"Ok. Wait, WHAT?!"
The kids have apparently reached the age where they don't need to ask permission and they'd arranged to go to the local fiesta with their Spanish friends. Queue minor meltdown from me. Through the course of the morning I went from "No bloody way" to "You can go to the parade and fireworks but I'm going too and it's back by 11" to "Ok, you can go but I'm going to be there, I'll just hide behind a tree so I don't cramp your style" to, finally and because having two teens nagging as a team is just too much, "Whatever."
They were decent enough to be shocked that I'd actually agreed (with a couple of conditions) so
I was in for an afternoon of dragging them around places I wanted to go without the usual complaining that 'it's not really our thing.' I chose the dinosaur footprint at Playa de la Griega, which sneakily took us through the fiesta village where I was reassured to see dozens of policemen, even at that early stage of the day.
If I'd researched it a bit better I would have known that Playa de la Griega is the beach where the entire population of Northern Spain goes on a weekend and would have gone midweek but we did eventually find somewhere to park. The beach itself is fabulous. It's split in two by the river, which widens to form a shallow(ish) calm area, great for swimming, before tipping out into the sea. Swimming in the sea would be a bit trickier as the waves are quite big and the water gets deep very quickly at high tide but bodyboarding would be fun there.
The dinosaur footprints are about half a mile along the cliff path and you don’t need any imagination to see them (unlike some places we’ve visited before). There were a few different footprints and an information board explains what they’re from but the large sauropod ones were the most impressive.
We also visited Llastres, a beautiful fishing village a bit further along the coast. It's a fascinating little place with steep alleys and small terraces, overlooking the little harbour. Unfortunately it was pretty much closed. We got there about 5pm, which is a dead time nearly everywhere we went, being both two hours after the afternoon and two hours before the evening! Luckily there were strategically placed vending machines so could at least get a drink before returning to the site.
The kids went off to the fiesta at about 11pm, with lots of instructions from me. "Don't split up from each other or your friends." "Speak to the police there if you have a problem." "Don't drink too much." "Don't stay any longer than 2am." "Keep in regular contact with me....."
00:53 text message from Isaac:
STILL ALIVE
Sh'rupp. Don't care. Sleeping. Zzzzzzzzzz
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