We made it.

Oh yes we did. And here is the lucky business receiving our eurodollars for tonight's cheese and tomato extravaganza.


I tell you, these kids are round-the-world cheese and tomato pizza experts. So it had better be good from the Taberna Tirso de Molina.

Everyone likes the look of this place. Peering through the windows we can see shining white tiles, red brick, thick yellow varnished pine, crowds of people, and industrious red-faced waiters swirling around under globe lights. It looks French. Even the entrance door in the arch transports me; it's long and thin and glazed and it should be nineteenth century and reveal a sour faced Jean Paul Sartre sulking behind, brooding on gauloises.

It's not immediately obvious they do food at all, except for the menu slapped up outside. As soon as we risk an entry, the cigarette smoke from the youthful crowded bar front billows out, with great clouds of relaxed chatter following. No-one bats an eyelid as three kids are led through the crowd to the restaurant tables at the rear at 10pm at night.

Try and lead three kids through the beer stink of the Engineer's Arms in Smalltown and see how long before Social Services turn up. Thank goodness we've left that anti-child British land behind for a few days.

Here I could be experiencing pure joy, because an efficient and attentive waiter who doesn't tut and glower and fuss and snap whada the kids want? comes to take orders, wait like it's no problem to know whether Tiger will eventually order cheese and tomato pizza or cheese and tomato pizza and, without haste or hesitation, just brings the wine, water, great olives, and crisps as big and round as Squirrel's head.

And so begins a very fine meal. Excellent portion size. But a little salty on the cheese. Squirrel takes after mother and helps herself to a bottle of gin.

Only joking! Got to keep Mrs Gradgrind on her toes. Of course it's not gin. It's Martini.

After a few drinks, Shark is looking like a miniature version of Dig, in a frock.


Dig has met his match there. Soon she will be sitting in the gentleman's club, comparing the bouquet of a 1989 Chateau Moulin de la Graviere against the complexity of the 1986.

And here's Tiger. She's leaving, because she's not putting up with this ridiculous family any longer.


Not with the sort of mother who declares the pizza is far too big to finish and starts wrapping it up and shovelling it her handbag.

This is Spain, I say, and here carrying pizza around in your handbag is not at all frowned upon. People here are sociable, tolerant, relaxed and they won't do like they do in France either, which is look at you down their nose like you are draped in rat fur.

And just think yourself lucky young lady, because if we'd taken you down the Engineer's Arms in Smalltown for your cheese and tomato pizza you wouldn't have escaped without the compulsory purchase of a quarter of smack and a knife fight on the pavement.

As it is, we leave simply with smiles. And tomorrow's lunch in my handbag.