Family holidays I

When I was 6 we went to the Algarve in Portugal. On the last day I was sick in the hotel bar whilst we were waiting for the coach to take us to the airport. I had ear ache on the plane and spent the journey with my head on my mum's lap. I remember a white church in a square where lemon trees grew. My sister and I were made to wear pink straw sun hats shaped liked upturned vases. I didn't like mine because it kept blowing off in the wind and I'd wanted the one on the stall with an elastic chin band. There were huge advertising boards by the sides of the road. Strange to me then because they would never be given planning permission in Britain. I remember one that stood high on a dusty brown ridge and depicted the dark silhouette of a man with a cloak and a broad brimmed hat. We must have sat in the car a lot because I remember long games pretending that I was a mosquito and daydreaming. We saw trees with bark made out of cork and bought a straw donkey from a shop on a cobbled hill.