Having read my last blog post, a friend said that if they were Lanzarote they would feel hurt, which made me feel sad for the poor, bleak little island. The truth is that I had a brilliant holiday with my family, it’s just the landscape was not to my taste. The holiday itself was a gift – swimming in the sea every day, working hard on that vitamin D deficiency, playing tennis, hiking across the barren hills, eating lots of fruit, vegetables and fish. All of this before starting the new job that I’ve been waiting for. Spring has brought me gifts, and I’m feeling very lucky and happy right now

One of the highlights of the Lanzarote trip was dinner here – El Mirador at the edge of the Marina in Playa Blanca. You could easily come here just for the views and atmosphere. Then it turns out that the food is world-class and you have yourself the perfect couple of hours watching the sun set over the sea while trying all sorts of delicious morsels. Here, you get classic dishes cooked with plenty of imagination. For example, black pudding with apple came in sweet dumpling form, sprinkled with icing sugar. Next to it are the cod balls, also tasty but not any competition for the black pudding dumplings, which are one of those dishes I will remember for the rest of my life. I’m not exaggerating

Another stand-out dish – my mum’s prawn and mushroom risotto had an interesting flavour to it, which I guessed to be orange blossom water. I have no idea if my guess was correct or not, as the English speaking waiter was nowhere to be seen at this point, so I couldn’t ask