Beatrix pottering: Girls' weekend

"This is a fascinating place!" said Jemima. The Cathedral? Palma's modern art gallery? The Museum of Mallorca? No. Claire's Accessories.

Kevin had flown back to the UK to host his son Ben's leaving party (before he moves to Toronto for work), so she and I were having a weekend on our own. When we dropped Kevin at the airport at lunchtime on Saturday, he gave Jemima €10 spending money, and suggested I take her to the Claire's Accessories branch we'd spotted in Palma - he had a feeling she's at the age where she'd like it. How right he was.

I navigated my first drive into Palma (fine) and first underground parking garage (definitely narrow - no wonder all the cars are scratched). Then we got the scooter out of the boot, and set off through the sunny, blustery streets.

Even now, I am still finding bits of Palma centre I've never seen before - a narrow river with very pretty old bridges (how could I have missed that?); an attractive sloped corner with fabulous bookshops and tables outside - it really is a lovely city. And the bank holiday market was still going, so there was a fun buzz in the air (although thankfully fewer people).

Except in Claire's Accessories, which was packed with girls (and their mums) all browsing the sparkly plastic and metal. Jemima stopped on the threshold, almost too overwhelmed by the sight to enter; then she got over that, and dived in. Our tactic was simple: collect everything she might want to buy on a first circuit, then have a quiet reflect on what she really wanted, and could afford within her money. She took the whole budgeting thing very seriously, discarding items that were too expensive, until she had to choose two of three options. The rainbow jewellery set and shiny globe hair bobbles won the day. Outside, I decked her in her new finery, and she was delighted. "Can we come back tomorrow?!"

The shopping continued. I took her to the shop opposite that I had heard did good kids' shoes (the Clarks of Spain). With the help of a lovely, thorough assistant Jemima chose some amazing flashing trainers (more pink sadly, plus flowers - I do try to avoid too much overtly girly stuff, but these caught her eye straight away, and when she saw they flashed, there was no going back...) Then we celebrated our successful shopping trip with tea and chocolate cake. Perfect.

A short scoot back towards the car, via a square with traditional Mallorcan farm animals (part of the bank holiday) - a donkey, chickens, a giant Mallorcan rabbit, and some adorable black piglets (mmmm, jamón...). And there was Kids' Republik, a recommended soft play with, hurrah, a lovely café at the ground floor, and even better, a friend of Jemima's from school to play with! I sipped a ginger and lemon infusion (the hardest Spanish word I've come across yet: jengibre) while Jemima, Saba and her brother made merry in the subterranean softplay. Honestly, they are such civilised places in comparison with the UK version. Then, after an hour or so's exertion it was home time, to share a pizza. A great day.

My original plan for Sunday was for us to visit Es Baluard, the modern art gallery, but to be honest we were both pretty tired. So I scaled down our ambitions. Today would be about Sunday lunch.

The beach club (I always feel ridiculous writing that) on the edge of Portals Nous that we ran past on Friday has just re-opened, and apparently does very good roast beef. So after a quiet morning, we scooted through the sunny marina then up a steep hill (me pushing Jemima) and around to the beach club. Another lovely place to go, and a lovely walk to get there, all within fifteen minutes.

We were lunching on UK rather than Mallorcan time - we arrived at 1pm, and were the first there. But that gave us a chance to fully appreciate the view, which was fabulous: the restaurant was long and thin, with walls of windows looking right down onto the sea below, and along either side towards the marina in one direction, and the pretty coastline (with discreet and horribly expensive real estate) towards Palmanova in the other. Beautiful. Our friendly (English) waiter found us a window table, and I sipped my complementary cava while we played Little Bus Lotto until our delicious roast beef came. Then we adjourned to Cappuccino to share a huge chocolate ice cream for dessert, while Jemima joined in the usual marina Sunday scooting frenzy (two new friends today: Luisa, German, and Felicity, English, both living here).

After a while it got a bit chilly, so we adjourned to the kids' colouring picnic-style table just inside the door (with a small TV showing Scooby Doo). And to finish a lovely weekend, we bumped into a boy from Jemima's class, Alexander, who was there with his big brother Filip and his Dad. The Dad and I chatted about life in Mallorca (he and his wife are property developers, he is Austrian, she is Slovenian, and they moved here from Vienna a year ago) while the kids had fun, the table gradually filling until there was a line of children, elbow to elbow, happily doing joint artwork in their Cappuccino colouring books. A very nice way to while away the afternoon. And a lovely end to our lovely girls' weekend - we missed Daddy, but we did have fun.

Rainbow jewellery!