Big excitement on the campsite. The 'market' otherwise known as the shop is open. Old grumpy knickers isn't there, it must be her 'top up your flaming red hair dye day'. Contrary to the name which conjures up an image of fresh flowers, floury loaves of bread and sweet smelling papaya fruit, the shop is like a museum of things they had for sale left over after the war ... with free dust and an historical sell by date. I buy a rusting tube of toothpaste and a bar of carbolic soap. I know it's for washing something, bodies, dishes, clothes, but I'm not sure which.

The metro in Madrid is the best I have seen. It is clean, quiet, efficient, and a lot cheaper than London or Paris equivalents. Every time I turn up on a platform the digital signs say it is two minutes to the next train, and two minutes later a train arrives. It is so smooth that I can stand up and write postcards as it goes along, not that what I write is any more interesting for that though.

One of the irritating things about being new to a country is not knowing how to get through a ticket barrier without: A) Creating a huge backlog behind you of regular local commuters who form a queue a mile long, rolling their eyes and cursing your ineptitude as if you are dimwittedest person to ever drag your knuckles on the earth; B)After confidently slipping the ticket in bashing your hip on the unmoving turnstile giving yourself a haematoma the size of a dinner plate; C)After being shouted instructions you don't understand through the speaker from the ticket office by the ticket officer, forcing them to come out of the office and put the ticket through for you, as if you just caused them the same amount of effort as running a marathon in a panda suit.

But it is my second day here and although my timing is less than flawless, I get through without need for assistance. I shun McDonalds in favour of an ice cream, and after bidding the prostitutes good morning I hide from the sun in a handy internet café for a while.

I say a 'handy' internet café basically because it is above a bar, sells sweets, diet coke and has a loo. I check my email to see if the Beard has got fed up and filed for divorce yet. He hasn't, so I am in the clear to have another day spending his money on vegetarian paella and postcards.

Whilst I am in mid blog a voice shouts up from the bar downstairs "Rrrrraooul!!!" It has all the friendliness of a psychopathic murdering maniac who has just kicked to death his third victim of the day and wants his assistant to move the body before it's freshly spilt blood stains the lovely carpet he bought with money he earned from enacting single handed genocide in a small African country.

I crouch a little lower behind the screen and wonder if it is bullet proof. A little more manically it calls again "Raoul". It sounds to me like the voice of a man who's best friend is called 'despot'. If I were Raoul I would move pretty sharpish or risk the same fate.

A blog later it is midday, so Englishwoman that I am, I go in search of cooling fountains and ice cream. There are plenty of both in Madrid. Which is good cos it's really hot. I make my way past a series of 'petrificados', buskers in costume and make up pretending to be statues. These range from the curiously un-Spanish and sweltering Mickey Mouse to the equally curious woman covered in fruit.

A rather more interesting one is a black guy who is only wearing trunks. He looks like the type of chap who likes to eat healthily and go to the gym regularly. He has made up his skin to look a little more like stone and he stands perfectly still in a superhero pose. I know that he was standing perfectly still because I watched him for quite a long time ... in the interests of this blog and to report to you about the fascinating types of buskers you can see and ... enjoy , in Madrid. I should ro - coco.

I wend (this is a very useful word and means , to travel in a direction without knowing where the heck it will lead but arriving somewhere interesting quite by accident) my way to the far side of town and to the Opera House. Behind this is the 'Real Palace' and so I double my Spanish vocab by deducing with the linguistic power vested in me that 'real' means 'royal'. Now palaces and me have a bit of an affinity what with me having surely been stolen by my fake parents from the royal palace where I was born, and raised instead as a commoner. This one does not disappoint.

Unlike the Prince of Wales' first marriage, this really is the stuff that fairy tales are made of. There is one particular bedroom that I would be quite happy to die in and I think one or two Kings probably did ... although not at the same time.

The best bit about the palace though, is it's back garden. There is no fence, gate or wall dividing the Palace garden from its people and Madrillenos play in it at their ease. It is an Alice in Wonderland layout of box hedge mazes and avenues of trees. There are fountains to gaze at, and benches to sit on whilst gazing at someone else. Boys play football and old ladies giggle like school girls to one another. Madres and Padres walk holdling a toddlers hand each between them, after a day at work and nursery, as a long, relaxing, warm evening in Madrid stretches ahead of them.

I sit outside at a bar overlooking the plaza and watch the locals unwind. I order beer and tortilla, and watch the sun in a sky that is the red of a matadors cape slip down behind the home that should rightfully have been mine.