JR enjoyed his trip to Portugal in March so much that he could not wait until his holiday to Gran Canaria. The wet and miserable English weather even gets on a duck's nerves sometimes!
On this holiday, JR had two new traveling companions. Braden had never been on a proper holiday abroad, and he saved up his pennies for spending money and even ordered a book to learn how to speak Spanish.
More importantly, JR had his friend Duck traveling with him. Duck had had a traumatic spring. When the builders were in the house fitting a new shower, Duck and all his other little rubber duck friends were put into a cupboard. Perhaps Duck was tired of being locked away with the towels and spare toothpaste and jumped off the shelf. Perhaps one of the other ducks was jealous of Duck's bright red feathers and pushed him.
The result was that Duck found himself in a plastic bag that previously had held toilet roll, on his way downstairs to be put out for the weekly rubbish collection. Fortunately he was spotted, and JR invited Duck to become his companion on his international adventures.
Oh how good it felt to sit out in the bright Canarian sun! JR and Duck spent as much time as they could out where the sunshine was warm on their beaks.
Even Braden could not resist the lure of the bright sun, though he has probably picked up a few things from living in England for ten years. He acted like a typical Englishman by not taking his socks off whilst sunbathing.
Unfortunately he did remove his shoes, which turned out to be a bit much for two little ducks!
Luckily JR and Duck made a full recovery, but for two days JR refused to come down from a high position where he would be well away from human feet.
Once Braden and Duck convinced him to come down, the whole family went for a round of 18 holes of crazy golf in Maspalomas.
Melinda won, but the ducks didn't care. They were having too much fun exploring the various characters at each hole.
After warming up on the crazy golf course, it was time to play 18 holes of proper golf at the local golf club. The ducks decided that they would caddy, though they really spent all their time chasing dragonflies and trying to steal the golf cart!
JR and Duck often wondered where all the canaries were in the Canary Islands. They searched high and low, but they never found a single canary. They did, however, meet a distant cousin.
There didn't seem to be any birds in the ocean when they checked. They decided that canaries must not like the ocean very much.
Before they knew it, it was time to board the coach to take them to the airport.
Their holiday was almost over. They were sad, but not too sad because they knew it would not be long until they were off on their travels again. In fact, they knew that they would be heading out very soon to Budapest for a long weekend in a new city with some Formula One to watch!
They also took a ride up the side of a hill on the Pest side of the river, being very lazy ducks who could not be bothered to either walk up the rather steep hill or fly to the top to visit the Royal Palace.
They never realised that outside the track, in the beer tents, there would be dancing girls! My goodness, how the ducks are growing up!
J R didn't spend all of his time at the hotel, however. What was the point of being in a new place without experiencing some of the Portugese culture? He tried Chicken Piri-Piri, Portuguese Steak and Seafood Cataplana (though when he was offered to go for a Chinese, he refused on the ground that the Crispy Duck might be a relative). He also went to the pub to watch sports on the television, though being a very young duck, he was sure to only drink fruit juice.
He also found himself wandering up and down hills on a golf course.
