It has been a busy old week, and I am not quite sure where the time has gone. We are in the middle of our three-week run at school, and we had friends to stay at the weekend, so it has all been rather hectic, so where to begin?

Firstly, we had a lovely weekend with Sam and Daisy. Sam is one of Andrew’s oldest friends, and he’s engaged to Daisy who Andrew first met at Central St Martin’s in London. A slight word of warning to any other friends who may be coming to stay with us over the course of this year: DON’T TRUST SATNAV and READ THE INSTRUCTIONS.

As part of the run up to their arrival, I sent Sam some detailed instructions on how to find the house from Malaga airport, and I recall Sam replying “many thanks for the detailed instructions. No excuses for getting lost!”

They got lost.

The couple were due to arrive at around 4pm, so we hot-footed it back from school to welcome them. The first message we received said:

“we have picked up the car and we’re on our way’.

Yay! The second message was a screenshot of a map showing them going cross country, having taken a wrong turn off the motorway. Andrew and I looked at each other. “Why the hell are they going cross-country? That route takes them into the mountains!” So Andrew sent a text:

NO!!!! STAY ON THE MOTORWAY!!!

At around 4:30pm, Daisy called to say that they had arrived; they had just passed a small bar with green and white chairs outside and they just needed to find the house. A BAR?? Our village is devoid of shop, bar, anything equating to any sort of convenience. It suddenly dawned on us that they may be in Salares, another village somewhere in Andalucia, and certainly not in Saleres, our village. One change of letter makes all the difference, especially if typed into Google Maps.

A drive that should have taken around an hour and a half took 4 hours, but at least they arrived safely.

The rest of the weekend was wonderful: a turn around La Alhambra and La Generalife and the beautiful gardens. Andrew and I had both been to the Palacios Nazaries before, but had not seen the gardens, so we whizzed through the palaces, avoiding the tourists, and made it out into the gorgeous park behind and above the moorish walls to see autumn colours in all their glory.

On Sunday, we took it at a slightly more relaxed pace, with a walk in the foothills above neighbouring Niguelas before a tapas lunch at Miguel’s bar - providing Sam and Daisy with an authentic taste of village life. The afternoon was spent in front of the fire; we all needed a rest and it was great not to have any plans, but time just to relax and chat.

A brief respite between two weeks of full-on school during which we have revised and revised the past tenses, slotted in el futuro simple, got confused by por y para (again) and got confused by the differences between the verbs ser and estar. I am sure that we should be getting less confused by this stage….. That said, I aways find Mondays and Tuesdays at school to be particularly taxing, and then repetition tends to ensure that more information falls into place by Thursday and Friday.

Sam and Daisy left on Monday morning, and the house seemed a little empty when we returned after school, much as it has seemed empty whenever our guests depart. Our school routine continues: early starts, lunch, homework in front of the fire, dinner then bed. This week has been unsettled, weather-wise; indeed, today saw a day of almost unbroken and heavy rain, with a great deal of snow on the mountains, anywhere above 1,000 metres. It does feel as if autumn is slightly turning to winter, as daytime temperatures fail to reach the 20s that we had become used to. But then, there is much less of a temptation for us to abandon school work to relax in the sun (not that we have ever done that!), and we get our heads down accordingly.

Oh, and it as Sam's birthday today (Happy Birthday) and I may well have secured my first teaching role…..!