Singing it like the Spanish

It's not her favourite subject which is a shame really, seeing as we intend to live in Spain for the foreseeable future. A loves learning Spanish, rolling the new words around her tongue and picking up the language easily. P, like myself, has to rote learn the vocabulary, the verbs make no sense and she looks blankly when our neighbours talk to her. Poor P, I know that feeling.

But we have a found a way to make a difference. Singing, P loves to sing. We spend many, many hours in the car driving to school listening to our favourite radio station Cadena 100. I listen to the adverts and chat, the kids squeal at the uncensored English pop songs and try to sing to the Spanish ones.

We all LOVE Sofia.

We blast the nonsensical words out and make up what we can hear. Until this:

After a Sunday morning practice, over and over again, singing karaoke to this fabulous pop song...we can all sing it like the Spanish.

With P being the loudest and most Spanish of us all.

The big girl got perforated

There were the rains, and then the snow, a week of ice and two days of winds so destructive it broke our tree in two.

And then, just like that, it was A's birthday. A great big eleven year old who has taken this huge Mallorcan step all in her pre-teen stride. A smiley girl, always kind, obsessed with her pony and friends, awoke to the most hideous of days. Rain battered on the car as we drove the long journey to school - rain in Mallorca makes traffic jams, so we were late.

And then she forgot the cakes to take into her class. And because she had missed registration no one sang Feliz Cumpleanos to her. She cried. Eleven was turning out to be completely rubbish.

Valiantly, she ran out to me and grinned her wide grin after the school day was over. P looked nervous, for it had been decided that seeing eleven was very grown up - she could get her ears pierced. She had been practising with stickers on her ears for weeks, watched all the You Tube videos on how it was done and asked all her friends what it was like - preparing her for the day. Not being a great fan of pain, A had still decided to go ahead.

So off to the pharmacy we went.

The first one was shut.

The second one was open but only did piercings on Friday afternoons. The disappointment and relief was palpable in one.

We tried all of Magaluf.

After parking terribly in Palmanova I ran into the fourth chemist who said yes, she could have her orejas perforadas now. How she grinned, terrified and excited. P closed her ears and eyes. I held A's hand tightly and bang! bang! They were done. Two diamante studs of the crappiest quality where in my daughters ears and her eleventh birthday had been redeemed. Completely redeemed.

"At last I am like a Spanish girl!" she exclaimed, looking at herself in the mirror.

Yes my darling you are.

"I've never seen snow before on my birthday!"

Only in Mallorca