Day 1: Home to Totana

May is a month with a lot of bank holidays and that means we have several trips coming up. The first of these is a long weekend in Murcia, a part of Spain which we have never explored before. We mainly chose it because the flights were cheap and it looked like it ought to be sunny at this time of year. Which I think turned out to be a good decision, because the weather in the UK seems to have been more than usually cold and rainy so far this year!

Tim and I had a flight from Gatwick, although it wasn't until 11.00 so not the earliest of starts by our standards. We are being joined on this trip by family members Matt and Max, who had a much earlier start for their flight from East Midlands. Gatwick was remarkably quiet on a Friday morning and we breezed through the formalities in record time. We were lucky to get to try a special lane at security where they were trialling new technology which meant we didn't have to take anything out of our bags at all; not even liquids   It was fantastic and we were through security in just a couple of minutes.

There wasn't much of a view for the majority of the flight, with cloud covering France and much of Spain. It was only as we got closer to the Spanish coast that we started to be able to see the landscape we were flying over.

As we got closer to Murcia, we flew over some beautiful lakes

When we landed and stepped off the plane it was wonderfully warm  We met a representative from the car rental company just outside the airport and he drove us to the compound where the hire car was. Matt and Max had already made it that far and so we were able to set straight off towards our accommodation. The house we're staying in is in the middle of nowhere, in the countryside a few miles outside a little town called Totana.

We've got a beautiful garden...

...and even a little pool!

The house is really lovely inside too

We unpacked and had a little explore.

There's a cactus in our garden!

Once we'd unpacked we drove into the nearby town of Totana to find a shop and stock up on some supplies. Then we settled in for a relaxing evening, enjoying the warm weather and the views