Freedom & Thrills

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George is my parents' dog. Nely loves him the way she loves all animals, wholly, no half-measures. She doesn't know it yet, but she's already missing him.

It's 19.30 and time to hug goodbye to mum and dad. The car is filled with outward breath and a lot of luggage. We own nothing but ourselves, our choices and we chose adventure. So here we go. First leg is the 36h Brittany ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao.

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Comfy clean beds, but Nely woke full of dread, dreams of drowning rats and zombie sailors, soupy seas and nasty neighbours. Poor Nely was shooken and stirred, but it didn't take long till the dreams were a blur.

Let's go have a look around the ship and shake it all away!

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Tied together in infinity knots, a friendship no sailor could ever untie. But leaving you turns those knots into gut-wrenching, rusted, bottom-of-the-ocean knots, the kind I wish I could release, let rise back to the surface, just to be with you again.

A bond so strong you want to glue yourselves together carries a pain so deep that when you're torn apart, you almost wish you'd never been tied at all, except you know you'd choose that knot every single time.

We've picked a quiet time to cross, plenty of seats, plenty of space. But there's little here for children: the cinema costs extra (£7 a child, £12 an adult), the films aren't right for under-tens, and the soft play is tiny, just a cluster of screens running dull games. For a 36-hour crossing, that's thin. So we brought our own, and this is where the board games earned their place in the luggage.

Tiny Epic Quest. It's a travel-game size, but you really get to play a full-sized game. Epic. They've made lots of Tiny Epics, we were introduced to Tiny Epic Zombies by Chrissy and Doug, and we loved it.

Nely plays with the extra meeples whilst we play, arming them ready to battle (apparently)!

Hamish won the 80s music quiz and got himself a cocktail, all whilst working, throwing me the song names to write down between emails. A true musical quizmaster.

The kids went off to explore by themselves and found another worldschooled family in the playroom. The girl asked Bear if he was home-schooled, and she said she was too. Bear was wondering if they might be going to the same hub in Portugal, but hasn't been assertive enough to ask, something he finds very hard. He's so keen to make friends and play, always open and polite to other kids, but initiating the conversation is the part he finds hard.

We've arrived in Spain, Bilbao, in the old town, staying at La Troupe La Granja. It's a cool, cloudy January morning, about 9°C and breezy. After dropping our stuff at the hotel, we headed out in search of a good cafe.

We found one run by a lovely woman from Budapest, who'd moved over to pursue her dream of a vegan hipster cafe with great food and coffee. Hamish usually hunts for cafes with specialty coffee, or more precisely, if he can, cafes with a La Marzocco. It usually leads us somewhere great. The highlight for the kids was the adorable puppy, who loved them as much as they loved it. (Didn't get a pic, sorry!)

We spent the morning exploring the city, and on our way to the Guggenheim we walked through a play park near Plaza Biribila. Just beside it was a public loo.

Nely and I went in, unaware it was on a cleaning cycle. We closed the heavy metal door behind us and the toilet seat started moving up, then suddenly twelve jets blasted water at it. Stunned and spooked, we froze, and before we could work out what was happening, another hose sprayed the entire floor. As we started to realise it was a self-cleaning toilet, the ceiling rained a shower of mist down over the rest of the room. We squealed, pressed the red button and ran outside!

We visited the Guggenheim today. It was very, very cool. I was apprehensive about whether the kids would enjoy it, it's strictly HANDS OFF! But they were hands-on with their eyes, and loved all the exhibitions. We spent a good two hours in there.

It turns out the Guggenheim is far more child-friendly than I'd feared. On the way in, down by the river, the kids were stopped in their tracks by Maman, a huge, slightly fearsome metal spider. Inside, the works that held them were the big, walk-through ones, especially Richard Serra's The Matter of Time, a set of enormous weathered-steel spirals you wander through like a rusty maze. The building itself, Frank Gehry's swooping titanium, is half the spectacle.

And then, on the way out, Nely got her moment: Puppy, Jeff Koons' colossal West Highland terrier, twelve metres tall and covered in something like 70,000 living, flowering plants, watered by its own irrigation system. Of course she was instantly devoted to the giant flower-dog. (The animal thread holds: even the building has a puppy out front.)

A tip for other families: keep to the large-scale, immersive pieces, skip the rooms that won't land with little ones, and treat it like a scavenger hunt, shapes, colours, textures. Two hours was just right.

Board games night was advertised at our hotel, so we'd got our evening sorted, or so we thought. We'd pictured the proper thing: tables set up with different games, other guests to play with, a bit of an event.

Instead, we found a cupboard with a box of broken drinking games. Typical.

But we did dig out two we could actually play, Chess, and Dog Royal. Anyone played Dog Royal? It's a card-driven, dressed-up cousin of ludo, your pieces are kings, knights and jesters, each with their own tricks. Good fun. The night was saved after all.

Left Bilbao at 9am for the scenic route to Burgos. 1000m up, and you feel it: the temperature dropped from a mild 13°C in the city to a windy 6°C up on the plateau.

Hailstones! We watched them come down from our hotel room, a proper storm after all that wind. Quite the welcome from Burgos.

Later, in the centre of Burgos, the kids were transfixed by the grand fountain outside the Museum of Human Evolution, on Avenida de los Reyes Católicos. The museum holds the finds from nearby Atapuerca, some of the oldest human fossils in Europe, but for the kids, it was all about the water. They could have watched it all evening.

On our search for dinner, we found it tricky to find anywhere open between 5 and 7pm, typical Spain! While we looked, we came across a trading-card shop, Cartas y Cromos, in the centre of Burgos. Pokémon cards for Bear, Hello Kitty cards for Nely. But when we opened them at dinner, Bear was more taken with the Hello Kitty cards than his Pokémon! So on the way back to the hotel we popped into Cartas y Cromos again and bought ten more.

A quick charge in the middle of nowhere, a Tesla charger on the A-62 (Autovía de Castilla) near Villaquirán de los Infantes, out in the open Castilian plains. No toilets or services here, so plan ahead. Then onwards towards Vilar Formoso, on the Portuguese border.

A cheeky stop at IKEA, a great place to break the journey for some cheap lunch. Nely went for jamón, Hamish had a frittata, I had a poke bowl, Bear had a hot dog. Plus a fruit salad, a coffee, two vegetable juices and two fresh orange juices. All for €20.

What the kids do on the 3.5 hours in the car... They both listen to their Yotos, music or audiobooks. Bear has finished a sticker-by-number book. Nely has been sorting her Hello Kitty trading cards. We'll use screens if we need to, but we try not to, they actually become more irritable with them.

(Video post, crossing the border into Portugal.)

Our cabin for the night. It's right on the border of Spain and Portugal. We'd run out of snacks from the UK, so went to find a Carrefour (supermarket), which meant walking over the border, back into Spain. The ruins of the old border control were eerie...

You can just walk across now, past the empty, crumbling checkpoint buildings. They've stood abandoned since 1995, when Spain and Portugal joined the Schengen area and the customs booths were simply switched off and left to decay. The two towns even share a name for this borderland, La Raya, "the line." Standing in the silence where guards once stopped every car, it does feel strange.

Yummy Portuguese food at A25.Come, a spot right by the motorway as you come into Vilar Formoso from Spain. Our first proper taste of Portugal. [dishes, to add]

We're on our way to The Cherry Sculpture Hotel in Paul, another quick charge in the middle of nowhere!

We're getting strong Bosnia vibes here, no English spoken, lots of derelict buildings. And it looks like there's been a huge forest fire around the Cherry hotel. So I asked about it. It was back in August: it burnt for two days and came as close as an hour away. A really big, scary fire. It turns out this was part of one of the worst wildfire summers Portugal has had. The fires that tore through the Covilhã and Serra da Estrela region in August 2025 burned something like 57,000 hectares, an area nearly the size of Madrid, forcing villages to shelter indoors and even spinning up a rare "fire tornado". Seeing the blackened hillsides months later, in the quiet of January, was sobering.

Bear enjoyed skimming stones in the river, 16 hops, apparently! Nely was searching for treasures in the sand.

Made it, aren't these hilarious! The whole place is dotted with giant cherry-shaped sculpture pods you can sleep inside. We'd booked the Deluxe Suite with Spa Bath: two singles, a double, a hot tub, and, the best bit, an enormous cherry-shaped fireplace hanging from the ceiling. The hotel only opened in 2024, built as a tribute to this region, Portugal's cherry capital.

Wet today in Paul. We're off to a thermal spa for the day, but the kids don't know about it!

Nely's treasures.

Bear and I went for a morning explore and came across a habitat for frogs. Sadly we didn't see any, so instead I wrote a poem about them.

I'd like to be a frog for a day.

Frogs are free; they roam the ground. When thunder rumbles, they're water-bound.

Healthy nutrients fill their veins, and tadpole babies come again.

Wide eyes, curious and sweet, with delicate hands and such strong feet.

They sit so still, observing the world, so peaceful and wise. Just for a day, can I be a frog girl?

The thermal spa, Aquadome, at Unhais da Serra, was very quiet, which was divine. Big indoor pool, an outdoor lazy river, two outdoor cold pools (which we jumped in, but it stung so much going back into the warm pool!), a jacuzzi, two steam rooms, two saunas, jets, various funky showers, and the kids' favourite: the training jet, where you swim against the current!

I had a lovely 15-minute sauna to myself, to think about the people I'm missing from back home.

Made our lunch from the breakfast buffet and onwards, bound for Coimbra... It's so dark and moody making our way through the stripped, burnt forests.

Around 57,000 hectares were burnt in the fire. They never found out how it started, or didn't release it.

The steepest, narrow, zig-zag roads led us up to our next accommodation, high in Coimbra's old town, right below the famous old University, one of the oldest in Europe. Our place was built in the 18th century, all gold, red and velvet, very cool, with a jacuzzi and steam room in the room. Nely was straight in the tub before it even heated up!

We were tempted to stay in, enjoy the room and get a takeaway, but it was so expensive, given the effort to deliver all the way up the hill! So we went down to the old town for a meal, at Bresca, an Italian place full of quirky lamps and mirrors. Nely took so many pictures of the objects in there, she loved them all.

The UC Exploratório (Coimbra's hands-on science centre, down in the green riverside park) was average, but I did spot a frog outside in the pond, so I'm made. (After yesterday's poem for the frogs we never saw, one finally turned up!) We had a Connetix build competition, guess who made which? And we built forts to fight against each other: girls vs boys. Girls won, obviously!

Best way to start the day: jacuzzi, fruit platters and David Attenborough. I had a cheeky steam in the lovely hammam room!

Arrived at our hotel in Lisbon, the JAM Hotel, and they had a power cut, but it didn't stop the kids getting in the pool. Rooftop pool, 25 degrees, sunshine and cocktails.

Nowhere serves food before 7pm, so we're playing games (Faraway) and drinking tea before dinner. Faraway's a lovely quick card game, you explore a shifting continent by laying down a row of eight cards, then score them in reverse on the journey back, which twists your brain in the nicest way.

The ping-pong table here is very cool, and has a story. It was designed by Belgian interior architect Lionel Jadot with the Brussels design network OpenStructures, and it does three jobs: ping-pong table by day, communal dining table by evening, and, when the rooftop needs a dance floor, the whole thing comes apart and hangs on the wall as sculptural art. It's made from local upcycled timber and built with screws rather than glue, so it can be taken apart and reconfigured endlessly without waste. Very on-brand for a hotel that prides itself on being circular and sustainable.

The kids got too hungry to wait until 7pm, so I found a food market called Time Out, about 25 minutes' walk away. It's a famous Lisbon spot: a huge hall where many of the city's best chefs and restaurants run their own stalls under one roof. Very organised, the stalls all had their food on display, which helped with choosing. It was expensive (€15+ per dish), but delicious. Hamish and Bear had pizza, I had a salad, and Nely had melon and jamón! (I forgot to take pictures.)

The bunk beds are great and safe. Nely wore her hat to sleep last night, thinks she's a cheetah! I don't like using the aircon or heating, so we always carry our Passenger Nomad blanket with us. It came on our last trip up to the Arctic, so it holds lots of memories.

Outside a shop, a life-size alpaca soft toy, incredibly soft, standing there draped in bright, pom-pommed colours. We couldn't walk past without stopping.

Lovely brunch at Hygge Kaffe in Saldanha (Rua Tomás Ribeiro), a cozy Danish-inspired spot (the name comes from the Danish word for warmth and contentment). Board games, books, smørrebrød and good coffee. Very much our kind of place.

We went searching for Hello Kitty trading cards. Five shops, none had any. We walked 16,000 steps, so the kids were shattered and deflated, but we got a great sense of Lisbon. We went back to the hotel and watched Babe.

Another great travel game: Sea Salt and Paper. It's a quick, pretty ocean-themed card game, the cards are designed like folded origami sea creatures, which is half the charm. You collect sets and matching pairs, play pairs for special effects (stealing a card, taking another turn), and once you hit seven points you can gamble: call "Stop" to end the round, or "Last Chance" to bet you've got the most. Rounds take about five minutes, which makes it perfect for the road.

We made it to the Algarve! It rained most of the way (haha) but it's still beautiful. We're based in Guia, near Albufeira. This is our home for three weeks, there's a worldschool hub here (Naturally Richer), a seaside community where home- and worldschooling families stay as neighbours, with optional daily meetups: beach days, hikes, crafts, outings. So Bear can hopefully play footy with someone! After meeting that worldschooling family on the ferry, this is exactly what he's been hoping for. We're all feeling more relaxed now we can stay put for a bit. Will take some pics tomorrow. Goodnight.

It's sooo very beautiful here. We're a little in love. ❤️

Our first day with the worldschool tribe. 15 families currently, but ever-changing, from all over, cohabiting in a gated community. This morning started with a women's circle, 15 women came and we shared the space, which felt very safe and friendly. We picked some tarot cards and danced a little. It was fascinating listening to each person's story, their trials and tribulations. Then we all met at Praia da Galé (Leste), a quieter Galé beach right by us in Guia, with little caves and rock pools to explore, and played in the caves, dunes and sea till sunset.

Our hub leader Kat was able to open Parque Aventura Lagos just for our group to play! Bear started on the lowest route and built his way up to the 'fearless route', where he had to change harnesses! Nely did the highest she was allowed to do and loved the ziplines. It was such a small group, with no pressure of people behind you to try scary things. They did amazing. The trampolines were such a bonus, bouncier than any trampolines I've been on!

We went for lunch with everyone to My Sushi in Lagos, an all-you-can-eat spot where you write your order on a little notepad and the dishes keep coming, all made fresh to order. Beautiful.

Bear has made friends with a boy from the hub called Walker, from Canada, so we hooked up with the family and did a boat tour around the caves of Lagos. Absolutely stunning!

Today some of the group went to a beautiful waterfall, but Hamish had to work. I'm not quite brave enough to drive 40 minutes on my own in Portugal yet, so we stayed local. Bear was pretty miffed and grumpy most of the day because of it.

I've been working on the home-ed BCP school reports. Last one ever, I hope. Nely was very happy to potter at home, but we did venture out as Bear likes to get out. We were meant to meet a group, but I got the wrong pin location and ended up somewhere else, a bit of a disaster. We went home and played Connetix and Lego, but we did meet everyone for an evening beach gathering, which was really fun. The kids played in a lake beside the beach, pulling out a huge concrete anchor!

Nely, however, hasn't managed to join in with the hub kids yet, apart from one little boy who is 3. She's struggling a lot, very homesick, and would like to go back to her life in Bournemouth, to be with Yulia, Kaki, Socks and George.

All it would take is one of the older girls to invite her over to play, and she'd be fine. I might suggest it on the group chat and see if there are older girls who like little ones. She's missing Bear's friends Gracie, Meli and Layla, who would always look out for her. It does break my heart seeing her like this.

Tomorrow is a new day. The forecast is rain every day for a week, but so far the predictions have been very inaccurate, so fingers crossed.

Wet but mild day in the Algarve. Mostly played games in each other's condos. Had a mums' get-together in the evening, with lots of new faces. It's strange how quickly people come and go, slightly unsettling.

Red sky at night... sunshine tomorrow?

We're still on the hunt for a friend for Nely...

Later, from one beach to another! We met some more families from the hub and headed to our local beach, Praia da Galé (Leste), for an afternoon of hole-digging and playing in the sand.

Homemade cards and gifts in bed. Poached eggs and multiple coffees. Cafés, beach with rain and shine. Games and homemade dinner delight.

Happy birthday, you wonderful husband and father. We love you.

So I didn't go to the women's circle... Something in the back of my mind didn't want to go. I got ready, then turned to Hamish, took off my coat and said: I'm not going. I don't feel like it.

I thought about it later. It felt strange to be vulnerable, or just to hear vulnerability, with complete strangers. I was so relieved to give myself permission to say no.

The morning consisted of working on the new business, ModelMate, our little Tesla-accessories brand. We needed to film installation videos for the puddle lights (the lights that project a glow onto the ground when you open the car door) out in the garage. The garage lights were on a timer, so it was a bit of a pain, but we got there in the end, and then the editing took some time too. This is the reality of running a business while travelling: it fits into the corners of the day. Bear was exploring the grounds, hoping to find a friend to play with, and Nely mostly listened to Yoto and played with her teddies.

After lunch, we went to Algarve Shopping (the big mall at Guia) to find a cable Hamish needed. This puppy was outside completely in love with Nely, does anybody know what breed it is?

We found more Hello Kitty trading cards, so we were buzzing. These cards are now an integral part of our travels, and something the four of us love doing together.

We drove to watch the huge waves, then headed back to the condo for a games afternoon, where Nely made a friend with a Spanish girl called Paige! They scooted around the pools till after dark, and Nely invited her over for a play date tomorrow. Bear went to the beach with Marcel to watch the sunset and dig. And we ended the day with more trading over dinner.

Today we went to Krazy World, an interactive zoo near Algoz. It was so much fun. We didn't really know what to expect, and I'm always wary of zoos, but this one is hands-on rather than animals-behind-glass, and they told us around 70% of their animals were rescued, which put me at ease. The whole place runs on getting close to the animals: feeding, holding, learning. Here are the kids feeding the birds. Here's Nely riding her first pony! An amazing talk on snakes, these were pythons, but each with a different story. One was rescued from a house illegally breeding them. The albino one wouldn't exist in the wild, it's man-made through selective breeding. The big one was found on the streets of Lisbon with its tail chopped off, very skinny. Then we got the chance to hold and touch them. Nely really loved the snakes! Then we went home for more face paint and fun.

We explored a small part of Algar Seco, a stretch of wild, eroded limestone cliffs near Carvoeiro, where the sea has carved out caves, tunnels, rock pools and 'windows' looking straight out over the ocean. The rock is reddish-gold and full of ancient marine fossils, 24 million years old. The kids absolutely loved climbing around the caves, the best playground ever! A video of one section of the caves. We only touched on this beautiful area. We can't wait to go back with my parents.

After Algar Seco, we went to Praia do Carvalho, a beach 10 minutes down the road. A small cove that I imagine would be very busy in the summer, but we had it all to ourselves. Another fun tunnel leading you down to the cove. The forecast today was rain all day, but luckily it was grey skies and 15 degrees until 4pm.

Nely made a kite and was testing it on the balcony.

Today we descended into the Loulé Salt Mines (the TechSalt mine, at 230 metres down, it's the deepest tourist site in Portugal), and it honestly felt like stepping into another world. The adventure started with a three-minute lift ride straight down into the earth, tight enough to make everyone shuffle in closer, but dramatic enough to feel like the start of an underground quest.

And then the doors opened.

Huge caverns stretched out around us, glittering with ancient salt walls that seemed to glow under the lights. Everywhere you turned, it was salt, above, below, all around, like walking through a giant, shimmering geode. It felt like we were inside Minecraft!

The natural patterns in the salt were mesmerising, swirling and marbled as if time itself had painted them, some of this rock is 230 million years old.

Meanwhile, the kids immediately turned the whole thing into a treasure hunt, darting around the floor searching for "rare" salt crystals like tiny geologists on a mission. Every sparkle on the ground became a discovery, and the tour guide found them hilarious.

We did some potion-making this morning while the weather was dodgy, a Fairy Potion Kit from Magic by Post (a lovely little family-run company in England), a Christmas gift from Uncle Louis and Auntie Nini. It's all open-ended, no instructions: the kids mixed up brews with things like crushed toadstools, star dust and "unicorn poop" (lavender buds, really). Perfect rainy-day worldschooling.

This afternoon we headed to the beach and the kids built dams. All the kids were chewing the stems of those yellow flowers now, they taste of lemon. They ate about 100, haha!

We hosted the little ones at our apartment as our contribution to supporting the hub. The kids set up little play stations with all their toys around the room: Connetix tiles (great for all ages), Playmobil, drawing, face painting, dress-up, soft toys and role play. Hamish made a snack station of fruit and crackers. Lots of new arrivals came to enjoy the space together. I was apprehensive about how Nely would find toddlers exploring her toys, but she was very giving and encouraging. The weather is very wet and stormy, so indoor gatherings are important, especially for parents with toddlers. I'd forgotten how intense that stage is; they need a place to come and relax and socialise. In the evening, Katarina hosted karaoke at her apartment, which was fun. Bear sang Zombie by The Cranberries! The kids ended the night with a paddle in the outdoor pools. We leave in a week, so we're trying to make the most of the experience and go to as much as we can.

Today was the sunniest day we've had in two weeks, so all the hub kids were in the freezing-cold pool together ALL day, a whole gang of them, playing and splashing about, inventing water games, diving for things, racing and chasing each other from morning till the light went. One kid brought a blow-up mattress as a pool float, such a good idea, way more durable! Then we spent the late afternoon at the beach till 8pm. It was so good to be outside all day long, watching the kids just play and play. A real taste of what January is usually like in Portugal.

Then, adults' games night in the evening. Forest Shuffle and turmeric tea. Bliss. Forest Shuffle is a gorgeous one, a feel-good card game where you build your own little forest, planting trees and attracting animals, all on beautifully illustrated cards. Right up our street.

Latest frog hunt, and yes, there's a tiny frog in the picture, if you look closely!

We had a lot of fun on the sand dunes, jumping off them like I did at Balmedie Beach, Aberdeen, when I was nine years old. Nothing's changed, haha!

Here is Bear doing day one of his charity run. Bear is running 47 miles this February for Surfers Against Sewage, to help fight for cleaner, safer water. The 47 isn't random: it stands for the 4.7 million hours of sewage that were dumped into UK waters in 2024. Every mile he runs represents that, which feels like a worldschooling lesson all of its own. We'd love your support, every donation makes a difference. You can sponsor Bear here: https://socialsync.app/fundraiser/cr-m7xw159w9yy3w Please help him reach his goal, if you can spare a few pounds, it would be much appreciated. 🙏

Today started beautiful and then moved through to thunderstorms and more rain! We played out all morning and then invited everyone back to ours. It's been an open-door approach at the hub, which I've enjoyed. A new family was waiting to check into their condo, so another mum brought them over to ours to meet some families. The kids played games, Connetix, Playmobil, face painting and kitties. The weather has postponed so many day trips and adventures outside. But it's forced us to be at each other's houses, and probably to connect in a different way.

These caterpillars are toxic, pine processionary caterpillars, it turns out. They march along nose-to-tail in a long line (which is exactly what the kids spotted), and they’re around right now, in February. Their tiny hairs are genuinely dangerous: a nasty rash for people, and potentially serious for dogs who sniff them, so we kept well back, and kept George away too. Worth knowing if you’re in the Med this time of year. We started the day with a coffee at the beach, sunny and warm! Bear found a starfish! 10.30am, the clouds and rain came. We went back to the condo, and Bear met some kids and adults at the football pitches for different sports. He wasn’t a huge fan of dodgeball, so came back when they played that. Nely had a lovely time playing with Jude, who has demand avoidance, so I was learning gently as I went how best to support her, following her lead, keeping things low-pressure. It was a good reminder of how differently every child experiences the world. Then we took the kids to Adventure HQ, the best indoor playground I’ve ever been to (and apparently the Algarve’s largest). It’s a huge, calm, multi-level space near Alcantarilha with slides, trampolines, climbing nets, a lovely role-play area and comfy seating, plus a proper restaurant for the grown-ups. We stayed four and a half hours! Then I took Bear to the last social game night, which was fun. We played Sequence, a brilliant, quick, easy-to-learn game for up to 12 players. This is Jude’s dog, Benito!

Today we spent the day packing, which with a Tesla, a back box on the tow hook, and a family of four’s worth of stuff is basically a giant game of Tetris, making sure every last thing fits. Hamish is brilliant at it: he used to work as a delivery driver for Amazon, so he’s had plenty of practice packing a van full of parcels. Otherwise nothing very eventful to share. Mum and Dad arrived with Georgey. In the afternoon, we took the kids to their last play date with their hub friends, and persuaded Nana onto the soft play!

The kids are travelling with their grandparents to Tarifa! Mum and Dad picked them up in the camper on their way through, as we’re all going to spend the next two weeks in Spain together. We arrived in Tarifa. The apartment wasn’t quite what the Airbnb photos had promised, and that was a disappointment. The rooms were small. There was a damp feeling to the place, and it needed redecorating. The bad weather hadn’t helped: the outside furniture had been thrown about by the storms, left untidy and scattered. No views from the garden. A bit of a punch to the stomach, if I’m honest.

Today was a day of darting the rain! We started with a run. I loved being out at the beach, but I didn’t enjoy running. I’d rather slow down, walk, take it all in. Running should only be used for escaping a storm, saving someone, chasing a bus. The run down to the beach didn’t help the mood either. It was a fair way from the house, out through the back streets, dodging dog poo the whole way, down a stretch of ugly road before the sand finally appeared. Another disappointment. We were tucked up on the inland northeast edge of town, near the road in; the good beach runs along the far west coast. We’d landed on the wrong side of Tarifa. But once we made it down to Playa de los Lances and ran along the beach, it was worth it. We spotted a Portuguese man o’ war washed up on the sand, that bright electric blue float, beautiful and best left alone. It isn’t actually a jellyfish at all, but a siphonophore: a whole colony of tiny creatures living and working as one. The blue balloon is its sail; underneath trail tentacles that can reach metres and metres, lined with stinging cells. And here’s the part the kids found hard to believe, even beached and dead, it can still deliver a very painful sting. So we looked, we marvelled, we did not touch. The storms rolling through the Strait have been pushing them onto these beaches all week. Apparently it’s been a real influx along this stretch of coast, purple warnings up and down the Cádiz beaches.

Then home for a game of Family Catan. Catan is a modern classic. You’re settlers on a freshly discovered island, building roads and settlements across a board of hexagons, fields, forests, hills, pastures, mountains, that’s different every game. Each turn the dice decide which lands produce, and you trade the resources they throw up: wood, brick, wool, wheat, ore. Settlements grow into cities, the longest road and the biggest army earn bonus points, and the first to ten points wins. Simple to grasp, but every game turns into wheeling and dealing. I won, upgrading my houses to cities and taking the Largest Army. A satisfying way to close a stormy day.

The Waikiki, the chiringuito we sat at last night, drinks in hand, watching the storm come in, was blown to pieces overnight. It’s a beach bar out on Playa de los Lances, a timber-and-canvas place sitting on the open sand a good 170 metres from the shoreline. Beautiful spot in good weather. No match for what came through in the dark. By morning it was wreckage, boards scattered, the structure caved, the sea having had its way with it. We’d been sitting right there. Sobering to see it in the daylight. And it wasn’t just the bar. This whole stretch of Iberia has been hammered since the new year, one named storm after another, each seemingly worse than the last. Goretti, Harry, Ingrid, Joseph, then Kristin in late January, which made landfall up in central Portugal with the strongest winds the country had ever recorded, over 200 km/h. Then Leonardo and Marta rolled through in early February, right as we crossed into Spain. Andalucía and the Cádiz mountains caught it badly: Grazalema, just inland from us, took more than 500 mm of rain in a single day. Whole towns flooded, thousands evacuated, a state of calamity declared across dozens of municipalities. Nana and Grandad drove down through the thick of it in their camper, the destruction and chaos of it all the length of the road.

Today we did a 7-mile hike along the coast, the Sendero de los Lances. It’s a wooden boardwalk that starts by the football stadium and runs out along the back of the beach, crossing the Jara and Vega streams on little bridges, through a protected wetland to a bird observatory at the far end. Or it would be, if the storms hadn’t got to it first, long stretches of the boardwalk had been torn up and destroyed, planks ripped loose and scattered, sections simply gone. Same story as the Waikiki. We picked our way along what was left. The lagoon here is a proper haven, herons, egrets, storks, stilts and plovers all stopping to rest and feed before they make the leap across the Strait to Africa. You can stand in the hide and watch them. Nely was in her element. The path is the flat, easy one. But the whole coast north of town is laced with trails, up over the dunes at Punta Paloma, on through the pines to the Roman ruins at Baelo Claudia and the giant dune at Bolonia, twenty-odd kilometres up. Plenty to come back for, on the days the weather lets us.

And tapas in the old town to finish. We walked in through the Puerta de Jerez, the old Moorish gate, the only one of Tarifa’s original city gates still standing, with travellers passing under its horseshoe arch for over 700 years. Beyond it the old town opens into a maze of narrow whitewashed lanes, flower-hung balconies, little squares appearing out of nowhere. The town takes its name from Tarif ibn Malik, the Berber commander who landed here in the 8th century; it was Moorish for centuries, then a frontier outpost guarding Christian Spain from the Kingdom of Granada. You feel all of it underfoot. Beautiful. We stopped for tapas at [RESTAURANT NAME, TO ADD]. And then, the heavens opened. A proper downpour, out of nowhere. We grabbed our drinks and our plates and ran for the inside. They don’t usually allow dogs, but they took one look at the rain and let George come in out of it with us. Soggy dog, small plates, the storm hammering the window. Perfect, really.

Where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic. Tarifa sits right on the seam of it, the southernmost tip of mainland Europe, with Africa just 14 km across the Strait. The exact meeting point is out at Isla de las Palomas, a little island joined to the town by a causeway built in 1808. Walk out along it and you’ve got two seas a few metres apart: the Mediterranean on your left, the Atlantic on your right. The locals call it entre dos aguas, between two waters, the same name as the old Paco de Lucía rumba. And you can see the difference. The Atlantic side comes in rougher, bigger, wilder; the Mediterranean side sits calmer, more sheltered. Two oceans behaving like two different moods, divided by one strip of road. Stand on the point and it’s all in front of you, two seas, two continents. Hard to get your head around.

Today we visited Estepona. I’ve been before and wasn’t the biggest fan, but this time we took the back streets, hunting for Hello Kitty cards, and it was a different place altogether. So clean and colourful. Beautiful. Estepona is known for its flower-pot streets, whitewashed houses, every wall hung with pots in every colour, jasmine and orange in the air, all radiating out from the Plaza de las Flores. The locals take real pride in it; the whole old town feels cared for. Estepona is old. The Phoenicians traded here three thousand years ago and called it Astapa; the Romans worked this coast for fish-salting and garum. But it’s the Moors who left the deepest mark, five centuries of rule gave the town its name (from Astabbunna) and the whitewashed, narrow-laned shape of the old quarter you still walk today. Henry IV of Castile took it in 1456, and a few decades later the Castillo de San Luis went up to guard the coast against Berber pirates. The surviving castle tower and the old clock tower in the Plaza del Reloj are about all that’s left of those centuries, but you feel the layers, Phoenician to Roman to Moorish to Christian, stacked up under your feet. It’s also an open-air art gallery. Since 2012 the town has run an International Mural Competition, inviting artists to paint giant murals across the sides of buildings, some six storeys tall. There are sixty-odd of them now, dotted all over, turning a stroll into a treasure hunt. A very beautiful town. I’d like to come back and spend more time here.

We’ve decided to leave Tarifa earlier than planned. The weather has been awful. The area felt surprisingly dirty, dog poo everywhere. And the house itself was damp and pretty miserable to sit in. The rooms were small, and with the rain keeping us indoors we were living on top of each other, bickering, restless, all a bit short with one another. Then Nely picked up a cough, which the damp did nothing to help. You could feel the whole family fraying at the edges. We complained to Booking.com and got a 50% refund on the remaining nights. Not really good enough, the house wasn’t what was advertised, but a partial win. The real lesson: we should have flagged it the moment we arrived and moved somewhere else there and then, rather than sticking it out and letting it sour the week. Life’s too short to be uncomfortable. So we’re packing up and heading to Casares instead.

We are all much happier here. It’s a brand-new penthouse in a quiet, gated community on Casares Costa, three big bedrooms, three bathrooms, stylish and bright, with a south-west-facing corner terrace looking straight out over the golf course to the sea. After the damp little apartment in Tarifa, it feels like another world. There are three pools, a clubhouse and a gym a few minutes’ walk away, and the beach is barely a mile down the road. Best of all, and the kids cannot get over this, there’s a lift that opens directly into our apartment. You step in downstairs, the doors close, and they open again inside our own hallway. Pure novelty. They’ve ridden it more times than I can count. Everyone exhaled. Nely’s cough is already easing. The sun’s out. We made the right call.

After a morning run, we spent the day viewing five different houses to buy. We’re moving to Spain in September, so we wanted to start getting a feel for the market, what your money buys out here, which areas we like, what’s realistic. A scouting mission as much as anything. Sadly, not one of the five was inspiring. Still, every viewing teaches you something about what you actually want. Nely loves wearing this towel as a cloak, she’s decided she’s Little Red Riding Hood.

Today we ventured to the old Roman baths, the Baños de la Hedionda. The water was a lovely 21 degrees and very clear. A slight sulphur smell, but not as strong as you’d expect from the name, hedionda means “stinking.” The story here is wonderful. In 61 BC, Roman troops were camped in this valley, waiting to face Pompey’s army, and many of them were suffering from scabies. They bathed in the sulphur spring and found relief. Julius Caesar himself is said to have come here to heal a persistent skin complaint, and when the waters worked, he ordered the original bathhouse built in thanks. A structure has stood on this spot for over two thousand years, Roman baths later reshaped by the Moors, a domed chamber with vaulted galleries either side. You’re swimming where Caesar’s legions swam. The kids loved that.

Some more pictures Mum took at the baths.

Bear’s been working hard with his charity runs this morning, still going for Surfers Against Sewage, clocking up the miles.

Today we explored Casares. We found a little treasure-hunt trail through the village, learning some of its history as we went. [TRAIL LINK / DETAILS, TO ADD] We started in the square, the kids itching to “find the next clue”, and somehow that simple game made us all notice things we’d have walked straight past. The old fountain. The tiny arches. The insane views. As we climbed higher, the hills rolled out beneath us in that dramatic Casares way. Casares is one of Andalucía’s famous pueblos blancos, white villages, its sugar-cube houses cascading down the hillside beneath a ruined Moorish castle. The fortress at the top was built by the Moors on older foundations; the town’s very name is said to come from Julius Caesar, who gave the nearby healing baths his seal of approval (the same Baños de la Hedionda we’d swum in days before). Later it became a frontier stronghold, and in 1570 a flashpoint in the Morisco revolts. It’s also the birthplace of Blas Infante, the writer and politician remembered as the father of Andalusian nationalism. A lot of history for a village you can walk top to bottom in an afternoon. At the top we stopped to watch the big birds wheeling overhead. Eagles or vultures? Griffon vultures, it turns out, Casares sits beside a protected reserve where they nest, and they soar right past the old castle, close enough to hear the wind in their wings. Breathtaking. Such majestic creatures. There was something lovely about moving at the pace of a treasure hunt, discovering the town step by step. The crochet flowers we passed reminded me of the ones Tania made me, in my baby-shower gift box.

This morning we went to a bootsale in Manilva. It was huge. Grandad got himself a new “shuffle”, his word for a shovel, for his metal detecting. Bear chose a keyring sword with his chore money, and Nely bought a compact mirror. It started at 9am and only got busy around 10. Much later than a 7am bootsale back in the UK, nothing in Iberia opens before you’d expect it to. A fun morning, and good to know about for when we need to furnish the new house.

After the bootsale, we met Rodrigo to view a “project” house in San Martín. A big place with a lot of potential, but oh, so much work needed. The kind of house you fall for and then do the maths on. One for the “maybe, in another life” pile.

We took Nana and Grandad to our secret beach in Sotogrande. Full of rocks to climb over, mini coves, dozens of shells. The wind was still coming through hard off the back of the storms, cold, too, so we didn’t swim. But we metal detected, made fairy gardens and took in the views. A good afternoon, wrapped up against the wind.

Mum and I have been doing a squat challenge, adding ten squats every day. We’re up to 160. Half the time we forget until we’re already in bed, which means climbing back out to do them on the floor in our pyjamas. Working the glutes, as Mum says.

Today we went on an amazing hike, the Cañón de la Utrera. It’s a limestone gorge near Casares, carved out by the Río Manilva, known for its strange rock formations and turquoise pools. After all the storms it was flooded in parts, and a lot of it had subsided, tricky to navigate, which honestly made it more fun, not less. Loads of scrambling up and down rocks, carrying the dog over the worst bits, hop-scotching across the river. We met an American couple in their seventies giving it a real go, but they had to turn back in the end, too much balancing on the slippery rock. (I do hope they made it back to their car.) We all loved this trail. Wished it had been even longer.

The kids found a pond full of little froggies, jumping in and out of the water. Nely stood at the edge and sang “5 Little Speckled Frogs” to them.

After the hike we went back to the Roman baths to escape the coastal winds, and it was even prettier than the first time.

8am. Mum runs through, “there’s no wind.” We all stop. After two weeks of nothing but wind and rain, the storms that wrecked the Waikiki, flooded the canyon, kept us indoors bickering in Tarifa, the air outside is finally still. Wow. It might actually be warm today. And of course it waits until their last day. Nana and Grandad fly home to the UK this afternoon, and Spain picks this morning to turn on the sunshine. Typical. We’ll take it though, one good day to send them off.

A glorious morning on the terrace. Grandad and I got talking about his side of the family and I couldn’t keep up, so Mum suggested I draw out a family tree. We ended up doing hers too. It was startling how fast it grew. Branches full of people I’d never heard of, barely a step or two removed from me, great-aunts, cousins, names that had simply slipped out of the everyday telling. There’s something quietly moving about seeing it all laid out: the shape of where you came from, the people who had to meet and marry and cross oceans for you to end up here, on this terrace, in the sun. The kids leaned in, asking who everyone was, fitting themselves onto the end of a very long line. A small map of belonging. It made me think we should do this properly one day, write the stories down before they’re lost, so the names stay more than just names. We tried the pool, because it looked so inviting in the sun. It was baltic. This is the eternal Spanish pool problem: out of season they’re either closed until May or sitting there unheated, clear and blue and utterly freezing. And yet every single time we’d lower a hopeful toe in, maybe, just maybe, this one’s heated. It never was. Then down to the little café in the park that we love, Café Jardines del Rosario, lunch, and the afternoon on the beach. A glorious day of sunshine and warmth, exactly what we’d all been waiting for.

Staying two nights in Seville before we head back to the Algarve.

This morning we went walking to find some breakfast, along the river Guadalquivir. There were lanes marked out on the water for rowers, Bear was inspired, and says he wants to try the sport sometime. Nely loved all the birdsong. Most of it was Monk Parakeets, bright green, noisy, everywhere. They’re not native: escaped pets that have bred into the thousands here, building enormous communal stick nests up in the palms. A flash of the tropics over a Spanish river.

Yesterday there was a bit of a misunderstanding about the pool. We booked this hotel specifically because it advertised a heated pool, and the kids had been desperate to swim. We arrived at 3pm, checked in, got changed straight away, and headed down, only to be turned away at 3.45. A new rule had come in on the Monday: children could only use the pool between 12 and 4pm, because the wellness hub was being hired by external guests and the sound of children playing might disturb the massages. We’d had no idea. To make it worse, we then managed to lock ourselves out of the room. So there we were, in our swimwear, trekking back to reception to explain, and to say how disappointed we were, since we’d have booked elsewhere had we known. The manager came to speak to us. She apologised, explained that everyone who’d booked before the rule change was meant to have been told, and we simply hadn’t been. She offered us free access to the pool, which was its own surprise, as we hadn’t realised guests normally had to pay to use it at all, so it didn’t feel like much of a gesture. She also said that if we’d rather leave, we could have a full refund. We went back up to think it over, did a bit of research, and decided we couldn’t face the hassle of moving. So at 12 we went down and used the pool. It was glorious. After two weeks of baltic, closed, unheated Spanish pools, this one was actually heated. The kids swam three hours solid, no break.

We went to Parque de María Luisa, and wow, it was beautiful. We were there to meet our potential landlord (a tricky woman), but once she’d left, we had a wonderful explore of the park. We hired a four-person bike: wobbly at first, perfect once we found our rhythm, and pedalled off into the maze of paths. The park has a lovely history. It was once part of the private gardens of the San Telmo Palace, until the Infanta María Luisa Fernanda donated the land to the city in 1893. Later, for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition, the whole area was redesigned and filled with grand buildings, many countries put up their own pavilions for the event, which is why you see so many different architectural styles around the park and the nearby plazas. We cycled past ponds with ducks and turtles, tiled benches, and those big, impressive pavilions. Down by the river we found the long row of tiled alcoves for the different provinces of Spain, simple, but brilliant for the kids to spot the places they recognised.

We found the Faraway Tree. Just like in the Enid Blyton stories, a great tall tree you half expect to have a different magical land waiting at the top each time you climb it. The kids were thrilled.

After our bike ride, we took an Uber to a small, intimate flamenco performance, fitting, since Seville is the spiritual home of flamenco. It was fierce and passionate, and the guitarist was insane. We were only allowed to film one particular part; the rest was even more intense. Then we walked through town to an Italian restaurant for pizza and bolognese. We got home at 10pm and the kids were absolutely wiped, and then, the second we were back in the hotel room, they found a whole new burst of energy. Every time. Does anyone else’s children do this?

When we got back to our room after the day’s adventures, we found a note. So this morning we had a five-star breakfast, the best hotel breakfast buffet of the trip so far. Turmeric and spirulina smoothies, omelettes, waffles, yoghurt with a hundred toppings, and so much more. We made sandwiches for the journey, too. Exactly what we needed to take the sour taste out of our mouths after the pool saga, I think they were rather afraid of another bad review.

On the way back to the Algarve, I needed a pee stop, and Hamish found the best possible place for one. Only a five-minute detour. So unexpected, and we were completely unprepared, but we couldn’t resist: we swam in our undies. The place is called Pego do Inferno, “Hell’s Pool”, a waterfall near Tavira that drops into a deep, emerald-green pool, fed by the Asseca stream. It earns the dramatic name from an old local legend: a horse and carriage is said to have plunged into the pool and was never recovered, divers, the story goes, could never find the bottom. After all the storm rain, it was running hard, which explained the current. Three times Hamish tried to swim to the waterfall, and three times he got close, but it was so powerful it just pushed him straight back to shore. Freezing cold, and utterly exhilarating.

Bear did another 5k run this morning, down to the beach. Still going.

We rejoined the worldschool hub today, and it was so good to see old faces again, and plenty of new ones too. We got a really warm welcome, which means a lot when you’re this far from your friends back in the UK. Bear ran straight to Freddie; the two of them grabbed a paddleboard and were off. Nely rekindled her friendship with Paige and made friends with another little girl as well, so she was thoroughly happy. So nice to meet everyone in the sunshine this time, not the rain.

Today was hike day, the Seven Hanging Valleys. Twelve kilometres. Five hours of climbing around the coastline, with epic views and beautiful beaches the whole way. It’s one of the most famous coastal walks in Europe, and you can see why: golden limestone cliffs carved into arches and pinnacles, hidden coves you can only reach by sea, and deep gorges where the streams just stop dead at the cliff edge above the Atlantic, the “hanging valleys” the trail is named for. We passed the great sinkhole roof of the Benagil Cave from above, and the Alfanzina lighthouse. Start: Praia da Marinha, often called one of the most beautiful beaches in Europe. The end: Carvoeiro.

Nely’s best friend, one of the dogs that live here at CasaTuia. She’s completely smitten. Wherever the dogs go, Nely follows.

Played at the beach. We stayed until sunset. Nely was glued to my side all day, until the last hour, when she finally went off and played with the group. I think she’s homesick. She finds the new friendships hard: every place we land, there are new children to meet, and I wonder if some part of her thinks what’s the point, if they’re only temporary anyway. But I’m learning that’s just how she’s made. Some people collect friends easily, a wide circle, lightly held. Nely isn’t like that, she wants a few, deep, forever friends. The kind you don’t have to start over with. There’s nothing wrong with that; if anything it’s the rarer, truer way to love people. It just makes this travelling life harder for her than for the rest of us. I hope she’s enjoying some of it. But I think, deep down, she’d much rather have a solid base. Somewhere that’s simply called home.

Bear is so close to the end, almost there with his charity miles for Surfers Against Sewage.

Had a nice chilled one at CasaTuia today. Sometimes those are the best days.

Bear completed his 47-mile run for Surfers Against Sewage. Forty-seven miles, one beach run at a time, all the way to the finish. We are so proud of him, and so is the ocean he did it for.

Hamish took the kids to golf so I could get some studying done. I’ve started a three-year course in German New Medicine. It grew out of our original dream, living on a boat and circumnavigating the world, far from any easily accessible medical care. If we were going to do that, I needed to know how to look after my family myself. A friend was studying it, told me about it, and it resonated with me straight away. It’s a contested field, I know that, but I’m strongly attuned to its principles, and I’ve seen them play out first-hand, with myself and with the kids. That’s what convinced me to commit properly rather than just dip a toe in. A quiet, useful afternoon, everyone happy in their own corner.

There’s something so tranquil about the beach in the evening. I love it.

We drove the half hour to the hub for a games night. We played Sequence again, still one of our favourites, while others were busy felting. Sequence is part board game, part card game. You’ve a board printed with playing cards, and a hand of cards to match; play a card, place a chip on the matching space, and race to line up five in a row, that’s your “sequence.” Jacks are wild, the two-eyed ones letting you place anywhere, the one-eyed ones letting you yank out an opponent’s chip. Quick to learn, easy with a big group, and just tactical enough to stay interesting. The kids love it.

We ate almonds straight from the trees on our way down to the beach. February is almond season here, and there’s a lovely Algarve legend behind all these trees. They say a Moorish king of the Al-Gharb married a princess from the cold north, and she pined for the snow of home. So he planted thousands of almond trees across the kingdom, and when they burst into white blossom each February, the hillsides looked snow-covered, and she was cured of her homesickness. After what I’d been writing about Nely, that one landed softly.

Lovely family time at Carvoeiro beach. We played bat and ball, a 9-rally with Bear, 21 with Hamish. Bear then spent hours in the sea with his spade and the waves, while Nely searched the sand for diamond rings, hoping to find one to show Grandad. Grandad is the family’s metal-detecting enthusiast, and the kids are fascinated by his finds. They’ll sometimes watch metal-detecting videos together, picking up the tips and tricks, but mostly marvelling at the magical treasure that can turn up buried in the sand. (Treasure that Grandad himself, it must be said, rarely actually unearths.) So Nely scouring the beach for a diamond ring to bring him was the sweetest thing. We had a delicious lunch at Earth Café, then went back to the beach for a siesta.

At 6pm we headed to the hub, where Laura had laid on a goodbye party for Randi, Percy and the twins, with homemade sushi, no less. Most of the kids were there, and they all played outside until dark. Goodbyes are part of this life, and they don’t get easier, especially for the children. But there’s something lovely about a send-off made by hand, everyone together one last time before another family moves on. I feel totally confident driving on the other side of the road now, even at night. A small thing, but it feels like a milestone.

A beautiful collection of photos from Praia de Carvoeiro.

We visited the Queda do Vigário, the “vicar’s fall”, a 24-metre waterfall tucked away near the inland village of Alte. You park by the village cemetery and head down a steep path and a flight of wooden steps to reach it, dropping into a lake at the bottom. It doesn’t always run; in dry years it slows to a trickle. But after the wettest winter Portugal’s had in thirty years, it was in full, thundering flow, we’d timed it perfectly.

Today we did an amazing 12k walk around the Ria Formosa Natural Park. The park is a vast maze of lagoons, sandbars and salt marsh running 60km along the coast from Faro to Tavira, one of the most important wetlands in Europe for birds. We had spotting sheets to help us identify the different species, and saw some turtles from a lookout hut. The kids were in their element: squelching through the mud flats, hunting for salt crystals, exploring every inch, always on the lookout for more turtles. There were meant to be flamingos here, Ria Formosa is famous for them, but we didn’t spot a single one. That’s reason enough to come back; I’d love to return with Helena’s family and hunt them down properly. At one point the trail led us to a dead end. A lot of the families gave up there and turned back for home, but we decided to push on and double back the long way round. It paid off: the beach we reached was absolute gold, and everyone who’d quit had missed it. I was so proud of the kids for choosing to carry on to the very end rather than give up. And the sunset that followed us back was serene, pulsing behind us to carry us home.

A quiet day in, reading my book, I finished it at midnight. The Moon Sister. I realised afterwards that it’s the fifth in a series called The Seven Sisters, and I’d started right in the middle! It didn’t seem to matter. I’d picked it up from a local café where you can swap books, and it caught my eye. Set in Scotland and Spain, two places that mean a great deal to me.

We walked down in the evening to watch the sunset. It’s such a beautiful one at Carvoeiro, our local beach.

Today I took the kids to the Piscinas Municipais de Lagoa, €4.50 for all three of us to swim! It’s the town pool over in Lagoa, on Largo Jacinto Correia: a proper little complex with a few pools, jets and fountains, an abundance of floats, plus a sauna, steam room and jacuzzi, and spotless. The kids swam for three hours straight. We met Laura and her family there and tag-teamed the sauna and steam room. Best of all, we could sit in the jacuzzi and watch the kids play. Such a great set-up, and ridiculous value. Afterwards we went to Adventure HQ for three hours: the kids in the playground while I tried felting. This butterfly is my first attempt, I’ve a long way to go, but I loved it.

Maths with sweets today, the best kind of lesson. Counting, sharing, adding and subtracting, all with a sweet reward at the end of each sum. Worldschooling at its finest: nobody minds the maths when there’s chocolate on the line.

Nely and her friend Bob.

For Rita and Marcel’s last day, they wanted to go to Aquashow, so off we went. It’s a waterpark near Quarteira that’s indoors in winter and outdoors in summer. In fact it’s the biggest waterpark in Portugal, and the indoor section (the first of its kind in the Iberian Peninsula) is heated, so you can ride the flumes year-round whatever the weather. We had so much fun on all the slides. Bear, as ever, was happiest in the pools, give that boy water and a place to splash and he needs nothing else. Nely worked her way through all the rides she was tall enough for, with me alongside her. Another goodbye, but a good way to send friends off.

This morning, bright and early, Bear and I volunteered at the Carvoeiro Cat Charity. It’s a proper sanctuary, the Quinta dos Gatos, over near Porches, founded back in 2013 by a German animal lover, Corinna, who started simply by keeping cat food in her car to feed the local strays. Word got round in cat circles, the numbers grew, and it’s now home to around 248 cats, living in purpose-built cat houses according to their needs and temperaments. They get through something like 60 bags of litter a week. The charity’s whole purpose is to rescue cats at risk and find them loving homes, and it also looks after feral colonies all around Carvoeiro. We cleaned and fed all 248! Just the morning feed was hard graft. Every volunteer here clearly adores the cats and works so, so hard, there’s a whole little community of them, from all over the world, but they’re always short of hands. We’re hoping to help again before we leave. And it’s not only cats: they’ve also taken in three horses, nine chickens and four dogs.

And here’s a snap I got of one of the rescue horses peeking in to say hello.

This afternoon, under clear blue skies at last, we went for a lovely walk along Algar Seco. It’s a stretch of weathered limestone cliffs just east of Carvoeiro, reached by a wooden boardwalk along the clifftop, a maze of tunnels, grottos and sea-carved rock that genuinely looks like another planet. The most famous spot is “A Boneca” (The Doll), a little cave where two eroded windows open straight out onto the Atlantic. The kids loved scrambling through it all, the orange cliffs and the blue sea and sky setting it off perfectly.

Purple skies at supper time. The day folds up. The plates go cold. The sky turns plum, then bruise, then gold. Forks down. We watch the colour climb. Purple skies at supper time.

Good morning from CasaTuia. It’s a lovely spot, with proper facilities, pools, loungers, the lot. But most of it had been packed away for the winter storms: furniture stacked, parasols down, everything battened against the wind. Now, though, you can see them slowly bringing it all back out, setting fresh chairs around the pool, one stack at a time. A small, hopeful sign that the season’s finally turning.

We spent the afternoon with the hub at Club Nau, the beach bar down on Praia Grande in Ferragudo, tucked below the old castle. It does “Magic Sundays”, live cover bands playing every Sunday afternoon, all year round, right on the sand. I’ve no pictures of the band, but the music was brilliant and we danced until sunset.

Yesterday we chilled at CasaTuia with board games and pottery. We taught Nely how to play Disney Colourbrain, a colour-memory game where you hold a hand of coloured cards and answer questions about Disney films by laying down the right colour from memory. What colour is the feather in Peter Pan’s hat? What colour are Olaf’s buttons? You’d be surprised how hard it is under pressure, and the kids, of course, are far better at it than the grown-ups. Then we all got stuck into a pottery kit I’d had for Christmas, a proper messy, absorbing afternoon. Everyone made something. Bear turned out a spoon, a pot, a fancy lid and a snowman. Nely made a cat, a basket and two little cups. I managed a bowl and a plate. Not a bad haul between us.

Today we met the hub at Algar Seco. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t feeling sociable. With just two days left with the hub, I think I’m already pulling away a little, bracing for the goodbye. I’d have rather had the place to myself. The kids, though, loved playing with the other children and being out in nature, and that, in the end, is what matters.

This morning we had a crochet lesson, and I left none the wiser. Our teacher was Holly: home-educated, fourteen years old, and already making and selling her own work and running workshops for pocket money. She was so patient with us all, though I’ll admit she basically made all our hearts for us. We learned the “magic ring,” the chain, and the double and triple stitch, which is frankly far too much to take in at once. It’s rather put me off learning any more. I think I’ll stick to felting. I’ll add better pictures of the hearts we made tomorrow.

After crochet, we drove up to Monchique, and wow, an utterly mesmerising view around every corner. We did a small hike along the Passadiços do Barranco do Demo, the “Devil’s Gorge” boardwalk: wooden steps dropping down into a ravine, across a suspension bridge over a mountain stream, to a waterfall at the bottom. And, I saw a frog! Far too fast to photograph, sadly, but I saw it. Nely got a splinter, which she eventually, bravely, let me remove. Then we climbed the steps to another glorious view, all cork oaks and eucalyptus, this is the green, mountainous Algarve, so different from the coast. We took some cork bark home, as Bear wants to make things from it.

After the boardwalk, we went to a pretty little place nestled among the thermal pools. The thermal pools were all private, nowhere for us to swim, but it was a beautiful walk, and we came across this lovely waterfall. Cold!

At 6pm we headed up to a pizza-party rave in the mountains. It was in the middle of nowhere, and a brilliant find. You pay €18 per person for a month’s membership (kids under 14 free), and that gets you all-you-can-eat pizza every Wednesday and Friday. It’s wonderfully community-focused: open-mic nights, DJ nights, basically eat and dance in the mountains. There were Easter crafts too, egg-painting for the kids. Nely was so shattered by then that we had to leave at 8pm, but we managed to get a proper boogie in, and the boys got a serious amount of pizza down them first. We’ll definitely be back.

Today we visited the Orchard of Flavours for a permaculture tour. It’s an extraordinary edible botanical garden near Tavira, said to be the first in Europe devoted entirely to food trees and climate resilience, with over five hundred edible species. We had a tour round the farm, tasting all sorts as we went, and finished by propagating a plant each to take home: the “toilet paper plant” (with big soft leaves you can genuinely use as loo roll) and the ice-cream bean, whose pods are filled with sweet, cotton-wool-soft pulp that really does taste like vanilla ice cream. It’s properly inspired me to get into gardening. The sheer variety we’ll be able to grow once we’re in Spain is so exciting.

After the farm, we went to a beach at Santa Luzia. It’s a stunning little fishing village, known as the “octopus capital” of the Algarve, with a white footbridge leading across to a long island of white sand at Praia do Barril. The most striking thing there is the anchor cemetery: over two hundred old anchors, lined up in rows across the dunes like gravestones. They tell a real story. For centuries this was a bluefin tuna fishing community, using an ancient trap method, a maze of nets, said to date back to the Phoenicians and Romans, that funnelled the migrating tuna into a central pen. It took hundreds of anchors to hold those nets against the Atlantic and the thrashing of the fish. When the tuna stocks collapsed in the 1960s and the fishery died, the villagers gathered the now-useless anchors and laid them out here, in 1964, as a memorial to a vanished way of life. Quite a haunting, beautiful thing to stand among. I had a lovely swim too, easily the hottest day we’ve had in Portugal so far.

Our besties arrived today! Once they’d settled in, we took them straight to the secret tunnel beach, the perfect introduction to our little corner of the Algarve.

We went back to Ria Formosa, this time with one mission: to finally find the flamingos. We walked for miles. And, still no flamingos! Not a single one. They remain our white whale. But it wasn’t a wasted day at all: the boys found more of those pure salt rocks they love, we spotted more turtles, and we covered a huge amount of ground in good company. Then the weather turned on us, and we had to head home before we could get to the beach, a real shame, but that’s the Algarve in March for you.

Back to Ferragudo beach on Sunday, playing around the rocks, soaking up the evening music, and watching the sun go down. We played a game of rounders with the kids, and I managed to smash the ball so far it disappeared into an enormous jungle of a bush. Yulia and I went in after it and, against all odds, fished it back out. Some places are worth returning to again and again, this is one of them.

A morning vinyasa flow to start the day. Helena and I used to go to Elizabeth’s yoga classes together every week back home, so this morning we tried to recreate one of Eli’s flows from memory, just the two of us, piecing the sequence back together as best we could. We filmed it and sent it to her, and she absolutely loved it. I just wish she’d been there on the mat with us.

A beautiful hike this afternoon along the coast between Galé and Albufeira. It’s one of the classic Algarve clifftop walks, following the golden, ochre-coloured cliffs as they rise and fall above the sea, past hidden coves and little beaches like Coelha and São Rafael. Wind-and-sea-sculpted sandstone, dramatic rock formations, and that endless blue Atlantic the whole way. This one was less about the distance covered and more about the journey: stopping to find treasure, climbing through tunnels made from rock, exploring the wildlife in the rock pools, eating sandwiches more sand than filling, and simply drinking in all the beauty the coastline had to offer.

Another epic trip to Algar Seco, hopefully our last, if I’m honest. We’ve been a lot. It gave me a bit of a realisation, actually. There’s a real pull to take people you love to the places you already know are wonderful, and there are benefits to that, knowing exactly where the best spots are. But I think it’s more fun to find and discover new places together. I watched their faces light up with wonder at the beauty of it, and I loved that, but I’d already had that first moment myself, so I didn’t get to share it with them. And that was a little gutting. I felt I’d let them down a bit, too. I’d built up the flamingos, promised them, really, and they never came good, staying stubbornly hidden. The weather didn’t help either: the week was mostly cold and cloudy. But none of that really mattered. We loved being with them, simply being together and making memories. I could drink in Helena’s company all day long.

Today we drove over to the wild west coast, to Aljezur, in search of octopus in the rock pools. This stretch of the Vicentine coast is known for its low-tide pools, where you can spot octopus, starfish and crabs tucked into the rocks, but you have to catch the tide just right, and sadly our timing was off, so no octopus this time. No matter: there was still plenty to climb, slide and play on among the rocks.

Today it rained all day. So we made the most of it: all-you-can-eat sushi at My Sushi in Lagos, then an indoor playground at Adventure HQ to burn off the kids’ energy, and finally back to CasaTuia for felting and carbonara.

We said goodbye to our friends today, after an incredible week exploring the Algarve together. Lifelong memories made. It feels very quiet here without them.

We said goodbye to some good friends we’d made at the hub, with an evening down at Ferragudo beach, live music, one last time together.

A Saturday well spent. We started at Loulé’s Mercado Municipal with Laura and her kids, a beautiful market housed in a striking 1908 neo-Arab building, all red cupolas and corner turrets, the great landmark of the town. Inside, family-run stalls overflow with fresh fish, fruit, vegetables, cheeses, sausages and local honey, while on Saturdays the market spills out into the surrounding streets with farmers and craft sellers. Best of all, at lunchtime the food court fills with live music, and you can’t help but join in. We danced between the fruit stalls and the tapas bars. Afterwards we headed to Quinta Fotoplanet, a small, rustic animal-rescue farm out near Albufeira. You book ahead, usually a quick message over WhatsApp, and it’s a lovely, intimate, small-group tour. You start by holding the parrots, and there are no rules about taking your own photos, so you can snap away as much as you like. Every single animal here has a beautiful story behind it: rescued, cared for, given a home. There are donkeys, sheep, pigs, dogs, reptiles and more. And at the very end, the grand finale, we all got to hold the snakes.

Our last night at CasaTuia. A quick, honest word on CasaTuia itself: I’d recommend it, but from May onwards. In March it was a little too quiet, too cold to use the pool, with more of the facilities closed than open, and the accommodation itself felt rather dark and dingy at this time of year. Come in late spring or summer and I imagine it’s a different place entirely. And a word on the hub itself: the more you throw yourself into it, the more you get back. I’d say it’s well worth being as involved as you can, and staying on-site in the condos really helps with that, putting you right in the thick of things rather than coming and going from outside. It’s hard to sum up our time here. We came for the worldschool hub and found so much more, a whole season of life lived at full tilt. There were ups and downs, as there always are: homesick days, the quiet ache of goodbyes, weather that swung from glorious sun to storms that kept us indoors and washed our plans away. But oh, the beauty we’ve seen. Golden cliffs and hidden coves, mountain gorges and salt marshes, flamingos we never quite caught and frogs we did. Anchor cemeteries and orchards of strange, wonderful fruit. And the people. The friends we’ve made here, at the hub and beyond, have woven themselves into us. Some we’ll keep for life. We arrived as strangers and we’re leaving with a whole little community held in our hearts. The Algarve has been so good to us. Onward now, but we’ll carry this place with us.

We’re staying just outside Lisbon now, in a town called Cascais, a super cute place with loads of history. It was once a humble fishing port, until the Portuguese royal family made it their summer retreat in the 1800s and the nobility followed; they call it “the Town of Kings and Fishermen.” We’re here for two nights and I’m excited to explore tomorrow. We’re at the Hotel Baia, right on the seafront, with a lovely view over the bay and the harbour from our balcony. They’ve a little library here too, so we borrowed a few books to dip into. We arrived at 2pm to a glorious 23 degrees, so the kids went straight to the pool, and I’m really enjoying my own book, The Flight Girls. It follows a young American pilot who joins the WASP, the real women’s flying programme of the Second World War, ferrying and testing military planes to free up the men for combat. It’s all fierce friendships, danger and a little wartime romance, a lovely tribute to a group of women history mostly forgot.

Out for a ramen evening. The food was honestly a bit disappointing, but we loved the decor!

After a lazy morning at the beach, Bear digging a hole like he was auditioning for a landscaping job, we wandered off to see what the rest of Cascais had in store. We followed the old castle walls in search of lunch. Somehow we ended up among these random little art exhibitions, including those concrete cars that look like they’ve been abandoned mid-thought. And then, completely by accident, we slipped into a gorgeous park, Parque Marechal Carmona, that instantly reminded me of the one in Seville: the same tucked-away magic, like you’ve stepped sideways into a quieter world. Laid out in the 1940s from old palace gardens, it’s all towering pines, eucalyptus and palms, with a little stream threading through it. There were chickens patrolling the paths, terrapins sunning themselves on the ponds, and peacocks doing their dramatic “notice me” routine, the noise they made! There’s even a small petting corner with goats and rabbits, and the kids could have stayed all day. Tiny bridges crossed over empty streams, and from the top of the well the views were spectacular. Cascais is one of those places I’ll definitely be recommending to people.

A Tesla charging stop on the long drive north. While the car topped up, we grabbed lunch, £2 soup and a £4 steak sandwich. Bargain.

We’ve arrived at our home for the next stretch: the Vale de São Torcato Hotel Rural, tucked into the green countryside near Guimarães, the little town that’s known as the birthplace of Portugal. It’s a real treat of a place. Beautifully designed, with art everywhere you look, gardens to wander, indoor and outdoor pools, a spa, even a little mini-golf course set among the trees. And on our first night, we had the entire place to ourselves, not another guest in sight, the whole rural hideaway just ours. That meant the pool was all ours too, set against the coolest graffiti-art backdrop, and the kids played in there for hours. After all those hours on the road, the green hush of the north feels like another country entirely after the sunbaked Algarve. We could happily settle in here for a while.

The hotel restaurant turned out to be one of the oddest meals we’ve had on this whole trip. We were the only guests, and the same friendly, panting, overweight fellow was waiter, barman and chef all at once. It seems the place is privately owned but has a deal to feed the hotel guests. He couldn’t have been kinder, but the dining room was souless: a huge screen blaring the news at full volume, war playing out across it while we tried to eat. Then it all went sideways. Bear started going downhill the moment his pizza arrived, he couldn’t eat a bite, and I had to carry him off to bed mid-meal. Nely gulped hers down and joined us. And then the real chaos began: Bear throwing up in the shower, Nely with diarrhea, vomit across the sheets, the floor, the bathroom. Absolute madness. So much for the magical hideaway.

Today we explored the little town of São Torcato on foot, a proper up-and-down affair, the streets pitching steeply one way then the other. Good for the legs, if nothing else. We made our way to the main square, dominated by the enormous Basílica de São Torcato, a vast, twin-towered church that took the best part of a century to build, far grander than you’d expect for such a small place. In the square we came across a row of old stone bread ovens. These communal ovens were once the heart of village life: rather than every family keeping their own, people shared big public ovens to bake their bread. They were often known as “fornos de poia”, the poia being the payment you handed over for using one, usually a loaf from your own batch, and they were frequently tended by the village’s women bakers. From there we wandered the streets, past a cemetery, all the way to Pastelaria Tentação, because no walk is complete without a pastry stop. We shared a couple of croissants and Hamish had a coffee, the whole lot coming to £1.50. You can’t argue with that. That evening, having learned our lesson, we grabbed a takeaway and brought it back to the hotel. Not risking that restaurant again.

We said goodbye to kitty and spent the morning at the Parque de São Torcato while Hamish finished up some work. It’s a lovely spot, an artificial lake ringed with walking paths, where we floated the little red boat across the water and let the kids run off some energy. Then it was time to point the car east. Six-hour drive to Burgos today, our first proper push into Spain.

Our first stop was at a Tesla charger attached to a hotel, with an entire adventure park, Pena Aventura, sitting right beside it. Talk about a happy accident. Set right on the edge of the Alvão Natural Park, this place is a proper adrenaline playground, it’s home to the Fantasticable, one of the longest, fastest ziplines around, where you fly belly-down over the valley at up to 130km/h. We didn’t have time for that (next time!), but we did spot the Alpine Coaster, and that was all the invitation the kids needed. We had 30 minutes to stretch our legs. So naturally we went to “check out” the park and somehow ended up strapped into a toboggan-style car, hurtling down the mountainside through curves and horizontal loops, the kind of ride where you control your own brakes, which of course meant we didn’t touch them. Shrieks of laughter the whole way down, green forest blurring past, everyone grinning like loons at the bottom. And the Alpine Coaster is just the start of it. The park is packed with things to do, the Fantasticable zipline, tree-top adventure courses, canyoning in the rivers, a freefall “negative jump,” paintball, mini-golf, even pony rides and a whole kids’ area. You could easily spend a full day here, not just 30 minutes between charges. So much for stretching the legs. Best charger stop yet, and a brilliant, accidental welcome to Spain. If you’re ever driving through this part of the world, I can’t recommend it enough.

It felt good to be back in Spain, even just passing through, but our time on the continent was coming to an end. This morning we made our way to Bilbao to catch the ferry home. Five degrees and rainy. A proper reminder of what we were sailing back towards.

The ferry from Bilbao to Portsmouth, an overnight cruise across the Bay of Biscay with Brittany Ferries, the same long crossing we’d done before, just in the other direction. We had a cabin again, which makes all the difference with the kids. The sea was a touch rockier this time, and the boat felt busier than our outward trip. We sat for a while with a woman who swore she’d spotted a dolphin, we watched and watched but never saw it. It wasn’t the most memorable leg of the journey, if I’m honest. Sometimes a crossing is just a means to an end.

We made it to Mum’s at 7:30pm, to a cosy fire and lovely homemade food. After weeks of sun, sand and Spanish hill-towns, there’s nothing quite like walking through your mum’s door. We’re sleeping up in Mum’s loft while we’re back in the UK. Home, of a sort.

We’re back in the UK for 10 days and trying to see as many people as we can while we’re here. Today we took the train from Wool to visit Helena and Yuki and their kids. We enjoyed felting on the journey whilst enjoying the Dorset landscape outside. Helena picked us up from Bournemouth train station and we spent the whole day at hers. After lunch we took the kids to Slades Farm and did more felting on the hill, which we introduced to Yuki, while the kids tore about. The girls rollerbladed and the boys scooted and biked. Just lovely to sit and chat properly. And the daffodils! I was so sure I’d missed them all while we were away, but there they still were. So spring-like, with blossom everywhere too. So nice to still catch it all.

The kids had ONE request when they knew we were coming back to the UK, Nick’s Farm! They’d been doing home education sessions there for six months before we left, so they’re very attached to the place. So while I went off to a hospital appointment, Helena took the whole gang. (This appointment was a big one for me, I’ve been waiting since November 2024 for a rhinoplasty, so finally getting seen felt like a milestone.) It’s a little family-run petting farm just outside Bournemouth, and honestly such a lovely place. It was started for Nick, the owner’s brother, who’s autistic, the farm was somewhere he could enjoy, and they opened it up so other families could too. There’s a proper cuddle corner where the kids get to hold rabbits and guinea pigs, plus pigs, goats, sheep, ponies, alpacas, peacocks, the lot. Apparently there’s even a sheep called Larry who thinks he’s a dog! The kids had the best time. So good of Helena to take them while I was tied up.

Lovely day at the Walled Garden in Moreton with my friend Cath and her little one, Alfie. It’s such a pretty spot, five acres of restored formal gardens down by the River Frome, with sculptures dotted about, an animal area, a play park and a proper café for tea and cake. Just what you want for an easy catch-up while the kids run around. So good to see Cath.

Today we split up! Bear went off to Helena’s for the day and had the best time, baking, decorating Easter eggs with shaving foam and dye (messy but so effective!), and about a hundred chess matches with Jonah.

Meanwhile Nely and I met Zoe and Lily and their kids, Lucah, Louise and Mia, at All Fired Up to paint ceramics. So nice and calm, everyone just picking colours and chatting. After, we went into the gardens and the kids found a false widow spider! They were VERY excited about it. Everyone calls them poisonous but they’re actually just mildly venomous, a bite’s about as bad as a wasp sting. Still, a good find for a bunch of thrilled kids. Dorset’s full of them apparently.

Went for a long walk with Mum today. We picked some hawthorn to bring home and hang our Easter decorations on, a proper spring branch, all fresh green leaves. Simple and lovely.

Easter Day! We went for a long walk, came home to a proper roast dinner, and Bear built an elaborate Easter egg rolling circuit for the eggs to survive, ramps, obstacles, the lot. A brilliant, simple family day.

Easter Monday, and we headed to Poundbury for their egg rolling event on The Great Field, a free do, hosted by the town mayor, and packed with families. The idea is simple: bring your own decorated hard-boiled egg (no glitter allowed!), then roll it down the freshly mown slope to see whose goes furthest. There were prizes for both the best-decorated and the furthest-rolled, split by age group, so the kids were in with a real chance. Loads of other little Easter activities dotted about too. Such good, simple fun, watching everyone’s eggs bump and tumble down the hill, half of them cracking to bits on the way. Very English, very Easter.

Then over to Kingston Maurward for their Easter egg quest, “The Great Dragon Egg Quest.” You follow a map around the grounds hunting ten hidden dragon eggs and solving clues along the way. We met up with Helena’s family and with Laura and Quintin, so it was a proper group outing. The kids LOVED it. There’s an animal park too, so we said hello to the goats and pigs while we were there. A proper Easter adventure.

Beach day with Alice’s lovely family. Alice is one of my oldest friends, we met at our NCT antenatal group in Peckham ten years ago when I was pregnant with Bear, and we’ve been close ever since. Funny to think our babies are now big kids running about on the sand together. Just what a UK spring day should be, sandy, salty and full of good company.

We had a few hours at Helena’s, proper free-range play. The boys were busy rigging up ziplines and climbing trees, while the girls made their own paint from crushed flowers and scrambled up onto the Wendy house roof. The kind of afternoon where you barely see them. We also swung by some friends’ house on the way to meet their brand new baby! Always something special about a newborn.

Packing day! Time to sort everything out and get ready to head off again. Rare for the UK, but we haven’t had a single drop of rain in our whole 11-day visit, mild and sunny the entire time! Couldn’t have asked for a better run of weather back home.

Last meal with Mum and Dad before we head off again. Always a funny mix of feelings, sad to say goodbye, but excited for what’s next. So grateful for these slow days at home with them.

Travel day! Wheels up and off on our biggest journey yet. The kids are old hands at this now, snacks sorted, games packed, and away we go. A long one ahead, but that’s half the adventure.

We made it! UK to Bali, with a stop in Delhi along the way, a proper marathon of a journey, but so worth it. We’re staying in Tampaksiring, up in Bali’s green middle, about 40 minutes north of Ubud. It’s the island’s cultural heartland, rice terraces, coffee plantations and ancient temples all around. A whole world away from Dorset daffodils. Tumbled into our Airbnb, completely shattered but buzzing to be here. Bali, we’re ready for you!

A proper settle-in day after all that travelling. We didn’t do much, and that was exactly the point! Time to unpack, find our feet, and let the jet lag ease off. The kids made a beeline for the pool, of course, and that pretty much sorted them out. Sun, water, a slower pace. So nice to just be here and let Bali start to feel like home.

After sleeping so well last night, with a bit of help, we all felt much fresher today. We decided to stay local and keep it simple, and found a café with a pool right in the middle of the rice fields. The views are just beautiful, green terraces stretching off in every direction. We could have sat there all day. The kids swam while we soaked up the scenery. This is exactly the Bali we came for. And Nely, our little creature-hunter, was in her element. She found a giant African land snail (Lissachatina fulica, and properly giant, the shell was huge!) and a yellow-spotted millipede, most likely Asiomorpha coarctata, a common Southeast Asian one. Both completely harmless. She could happily spend a whole day just turning over leaves to see who’s underneath.

A full day of sightseeing. From atlas moths to hat thievery. Ketut was the driver who’d collected us from the airport when we first arrived, and we’d liked him so much that we called him up to be our driver for the whole day. It felt good to support someone local directly. In hindsight though, it worked out about four times the cost of just using the apps. Out here everyone uses Gojek and Grab, the Southeast Asian version of Uber. You order a car on your phone, see the price upfront, and a short hop between attractions is only a pound or two. You can order a scooter through the apps too, which is cheaper still, more like 50p a ride. Hiring Ketut to wait for us between each place was lovely in principle, but I felt uncomfortable knowing he was sat waiting around for hours, and honestly I’m not sure I’d do it that way again. Ketut was wonderful company though. He told us how he’d driven taxis for years, then lost all that work when Covid hit and ended up labouring in the rice paddies to get by. In the same breath he told us his wife had left him during those hard years for someone with more money, and had even left their young son with him, so he’s raising the boy alone now. What struck me most wasn’t the story itself but how easily and openly he shared it, this huge, painful thing, offered up to strangers in a car like he was telling us about the weather. It’s one of those little moments that makes you notice how differently people carry things from one culture to the next. Or maybe it’s just Ketut. Either way, I liked him enormously. First stop, Kemenuh Butterfly Park. So many butterflies, all colours and sizes, drifting about and landing on us. The kids were transfixed and I took approximately one million photos. The best bit was the hatching area, where they breed the butterflies and moths to help stop them dying out. The cocoons hung in rows, some of them shimmering an incredible iridescent green, like little jewels. The man looking after it all was so passionate, you could have listened to him for hours. He let Nely hold a giant atlas moth, one of the biggest moths in the world, with a wingspan the size of a dinner plate. He told us the most extraordinary thing about them: the adult moths have no mouth. They never eat. They live for only a week or two on the fat reserves they built up as a caterpillar, just long enough to find a mate and lay eggs, and then they are gone. All that beauty for such a fleeting little life. Nely was spellbound, and so was I. Then the famous Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud, home to well over a thousand cheeky long-tailed macaques among the old mossy temples. I was very wary of them, I know they can be unpredictable, having been bitten by one in Thailand just for walking past it. And unfortunately we did have an incident. It was a proper team effort by the monkeys. One distracted Bear by swiping at his feet, while another snatched the hat clean off his head and took off with it. Then a third leapt onto Hamish’s head so he couldn’t give chase, and they passed the hat between them through the trees like the world’s cheekiest relay team. I yelled for a guard, and what followed was a full-scale operation. Guards with walkie-talkies tracked the hat through the canopy, using slingshots to try to startle the monkeys into dropping it, while a whole crowd gathered to watch the drama unfold. Then, out of nowhere, a guard appeared holding Bear’s hat aloft, victorious. I was so impressed and grateful they got it back! We pretty much left after that. We aren’t the biggest monkey fans, and I’d honestly rather just leave them to their wild habitat. And finally, lunch at Merlin’s. This was something else entirely, honestly one of the most magical meals we have ever had. The whole concept is that the food chooses you. Instead of ordering, you draw tarot cards and they read them to decide your courses, weaving in numerology as they go. Your meal literally arrives based on the cards you pull. The dishes came out under little smoke-filled boxes, and when they lifted the lid there were tiny gifts hidden inside for each of us. The owner came over and sat with us for ages, talking all about numerology. He told Nely she was a special soul, that she is going to do big things, that she needs protecting, and that she will bring a lot of change for people in need. Whatever you make of that sort of thing, it was a magical moment, and Nely glowed. Best of all, the kids were taken into the chef’s kitchen to make their own desserts. The whole thing was so immersive, part meal, part theatre, part magic show. A big, full, happy Bali day.

The kids found a stray kitten near the villa. Hamish had spotted them earlier and reckons there are about ten of them! Nely, of course, was in heaven. You can guess who wanted to keep them all.

The kids started at Wood School Bali today. The grounds are incredible, a huge shared courtyard ringed by open-sided classrooms with tapestries for walls and doors. Beautiful, but a world away from anything they’ve known. It’s exactly the kind of place we hoped to find out here. Wood School is one of Bali’s first proper worldschooling hub schools, running since 2013, and it’s built to welcome travelling families like us for short stays. The whole ethos is Neohumanist, which in plain terms means universal kindness and a sense that people, animals, nature and everything else are all connected, all one family. It’s nature-based and outdoor-first, with the learning done through hands-on projects rather than sitting at desks. Days open and close with a shared circle, classes are small and mixed-age, and there’s a big emphasis on gardening, cooking, caring for living things and doing good for its own sake rather than for grades. Right up our street, in theory. They were nervous, and both found it really tough. There were moments when each of them wanted to go home. There is a café on site though, so for the first few days we stayed at the school while they settled in. We could see everything going on from there, and the kids could come over to us any time they felt uneasy, which made a huge difference. I think Bear especially is struggling with knowing what’s expected of him. He tends to complain when things feel hard, which isn’t always easy to listen to, but I suspect it’s just his way of making sense of it all. Early days. We’ll see how they settle.

Day two went a little better. Nely hasn’t made a friend yet, but she seemed happy enough pottering about on her own. There are only 5 boys in her class, so I think a little girl to pair up with would make all the difference. Bear is finding the disorganisation hard. He told me they’d made a plan to go to the market to buy ingredients for smoothies, then got to the market and didn’t buy anything. That sort of thing really frustrates him. He likes to know the plan and for the plan to happen. At break I watched him literally kicking dust in the playground, hanging back and watching the other boys play, desperate to join in but not sure how to make the first move. Heartbreaking to see, that gap between wanting to belong and knowing how. But by the end of the day, he’d got in with their game. The school makes its own lollipops from pure fruit, and the kids had been collecting the used sticks all week to make little boomerangs. One boy shared his stash with Bear, and then they went rummaging through the gardens for more (the sticks double as signposts marking the different crops). Soon they were off playing boomerang games, seeing whose would fly apart first. Clever little things, built with no glue at all, just the sticks layered together a certain way so the tension holds them. Watching him finally in the thick of it, I could have cried.

Look at these coconut crepes! Bali really knows what it’s doing with food. And Nely made a new friend, a little house gecko that wouldn’t leave her side all evening. It was unbelievably tame, quite happy sitting in the warmth of her hand. She mothered it completely, even brought it along to dinner with us, and only let it go at bedtime. These little creatures give Nely such a sense of purpose, love and belonging. Caring for them is honestly her top priority in life right now, and it’s lovely to watch.

Yesterday we dropped the kids at school and took ourselves off to a local café for a yummy breakfast and a bit of work. So civilised. When we came back, Bear had missed us, but Nely hadn’t really noticed we’d gone! This term’s whole project theme is “Street Dogs and Community Coexistence,” which feels very Bali. The classes kicked it off with a visit from the education officers at BAWA, the Bali Animal Welfare Association, learning about how dogs feel, what they need as living creatures, and how to care for them properly and respectfully. That’s what all the fundraising is in aid of. On Fridays school finishes at 2, and parents are invited to join a shared closing circle. Bear’s class and Year 6 had been baking sugar-free date cake and apple and chocolate muffins to sell for the dog charity. They’d set up a little stall and were busy persuading every parent in sight to buy. 15,000 rupiah a slice, about 60p. Hard to say no to that sales pitch. It’s such a chilled atmosphere. The kids stay on playing in the grounds afterwards, and there was a tug of war going on with the parents, and sack races too. I’m really proud of the kids for turning up and carrying on, even after wanting to go home on day one. It wasn’t an easy start, but showing them it’s ok to work through the fear and the discomfort, and that it does get easier, feels like the whole point of what we’re doing.

Nely fell asleep on me today while we were out in the garden looking at a praying mantis. One minute she was studying it, the next she was flat out in my arms. These are the moments.

In the evening we headed north of Ubud for a tour around a traditional Balinese village, visiting some of the families and eating local food. The thing that struck me most was how a family’s land is laid out. Rather than one house, it’s a collection of separate buildings, each with its own purpose. One for the grandparents, one for the family, a separate living space, three temples, and an area just for ceremonies. The detail in the carving everywhere is incredible, and apparently the more the owner enjoys the work, the more elaborate it gets. We asked how they decide who does which job, the cooking, building, gardening, fixing, and the owner said whoever is drawn to it does it. He wouldn’t even call it a job. I loved that. There’s something quietly brilliant about a system where the work just sorts itself out by who genuinely wants to do it.

We ended the tour with the most magical sight: fireflies. The photos really don’t do them justice. We went out to the pitch-black rice paddies, and at about 7.30pm they started flashing and rising all around us. Our guide, Tonic, explained how it works. The females stay low to the ground while the males rise up looking for a partner. He told us the males have one glowing stripe and the females two, and that when a pair likes the look of each other, they sync up their flashing. He even caught a few in a jar so we could see them up close, and by the end Nely was gleefully catching them all herself. It was truly one of those things I’ll never forget. Nature at its most spectacular. It reminded me of the glow worm caves back in New Zealand, I remember being completely blown away by those too.

A chilled day at Kelapa Muda pool, apparently a spot other worldschooling families use too. Funny thing was, I couldn’t tell who was who, tourists, locals, worldschoolers, and nobody introduced themselves, so we didn’t actually connect with anyone! Never mind. We had a lovely time just as a family. They put the foam blaster on at one point, which Nely absolutely loved. The pool has this odd lemony taste to it, no idea why. Last time we came, Bear reacted to the water with a rash all over his body, and the same thing happened again this time. It never happens in our own pool at home, so something in it doesn’t agree with him. He spent most of the day reading instead, which he’s more than happy to do right now. He’s deep into the Treehouse books by Andy Griffiths, we all recommend them.

I got to watch the whole-school morning circle today, and it was lovely. They go round the circle and greet every single child and teacher, looking each other in the eye, then say something kind to each person. After that, they wash their hands together in a bowl of orange blossom water in the middle of the circle. What a way to start the school day. Imagine if every school opened like that.

This beautiful lady was out doing her morning ritual, making canang sari, the little daily offerings you see absolutely everywhere in Bali. I love how they’re lovingly made and laid out fresh every single day: to ward off bad spirits, thank the gods for a good harvest, make wishes for the future, but mostly just to give thanks for everything in their lives. Such a beautiful way to start the day. I went over and chatted to her to understand what’s what. Each element means something: The little biscuit or snack is a gift for the gods. The flowers each represent a god by colour and direction. White for Iswara, red for Brahma, yellow for Mahadeva, and blue or green for Vishnu. The rice gives thanks for a good harvest. The holy water is for protection and purifying the offering. The incense carries the prayers up to the divine. For them, it’s as essential as eating or sleeping. There’s something I find really grounding about that, a small, deliberate act of gratitude woven into every single day.

Hamish and I treated ourselves to a week’s pass to Titi Batu, a club near us, and honestly, it felt like the height of luxury. It has a gym, a full timetable of classes, a huge pool for swimming lengths, plus lazy pools for lounging, a steam room, sauna and ice bath. There’s a whole kids’ area too: a children’s pool with jumping platforms, a basketball court, a skate park, and pool and ping pong tables. And a big café and co-working space, which is exactly what we need. So we did a workout together, swam some lengths, then settled in to work. With the kids at after-school club, we had until 4pm to ourselves. Bliss.

Nely climbed all the way through the jungle to the wall today, just to see what was on the other side. That’s Nely all over. Always has to know what’s round the next corner.

After school today the kids did a jewellery-making class. When we picked them up, they hid their hands behind their backs and then revealed these little earrings they’d made for me. I was so touched. Honestly, these are the gifts that get you.

Did my first class at Titi Batu today! It was very, very hard and sweaty, and I probably won’t be able to walk tomorrow, but I feel great. There’s nothing like that wrung-out, glowing feeling after a proper workout. Then a LAN party in the afternoon with my lover. Bliss.

Yummy breakfast, then my first yoga class in Bali. It was good, but it made me a little sad, if I’m honest. I really miss my yoga teacher back home, her classes were the best, and I miss doing them alongside Helena, who I miss so much too. Then, right on cue at school pick-up time, the most almighty thunderstorm rolled in. We got absolutely soaked collecting the kids. Drowned rats, all of us, laughing the whole way home.

A little glimpse of what Bear gets up to at Wood School. It’s such a different world from a normal classroom, all outdoors, hands-on and busy. Lovely to see him settling in and finding his feet after that tricky first week.

This morning we grabbed a protein smoothie from a café across from the gym club, met a very soft dog who wanted all the fuss, and admired the water apple tree (a new one on me, it fruits these little bell-shaped apples). Then, after a gentle workout, we had our first Bali massage. One hour of deep tissue for £6.50. Six pounds fifty! I could get very used to this.

We collected the kids from school to find another bake sale in full swing, raising more money for the dog charities. They really are throwing themselves into this cause, and who can argue with cake for a good reason.

Then out into Ubud town for some Greek food. Not the first cuisine you’d expect to crave in Bali, but sometimes you just want what you want, and it hit the spot perfectly.

We’re actually pretty happy to be saying goodbye to the gym club! It’s been useful, but we’ve realised we’re just not that gym couple. We’re taking the kids on Sunday since they haven’t been yet, and then that’s us done. Worth a try, but lesson learned.

The kids opened up their garden plot at school today. It had been closed all through the rainy season, basically a swamp, but now it’s theirs again. They’ve planted tomatoes, pok choy, cucumbers and aubergines. With only three days of school left, I asked them how they’re feeling about it ending, and they’re both genuinely sad. They’ve loved it here. Lovely to hear, and a little bittersweet, given how tough that very first day was.

We left the house early and headed to the see-through bridge, the Bali Glass Bridge in Sukawati. It’s the longest glass-bottomed bridge in Southeast Asia, 188 metres of glass strung 66 metres up over the Petanu River gorge. It’s a real thrill, and quite a big deal for Bear, who is scared of heights. He took his time and crossed the whole thing holding Hamish’s hand, so brave. Nely was fine with the height, but did not appreciate the gimmicky bit in the middle where the glass “cracks” and shatters under your feet with a sound effect. Cruel, really! At the far side there’s a giant rainbow slide, so of course we all whizzed down that, a proper burst of colour and fun after the nerves of the bridge. Then we treated ourselves to Omma Day Club. We spent an absolute fortune, but oh, the views. The infinity pool looks straight out over Tegenungan Waterfall, this mighty cascade crashing down into the gorge. Where we were sitting there was a second, smaller waterfall too, which Bear happily climbed, and we spotted an enormous monitor lizard just going about its day. Money gone, but what a spot.

Our last day at Titi Batu, and we’d saved the best for it. Sundays are their “Sunday Funday”, when the club is basically taken over by the kids. The family pool becomes a foam party, and the kids can swim through the foam and leap off the jumping bridge into big foam mounds. There’s a bouncy castle too, and a different activity on each week. The kids were in their element. Me and Bear got into Skyjo while we were there. It’s a little card game where you’re trying to end up with the lowest score, flipping and swapping numbered cards, and if you line up matching ones in a column they cancel out to zero. Quick to pick up and good fun. Bear loved it.

Started the day with a dragonfruit smoothie bowl. That colour! A bright magenta pink that almost looks made up. Delicious, and a very good way to start a Monday.

Brunch at Seniman Coffee Studio in Ubud, and we absolutely LOVED it. It’s a proper coffee laboratory, they roast their own beans on site and brew them every way you can think of. The best bit though: the chairs. They’ve taken ordinary plastic chairs and turned them into rocking chairs, all reclaimed teak underneath. They call it the “Bar Roker” and it’s their own design. So comfy and clever that we tried to buy just the rocker part to take home. Turns out you can’t, they only sell them attached to the plastic chair, as one whole piece. Fair enough. We rocked away happily instead.

And so the kids’ last week at Wood School begins. Funny to think how nervous they were on that very first day, and now they don’t want it to end. They’ve come such a long way in a few short weeks.

Bear made a necklace at jewellery club today. He was really proud of it, and so he should be. Lovely to see him getting stuck into the clubs now, a far cry from the boy kicking dust in the playground two weeks ago.

A huge thunderstorm rolled in this evening, so we did what you do here, pulled up a seat and watched it. The rain comes down like nothing back home, and the whole sky lights up. The kids were transfixed.

We loved the food, the coffee and those chairs so much that we went straight back to Seniman to work from there again. And this time I remembered to get a photo of the chair!

The kids said goodbye to their teachers today, their lovely Ibu Santy and Ibu Rena. Hard goodbyes after such a special few weeks. They’ve been so nurtured here, and it’s these people who made it what it was. The other children made goodbye cards for Bear and Nely, filled with little notes and well wishes. So, so sweet. We’ll be keeping those.

I have never in my life experienced a storm like the one we had last night. Truly terrifying. One enormous storm rolled in and just parked itself directly above us, and it stayed there from 11pm until 2am. Three solid hours. There was no sleeping through this. The thunder didn’t rumble in the distance the way it does back home, it detonated right over our heads, each crack so loud and so close it felt like it was inside the room. The lightning lit the whole sky white, again and again. And the ground. The ground actually shook underneath us. Our little shack trembled and shuddered with every strike, like the earth itself was moving beneath our beds. I lay there genuinely frightened, heart pounding, just willing it to pass. We checked on the kids every hour. Nely slept through nearly all of it, only stirring for the one loudest, most violent strike, then went straight back off. Bear was awake for most of it but found the whole thing quite exciting. Between the storms, the sky just opened and poured, drowning out even the frogs and jungle animals that usually fill the night. Total sensory overload. A night none of us will forget in a hurry.

We left Ubud at 10am and headed for the coast, to Sanur. Our villa wasn’t ready when we arrived, so we dropped our bags and went to watch some theatre at ICON Bali, the big beachfront cultural spot here, which has its own open-air amphitheatre right by the sea. What we saw was Balinese storytelling told through dance, that gorgeous dance-drama style where a whole troupe act out an old legend through movement, elaborate gold costumes and live gamelan music, no spoken words at all. These shows usually retell the great Balinese and Hindu myths, all gods and goddesses and battles between good and evil. The kids were mesmerised, and it was a lovely, unexpected way to land in a brand new place.

We went to the beach today and were genuinely shocked by the amount of rubbish all over it. It was such an unpleasant experience that we won’t be going back. Fingers crossed we can find a cleaner one. They do seem to have a real problem with rubbish disposal here. I watched them burying piles of it, seaweed and litter together, straight into the sand, only for the tide to bring it all back up again. I couldn’t quite believe it. I read up on it afterwards, and it turns out this is a genuine crisis, not just a bad day at one beach. Bali produces something like 3,400 tonnes of rubbish a day, and only around a sixth of the plastic is recyclable. The island’s main landfill, Suwung, near Denpasar, has been running for over forty years and has hit capacity, so a lot of waste now ends up burned or dumped illegally. And a big part of what washes up on the beaches during the rainy season isn’t even from Bali, the ocean currents carry it over from other Indonesian islands like Java, then the monsoon winds dump it back on the shore in great waves. The government has started trying to tackle it, banning some single-use plastics and talking about being waste-free by 2027. But from what I read, plenty of people feel the rules came in faster than the actual bins, trucks and recycling plants needed to make them work, so families are left with nowhere proper to put their rubbish and end up burning or burying it. Even Indonesia’s president has spoken up about how bad it’s got. I’m no expert and I’m only passing through, but you don’t need to be either to see that these beautiful people and this beautiful island deserve better than this. It will put tourists off eventually, but far more importantly, it can’t be doing their ecosystem any good.

We are obsessed with Triominos. It’s like dominoes but with triangles, and you match the numbers on each side. Simple idea, but it’s got its hooks in all of us.

Nely has gone a bit frog mad. She’s found frogs around the new place and is completely smitten, watching them, following them, telling us everything about them. After the snails, the geckos and the fireflies, the frogs are her latest love. My girlie and her creatures.

We’ve found our breakfast spot in Sanur: a little place called Mushroom Espresso. We love it here. It’s a family-owned business that started as a tiny coffee shack over on Nusa Lembongan and has since grown to a handful of spots around Bali. The coffee is excellent, the food is simple and good, and the whole place has this warm, colourful, laid-back feel. Best of all, they keep games and books out for the kids. I really appreciate it when a café does that. It means Hamish and I actually get to sit and enjoy our coffee while the kids happily occupy themselves. Little things like that make somewhere become “our” place very quickly.

Took the kids for a foot massage today, and it was the quietest they have ever been! Blissful silence, all of us in a row. They loved it so much they keep asking to go back. And it was £3 each. Three pounds! This place really is something.

Nely was so excited to get home to her frog pet. First thing she did was rush off to check on it. My girl and her creatures, honestly.

We went to meet the worldschooling hub we’re joining here in Sanur, Wild Hearts Collective, Bali Edition. We got there a bit early so the kids could play on the beach first, and we saw turtles! A brilliant start. For anyone curious how it works, it’s a three-week, community-based programme for travelling families like ours. The kids are dropped off for a rhythm of shared learning, cultural immersion and plenty of play, which also gives us parents a bit of breathing room, some rest and, best of all, a ready-made community. The whole idea is to feel like a home away from home, a gathering of like-minded families who’ve chosen this alternative, intentional path. Their values are all about freedom, connection, growth, contribution and joy, learning through curiosity and community rather than competition. Right up our street. The families were all lovely, and most of them have done far more travelling than us, which was humbling and inspiring in equal measure. The kids all got on so well together straight away. We’re really looking forward to Monday.

I love that Bear has started bartering with the street vendors! He was buying some bangers for his friends last night and talked them down to 50% off. Very pleased with himself. His next mission is a particular kite he’s got his eye on. They sell them for 150,000 to 250,000 rupiah, and we’ve told him 100,000 is his budget. Watch this space and see if he pulls it off.

A lovely day at the beach and pool. The kids went rockpool fishing and found all sorts of creatures I’ve never seen before. I didn’t get many photos sadly, but between us we found: Starfish Brittlestars, which move like little snakes Sea cucumbers, honestly gross, just like phlegm Sea slugs Hermit crabs Pipefish, which look like seahorse heads on a snake And loads and loads of fish What a haul. The kids were in absolute heaven, and so was I.

We bumped into one of the hub families today, Cheryl and her twin girls. Nely really hit it off with them. Now the kids are even more excited for tomorrow.

A great first day at the Wild Hearts Collective hub! They learnt all about the offerings the Balinese people make, the canang sari we’ve been seeing everywhere. A lovely thing for the kids to understand rather than just walk past. They came home buzzing.

Day two at the hub, and they made natural playdough, learnt some Balinese phrases and had a go at counting. I love that they’re picking up little bits of the language. It makes such a difference to how you experience a place.

He did it! Bear got his boat kite, and bargained the seller down from 180,000 to 120,000 rupiah all by himself. So close to his 100,000 budget, and honestly we’re just proud he had the confidence to haggle. The negotiating streak continues.

Day three at the hub, and the kids visited a local artist’s gallery, such a lovely thing to expose them to. Meanwhile Hamish and I treated ourselves to these incredible smoothie bowls at Blend Cafe.

After the hub we headed to the beach. The boys tried to fly Bear’s new kite, but the string snapped almost straight away, so that needs replacing before we try again. Typical! Lenny from the hub and his parents joined us. His mum Kathi has been travelling the world for five years, and it was amazing to hear their stories, especially their time near the Gaza Strip. The kind of stories that make your eyes go wide. The kids collected hermit crabs to look at, then released them, and we all finished up at an Italian restaurant, Massimo, for ice cream. Four ice creams, two scoops each, came to £3.50 in total. Three pounds fifty!

Hamish reckons this was the best avocado on toast he’s ever had, at a lovely little café called Brother Goose. My chia bowl sadly wasn’t great, but never mind. The place is beautiful and quirky, and I loved that they bring you a little affirmation with your tea or coffee. Such a nice touch. It’s only a 7 minute walk from the kids’ hub, so I’d like to go back and try something else.

At the hub today the kids did traditional Balinese dancing, dressed up in the beautiful costumes and everything. I love that they’re not just learning about the culture but getting to step right into it. And here we are, all four of us squeezed onto one scooter! Very Bali. Don’t tell anyone back home.

A very stressful day, and one that was completely mis-sold to us. We booked onto a melukat through the cohort, a traditional Balinese water-purification ceremony at Pura Mengening. It’s a beautiful 11th-century water temple up in Tampaksiring, the quieter, more sacred sister to the famous Tirta Empul, where locals still come to stand under the holy spouts and wash away negativity. On paper, exactly the kind of thing we came to Bali for. It was meant to be a day of spiritual awakening, cleansing and purifying the mind. We were told it would be just us. One of the best experiences of our lives. A personal experience away from the tourist belt. It was none of those things. It was stress after stress. Where do I start. It was heaving, so busy there was nowhere to get changed and you could lose your group in seconds. It was disorganised from the off, people running late, the hosts included, so everyone was left standing around waiting. What was and wasn’t included was never made clear. The hosts had brought a guide who, bizarrely, didn’t speak Balinese and couldn’t answer a single question about the religion, the traditions or the temple. I genuinely couldn’t work out what she was there for. She was cold and unfriendly with us on top of it. The changing area and lockers were tiny, filthy and smelled of urine, and the locker keys didn’t even match the lockers. No one helped us with the sarongs. There’s a particular order to how the ceremony is meant to go, and the guidance for that was vague, badly explained and completely unsupported. Utter chaos. The temple pool itself had huge hidden rocks, so people were stumbling and falling, and it was too deep for the kids. There was a queue system to shuffle through. And through all of it the monks kept asking us for more money, convinced we hadn’t paid. The ritual itself is actually lovely when you understand it, and there’s a proper method to it. You move along a row of holy water spouts, and at each one you first pause to pray and set an intention. For us it went: pray, then wash your face five times, then wash and sip the water seven times, and finally put your head right under the spout for thirty seconds, letting it pour over you. Each spout washes away something different, negativity and bad energy, one at a time. Then you finish by going up to be blessed at the temple. And I’ll be honest, once we were finally in the water and doing the cleansing, we all really enjoyed it. There was some joy in there after all! But the last part, going up to be blessed at the temple after the water, was never explained to us at all, so Hamish and Nely missed out on it completely. Such a shame, and exactly the sort of thing a decent guide would have made sure everyone knew. For such a holy, spiritual activity, any hope of calm or serenity was swallowed whole by the chaos. A real shame, because the temple itself is genuinely special. We just picked the worst possible way to experience it. What upset me most was the way it was sold. They made out they had a local contact who would give us this special, authentic experience, something real and off the beaten track. Instead it was just another tourist tick-off, no different to any packaged day trip, dressed up as something it wasn’t. That’s the bit that stings. It’s such an important lesson in managing expectations. My motto has always been to undersell and over deliver, and today was the perfect reminder of why.

Nely loves strutting around in my sarong, it’s the cutest thing. Mine is far too long for her though, so we decided to go and get her one of her own. First, our usual stop at Mushroom for breakfast, and then on to ICON Bali to a shop called Krisna, a big souvenir store selling all sorts of traditional Balinese gifts, sarongs, batik, carvings, at nice fixed prices so there’s no haggling. While we were at ICON we stopped to watch the ballet show again, Nely loves it so much she couldn’t walk past without stopping. Afterwards we walked along the beachfront to Costa, which had a lovely play area for the kids and, more importantly, delicious food and sangria. Then home to play Triominos, again. We really can’t get enough of it.

I did my first yoga class in Sanur, Hatha yoga, and sadly I left feeling deflated. It was far too technical, every tiny movement corrected, a constant “No. That’s not right.” It felt like a strict teacher-and-pupil class at school. No introduction, no warmth, and not a single person gave me eye contact. Zero connection. Not what I’m looking for at all. I’ll keep searching.

A 25 minute scooter ride took us to Moonstone Beach Club, and what a find. So quiet, and the staff were so friendly. We stayed from 1 to 6pm and spent £35 in total for the cabana, pool, towels, food and drink. For all that, honestly incredible. Just as we settled on the beach, a pan drummer started up at the club, playing whistles and wind instruments too. The sound bellowed out across the sand for everyone to enjoy. Absolutely gorgeous. Afterwards we chilled on the beach to enjoy the black volcanic sand, and ended up sitting among all the locals. One friendly man chatted with us for a whole hour. He was fascinated by how we live, he couldn’t believe we don’t have a home, and he loved that we were learning about his culture. He invited us to visit his village and his temple, so we’ll go and see him again next week once we’ve moved house. We asked him why it’s always so busy with locals on Sundays. He explained that every Balinese leaves the house on a Sunday to go to the beach and meet their family, cousins, grandparents, all of them. Such an inspiring tradition, and exactly the kind of thing you only learn by sitting still long enough to listen.

A yummy breakfast at Rue, broccoli, kale, peas, feta and seeds on toast. Then, the slowest digger driver in all of Bali holding up the road! The afternoon was girly time with Nely. We played throw and catch, made up dances, did each other’s hair and pretend make-up (I have zero with me), and chatted about frogs, obviously. It’s lovely having this much time with the kids, without the usual endless tidying, cleaning, washing and cooking to get through. A few funny truths about this life right now. All our laundry is washed, dried and ironed for £3 every two weeks. Yes, every two weeks! The kitchens here are almost impossible to cook in, and it’s actually cheaper to eat out than to buy from the supermarket, so we do. There’s a great range of food and you can eat fairly healthily, though I do miss Hamish’s cooking, and my mum’s. The landlord pops in every couple of days to keep on top of pest control. And the kids have no toys, so there’s basically no tidying. Simplicity has its perks!

Started the day with a pastry, then had a proper origami and clay modelling afternoon at home. We popped into the local stationery shop and stocked up on loads of supplies. We’re all missing being crafty, so it was so nice to sit and make things together again.

Bear is absolutely loving learning Balinese. It melts my heart to see him so keen. He’s picking up words and phrases and using them out and about, and you can see how chuffed it makes him.

My friend Kathi from the hub introduced me to a Pilates class, and it was my first ever. Wow, it was brilliant! Such a fun, great workout, and exactly the kind of thing I’ve been hoping to find. The teacher was quite the character. He’s travelled all over the world and trained in New York, and for eleven years he worked with some huge names, the sort of celebrity client list you wouldn’t believe. But he realised his heart wasn’t in that world, missed home, and came back to teach in his local community instead. I loved that. He gave me a full, very physical assessment, then some manipulations, and then I joined his little class of three local Balinese people. A very cool experience. I’m going to squeeze in a few more before we move to Seminyak. Afterwards we had a lovely evening at Rue, which has quickly become one of our favourites. It’s an all-day place at the Maya resort, brilliant for families, with a little kids’ corner (claw machine and all) so the children are happily occupied. The pizzas come out of a lava stone oven and are so good, and on Tuesdays and Sundays they do 2 for 1 on them, which is right up our street. Tonight the boys had pizza, Nely got a free kids’ meal, and I had delicious cauliflower. There was beautiful live music too, the singer sounded just like Louis!

Look at the little creatures Nely made from air dry clay after our crafty afternoon: a squirrel, a snake, a worm and a paw print. She was so proud of them, and rightly so. She has such an eye for her beloved creatures, even when she’s making them rather than hunting for them.

We started with a bit of work at Byrd House, a lovely day club. Great spot for getting things done, though the food was fairly average, if I’m honest. Then we took the kids to AeroXSpace, a huge, space-themed indoor adventure park, and we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. It’s the biggest indoor park in Bali, with dozens of attractions: a 100 metre space coaster, launch pad slides, trampoline arenas, a climbing wall, a ropes course, an obstacle course, an air-cushioned sports arena for basketball and dodgeball, even a VR flying cinema. The kids were in absolute heaven. We spent five hours there and they still didn’t want to leave. Worth every rupiah.

Word reached us that my poor mum has broken her arm, and being her, she carried on and walked another five miles on it! Absolutely typical of her. Sending so much love home, and wishing I could be there to help her.

Moving day! First, a fond goodbye to our lovely little home here. It’s served us so well. The move itself was pure comedy. We hadn’t packed properly at all, just loads of loose bits stuffed into bags, along with a pile of un-deflated swim toys. Our poor taxi driver was not impressed, and honestly, who could blame him! We must have looked ridiculous.

More lovely things from the kids’ days at the hub. They learnt to weave the traditional Balinese palm-leaf decorations, the little offerings you see everywhere here. The Balinese make these from strips of young coconut and palm leaf, folding and pinning them into intricate trays and mats to hold their daily canang sari offerings, and to decorate their shrines, homes, even their bikes and cars. It’s such a beautiful, fiddly skill, and I love that the kids are learning to make them properly. They also had a go at some science experiments. I love seeing what they come home with, they’re always so proud to show us.

The hub organised a day trip to a place called The Big Garden Corner, and it was a brilliant day out. It’s a huge art-filled sculpture park just outside Sanur, dotted with over six hundred stone statues, including an enormous sleeping Buddha and a five metre replica of Borobudur temple. There’s a treehouse, shady seating under colourful umbrellas, and a couple of play areas and a water play area for the kids to burn off energy. The children had an absolute blast, and it was lovely doing it all together with the hub families.

One thing I really miss is having a big table to spread out and play board games on. There isn’t one here, so tonight we ended up playing Forest Shuffle sprawled across the bed! Not ideal, but we made it work, and it was worth it. Playing games together as a family is such a good thing. It gets everyone off screens, teaches the kids to take turns, win and lose gracefully, think ahead and problem solve, and it’s just proper quality time where we’re all laughing together. Bear is really into it now. We can’t quite entice Nely to sit still long enough yet, but we’ll get there!

We’ve been on the hunt for a tank. Nely desperately wants to raise tadpoles and watch them grow into frogs. The trouble is, it takes about 50 days for tadpoles to become frogs, and we’ve only got six weeks left here, so it’s cutting it fine. Plus we’ve got three random nights in a hotel in the middle of that, and somehow I doubt they’d let us check in with a tank of tadpoles! We’ll see if we can make it work for our little frog-lover.

A lovely day at Prama Beach Club with some of the hub families. The kids were in the water from 11 till 4, absolutely in their element. Shame the food was pretty rubbish, but you can’t have everything. Then, on the bike ride home, we caught the very start of the rain. Warm rain, baby! There’s nothing quite like it, being out in a downpour that’s actually warm. And then more rain, and more, once we got in. We’re at the tail end of the wet season now, and it’s going out with a proper flourish.

We’ve found the hub we’re going to join in June, once we move over towards Kuta. Exciting to have the next chapter lined up already, and lovely for the kids to know there are more new friends waiting for them.

One of the loveliest things about staying somewhere for a good while is that you start to notice the local rhythms. Two I’ve spotted here: on Saturdays, everyone seems to be out washing their cars and bikes, and on Sundays, the families all head to the beach together, cousins, grandparents, the lot. There’s something really grounding about a place that lives by these gentle weekly patterns.

Bear found this beautiful piece of red coral on the beach. He was so pleased with it, and it's going straight in with the treasures.

It's organ pipe coral, we think. Not actually a coral at all, but a soft octocoral that builds itself a hard limestone skeleton out of tiny vertical tubes, all joined together with little platforms, so a broken piece looks just like a set of miniature organ pipes. The red comes from pigments locked into the limestone as it grows. Sanur has a long coral ridge sitting just offshore with a shallow lagoon behind it, which is why bits like this keep washing up on the sand. It's the same coral that makes Pink Beach over on Komodo pink.

The kids played Indonesian tag at the hub today and then made puppet shows, writing the stories, making the puppets and performing them all themselves. They came home full of it.

This is our street, and our little home on it.

There's a dog a few doors along who we have only ever seen shut away. Never once loose, never out for a walk. Nely notices him every single time we pass, and it sits heavily with her. It sits heavily with me too. You want to open the gate and let him run.

Most dogs here are Bali dogs, one of the oldest breeds in the world, lean and short-haired with pointed ears and curled tails. Traditionally they roam free, and most aren't strays at all but community dogs, fed and named and looked after by the whole banjar, the local neighbourhood. Most are kept as guards. We still don't know this one's story.

We're all picking up a few words now, Bear most of all.

Selamat pagi — good morning Selamat sore — good afternoon Selamat malam — good evening Terima kasih — thank you Suksma — thank you, used in Bali only

Terima kasih is Indonesian, suksma is Balinese. Use suksma and you get a lovely smile back every time.

Pizza night at Rue with a few friends from the hub. It's become our Tuesday now: 2 for 1 on the lava stone pizzas, the kids' corner keeping them busy, and good company.

The children were very funny at dinner. Nely and Noah, the hub leader's son, put on a whole show for us, singing and dancing and playing air guitar with total conviction, oblivious to the rest of the restaurant.

Rue has quietly become our place. It's lovely having somewhere that feels like ours after all these months of moving.

After the hub we all went back to Alex's for a play date. She's one of the mums from the hub, mum to Arthur, Ada and Aela, and she lives here in Sanur properly, so she has all the home comforts and a house full of toys.

Her home is set up Montessori style and it is just stunning. Everything at the children's height, everything with its place. The kids had snacks, played for hours and were in and out of the pool, and we mums had dinner and a glass of wine and a proper chat.

That was the real treat, honestly. Mum time. I didn't want to leave.

A dragonfly on my curtain this morning, green and yellow and completely still. I think she was at the end of her life.

Which is a strange thing to say, because a dragonfly's life is almost all somewhere else. They spend the great bulk of it underwater as a nymph, a squat, wingless, fiercely predatory thing, hunting tadpoles and mosquito larvae in ponds and paddies. That stage can last months, and in some species years. Then one day the nymph climbs up a reed, its skin splits down the back, and out comes the dragonfly we recognise. The flying part, the beautiful part, is the very last chapter, and it only lasts a few weeks.

Here they're called capung. Balinese children used to catch them in the rice paddies by dipping a bamboo stick in the sticky sap of a jackfruit tree and flicking it at them, then taking off the wings and frying them in coconut oil for a snack. Nely was rapt at that. Bear was less sure.

Hamish and I sneaked off for lunch, just the two of us, to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. at the Icon Bali mall in Sanur. It sits right on the oceanfront, so you get the whole sweep of the sea while you eat. We had surf and turf and it was very good.

It's the American chain built entirely around Forrest Gump, named after Bubba, the shrimp-obsessed friend. The whole place is a shrine to the film, and instead of waving for a waiter you flip up a little licence plate on your table: Run Forrest Run if you're fine, Stop Forrest Stop if you need something. The kids would have loved it. We shall have to bring them back.

The last day of the hub. Sad to say goodbye after everything it's given them, the Balinese lessons, the palm-leaf weaving, the dancing, the science, the friends.

But the truth is Bear had outgrown it. It suited Nely's age far better, and she has flourished there. Knowing when something has run its course is part of this life. On to the next one.

We got up at 5.30am and went down to watch the sunrise, and we didn't come home until 4pm. A twelve-hour day at the beach.

Sanur sits on the east coast, so the sun comes up straight out of the sea. That's the trade the island makes: Sanur for sunrise, Kuta and Seminyak on the west for sunset. We've had our months of dawns here. Soon we'll be on the other side, watching them go down instead.

At 1.30 the day split. Alex and I took the little ones over to Icon Bali, where there's a soft play area on the bottom level, while Hamish stayed at the beach with the older boys and Brendon, whose son Will comes to the hub part time. Everyone got exactly what they wanted, which is not a thing that happens often with this many children.

Home shattered, sandy and happy.

An 8am aerial class with Kathi, and what a way to start a Saturday. The teacher had such good humour that we were all laughing the whole way through.

It took me straight back to my silks class, and I think I want to go back to it properly. Something to find when we get to Spain.

We hung out with some of the hub at The Byrd House. We'd worked from here before and found the food fairly average, but the pool. The pool is enormous. The kids were in it all afternoon and we all had a lovely time with everyone.

We stopped at the rice fields at The Art Hub for dinner and watermelon coolers. So peaceful there.

I hadn't realised how much I've been missing wide open space until I sat looking at those fields. Everywhere we've been here is jam-packed, and the villas have all been small and closed in. I'm craving rolling hills, mountains, big empty landscape. Room to breathe.

Into Icon Bali to get Bear some swim shorts, then a crafty afternoon at home making clay houses and a great deal of origami.

We started pocket money last week. It gets split equally into three pots:

Save and spend Donate, give to someone else Invest

Anything extra they earn gets split the same way. I'll report back in a month, but so far, so good.

Bear made a poster advertising his own origami workshop. 30,000 rupiah per person, about a pound fifty.

I was so impressed. Entirely his own idea, and exactly the right question to be asking: what can I do well enough that someone would pay me for it? All three of us paid up and sat down as his students, and he taught us to make a ninja star and a fish.

The pocket money is a week old and he's already found the extra-money pot.

Homeschooling from Moonstone Beach Club today, our favourite find.

Today it looked like this: Nely with a Balinese workbook, because she chose it herself in the stationery shop. Bear on BBC Bitesize and Duolingo, some maths, some spelling. And then both of them straight into the pool.

That's the whole thing, really. They chose it, so they did it.

A fire safety day at KidzCafe. It's the venue where the Wild Hearts hub runs, so the children know the place inside out, but this was a separate event, nothing to do with the hub. Nely did it with Alex's three, Cheryl's twins and Noah.

On paper it was wonderful. Real fire engines came. There were talks from the firefighters, a role-played fire and rescue, rides in the engines, and water play from the big hoses at the end, which was the bit they'd all been waiting for.

In practice I didn't like it at all. It was run very school-like. The children were pushed and pulled into position, lined up, moved from one place to the next, spoken at rather than asked. Treated like animals in a pen. And the staff were taking promotional shots the entire time, which tells you what the day was really for.

I wouldn't do it again. It was a sharp reminder of exactly what we left behind, and why.

Bear did a drama and craft workshop today with his friend Will. It's run by a British mum who lived in Australia for fifteen years and is moving to Portugal next year.

Nely did a volcano-making workshop at Mogi Art Room and absolutely loved it. Two hours of solid focus, which for Nely is really something. I'll get a proper photo of her masterpiece tomorrow.

Mogi is a lovely little art space just up from Sanur beach, set up by two mums with backgrounds in early years and design, all sensory play and process art rather than tidy end results. Exactly Nely's sort of place.

Afterwards we all went on to Kids SoHo with Alex's and Cheryl's children. It's a big indoor playground on the bypass, six hundred square metres of donut slide, climbing wall, trampoline and balance beams, all soft carpet, and a café. About 100,000 rupiah a child on a weekday, roughly five pounds. The children had a wonderful time and wore themselves out completely.

Hamish and Bear went off for a haircut that I knew nothing about, haha. I looked up and my baby had gone and there was this long-limbed boy standing in his place.

At 9am we realised we had to check out at 10. We'd been certain it was tomorrow.

Luckily I'd had the urge to pack everything the day before, so we had an hour to finish and we spent it running about like headless chickens. Then, mid-scramble, we discovered we'd also muddled the next three nights: nowhere at all to stay tonight, and two hotel rooms booked for the 30th. One hour to fix it, with a mountain of luggage and nowhere to put it.

The hotel could not have been kinder and moved our dates with no fee. By 10.30 we were out of the villa and on our way to Sumitra.

And what a welcome. After the morning's chaos, Sumitra felt like being scooped up and looked after.

Our room wasn't ready, so we hung by the pool while we waited, no hardship at all, and then were shown up to our beautiful room. There's a kids' club with actual tortoises in it, a whole schedule of free activities pinned up, and a delicious complimentary afternoon tea to boot.

Bathtime was a proper event for Nely tonight, and then music and a fire show for the evening entertainment. From headless chickens at 9am to all this by nightfall. Some days just turn themselves around.

I woke at 6am for a water yoga class as the sun came up. Just me and one other couple, a very gentle mix of tai chi and stretching, done standing in the water. The perfect, quiet start to the day.

A really lovely, relaxing pool day with Cheryl and her girls. The boys took the water bike out for a ride, which looked like such fun. Just what we all needed.

In the evening we said goodbye to Cheryl and her girls, and it was quite emotional. We've made such a close bond this last month, the kind that forms fast when you're all living this way, and then has to stretch across the world when you part.

"But he that dares not grasp the thorn / Should never crave the rose." — Anne Brontë

That's the bargain, isn't it. You let people all the way in knowing the goodbye is coming, because the alternative is never letting them in at all.

Then we took the bikes out for a five-mile ride along the beach. The hotel lets you use them for free, which we've been making the most of.

Sanur has a wonderful beachfront promenade, a wide, flat, completely car-free path that runs the length of the beach, so you can ride the whole way with the sea beside you and no traffic to worry about. Sumitra sits down at the quiet Mertasari end, and we rode up towards Icon and back.

We cycled past all the different bars and restaurants, every one playing different music, lots of it live. It was surreal, like a club with different floors! So fun. The warm night air, the lights glowing along the sand, the sea beside us the whole way. Gorgeous.

One last stop at Icon Bali for Rotiboy buns before we left Sanur for good. They're a proper little addiction: soft, buttery buns with a crisp coffee crust that bakes on top and cracks when you bite in. Everyone calls them Mexican coffee buns, but they're actually Malaysian, from a bakery in Penang. A sweet full stop to our time in Sanur.

New hotel vibes: The Movenpick, over on the Jimbaran side. A whole new feel after Sumitra.

We had a Mexican dinner up on the rooftop, sunset views and margaritas for the grown-ups. Then some evening entertainment, and of course Nely couldn't resist joining in the show at the end, up there with the performers, no stage fright whatsoever. That girl.

A morning at Jimbaran beach, and then a moving day: on to our villa in Seminyak, the next chapter and our home for the coming weeks.

Happy Pancasila Day! Pancasila is Indonesia's founding state philosophy, and today marks the day it was first set out in 1945. It rests on five core principles:

Belief in one God A just and civilised humanity The unity of Indonesia Democracy through deliberation and consensus Social justice for all Indonesians

It's a lovely thing to be here for, and a good reminder that we're guests in a country with its own deep ideals. The kids are slowly gathering up these threads of understanding about the places we pass through.

Bear has been working hard on his origami and made himself a sword. He's really stuck with it, and it's lovely to see something he's chosen for himself hold his attention like this.

Nely's brunch at Sisterfields, the café beside Seminyak Village. It came out as a plate of fresh fruit arranged into the shape of an owl, which utterly delighted her. Sisterfields is a bit of a Seminyak institution, an Aussie-style all-day brunch spot with proper coffee and a bakery of its own, and it more than lived up to its reputation.

Nely set up the whole room ready for Auntie Sez arriving. She was beside herself, arranging everything just so.

Sez is Hamish's sister, over from New Zealand, and we haven't seen her since our wedding back in September. We also haven't seen any family or friends at all for two months now, so we were all really longing for a familiar face. No wonder Nely couldn't sit still.

A visa immigration run first thing, and then the moment we'd all been waiting for: Auntie Sez, here at last, all the way from New Zealand. Cuddles all round, Nely glued to her side. Nine months since the wedding.

A note on the visas, for anyone doing the same. We used an agent called Bali Visas and they were brilliant: easy to deal with, clear instructions, no problems at arrivals and no trouble extending. It cost us a fair bit, of course, but we'd tried doing it ourselves and the immigration website was always down, and we'd already been scammed £95 once before. So we went with an agent for peace of mind. When you've got your family in a foreign country a long way from home, it just isn't worth the risk.

And then, almost as soon as she'd arrived, Sez had to leave again. A friend was in need and she went to them, and wouldn't be back until Friday. It shocked and confused the children, who'd built the day up so much. Time went quickly, though, luckily.

We went for a night walk, and goodness it was loud! The whole warm dark alive with insects, frogs and geckos, all in full voice. There's a particular magic to being out after dark in the tropics, when everything you can't see is making itself heard.

Our new villa has a tokay gecko! It instantly took us back to Ubud, where the nights were full of this kind of life.

The tokay is a proper character. It's one of the largest geckos in the world, a handsome blue-grey speckled with orange spots, and it's named after its call: a loud, ringing "to-kay! to-kay!" that it belts out at night. In fact our whole word "gecko" comes from imitating a gecko's cry. In much of Southeast Asia having one living in your house is considered good luck, so we're honoured to have him. Nely, of course, is thrilled to bits.

An afternoon at the driving range, whacking golf balls out into the evening. Good, simple fun, and something a bit different for the kids to have a go at.

A wee visit to the local cat café, the Ultimate Cat Café. Need I say more where Nely's concerned. She was in absolute heaven, surrounded by cats, and could happily have stayed all day.

Good morning. This is the view I wake up to now, out over the garden, and I just love it. A little green oasis to open my eyes on. After all the small, closed-in places, waking up to this feels like a gift every single morning.

An afternoon at Mano Beach House for the sunset, down on the quieter sands of Petitenget. It's a lovely, laid-back, boho sort of place, all warm wood and slow living, and Seminyak does sunsets properly, being on the west coast, that whole sky-on-fire show we came over here for.

A lovely touch: the staff were making paper aeroplanes for the kids, folding and launching them across the place. Bear the origami obsessive was in his element, and it kept them happily busy right through to the last of the light.

Really enjoying our time at this villa. What a difference more space makes to your mind, after months of small, closed-in places. Room to spread out, room to think.

Bear spends most of his time folding origami, and he's taking commissions now, no less. Today he made a really cool infinity ring, then showed it off to us and it promptly broke. Gutted, he was. Back to the drawing board.

Nick, Caz and Emma came round in the evening and we all hung out by the pool. Nick is an old friend of Hamish's from New Zealand, and still good friends with Auntie Sez, so it was lovely to have them over the night she was back. The girls hit it off within minutes, as if they were long-lost cousins, talking and playing without pause the entire night. So beautiful to watch.

And Auntie Sez was back, and treated us all to dinner just around the corner. It felt so good to walk there instead of taking the bikes, a real rarity these days.

This morning we met up with some friends from the hub, Jen, and Brendon and Will. We went to Mookiland, a giant outdoor inflatable assault course with bouncy castles and the like, the sort of thing that runs children happily ragged. And the views! Rice fields stretching out all around us, a lovely green backdrop to all the bouncing.

This afternoon we had a girly date at the spa. Japanese head spa, manis, pedis, facials and nail polish, the full works. An absolutely beautiful afternoon.

The only blot came right at the end, when Auntie Sez discovered her jandals had been pinched and she'd no footwear to get home in! Only in Bali do you leave a spa more pampered than you've ever been and completely barefoot. (Jandals, for the uninitiated, being what the New Zealanders call flip-flops.)

Beautiful sunsets and puppies. The puppies were sitting on the beach beside a local family, who kindly let us play with them. Nely was in heaven, of course. Two of life's very best things in one evening, and really all a day needs.

We finally saw the tokay gecko! He'd been serenading us for nearly a week, and at last he turned up in the flesh, holed up in Auntie Sez's bathroom. A proper big fellow, and exactly the good-luck lodger we'd hoped for. Nely was over the moon to meet the voice at last.

A silver making workshop today, and what a treat. Bali has a real tradition of silversmithing, and there's something wonderful about making a piece of jewellery yourself, from raw silver to finished thing.

Bear, Sez and I each made a ring, and Nely made a cat pendant, of course. The children were each treated to a gemstone to set in theirs. I went for a hammered effect on mine, and Sez had hers plated in gold. It took a full four hours! Fascinating to see the whole process, though. There's so much more to it than you'd think, and some of the steps are astonishingly intricate.

We spent the whole day with Nick, Caz and Emma at the Holiday Inn. Cocktails, swimming, flying fish and dancing to a whole mix of music. A brilliant, full day of it, and the girls picking up right where they left off.

A yummy breakfast at Braud.

Then a walk to get some massages. Being able to walk somewhere instead of hopping on the bikes is still a novelty here.

A gorgeous day at Sunset Beach Club. Very quiet and calm, a lovely open, spacious feel, right on the beach with attentive staff and really nice food. We booked a day bed, went for a walk, enjoyed the pool, and just soaked up the peace of it.

The sweetest touch: in the booking notes we'd mentioned it was Nely's birthday, and they brought her out a cake with candles. So kind of them, and she was thrilled.

And then, to top it all off, the most stunning sunset that evening. One of those skies that makes everyone go quiet and just watch.

Rain at 3am, then again at 10am as we biked to the shop, and once more at 5pm just as we got home! The wet season having the last word, drenching us on a perfect schedule. You learn to just laugh and get wet here.

Bear's collecting the rainwater in a tub, and it's filling in seconds! It's chucking it down like a hose today. He does love a project.

The kids tried Wolf Camp today, a bushcraft school over in Canggu. They absolutely loved it and are already asking to go again.

Bear made a hammer from bamboo, flint and rope, a proper little bit of bushcraft. And Nely came home full of a plant she'd learned about called the "shy princess." It's the one whose leaves fold up and wilt the moment you touch them, then slowly open back up. Its Indonesian name is putri malu, which means exactly that, "shy princess," so Nely had it just right. The drive there was fine, but the traffic on the way back was mental. It reminded me how glad I am we're not staying in Canggu.

On Saturday afternoon, back from Wolf Camp, we surprised Nely with a party. We'd tied helium balloons to all twelve of her teddies and sat them up on the sofa in party hats, with a table full of party food and Hello Kitty "Happy Birthday" banners strung up.

She was SO surprised, completely in awe when she saw them all waiting for her. We had jelly birthday cake, just as she'd requested, and a proper little teddy bears' party. I'd planned it for the Saturday knowing we'd be out all day on her actual birthday. Her face was everything.

Nely turned six today! We spent the whole day at Bali Safari Park to celebrate, which was perfect for our little animal lover. She's never happier than when she's surrounded by creatures.

The day didn't start how we planned, mind. Nely woke up on her birthday with a high fever! We dosed her up and she battled through the whole day like a trooper. She wasn't herself and she ate nothing all day, but she never stopped smiling and we kept her comfy the whole time. Bless her, she fell fast asleep in the taxi on the way home.

We went for it and did absolutely everything. There are a few ticket options if you're thinking of going. The main one is the Jungle Hopper, which covers the safari ride, an animal encounter, the water park, a fun-zone ride and the animal shows. There's a Legend package on top that adds the big theatre show. We did the lot!

The safari ride is the main event. You hop on a tram, a bit like a moving cage, and it takes you right out among the animals: lions, white tigers, rhinos, zebras, giraffes coming right up close and hippos lazing in the water.

But Nely's favourite by a mile was the educational shows. The animals were so well trained, they even had white mice walk across the stage! The kids get to learn all about the animals while they watch. So good for them.

She also loved the animal handling area, where she got to hold the bunnies. Of course she did! She'd have taken them all home if we'd let her. We cooled off at the water park with all the slides, went on the fun-zone rides, and honestly squeezed every last drop out of the day.

We saved the best till last, the evening show, Varuna. What a way to finish. It's Indonesia's first underwater theatre show, all about a young prince who belongs to both the land and the sea. It's told with shadow puppets, animation, dancing and music, and real fish and sea creatures swimming behind huge glass panels, so it feels like you're right under the water with them. And there's a lovely message running through it about looking after our oceans. We all loved it. The perfect end to a very special birthday, and what a brave girl to shine through it all feeling so poorly.

After her feverish birthday, I'd planned to keep Nely home today to rest and recover. But she woke up right as rain, bless her! So the two of us made the most of it with a proper mummy and daughter day. We made bracelets, went out for lunch, and then Nely took charge: doing my hair, painting my nails, playing with balloons and making little collars for the teddies. Precious, unhurried time with my girl.

Working on our projects today while the kids are at Wolf Camp. They loved it so much the first time that back they went, which gave us a good stretch of quiet to crack on. Hamish is building an app, and I'm working on a website subscription idea called Always Threading.

Happy Galungan! Today the Balinese Hindus celebrate the victory of Dharma (good) over Adharma (evil), and the streets are lined with penjor: tall, gracefully curved bamboo poles, beautifully decorated and arching over the road in front of every home across Bali.

Each penjor bends down at the tip like a bowing head, a symbol of gratitude and humility, and they're hung with offerings of rice, fruit and coconut leaf. Beyond the festive feel of it, this is a sacred time to reflect on balance, harmony and gratitude. Such a privilege to be here and see the whole island dressed for it.

Gather Café does the best salads! After all these months of eating out, a really good, fresh salad is a genuine event, and Gather does them better than anywhere we've found.

Matching outfits today, Nely and me, white tops and pink trousers! And then, without even planning it, we matched again at dinner by both ordering the Greek salad. Great minds, the pair of us.

A gorgeous smoothie bowl for breakfast! Bright and fresh and full of goodness. We really are being spoiled for breakfasts out here.

Bear was made camp leader at Wolf Camp today! It means he helps the other children with their tasks and shows them where to go, and he gets to wear a little scout neckerchief. He was so proud of himself, and I was proud of him too. For a boy who finds it hard to put himself forward with other kids, this was a big deal.

Pool fun at home. One of the real joys of this villa, being able to just fall into the pool whenever the mood takes us. The kids are practically amphibious these days.

We got vouchers from Airbnb to go to Waterbom again, and it was epic! Bear really pushed himself this time and loved the rides you can do in pairs. He was so proud of himself, and it was lovely to see. Nely, fearless as ever, did every single ride she was tall enough for. She absolutely loves that place.

I love the decor in this café! I tried a matcha latte for the first time, since they're so popular here, and, well, it was gross! Really not for me.

The kids went off to Wolf Camp, so Hamish and I headed out. I've realised something about myself out here: I just can't do a sit-down office job. I need to move my body. So we've started going for long morning walks along the beach before settling into a café to work. It sets me up so much better for the whole day.

Off to Uluwatu for the night! We took the bike all the way there, a solid hour and a half, and the kids did amazingly the whole way. We went straight to Suka Espresso, the much-loved café there. A ten-minute wait for a table, but well worth it.

Then we walked down to Thomas Beach, nervously edging past the monkeys and down some very steep steps. But oh my, it was worth every step. Absolutely stunning. Further along the sand it was completely dead, and we had that whole stretch of beach to ourselves (a few monkeys aside, who kept themselves to themselves).

The best beach in Bali so far. The kids didn't want to leave, and the amount of treasure we found was incredible. I've never seen so much sea glass in one place before! Nely was in absolute heaven.

After Thomas Beach we went to check in at our villa, a bamboo house overlooking the sea. We'd hired a brand new place with building work still going on all around it, hence the heavily reduced rate, just £50. It'll be so beautiful when it's finished.

Honestly though, it was a little too "insta happy" and not very homely or practical. The doors were these huge, heavy Lord of the Rings style things, so big and heavy that Nely trapped her finger in one. And they spin round rather than staying put, so on a windy day they're a real hazard, which they were!

We found another beautiful beach that honestly reminded us of Sardinia, the water so clear you could see straight to the bottom. And Uluwatu itself has been just gorgeous to drive around, all clifftops and greenery and glimpses of that blue sea.

Nely fell fast asleep on the drive home! Completely done in after all that beach and sea and sunshine. The best kind of tired.

At pick-up, all the kids gather to sing their end-of-day wolf pack song, finished off with a big howl. It's the loveliest thing to arrive to. Bear has really found his place in this little pack.

The kids' treasures from Uluwatu, all laid out. So much sea glass, smoothed soft and frosted by the sea, plus whatever else caught their eye. Both Bear and Nely could spend hours sorting and admiring a haul like this, they love their treasures.

Lately in the evenings, Bear has taken to pulling Nely around in a suitcase. His verdict: we could save money on our plane tickets and just shove her in the baggage hold. Always thinking, that boy.

I'll be honest, spending time in Canggu hasn't been good for my body confidence. Everyone here seems so toned and perfect-looking, not a wrinkle or a roll in sight. It's hard not to compare yourself sometimes.

Bear made catapults at Wolf School today. He's thriving there, coming home each time with something new he's made with his own hands.

Breakfast today.

Look what happened to Bear's ring! The lovely silver ring he made at the workshop had bent out of shape. He tried to fix it himself, hammering it on a stick to get it round again, but bless him, he only made it worse. He was gutted. Never mind, Grandad will fix it when we see him.

I had a little scooter lesson from Hamish today. Such fun! Though my goodness, they're heavy. Not nearly as easy as he makes it look.

A rare day just the two of us, exploring Nuanu Creative City, and what an extraordinary place it is. It's a huge 44-hectare creative city on Bali's southwest coast, still being built out. The name comes from the Balinese "Nu-anu," meaning "in process," which feels just right for it. It's the vision of a Russian tech entrepreneur, a $100 million project built around the Balinese philosophy of Tri Hita Karana, the harmony between people, nature and spirit, and apparently inspired by Burning Man.

There's so much packed into it. Luna Beach Club, with its pool and slides, a floating bar and a big amphitheatre stage. The Labyrinth, an immersive art dome twelve metres tall, filled with light and sound. Aurora Media Park, a whole kilometre of forest walk strung with interactive lights and games. There's even an alpaca farm and a Magic Garden full of butterflies. We just wandered and wandered, taking it all in.

It was so lovely to have this time together, just Hamish and me, to explore somewhere this special without little hands to hold, though we knew straight away we'd be bringing the kids back!

We were lucky enough to witness Mekotek today, in Munggu village. It falls on Kuningan, ten days after the Galungan we saw earlier, and it's an extraordinary sight.

Hundreds of men gather carrying tall wooden poles, two or three metres long, and clash and lock them together to build great towering pyramids, like wooden mountains, with the bravest climbing up to the top. The poles are hung with tamiang, the round, woven coconut-leaf decorations you see outside every home and temple at Kuningan. As the poles knocked and clashed together, the tamiang would come loose and drop to the ground, and the children loved dashing in to gather them up before they got trampled underfoot.

The name comes from the sound the poles make as they knock together, "tek, tek, tek." It goes back to the days of the Mengwi Kingdom in the 1700s, when warriors returning victorious from battle would raise their spears in celebration. The village believes that if they don't perform it, misfortune and sickness will follow, so it's done to keep everyone safe and well. Such a privilege to see a tradition this old, held so seriously and joyfully at once.

Puppy yoga! Yoga interrupted, delightfully, by a pile of puppies clambering all over us. You can imagine how much yoga actually got done, and how much Nely cared about that. Two of her great loves, animals and being right in the thick of it, in one gloriously silly session.

A beautiful market at Pigstone Taphouse this afternoon, up the coast in Kedungu. They hold it on the last Sunday of every month, a lovely spread of local vendors, vintage clothes, handmade bits and delicious snacks, all in a relaxed beer-garden setting. Just our sort of thing, wandering the stalls and seeing what we could find.

Poor Bear had been throwing up all night and all morning, bless him. I went off to puppy yoga and came back to find him much improved, weak, but no longer being sick. We basically persuaded him to come out, and by the afternoon off we went: first the market at Pigstone around 2pm, and then, as promised, back to Nuanu Creative City.

He really did love it, though he was so tired and running on empty. He didn't eat much at all, but we kept plenty of fluids into him and he perked up being out and about.

We'd timed it well, too, because there was a community show on at the Earth Sentinels, performed by the young people of Beraban, the local village here. The Earth Sentinels are two enormous sculptures, fourteen metres tall, by the artist Daniel Popper, standing guard at the entrance to Nuanu, half human and half nature. As the sun went down the youth performers did a fire dancing routine, the whole place coming alive with fire, music and light. Magical, and the perfect way to spend our last proper day out in Bali.

Bali didn't ask anything of us. It simply opened its arms.

We came in full of wonder, hearts wide and eager, buzzing with all the promise of a brand new island and everything it might show us. And Bali met us even more gently than we'd dreamed. The days grew softer. The rush fell away. We began to move at the pace of morning light and evening rain, and the deeper we sank into it, the more the island seemed to be teaching us how to simply be.

I watched my children bloom here. I watched Nely fall in love with every living thing that crossed her path, geckos and frogs and puppies and the smallest scraps of sea glass, her heart wide open, holding all of it. And I watched Bear find himself. The boy who once couldn't find the words to say hello grew into someone who could lead, who could make, who could stand tall among new friends. Watching him come into his own like that has been one of the greatest joys.

And the people. The Balinese opened their world to us with a grace I'll never forget. They welcomed us into their temples and their traditions, taught us their offerings and their festivals, their language and their little daily rituals. They let us stand right in the middle of things that were sacred to them, and asked nothing in return but our respect and our wonder. To be handed a culture so freely, so warmly, is a rare and beautiful gift.

There were hard days too. The homesickness that comes at you sideways. The friends you love and then must leave. The strange grief of a life with no walls to hold you, and the freedom that lives right inside that same grief. We learned that you can own almost nothing and feel almost full. We learned that a place can become home in a matter of weeks, and that leaving it will still break your heart.

And now it's time to go. To pack up the treasures and the memories and the versions of ourselves we became here. Bali, you were never just somewhere we stayed. You were somewhere we grew.

Terima kasih. Suksma. Thank you, thank you, for all of it.

Nine hours in Delhi airport on the long way to the UK. Nely slept on a sofa for pretty much the whole of it! Bear listened to his Yoto and played on his iPad, then slept for a good three hours too. I went for long walks around the airport, had lovely long chats with my best friend Chrissy and with my mum, and then lay down beside Nely for a bit.

When it came time to leave, it was VERY hard to wake the pair of them. We dragged them on a twenty-minute walk to the gate and through the long passport queue. Then, just as we sat down at the gate, Nely suddenly threw up! There were no toilets in the gate area, so I had to barge my way back through everyone still coming in, running past security (who wouldn't let me back through), and go full mum mode to get her to a loo. She wasn't sick again, thank goodness, we cleaned her up, and they let us back in. Never a dull moment travelling with little ones!

And the flight itself was no gentler on us! Poor Hamish was struck down with indigestion and was sick after four hours, and Nely was sick again after only three hours' sleep. Bear, meanwhile, slept a glorious eight to ten hours straight! I stayed up watching films with Nely, who just couldn't get back off. What a journey home it was.

Home to England! And straight down to Lulworth Cove, where we met up with Helena, Yulia, Jonah and Maurice at the beach and had the best time! The boys took the paddleboards out, the girls played in the sand and went rock climbing, and Maurice enjoyed the sea air and watching the children. Helena and I walked Danny about five times to keep him occupied!

The girls were so happy to see each other again. They swapped homemade gifts, cards, letters and drawings they'd made for one another. So precious to watch, and so lovely to see everyone after all this time away.

Just one precious day to enjoy Nana's garden before we're off again. And Nana being Nana, she gave the children £10 to spend at the airport, which they were thrilled with.

Flying from one to the other, the difference in the landscape really struck me. England looked so green, but so flat, while Spain was all golden and mountainous. Funny how different two places can be.

Made it to Manilva! After Bali, Delhi, England and one more flight, here we finally are on the Costa del Sol. The next chapter begins.

Look what Nely made! A little cot out of a stool and some blankets for her bushbaby teddy, the one she bought with Nana's airport money. She's so proud of it, and so devoted to her new little friend. Trust Nely to turn a stool into a nursery.

Feeling a little strange today. We love being in Spain, but we don't want to be here on holiday, doing holiday things like going to the beach. We want to properly live here, to settle in and become part of the community. It's a funny in-between feeling, arriving somewhere you know is going to be home but isn't quite yet.

We went to view the place where we'll be living come September: El Polo. Very exciting! I felt so lucky standing there, taking it all in, already looking forward to making it our home.

Finished a book I found at the villa yesterday, The Marionette by Terry Fallis. There's a real luxury in this slower pace, actually having the time to pick up a book and read it cover to cover.

We kept hearing these crazy whistling tunes and someone MC-ing over a loudspeaker, and we couldn't work out what on earth it was. Turns out it was a van advertising a knife-sharpening business! It's so mental here.

The knife-sharpening man drives slowly through the neighbourhoods playing his distinctive whistling tune to announce he's coming, then gets on the loudspeaker while people come out with their kitchen knives, scissors and garden tools. He sharpens them on the spot on a grinding wheel, chats and jokes with everyone like a proper MC, takes his few coins and moves on to the next street. It creates this surprisingly loud, almost carnival atmosphere that carries all the way up the Manilva hills. We love these little windows into how life works here.

First day of Alma Summer Camp went well, phew! Such a relief when they settle in happily.

Nely and I made loom bands for her new friend Daisy and played in the pool. Then she made friends with twin girls, Sophie and Lily, over from Amsterdam and both eight, who joined us for more loom band making. She's finding her people already.

Day two of Alma Summer Camp, and it's going brilliantly. We've fallen into a lovely routine of spending the afternoons at the pool with the twins. It's exactly the kind of easy, sociable rhythm we were hoping to find here.

A lovely drive to school. This is Alma Forest School, where the children will start in September, and where they've been trying out the summer camp this past week.

It's a nature-based microschool set on a finca just outside Sotogrande, and what a setting: fields to play in, trees to climb, animals to care for, and views stretching all the way to Gibraltar and Morocco. The ethos is completely up our street, outdoor, project-based, self-directed learning where the children follow their own passions and curiosity rather than sitting at desks all day. After Wood School in Bali, it feels like exactly the right next home for their learning.

I've started a 28-day Pilates challenge with my mum, every night at 6pm. I love that we're doing it together even with the miles between us, a little standing date each evening. Just the sort of routine I've been wanting to build now we're settling.

So many horses on our drive to school! We're right in the heart of the polo region here, so there are horses absolutely everywhere you look.

Sotogrande is the polo capital of Europe. The Santa María Polo Club has been going since 1965, when the very first ground was laid right on the shore with the Rock of Gibraltar and the coast of Africa off in the distance. Today there are more full-size polo fields within a fifteen-minute drive of each other than anywhere else in Europe, and over a thousand polo ponies are stabled here through the summer season. No wonder our little corner come September is called El Polo! Nely, as you can imagine, is beside herself with all the horses.

A trip to La Alcaidesa for all the admin jobbies: opening bank accounts, sorting mobile phone contracts, and paying our visa fee at the ATM. All fuelled by a proper €7 Spanish breakfast, coffee, orange juice, pan con tomate and a croissant.

And a revelation: no one spoke a word of English! So much for everyone telling us we're moving to an English-speaking area. We'll be getting our Spanish up to scratch sooner than we thought.