It’s 4:30am. I’m led on the floor of Sofie’s living room, and have just been awoken by the alarm of her housemate, who has kindly agreed to drive us to the airport. The alarm is a jarring and horrible sound, one of those Samsung stock tones, it’s really nasty, and considering it managed to wake me from downstairs in the same house I’ve no idea how she handles being harshly awoken by it every day. Such a noise would make me too afraid of waking to ever fall asleep in the first place. Anyway, you get the idea. It’s early, and we’re off to Madiera.

Sofie finds a discounted sandwich in one of the airport shops. The tag says £1, but the barcode won’t scan and the cashier puts it through at £0.50. This must be the cheapest sandwich anybody has ever had from an airport, or anywhere for that matter. Things are off to a good start.

We didn’t pick specific seats on the plane, because where is the fun in that? Our allocated seats end up being the two rows at the back, which we have all to ourselves. I spend a moment considering the environmental impact of a ‘not full’ aircraft, and then stretch out and drift off to sleep accompanied by Neil Young’s ‘Comes A Time’. Dad rock is my lullaby.

We land. I’m immediately struck by the warmth of the sun. Euphoria hits. The link between sunshine and well-being has never been as stark; I am sitting on a sweaty bus on a runway. I reach for my sunglasses, and am overcome with Joy.

Our hire car is a cute little Fiat Panda. It’s a bit underpowered and feels somewhere between a small van and a shopping trolley, but it’s a good tool for the job and I like It. I spent the first day stroking the door to my left instead of reaching for the gear stick, and looking for the seatbelt on the wrong side, having never driven on the right before. The roads are a lot of fun, although I’d urge a bit of caution in hiring a car if you’re not comfortable going up and down steep gradients, especially if you drive up the 30% hill outside a school at end of day time.

Within 10 minutes of leaving the airport we are in the sea on a small beach called Praia de Machico. We swim about, get salty, lie in the sun, and buy icecream. Things, I think to myself, could not be much better.

The girl in the ice cream shop tells me that for some reason unknown to me my chosen flavour of mango and yoghurt is better enjoyed in a pot than a cone. I ignore her recommendation and opt for the waffle cone because I’m a strong independent man who makes my own decisions about my ice cream recepticles. I don’t understand people who choose a miserable little cardboard pot over a nice crunchy cone. Sorry pot people, It’s not personal.

Later we take a short walk out along the headland to Ponta de São Lourenço. The cliff faces are beautifully colourful and striped with different layers of rock. I regularly find myself thinking I need to get a book on geology and learn about rocks. I spend enough time looking at them, and like to drop the word ‘igneous’ into conversation now and again to make everybody aware that I listened in geography at school.

That evening we take our first trip to the supermarket. We are shopping hungry. I want to buy and eat EVERYTHING. I get so excited by foreign supermarkets and want to taste and try all sorts of things. I gawp at the gross-looking eels on the fish counter and stare longingly at the varieties of Milka chocolate like some sort of horny lecherous teenager.

Between us, (but mostly thanks to Sofie) we manage to shop effectively and find some essential Earl Grey tea. It’s such a fucking cliche, but honestly my life would fall apart without cups of tea in it.

On reaching the self-service checkout everything goes to shit. We haven’t labelled the veg, the self-checkout flags up an error, I’ve stuck the label for a pastry onto a courgette by mistake. Neither of us speak Portuguese to explain. I find this all quite fun.

The following day we take a boat trip in search of dolphins. I had never seen a dolphin before, and generally like spending time on boats, so this was a real treat. We then wander around Funchal soaking up the city, grab lunch at a restaurant with some live music playing in the street, take a few photos and indulge in another pastel de nata at a cute little shop in the old town.

We had aimed to hike to Pico Ruvio at some point, but the weather had turned wet and stormy and there was a risk of lightning. Not the time to play about up at 1800m. We took an alternate lower level forest walk one day, which included a lot of exciting fungus, and then drove north to take a dip in some sea pools at Porto Moniz. Definitely visit these if you’re going to Madiera. The island is small enough that Its really easy to be flexible and weather dependant with plans, nowhere is too far away, and everywhere is a fun drive.

Fortunately, the sun shone again on our final day on the island, and we made it up to the mountains to find clear skies and mind blowing views with impressive rock formations. Once again I found myself wishing for more (or any) geology knowledge.

As we drove the road from Funchal to the trailhead I kept thinking about about cycling the climb. It gains 1810m of elevation in 22km, which is as savage as it is an appealing challenge. The island is also littered with dreamy mountainbike trails which i’d peered longingly at from a distance. Anway, this time I had shoes and not pedals.

We hiked the trail from Pico do Arieiro to Pico Ruivo. It’s a well-engineered path but with a mad amount of steep stairs, and a few tunnels cut through the mountains. I felt fortunate to get this weather window and be able to see the best of the scenery of the island. The icing on the cake was meeting a cat at the summit. I like cats, and would rather a photo of a cat than a selfie by a trig point any day.

We squeezed the maximum out of this last day and got straight back to the beach after our hike to lap up the last few moments of sun with a pina colada and a quick swim before boarding our flight back home. The pilot chirpily remarked that Bristol was 3 degrees, which was milder than previous days. Brilliant.

That it for holidays for me for a little while, and It was a great one to end on. I start a new job tomorrow, which I’m really excited about. It’s been sometime now since I started my work break, and while I’m mourning the fact that every summer can’t be spent this way, I’m feeling rejuvenated and really looking forward to getting to work and getting back into a normal routine. I’ve just cooked about 1000 portions of spag bol for the freezer and am ready to do adulting again. ✌️