"Th... th... th... that's all, folks!"

As our Autumn sojourn finishes, I have to say it has ended far better than it began. The "all-day-unbroken-sun-with-no-clouds" forecast for our final day didn't quite pan out as it was reasonably cloudy in the morning. Still nice enough to sit out and sunbathe, but the rays were certainly not getting through the Factor 20 sunblock today.  To be fair, I may have managed to catch more of them had I not been in the bar watching the Arsenal v QPR game, but hey.

The kids were all having a whale of a time in the pool and they had made even more friends, especially Luke from North Wales (aged 8 who had the roaring hots for Madeline) and little Eve (also aged 8) from Liverpool.

Our final evening saw no laid on entertainment as such, but there was the dreaded Karaoke.  The girls completely hogged it all night with hardly anyone else getting a look in. Eve was reduced to tears at every ballad, especially Anna's rendition of "My Heart Will Go On", but to be fair was in tears every couple of minutes because it was our last night.  Bless.

All was going well until suddenly, drama, drama, drama, Madeline had lost her purse.  A survey of all the usual places proved fruitless ("I put in your bag Mum, I swear, you've moved it!") and we then had major strops and sulks until we got back to the room and then lo and behold it was under her pillow.  Disaster averted.

When I say averted, I should probably say postponed.  We had insisted that the girls completely pack BEFORE going to Karaoke as we were being picked up at just after 07:00 on Sunday morning and there just wouldn't be time.  Even with the extra hours sleep provided by the clock change it would have been murder getting them to do it in the morning.  But they didn't and Madeline had suddenly discovered 15 minutes prior to our pick up from the airport that she had lost one of her necklaces, which actually was quite expensive (why she brought it away I have no idea, but there you go).  Oh my word, she went mad and probably woke the entire hotel (or rather we did, trying to calm her down) and there was just no finding it anywhere.  We asked at reception but had no joy there and I suspect it has been picked up by someone.  Never mind - she hasn't got a brilliant record at looking after her stuff and it's the only way she'll learn.  There was some joy however... tucked right at the bottom of the front pocket of her case we did manage to locate the small video camera she thought she'd lost 18 months ago so it wasn't all doom and gloom!

Our flight back to Southend was uneventful and landing at our local airport was really good.  It did take longer to get out than the 20-30 minutes I had been told - it was actually an hour from landing to indoors - but still a massive improvement on either Gatwick or Stansted.  Southend is expanding and doubling it's capacity, with new routes for 2013.  It can only be good for the town and local economy, even if we do have to put up with the low flying aircraft.

So the adventure comes to a close, although it really wasn't much of an adventure at all.  I did choose that word because it started with an "A" and so did "Algarve" and somehow "Staying in One Place on the Algarve" doesn't quite have the same ring.  Thanks for reading and in closing, I leave you with some shots from our stay.  We would definitely consider returning... it was a cracking little hotel in a quiet resort, but perfect for a slightly off season break... with better weather.