Beatrix pottering: Feet, car, bus

Another beautiful day. All this lovely weather is a real enticement to being outside, so today Kevin and I started our latest Mallorcan project: a couch to 5k training regime. After Kevin had taken Jemima to school (she asked him especially), and I'd done my morning coaching revision, we kitted up, and headed out.

We walked briskly down to the marina, then started our running/ walking alongside the boats. It was lovely - a nice gentle start to the running, and lots of things to look at as we ran. Then we finished by venturing onto the sea wall, which I hadn't done before. We weren't the only exercisers - we just went to the end and back, but quite a few others were slogging up and down repeatedly. A great place to do it, with Portals Nous to one side and the glittering sea on the other; and we had that lovely smug feeling you get when you've done exercise. Let's see if we stick to the nine week programme...

After our return home, shower and change, our plan was to drive to Palma. This was slightly delayed by a flat battery, quickly resolved by the rental company. But it meant we needed to do a longer drive to re-charge it, so we explored parts of northern Palma we hadn't seen yet. It is such a pretty city - even the ugly blocky modern buildings are in warm colours (creams, beiges), which the sunshine makes seem vaguely attractive. Then, battery issue resolved, we parked in our favourite underground car park by the Catedral and surfaced by the City Sightseeing bus.

We've done these all over the world: I enjoy the way they give me a broader sense of a city, making the paper map real in my head. And today the sun was out, and we even got the coveted front row seats. It was a lovely, if hairy journey: our driver had a slightly heavy foot, and the route included some roads so narrow you'd never have thought you'd get a bus down them. But the great joy of Palma is the warren of tiny streets in the old town, where the bus really can't go; so definitely a trip to be combined with the aimless old town ambling we did the other day. (It was nice to be having a sit down after our exertions though.)

And then back to Portals and our second home: Chameli's and the menú del dia - a very tasty ricotta ravioli today. (This late lunch has become our tradition now: it gives us most of the day to do something, and it means we don't really need much dinner - Jemima eats when she finishes school, as she's famished, so we can't have dinner together anyway.) Today, with our running, we felt we'd definitely earned it. Bring on the next nine weeks!

City sightseeing