Never one to turn down an offer to go on holiday, my good friend Liz responded to my please-come-and-visit-us e-mail with the words ‘you don’t need to ask twice’ and promptly booked herself and boyfriend Mark onto flights to visit us in December.

Their holiday wish list included eating tapas and seafood, so we whisked them off to our local tapas bar and amused the locals by ordering about 4 dishes each and devouring them in under an hour. Apparently not the done thing in terms of quantity or timing, but no-one seemed to mind.

Whilst some of the weekend was rainy, the sun made an appearance on a couple of occasions, giving us time to browse the local ‘tat’ market, eat lunch by the beach and take a boat trip across the Mar Menor to La Manga. Our only disappointment, other than the on/off weather, was our first taste of churros and chocolate. Everyone raves about this national dish which apparently can be likened to ‘Choc Dips’. However, what we got was a revolting combination of batter to dip in watery hot chocolate – I’m not convinced this is what we were after! We ate a piece each and left the rest to Dave, who can’t see anything go to waste!

To Mark and Liz – thanks for coming, it was great to see you.