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Thursday 25 July 2013

Rose De Vacaciones

Mr Rose, Mum, Dad, Izzy and I are on hols. We are staying at the Spanish house of close friends S and M, who are here also, so what we have is a very jolly house party.

It has been a tough year so far for Mr Rose and I, so the holiday has been much needed. We are now almost packing up to go home after what has been a fabulous week at Casa Rosa so I thought I'd give you some of my highlights.

While we were here I had a birthday. I awoke to find the house decked in balloons.

We celebrated with traditional British afternoon tea, complete with egg sandwiches to rival Claridges and a Victoria Sponge my mum made which was totally delicious.

 

That was so yummy I had to lie in the hammock to recover.

I had some divine presents from everyone. When asked what I wanted this year, my instructions were 'frivolous'. So I got some lovely jewels, matching luggage, make up, clothes and was thoroughly spoilt. One cute little gift was this fab nail varnish

Holidaytastic, non?
 

In the evening we had Champagne and canapés

Followed by a divine BBQ.

 

My mother is, as you all know, a very glamorous woman. She is here for 2 weeks and has bought with her no less than 63 swimming costumes and matching kaftans. She swears she has only bought 6 but I feel fairly sure she changes it 7 times a day ("no one likes a wet bottom, darling") and I've not seen any repeats yet.

 

There was much excitement over K Middy having the new Prince George. We ran a little sweepstake.

 

And were glued to Sky News when they came out the Lindo Wing

 

Then we went out for dinner on the seafront to toast our future king

 

We loved people watching all of the Spaniards out for an evening walk with as many dogs as you would find in crufts. We most admired a lovely sausage dog and agreed he should be called Senior Chorizo.

Mr Rose has been treating us to lots of cooking. Before we came out he swotted up on Andalusian recipes which are totally delicious and generally involve so much garlic and chorizo that as soon as he announces he is going to cook something our mouths start watering and mum practically jogs to the gaviscon bottle. Big faves so far have been these two salads: Green Beans and Serrano Ham and Jamie Oliver's Tomato and Chorizo salad.

I've been reading The Cuckoo's Calling, the one poor JK tried to write under a pseudonym. I bought it before I knew it was her, based on a tweet from India Knight about how good it was. I'm not a JK Groupie so probably wouldn't have bought it had she published in her name, but I've enjoyed it so much I think it might be my Book of the Year. It's gripping, funny, insightful, gosspipy and beautifully written, really bringing Mayfair to life. I'm not normally a fan of detective stories either but now I think it might be a good genre to get into. If you have any suggestions let me know!

Izzy is showing off the results of a new love of running in a variety of gorgeous bikinis. Neon is featuring quite significantly in The Collection. She looks like she should be on Made In Chelsea she is so poised and gorgeous, but when she is bobbing around in the pool it's hard for me to remember she isn't my baby sister who will squeal with delight if you a) dunk her b) play catch with her c) offer to make up a dance routine with her. So we are instead bonding with a 45 min gruelling swim each morning where she yells at me like Tracy Anderson if I slow down. Which considering the amount of rose wine and bread I'm consuming is much needed.

Big thanks go to our lovely hosts S and M who have so generously opened their divine, Spanish home to us. S is keeping me entertained with her demon scrabble moves, and just when you are nearly asleep on a lilo, M will do a superbly executed dive bomb just to keep you on your toes.

Right, the sunbed is calling. It's the last day of the hols so we all know that means getting a bit fast and loose with the factor 20.

Adios amigos!

Rose x