My fab holiday in Portugal - arrival

I've just come back from an amazingly relaxing holiday in Portugal with my 2 daughters. We hired what turned out to be a luxurious villa in Praia del Rei, an hour's drive north of Lisbon on the Atlantic coast, not far from Obidos. A bit of an adventure to get there, having to get up at some ungodly hour when it's still dark outside to get to Heathrow, Heathrow is always so busy, no matter what time you get there. Lisbon was fairly busy, but mostly busy waiting in the longest queue to pick up our hire car - a lovely Nissan Micra with aircon. Its boot didn't quite want to hold our two cases, so Claire had the company of one of them on the back seat. So having been given the key for the car, the most nerve-wracking bit - getting used to a left-hand drive car on the wrong side of the road and trying to observe road signs and look out for the landmarks in our explicitly written directions. Thankfully, it didn't take too long to not be grabbing the door handle to change gear, but it did take a while to find the rear-view mirror without double-taking!
Traffic lights have a different sequence in Portugal, did you know that? They turn from red straight to green - no advance warning of the orange light. Anyone around the toll-booth on the A8 would have had a laugh, as to my horror, the 5 Euro note change the toll booth lady put in my hand got whisked away by a gust of wind before I could grasp it. Well, what a panic that caused me! Trying to put the handbrake on and put the car in neutral with the door handle and at the same time release the door with the handbrake! Fortunately I managed to save it, then as we drove off, managed to open Zoe's window instead of wind mine up!
Got to the villa and found it fairly easily. My goodness, we were in for a treat! It was huge! It had its own swimming pool, it had a balcony, it had huge outdoor area with sunloungers and garden chairs galore, it was hot, the kitchen was oh so modern with marble work surfaces, all the appliances you could wish for, an American fridge with an ice-maker! A bathroom each! Flat screen cinema tv! Each room we entered was greeted with a "wow" from us!
First things first, girls wanted to strip off and jump in the pool. In the fridge Helen had made sure we had some basic food, bread, butter, jam, cheese, ham, milk, water. We were so spoilt!
Rest of the week and more discoveries to follow....
by Vee Smith