Home away from home...

They started eating sweets on the bus out to the airport and finished the last one just as we pulled up to the terminal. The kids were flying even before they got onto the plane....500 grams of pure sugar left them wide-eyed and hyperactive.

We herded them through customs and into the duty free area in Barcelona International Airport......then spent the next 90 minutes to bring them down from a massive sugar rush by administering water. Maybe Spanish sweets are a little stronger then they are used to.

Our flight into Gatwick was a short one. You tend to forget how conveniently positioned London is to the rest of Europe. In under two hours we were in an entirely different culture....I had gone from wearing a t-shirt to sporting a jacket. The sunny skies over Barcelona had clouded over in Surrey and the friendly locals around La Rambla had turned a little cranky.

Welcome to Gatwick said the large sign over customs - I read between the lines - it said 'now you can bugger off to where you came from...'