Today was amazing, we went to Monkey Park (which my Dad has named monkey farm), which turned out to be the best zoo I’ve ever been too.

We went early, so we had the whole park to ourselves and you were free to walk through the enclosures with all the animals running around you.

We were given mixed bags of food to feed them with, but you had to work out which animals liked which food.

The squirrel monkeys were the friendliest animals in the park.

They liked crawling all over us and standing on our heads.

This one loved my Dad’s iPhone and managed to take a photo.

The lemurs were my favourite, with their super fluffy tails.

There were turtles too and lots of lizards.

There were hundreds of little guinea pigs running around, you had to be careful that you didn’t step on any of the animals when you walked.

Zoos are always so much better in foreign countries because of the lack of health & safety laws.

The park also had chimpanzees, panthers and a lot of parrots. We got to cradle this one like a baby, it was so soft and light.

Today we headed up to the top of the volcano. It looked like a different planet.

You’re so high up that you’re above the clouds, which makes the roads even eerier.

We stopped for soup before the top. It was onion soup which had a fried egg and bits of bread in it.

The volcano looked like a desert but it was really cold.

There was a jogger who kept managing to overtake us every time we stopped, he must have been very fast. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel and went swimming.

Today we went to Santa Cruz, which is the main city of the island (Tom sang The Thrills song at me).

It’s crazy seeing the old buildings mixed in with the new.

There was lots of awesome graffiti. We didn’t stay too long, just enough time to grab some lunch and go to a bookshop – I’d finished reading the first Twilight book and needed to get the second.

Afterwards we headed to Icod de los Vinos to see Dracaena draco, the Dragon Tree.

It’s the the largest and oldest tree of it’s kind and it has crazy looking roots and branches.

The locals believe that it bleeds blood because it’s sap is so red and that it’s made up of human bodies (as the poster shows).

There was also a volcanic cave, which was kind of creepy.

There was a mummy inside – very creepy.

Icod de los Vinos is also the main wine town on the island (the name gives it away), so we went to a little shop where we tried lots of different liqueurs.

Dad got us cute cookies.

I befriended a couple of parrots.

This one tried to speak to me but it only knew Spanish.

We then went for churros and hot chocolate, one of my favorite Spanish snacks (I posted a recipe for these ages ago) before heading home.

Tonight someone was singing Duffy’s Warwick Avenue song at the karaoke bar over from our hotel, which made me miss home. Also, worst news ever – Mr Warwick Avenue’s Service Information board has been replaced by an electronic one. How’s he going to write his witty signs now?!

Today we decided to escape the tourism of the resort by driving up the mountain to Masca, a lovely little hilltown that was once overrun by pirates.

I don’t think the pirates would have stopped for tea and cake like we did though.

There was the most amazing sink made from driftwood in the cafe’s bar, I really want someone to make me one.

We walked around the town for a bit, it can get a lot colder up the mountain.

And then we had Canarian potatoes, one of the traditional dishes. There are hundreds of different dips that they serve them with and it depends on which part of the island you’re on as to which one you get.

The roads are so windy and scary up in the mountains, they’re even worse when it’s dark.

We spotted this odd couple sitting on stones by the side of the road. They were doing exactly the same pose as each other and had the same movements. We thought they looked like gnomes and Tom said they thought they were on a train, tee hee!

After a super tiring flight (screaming kids and snoring old men – I slept while drowning them out with Bright Eyes), we finally made it to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, just off the west coast of Africa. It’s lovely and hot at this time of year, which makes a pleasant change from rainy London. The island looked quite ominous from the plane, with it’s huge volcano (which my Dad tells me is still active) sticking up through the clouds.

We hired a car and heading for the hotel, which was quite hard to find as they all looked so similar. I crashed out as soon as we got in and slept straight through until the evening.

When I woke up, we headed out to get some dinner. We’re close to San Miguel, so that’s was the obvious beer of choice.

It was only €6.50 for a 3 course meal! I had a tuna salad, fish and creme caramel for dessert. There was a “Gordon Ramsay” restaurant next door, but as they were also serving 3 courses for €6.50, I couldn’t work out if it was for real or if they were just using his name. We’ll have to check it out. I think food is going to play a big part in this holiday.

Right now I’m catching up on my CO+K work with the sound of crickets in the distance and making friends with the locals.

We’re having a Scottish tour of all of our friends. First stop was Perth with my family, which was heavily covered in snow.

We had a snowball fight with my Dad.

We warmed up with breakfast at Spoons before heading through to Dundee. (My Nana is wearing her squirrel brooch).

We saw our old flat in Dundee, which reminded us how much we didn’t miss the city.

We had a wander around the shops for a while and I managed to find the diary-a-month Moleskins that I wanted. You get a different coloured mini journal for each month, so I’ll be able to take them travelling and keep them in my bag at all times. We bumped in to our old friend Stuart outside the DCA, which was handy because we’d lost his number, and invited him to our pub meet-up later.

In the evening we had dinner and drinks with our old Dundee friends at our ex-local, The Counting House. Duncan also came up from KDY and Emma came through from Arbroath.

The big news is that Malcolm and Kirsty are engaged, he proposed on Christmas Eve and they are the happiest couple that you will ever meet. It was really nice catching up with old friends, reminding us that it’s the people we miss and not the city.

The train back to KDY was covered in trash, Duncan said we were in the “Skins carriage”.

We took my Dad to Brighton today for his birthday. It was so hot and sunny, so we relaxed on the beach for most of the day. I managed to bag Clare a 50p penpal gift and a set of Pirate cupcake cases.

There was an old fashioned Penny Arcade on the beach, where I had my fortune told.

“Be wary of… women with facial hair”? That sounds ominous, I’ll keep an eye out.

There was a beauty parade slideshow which was a bit pervy, I was rather embarrassed after spending my penny on it.

There was a cool old label press and you could make a label for 20 pence.

It took a bit of practice but we got the hang after spending about 80 pence.

My Mum saved my Dad from drowning.

Tom went on a roller coaster on the pier to make up for the rides at Legoland.

In the evening I treated my Dad to dinner at Jamie’s Italian. They had webcams in the kitchen so you could watch the chefs as they cooked your meal.

I had an awesome time at the BBC yesterday.

In the morning we went for breakfast at Fifteen and then my Mum and I went to see an exhibition of Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe photography. Tom applied for tickets for a new show called As Seen On TV, so we headed along to Television Centre to sit in the audience. 

There was a Tardis parked outside. It was lit up when we left and you could go inside. 

My Dad attempted to push over a Dalek (I have only just noticed the “do not press” button and now I wish I had pushed it).

It was surreal sitting in the studio. As Seen On TV is a comedy panel show, hosted by Steve Jones, with Fern Britton and Jason Manford as team captains.

The ceiling was covered in hundreds of lights and monitors.

We got to stay for two shows (including the last of the series), featuring such stars as Eamon Holmes, Dom Jolly, Cobra from Gladiators and the Blue Peter turtle. I want to go along to shows everyday and then we wont need our TV.

Today was the highlight of my trip when we went to Cafe des 2 Moulins, the Two Towers cafe from the movie Amélie.

It was amazing inside, just like it was in the movie, and they had all the polaroids of Amélie’s Dad’s gnome around the world.

Of course I ordered myself the famous Amélie Poulain crème brûlée and a hazelnut hot frappe. I think it may well have been the most perfect crème brûlée. Mission accomplished.

My parents are down visiting now. Yesterday we went to Borough Market, where it was Apple Day. The place was crowded and there were stalls selling apple juice, cider, apple pies and a play about apples being performed. We spent the rest of the day / evening on the South Bank, nipping in to the Globe and the Tate and finished off with a dinner of sushi.

Today we went for lunch at one of Gordon Ramsay’s pubs, the Warrington, which is a few streets away from our mew. It was really delicious and “research” for the cook-a-long I’m about to do tonight. Afterwards we went to the British museum, where they had a very weird gold Kate Moss statue.

My dad got an umbrella from James Smith & Son’s umbrella shop. I asked the shop seller if it was bad luck for him to show off the umbrellas open inside the shop and he said it was okay, pointing to a horse shoe on the wall. I love how London has specialist shops for everything you could need. My dad also got a chess set from the Chess Shop.