Our View For The Next Seven Days

And here we are on the beautiful Portuguese Island of Madeira. This is the view from the apartment balcony and our view until Monday, when it will change for the second week ... but more about that in a weeks' time!

It's been a hellishly long day, but the journey to get here remarkably short! We were up at half past two in the morning to drive to Birmingham airport for an eight o clock flight. I hate airports; they are the most crowded and stressful of places. You are herded from check in, through security and into departures and onto a plane like cattle. The flight here is under four hours, so not so bad, it's just enough time to get bored.

The best bit about an early flight means you are poolside by lunchtime, and ten hours after we got up I was quaffing my first Coral beer!

This is my third time here in ten years, and I love the place. The best bit about a timeshare is that you get to catch up with old friends each time. So the rest of the day was taken up with gossiping, drinking and having the traditional pizza from Papa Manuel's just down the road from the hotel.

As you would expect, it was an early night tonight, we've got to get down to the serious business of relaxing from tomorrow.