Holiday in Porto Santo

Before I begin, I should let you into a little secret. Whenever I've been on family holidays, we've never been abroad together. Clambering over rocks and mountains in Scotland is the norm for the Winter's - and don't get me wrong, I love it. But I've always been curious of 'how the other half live' - travelling abroad to sit on beaches and coming back brown. Now I'm the palest creature of them all; my body simply refuses to tan.

Anyway, due to final year university commitments last year I didn't have a holiday - so this year I rinsed this, and booked 3! Dan's family invited me to Porto Santo, a little Portuguese island off Madeira. I visioned sun, sand, villas, beautiful Mediterranean men and women and not a paley like me in sight.

It also turns out I'm terrified of flying. Have only flown a handful of times, and it is NOT fun. It's a shame I want to travel the world - I'm gonna have to become accustomed to roadtrips I think!

This was on the beach. Our first day was spent lazing around, exploring what our hotel had to offer, drinking yummy cocktails and debating whether or not it was too windy to jump the waves (it was - but this was a necessity so we did it later on in the week). Unfortunately we had to pay to lie on these loungers. Which we didn't realise until we'd already had a good hours napping on them anyway.

There's one town on the island - there isn't really much there bar a few cafes and a couple of supermarkets. It's not quite the Mediterranean experience I'd dreamed of; maybe I'd been looking too hard at the country villas in Italy on google... nevertheless, the cobbled streets and white buildings were bright and cheery.

Above is Christopher Columbus' house, with little trinkets belonging to, and information on the American discover-er himself.

The next day we hired a car! Cutest little thing, one seat behind the other, just what we wanted. The whole island is 7 miles x 5 miles, and very mountainous. Originally we'd planned on hiring bikes, but neither of us are crazy so we hired this beast instead.

Did a carving.

There's an old house decked out how it would have been years ago, with a little shop selling homemade jams, wines and biscuits. Which were yummy.

We plan on building a villa here, overlooking the sea and literally miles away from anything (except a bar located a mere 1 minute walk away - essential).

Dan's in a band, and has decided that ^ is going to be their recording studio.

I have a big obsession with old phones.

We accidentally came across a zoo - more of a bird sanctuary really. So peaceful, it was created in the 90s by one man.

Hello - is it me you're looking for? I turned the clock back and dressed circa 70s. 

Dan, sporting a topknot. Rockstar in the making.

This was the coach that took us into town from our hotel. It reminds me of something Jeremy, Richard and James would conjure up on a Top Gear episode.

And here was our pool. My first 'pool' holiday. It showed as well - I can't swim. I used to have lessons as a wee sprog but in 14 years I can embarrassingly confess I have only plunged into a pool once. I made it my mission to learn this holiday, and let (made) Dan be my teacher. Bless his cottons, he managed, and by the end of the week I'd gone from bouncy bouncy, clinging on to the side for dear life, to swimming lengths and widths to my hearts content.

Side note: We actually live behind the swimming pool in our home city, Worcester, so there's now no excuse to get our 'kinis on and go for a dip!

Hello there

Welcome to the crazy world of Becky. This is the 4th blog I've tried to work, but each time I've gotten distracted, and forgotten all about it.

I'm going to try again this time, and use my own little corner of the internet to document my life through pictures, and ramblings.

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