I've just returned from a few days spent in the Andalucia region of Spain, a fact which (if my gmail inbox and myspace messages are anything to go by) has surprised a lot of people. I wasn't flouncing off in a strop about anything and keeping it all quiet, you understand, it was just the anniversary of myself and Amanda's wedding. Given that it takes place in a traditionally quiet time of year, I didn't much suppose anybody would notice we were gone. Still, thanks anyway.

This long weekend marks the first time I'd been back to Spain since I was a small child. My memories of it were always pleasant and very specific - I always visualise a place that's simultaneously relaxed and chaotic, with half-built buildings everywhere, men revving around tiny lanes on scooters, loud, deafening conversations in smokey Bistros, and drinks of Fanta that actually taste slightly like oranges and not fizzy chemicaloid rubbish. Amanda tells me that the country might just have changed in the last twenty years. As soon as we land, however, I am swept into a place that doesn't seem to have changed one iota - it even still looks completely unfinished. It seems to be eternally attempting to redevelop itself. In one street, a house has been demolished (with the wallpaper still hanging off the now external walls) and a new block is going up opposite, though the entire time we're there we don't see anyone working on it.

To many people this kind of architectural mania would be highly offputting, but I actually derive a certain degree of comfort from it. I'm not the most organised person myself, and I'm forever picking up new plans for new things then dropping them for far too long. In a giant red folder in the spare room lies hundreds of pieces of scribbled idiocy that has yet to be hammered into shape. In many senses, the state of Spain's town planning is like the state of my brain, and I feel oddly safe and a lot less lonely in a place where things work in such a way, though I reckon that the Town Planners I used to work with in London would be spitting with anger.

The town of Almeria remains upside down in other aspects, too. Siestas still rule the mid-afternoon, meaning the stores close just as the English are habitually getting themselves together to go out and browse around. The Spanish still prefer to go out and shop for clothes and CDs in the early evening before going on for a meal, and the more I think about it, the more I believe that this is probably the correct way of doing things, especially during the working week. The Spanish pace of life and ideals for living seem correct to my mind - this is what Melbourne would have been like if it hadn't been ruined by a silly adopted American and Japanese corporate work ethic. Amanda is less convinced.

Like most port towns, though, Almeria is disproportionately messy in places, the skyline highly overcrowded. The winding back lanes and streets are cluttered with houses backing on to each other, some abandoned, most not, and it's easy to get hopelessly lost and confused, especially if your sense of direction is as bad as mine. The photos beneath the cut give a strong impression of this. Sorry about the state of them, by the way - the shutter speed on our camera seems to have given up the ghost.

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I'm now hugely relaxed after having many nights of stress-induced bad sleep at home in London, and in fact managed a twelve hour sleep on my first day in Spain, so I can only really regard this holiday as a success. Amanda's criticism of Spain is always that the residents are sometimes too laidback for their own good, and this was evidenced when we tried to check into the hotel - they spent at least ten minutes (if not more) denying the reservation existed. Queues also ran out of supermarkets into the main High Street (to no great complaint) and things took much longer to happen. In truth, though, this is one of the reasons I think Spain has become so successful as a holiday resort - it's faults are also its strengths. Would anyone really want to come to a hot country where things ran at New York or London speed? Such a place would be avoided by anyone with an ounce of sanity. It's much easier just to accept things the way they are and calm down a little.

The downside of Spain's popularity as a tourist destination, however, is the attitude of a few of the nation's denizens to the English, which was often incredibly snorting and abrupt. Due to its cheap package holidays, a lot of young, drunken English people have been invading Spain since the seventies to drink cheap alcohol (and by Christ is it cheap), start fights and vomit everywhere. I don't really fall into that category, but I got the distinct impression that most of them regarded me as being "one of that lot". In queues in stores, I would find myself stood behind a Spanish family being served chattily and with friendly graces and airs, only to get to the counter to be greeted by a displeased scowl. Mind you, this also happened the one time somebody guessed that I was French and confused the hell out of me by speaking in that language, so I possibly wouldn't have been any better off if I'd come from that nation...

Back to work tomorrow. Bah.