The thunder woke me up, clattering against the window as the noise boomed around the nearby mountains.  For a few moments I’d no idea where I was – then remembered it was Majorca, the Pollensa Park Hotel and there was rain hammering to get in. As I drifted off back to sleep I wondered if the weather would improve by the morning…

In a novel the next sentence would start, “Opening the curtains, the sunlit view of the Bay of Alcudia took my breath away“, or some such.  But no, outside the hotel window all was a grey, misty blur and there was most definitely no ‘view’ to be seen.  However, that was not going to daunt us on our first day of the holidays so, after a very decent breakfast, my son, his best mate, his mum and I set off to explore Puerto Pollensa town.

Just minutes away, the sandy beach taunted us, saying “Just wait, in a while it will be so sunny you’ll need one of our straw umbrellas to project you” and the sea murmured, “Come on in, never mind the rain, you’ll get wet anyway!” But we ignored them and wandered along the shops towards what seemed to be the heart of town.  The boys kept stopping to rifle through the knick-knackeries that these seaside places abound in, whilst Chris’s Mum tried to find the perfect flip-flop.

Puerto Pollensa Market

Eventually we ended up at the market, and what a delight that was.  Don’t you just love these Mediterranean market stalls filled with fruit, vegetables, meat and fish that appear never to have even heard of EU directives about size and shape? It’s simple, delicious, wholesome food that tastes as good as it looks.  We bought a huge bag of scarlet and wine red cherries and a few flat, round peaches I’d never seen before, from a lovely lady who grinned widely as we tried out our school days Spanish.

Hearing what sounded like Peruvian pan pipes above the pattering rain, we followed the sound to the centre of the market; there was a guy dressed up like a native American Indian selling CDs of the music another guy was playing, surrounded by those feathery dream catchers so popular today.  We listened to the music and watched the sales pitch, which basically consisted of pointing at Pan, then at one of the tracks on the relevant CD – and smiling a lot.  It worked; we bought a copy and I’m listening to its evocative sounds now…

At the end of one of the aisles of stalls there was the most delicious aroma – spices, nuts, olives, pulses, dates, herbs, crystallised fruits …  row up on row of colour, texture and heady scents. We stocked up on enough to last us all week and probably most of next month.

The rain stopped, the sun won its skirmish with the clouds and we went back along the shore to the hotel. The view from the room was absolutely perfect and Puerto Pollensa was washed clean and bright.

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