Yahreepah: family fun in Spain

Pulling up at the Alicante train station, Spain, just before midnight we puzzled over how to find Dave's uncle Alan. 'We'll call him when we get outside' Dave fretted. Two moments later, Dave starts chuckling. The first thing we notice about Dave's uncle is his sense of humour. There he stood ahead of us, holding a wonderfully designed sign reading 'David P Smelly'.

The adults, or Alan and Betty's big kids, waited up for us at home in Orihuela, Alicante. We met briefly Betty, Sam, Lisa and Rick and knew we were in for some laughs. 'Fireman' Rick is full of tricks and fun and makes a mean morning coffee. Sam and Lisa have a truckload of stories, also love reading and are absolute riots. Sam becomes even more amusing with some vodka concoction in her. This was to be the quietest we'd hear the house before it filled up with kiddiewinks. We are staying in the apartment next door with the big kids, and things run smoothly and efficiently between the two Spanish houses.

The big girls remember Dave's mum fondly, so Dave is filled in on tales of his mum and his big sister Bev as a youngster. On our third night in Alicante, Sam, Rick and Lisa took us out for drinks. We headed out to a strip of bars but never made it past the first Irish pub. We had an early one but it was awesome fun just chatting and enjoying the rapier English humour of our hosts.

Must make a random tangent, but we attended a carboot sale on our first morning in Alicante. We came out with a plethora of colourful, comfy crocs for the kids. I found a copy of my beloved book, Pnin by Nabokov. Embarassingly, I jumped with the ecstasy of a bibliomaniac. this book is crazy hard to find! Now Dave's extended family realise I'm a bit loopy but have decided to accept me anyway. Yahreepah!

We found out that we were destined to join in days of drinking and frolicking at the pool. The amounts of water we empty out of the pool each day with an assortment of bombies and shoves is gargantuan. The kids are just gorgeous. They adore Dave and enjoy mucking about in the pool with him. Sam's kids - Josh, Bradley and Ben are well-mannered, adorable and addicted to their nintendos. Rick and Lisa's lot - Finley, Maisie and Alix are always brimming with energy. Alix keeps up with the boys, Finley provides household entertainment and Maisie is a little bundle of cuteness who runs around catching pondskaters at the pool. The little girl Maisie even has two serves of cereal so she can have enough energy to throw Dave in the pool. Poor little Maisie doesn't realise, but we've been plotting ways to transport her back to Oz in our packs. She is uber cute!

Alan and Betty are wonderful hosts - anxious to give their nephew Dave a good time and even his tag-along girlfriend gets the hospitality. They've taken us out to a Spanish bakery and an English pub. We each got coffee and a decadent cake and it was gorgeous.

Last night though was pretty amazing - we went to Las Villas, a Spanish restaurant which had first class service that you'd pay a fortune for in Perth. The efficient waiters worked the tables, which although empty when we were arrived, filled up quickly. The food was amazing, Dave had a seafood soup and I had a seafood crepe - and that was just the appetiser. For mains, Dave and I shared a Fisherman's Paella - a Spanish seafood rice dish.

I've been trying heaps of different foods while I've been here, even though I may have accidentally thought that the date wrapped in bacon was a sausage when I downed two. This prepared me for trying Alan's goat/kid last night at the restaurant. Couldn't eat a meal of it, but the taste was good. We finished off with dessert and drunken Dave had two Belmonte's (condensed milk, brandy and coffee) to chase his massive dessert plate. So much more to post but like our meal, delivery should be slow to allow for lots of enjoyment and banter in between courses.