Where to begin???

Firstly i want to say thanks for the words of advice on my wisdom tooth hell! The reason i was in such a state is because that all happened the week before we were due to go on holiday and i was terrified it was going to plague me the whole time we were there. Thankfully it only niggled me for the first week and after that it was fine.

So, the holiday. We went to La Gomera, which is the second smallest of the Canary Islands. It is a wonderful place, about the size of the Isle of White but MUCH more mountainous (nearly 4,000ft). It took us 45mins by road to get to where our villa was, a journey that would have been 15mins by the local ferry, all hairpin bends and sheer drops, glad we didn't hire a car in the end!!!



We stayed in a villa on an HPB site which was lovely, certainly one of the nicest places we've stayed. The weather was great, hot and sunny without being roasting.
We were very lazy for the most part but we did spend one day whale and dolphin watching with Emily whilst Isaac stayed behind with my parents.



Another day Mick and I went off leaving both children behind so we could have a walk through the subtropical rainforest - or to give it it's proper name 'laurisilva' forest. It would have been nice to take the children with us but we thought they would find it hard going - a 3hour trek downhill, we weren't wrong.

It was really beautiful...




In 1986 UNESCO named the Garajonay National Park a World Cultural Heritage site, unique in Europe. Thanks to the trade winds the summit of Gomera is often shrouded in clouds. This leads to the "Horizontal Rainfall" that ensures the survival of this ancient vegetation. It is also where most of the island's water is obtained.

We had a lovely meal at "La Vista", watercress soup served with gofio and mojo picón (a spicy, Garlicy sauce - yummy). This was followed by salad with local goats cheese (and chicken for the meateaters) and Papas arrugadas - potatoes which have been boiled, in salt water, in their skins and left to boil dry. All this was wahed down with plenty of local wine.

We then headed back via this 575m long tunnel ...



It was chiselled out by hand and took 26 years!! to complete. They started either side of the mountain and amazingly met in the middle.
It was build to carry water to Hermigua to irrigate their banana plantations.

We did lots of swimming, which we swore we would keep up with when we got back (we have been only once). Emily is getting more confident after her scare last year and Isaac (scarily for Nana) had no fear at all. This was incredible as he HATED swimming this time last year. We also used the holiday to ditch the nappies (love those tiled floors) YAY!