Cala galdana is bae goals

It's safe to say that the holiday-less life is not for me and so for the third time this year (pretty tame for me, considering it's July) I jetted off on my jollies. This time, it was a family holiday to Menorca and we kicked things off the right way with a surprise trip to the all-inclusive lounge at the airport before our flight (my dad loves to plan a surprise). It's safe to say we got our moneys worth on the prosecco and Aidan visited the breakfast buffet 3 times! Recently, I've seen loads of people going on about 'airport outfits' to the point where some websites are adding a completely different section? Seems very strange to me but then I always go for the same trusty outfits; cuff-bottomed trousers, top and whichever shoes I want to take that are the heaviest. In this case, it was rust and black printed trousers with tassel tie waist (new look), black strappy t-shirt (missguided) and my black lace-up sandals (river island).

A couple of hours later and we were there! We were staying at Cala Galdana Bay in the very creatively named, Cala Galdana Hotel. The hotel was gorgeous and the pool area was really nice, however we did even better than that because when we checked in, we were told we'd be in one of the 2 bedroom villas instead of 2 hotel rooms. I forgot to take pictures until after we were well and truly settled in (it wasn't quite so messy when we arrived) but the villa itself was amazing; we ended up with loads more space, we had a lovely little garden area and a picture-perfect wall covered in flowers that became my instagram-photos-backdrop-of-dreams.

My dad obviously hadn't been all that optimistic about our place in the world cup as he had lined the dates up terribly, meaning that England's semi final qualifier game was taking place a couple of hours after we landed. So I made a quick outfit change in to this black crossover top (missguided), black and gold shorts (river island) and flip-flops, before we hot-footed it in search of a bar with a TV. Luckily we didn't have to search too far - there was one pretty much directly over the road from our villa! And as if the amazing 30+ degree weather, a litre jug of sangria and the most amazing iberico ham and tomato pizza wasn't enough to have my mood soaring, England managed to go and win! Obviously my dad took that as a free pass to get more and more drunk as the day went on and shout 'its coming home' at random probably-english strangers in the street but it was all good fun! We also burst out laughing when we saw that the waiter had a doppelganger sat across from us. My mum cemented just how much he looked like him by saying 'that is the waiter?' when I pointed him out, before the actual waiter came round the corner.

Then it was pretty much time to get ready for the evening and I decided to wear my new red printed playsuit with flared frill sleeves (new look) with gucci belt and black lace up sandals. I couldn't be bothered to wash my hair (or to try and keep it styled in the humidity) so I opted to leave it up and added black tassel earrings and red lipstick. We were half board at our hotel so we thought we'd give our restaurant a try for the first night (the upgrade from bed and breakfast to half board was about £5 per person so we'd always planned to eat out a bit too). The restaurant was lovely (as was the food) with a massive selection and loads of different stations to choose from. We then went on a little walk along the beach before heading back to our hotel for cocktails, a performance of Motown songs from a temptations tribute band and for dad to see how good the zoom feature was on his new camera (pretty good, it turns out).

Bikini - Pretty little thing

Lace up Sandals - River island

Top - Bershka

Shorts - Bershka

Sandals - New look

Bikini - Pretty little thing

Sandals - New look

Top - Missguided

Shorts - Missguided

Sandals - New look

Bikini - ASOS

Sandals - New look

Top - Topshop

Skirt - Missguided

Sandals - New look

Bikini - Missguided

Sandals - New look

Top - F&F (Tesco)

Shorts - Primark

Sandals - New look

Bikini - Boohoo

Sandals - River island

Top - New look

Shorts - Missguided

Sandals - New look

Top - Miss selfridge

Shorts - New look

Sandals - New look 

(worn over purple marble bikini from previous photos)

I didn't think there was enough to be said about my bikinis or my daytime outfits (considering I basically wore them to go to breakfast and then never again) so I figured grouping them together was the best way. It wasn't intentional when I bought them or packed them, but I managed to pretty much match each outfit to a bikini, which was quite clever of me.

It was a full-on-chill-mode type of holiday so the day times were mostly spent around the pool. I definitely prefer the pool to the beach - I can't stand getting sand everywhere! Our pool was really nice and was complete with jacuzzi section and waterfalls, plus the pool bar had a pretty good ice cream selection, which we slowly made our way through.

Never a family to be satisfied doing nothing for too long though, we made sure to do a couple of activities too. We started with a pedalo boat (complete with slide of course) and had a look around our bay and the surrounding ones. Pedalo's are a hell of a lot harder to work than they look and after the vigorous leg workout, I was pretty happy to relax with an ice cream in hand when we got back!

We also decided to hire kayaks, which we last did in Miami a couple of years ago and which are surprisingly a hell of a lot easier to navigate than a pedalo. Weirdly I found it much easier to go against the current so I loved going out to sea, feeling like a Polynesian princess and singing moana songs to myself as I went. We managed to explore quite a few of the bays on both sides of us and the views were really beautiful. The fact that it's so easy to tan while keeping cool was just an added bonus.

In the evenings, we ended up eating out more than just a few times (most nights in fact) and on night number 2, we went to a restaurant sitting on top of the rocky bay edge that looked out to sea. I wore a black lace bralet under pink wide sleeve bodysuit (pretty little thing) with black shorts and black lace up sandals and I treated highlighter as my best friend by applying very generously. There's no such thing as too much highlighter when you're on holiday. We had a lovely meal overlooking the bay as the sun went down; I had swordfish with grilled vegetables and a whole load more sangria (although the cava version this time) and the restaurant even had a little look out point which was a nice touch.

On to night 3 and we were back eating at our hotel restaurant again, where they had fruit shaped like some sort of evil rabbit and a giant tree of desserts (always a plus). This playsuit is one of my newer ones and it's the best holiday purchase ever. I love the short-at-the-front-long-at-the-back style and the red print is very summery. I did a red eyeshadow look and red lipstick to match and even went the whole hog in matching my drink by being back on the standard sangria again. Now that's commitment.

Night 4 and we were back out again! I apparently didn't get the memo that I was on a Spanish island and went for Grecian vibes instead in this pretty little thing striped playsuit with wrap tie back. It's pretty much one of the only outfits I own that shows off my rose sideboob tattoo and for that I love it even more. I curled my hair and wore it half-up-half-down to show off my statement silver earrings (which weigh a ton). It would've been rude to go all the way to Spain and not have any tapas and what better day to have it than on tapas Tuesday? The food was amazing (to the point where my dad even ordered a second of one of his dishes) and of course, I had plenty of sangria (yet again) to go with it.

On Wednesday we had to be ready a bit earlier because the England game kicked off at 7pm (8pm our time) and so we made our way back to the same restaurant where we had won a few days before, to watch us against Croatia. Obviously I'm sure you know how that turned out (boooo) but it was a good game to watch all the same and thanks to the extra time, I got through so much sangria that I ended up throwing up when we got back (nice). Before it all got messy though, I wore this pink leopard print playsuit (missguided) with gucci belt and black sandals. I'm obsessed with the sleeves and they make you feel as though you should be swanning around a very large, posh house. Dinner was amazing too (I had chicken with peppercorn sauce and the others had pizza) and after our heroic defeat, we headed back to the villa to play cards (and have even more drinks, which probably contributed to the later throwing up).

I always save my white outfits until the end of the holiday when I'm most tanned and so for night number 6, I wore this white crochet playsuit (missguided) which has been a holiday favourite for a while now. I couldn't deal with curling my hair for a fifth day in a row so instead, I straightened it and wore it in a ponytail, with my statement dangly earrings back for another outing. Because of the lack of colour in my outfit (white playsuit, white sandals, white bag, all white errthang), I decided to inject some in my makeup with purple and orange eyeshadow (love love love) and purple lipstick (Captive by MAC). We were meant to be having a night in at the hotel restaurant but dad changed his mind (my love of eating out was clearly inherited) and so we went for dinner at a restaurant overlooking the marina part of the bay and I had the most amazing fillet steak with peppercorn sauce, wedges and veg - it was incredible. It will probably come as no shock that having spent the day feeling delicate, I was deterred from sangria for the evening and went with aperol spritz instead. And I was clearly feeling the Italian theme (again, obviously confused as to where I actually was) because I got tiramisu for dessert.

On our last night we decided to venture a little further afield and caught the bus to the nearest town, Ciutadella, which had a beautiful old town, narrow colourful streets (like in Venice or Greece) and a massive marina lined with restaurants as far as the eye could see. After reading about 20 menus (all offering similar dishes) we finally picked one and to our surprise, were offered a set menu which was 3 courses, plus bread, plus a drink for €19! And with about 6 choices for each course and wine included as the drink in the offer, they got a big tick from us. I went for some sort of pulled-pork pizza to start (I had to leave about a third on the fear I'd be full), baked sea bream for main and then lemon sorbet with G&T jelly for dessert. The whole lot was lovely and having a great view as the sun set was even better. For our trip to Ciutadella, I wore another of my classic last-night-of-the-holiday outfits; this white and palm print plunging playsuit (missguided).

Then still feeling like we'd only just got there, we headed to the airport at the ridiculously early time of 10am for our 13:40 flight (damn package holidays and their pickup times). True to my word, I wore another variation of my go-to travelling outfit; printed tapered-bottom trousers, white strappy vest and black lace up sandals. And after the already-way-too-long wait at the airport, it turned out that we'd had an aircraft swap so we weren't in a Jet2 plane and our seats had all been swapped. This worked out pretty well for us though because we ended up in extra legroom seats (for no cost) and they brought round free tea and chocolate! I also managed to finish my 4th book of the holiday so you can be expecting another 'jenni from the book' post very shortly. I've had an amazing holiday and it was so nice to spend some time with my family (even if they do drive me mental). Let's see if my tan can last until I jet off again - next stop Dubrovnik!