed to keep them all to myself!! :) We also went to a wolf park up in the mountains which was really interesting if bitterly cold! Oscar the fox was so cute! He likes to have his chin tickled!! I took the kids to Corduba for the day - should have been Seville but we missed the train...Someone forget to tell us that Malaga has TWO stations...Anyway, it was a pretty place and has Roman roots so felt like home (not!). The most interesting thing was the mosque/church. When the moors were kicked out the Christians "converted" the mosque rather than knock it down! Hence the bell tower is the muzzein's tower covered over to look more "Christian"!! Very strange place!! The holy places from the mosque were left intact inside too. Shame there can't be this "tolerance" today - okay so the Christians kicked the Muslims out of Corduba, but they didn't descrate the mosque, rather they adapted what was already there....
We were in Florence for Easter weekend and went to see the cart pulled through the town by the oxen (moo-pigs! - big and white...!). We also caught the flag throwers who were in good form as usual!
Chaos descended over Europe roughly a week later when Iceland's unpronounceable volcano blew it's stack! Suddenly my husband was stuck in the UK, my son couldn't go back to school and it looked like nothing was going to change this for quite some time to come!! Just over a week later my husband is in Spain and my son is on his way back to school!! Whether things changed, like the weather, because they do or because of pressure from the airlines who really knows at the end of the day?? All I know is that everyone got to where they should be and safely, which is what really matters. It also meant Alex had his birthday at home for the first time in about 4 years!! Because of all the uncertainty in where he was going to be he had two cakes, and two mini-celebrations! Neither were perfect (from my pov) as I wasn't sure what was happening when so I ended up hedging a bit...Next year he is definitely here and it will be his 16th, so I will make sure that is a bit special!! Antonia had her birthday in Spain, which I'll write about over on her blog!! :)
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