Hey friends,

Last week we grabbed the last of the summer sun with a honeymoon/birthday holiday. I decided to make it a news-free getaway. I know a few of you have switched off the news altogether and say you're the happier for it so with all the doom and gloom the media project I thought I'd give it a try - and it was great! While I would like to think I can glean the bits that interest me (mostly economics) and filter out the rest, it isn't so.

The location

We usually end up going with Spain. We did think about mixing it up by trying Crete but with a toddler we wanted to get as far south with as little air-time as possible - more on that later 🙈.

The weather was fantastic - well into the 20s on the coast and inland it would get into the 30s. Practically mid-summer weather 😎.

The car

I really liked this vehicle: the new Ford Kuga! The ride was firm but smooth and very quiet in this petrol model.

Zooming out though, whatever happened to the family car of old - the estate? Today every other car seems to be an SUV or crossover. They're annoying to drive behind as you can't see the road ahead and they're probably not great for the environment but I get it - the high driving position and ease of getting luggage and kids in and out is nice. As they say, if you can't beat 'em, join em. Over the summer I was researching the SEAT Ateca. Good looks and on the sportier side as SUVs go, lurching less into the corners, it could be a good candidate. So that's what we aimed to hire. The 'or similar' model turned out to be the Ford which was probably even better and gave us a taste of the space and height of SUV life.

There's research showing that a lot of the dopamine hit of buying something new is in the anticipation of it rather than the owning (even more so if the outcome is unpredictable). So with things like this, which I know aren't a good financial move, I tend to research the thing until I'm bored of the idea. It's still lingering but we'll hang on to the Astra for now, at least until used car prices come down.

I doubt I could get sheet material into one but it would be great to get 3m length timbers in without having to cut them down in Wickes' carpark.

The hotel

It's the first time we've stayed done a hotel holiday. Usually we go with a self-catered AirBnB but for families I can see that spending at least a few days relaxing within a hotel complex makes sense. This hotel is in a group of 4 that 30 years ago were pretty much the only development on this coast. I know because it's where I used to go as kid with my parents. Much has changed, but not the clientele - it's still 90% germans!

As a 4 star it's expensive in peak season but reasonable in the shoulder months. I like the architecture - this big glulam roof above a mini rainforest for example.

As well as the pools, you can stroll down to the south-west facing beach.

Snorkelling was obscured by the sandy water and not one for sunbathing I built myself and the boy an inverted moat and supped my beer while challenging the rising tide. I lost of course.

The buffet breakfast and dinners are...amazing. Obscene even. Now we're home I need to do some fasting I think.

For an easy family holiday, I'd recommend it. Don't want to hear or see kids (understandable)? There's the Playa la Barossa hotel next door.

Activities

The downside of this location is there's not all that much to do in the vicinity. There's Trafalgar. While back home we devote an entire square and statue to Nelson's exploits, amusingly there's not so much as even a small plaque here. Nice place though. You used to be able to drive pretty much all the way to the lighthouse but the sand has since reclaimed the road.

Somewhere that does have whole murals depicting Nelson's victory is Gibraltar. It's a busy place but worth a day trip. We parked on the Spanish side and took a bus to the bottom of the cable car but with the boy in tow we opted to go with a small minibus tour of the upper rock.

It's often cloaked in cloud due to the rock forcing air upward but we could see across to Africa.

St Michael's Cave:

Abi had a monkey on her back but was otherwise in smiling mood:

After coming down we strolled the high street. It's weird to see places like Clarks and M&S just off Spain. I'm forever breaking sunglasses so I took advantage of the zero VAT and picked up a new pair.

We also visited Cadiz and Seville for Abi and I got some casual birding in. We saw flamingoes, spoonbills, egrets, white storks and griffin vultures:

Travelling

All in all, it was lovely but it's definitely getting harder to travel. Under 2 years old kids sit on their parents lap but we've been very fortunate to have had 3 seats to ourselves on each flight we've taken with him. Unfortunately he screamed bloody murder on the way back. 50% of our efforts went to consoling him while the other 50 went to demonstrating to the other passengers that we're trying our best and not terrible parents. He fell asleep just as we touched down and we just sat there in shame waiting for everyone else to disembark first.

To cap it off, in the hour's cab ride back from Gatwick the poor lad threw up 1 minute from home. £50 cleaning fee 🤦‍♂️.

If you were to ask me next week how I feel about travelling with an infant I'd probably say yeaaah it's fine, part and parcel, it's worth it once you're there. Right now it's raw and I'm not sure it is!

🔔 Ring Alarm System

You might recall that last time we went away our neighbours had bikes stolen from their shed. At the time I contemplated adding cameras and lights and a video doorbell but I put it on the bottom of the to-do list. Leaving the house unattended again I felt it was time. After some research I settled on a Ring alarm system. I got started with a 10 piece system that was on sale at £220. Through a screw up at Amazon's end I received an additional 2 sensors to make it 6. This was helpful because our house has a silly number of entrances for the size of it.

They look like this. Pretty discreet and they stick really well. The battery is supposed to last a few years (depends how often you open and close the door):

You can activate only these sensors so when you're at home for the night they create a perimeter. You can put them on windows as well of course.

The setting on the right - Away - is for when you're out and this also sets the motion detectors.

The point of these is if someone were to break a window, they wouldn't set off a sensor but instead would be caught by movement. You can dial the sensitivity up and down if you have pets.

The other items in the kit include the hub which emits the siren, an extender so you can reach far away parts of your house or garden (I'll be adding some sensors and detector to the garden garage), an indoor camera and a keypad. These are all plugged in except for the keypad which is chargeable. The battery lasts for 12 months and it can be wall mounted.

Pros:

• Easy set-up.
• Intuitive app with which you can activate or deactivate the alarm from anywhere.
• No cables to run.
• High configurability (e.g. turn off one motion detector where your pets are if they keep triggering it or have the downstairs motion detectors on while in Home mode)
• Modular - you can keep adding more items to your system - an outdoor sounder (pretty crucial so I'll get one of those), doorbell camera, lights, outdoor cameras, even a glass shattering listening device.
• No ongoing charges unless you opt for Ring Protect. Given some alarm systems charge £100+ yearly maintenance fee, this is a nice feature.
• Probably some steep discount on Prime days.

Cons:

• Relies on wifi/ethernet unless you get Ring Protect.
• No 2k or 4k cameras yet. All 1080p. Bit behind their competitors like Eufy on that.

Overall, I'd recommend it. It certainly gave me some peace of mind while away 👍.

👋

Thanks to those of you who shared their experience with wood burners. Many helpful thoughts, some conflicting! I'll collate it all for a future newsletter.

Hit "reply" if you've got any comments on this week's newsletter – otherwise I'll see you next time. Have an epic week :)

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P.p.s. You can find all previous newsletters here.