A family holiday in Matagorda, Lanzarote gave me the chance to practice a few spanish words including hola, gracias and adios.

Our apartments were almost touching the runway so we spent some time at the viewing point watching the planes coming in to land and taking off. The planes were very loud. One evening we watched the planes at night and we discussed the different lights on the plane, some flashed, some were different colours. We observed that they all came in to land at exactly the same angle and height.

We had a hire car, so one day we did an inland hike and found some unusual rock formations and what we think was some form of abandoned and unfinished quarry.

We visited the ancient town (and former capital) Teguise on market day. There was live traditional music being performed and coach fulls of tourists created hustle and bustle on the narrow cobble streets. We also took a look inside one of the windmills and saw how the flour was ground between big round stone plates.

We visited Arrecife (the new capital) and walked along the path of lava stones, crossed over the drawbridge and visited the fort museum. Outside the museums were two large canons, I peered inside one. Inside we saw various exhibits and learnt about the volcanic eruption that formed the Canary Islands.

After visiting the beach on different days we noticed how the tide was at different heights. This lead to a talk about how the moon affects the tides.

We saw lots of Ring Neck Parakeets flying around and learnt the difference between collar doves and pigeons.

In the main resorts people have been attaching love/lock hearts to the railings, this makes it very pretty. We watched Daddy use a lighter to engrave our names into the plastic heart. The lighter got very hot and was starting to burn daddies hand. That evening we chose a spot near the playground and attached our love heart. Next time we visit Lanzarote we’ll be sure to see if it’s still there.