This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
The CountryWives get soooooo bored and a tiny bit annoyed when marketing departments categorise anyone over fifty as suddenly having grey hair, crumbling hips and impending dementia. When will they wake up and realise that 50 is the new 30?
Anyhow, I am determined to enjoy my right side of fifty which is why I find myself sitting up in bed with dry eyeballs (that will teach me to keep my contacts in for almost 24 hours) wondering what on earth I am doing in Ibiza. I was invited to stay by my lovely friend N. and we are renting a Bauhaus villa with lots of her friends, none of whom I have ever met before. They are all charming but I am definitely the odd one out being two decades older than any of them. My husband’s grandmother once told me her secret of keeping youthful, which was to keep the company of younger people because some of their vitality rubs off on you.
Anyhow, back to my bedroom… Bauhaus architecture, as I am sure you all know, is very contemporary and minimalist with each room flowing through to the other – in reality this means acres of clear glass walls and doors which allow for very little privacy and you can hear everything everyone does very clearly (bit tricky when you want to have a poo).
The Blue Marlin
So, Ibiza is the party island – the world’s clubbing capital. Well, actually, it is much more than that – a beautiful verdant place with friendly people, good roads (not potholed like at home in West Sussex) and amazing scenery, blue skies and even bluer sea. My big brother housemates were keen to see everything, but mostly the clubs. The hippest happening beach bar is the Blue Marlin between 5 – 8 on a Sunday night (yes, to be really really cool you have to know the exact time to be there). When we parked the hire car (directed by a sat nav featuring the voice of a Spanish senorita with heavily accented English “turrrrrrrrrn rrrrrrrrrrright arrrrriba”) we knew it had to be massive because the car park was. The club was absolutely packed with beautiful people with perfect tans, wearing the skimpiest beachwear and sipping white sangria (at 45 euros a jug) as they lounged on pure white double sunbeds. 
As the sun set, the DJ started pumping up the trance music and everyone started dancing. Well, everyone apart from me, I just jiggled about a bit feeling awkward and hoped it was too dark for anyone to get frightened by my wrinkles as they brushed past me. Luckily for me, two of my house party got bored as quickly as I did and so I was glad when we found ourselves outside in the queue for a cab back to our transparent villa.
It isn’t all throbbing music – we’ve also been to lunch at El Bigotes – can’t give you a link to this restaurant’s website because it doesn’t have one – they only recently had a phone installed. It is remote, very rustic and has a brilliant location built into a cliff that overlooks a little bay. For years and years, the Bigotes family have been catching fish and then cooking it for the locals. It is so popular that it is always packed – in fact, it gained massive publicity about five years ago because they turned away the King of Spain because he hadn’t booked. There is no menu – it is always gixat de peix – fish stew cooked over a wood fire, followed by a bowl of rice cooked in the stock, a mouthwatering mint/herb cheesecake (sounds horrible, tasted divine) and an alcoholic coffee. 
Bar Costa, Santa Gertrudis was another find, where we spent a long lunch feasting on cured ham and tomato bread washed down with rose wine.
What’s that? Oh, apparently it’s time to get ready to go out again – got to go. Need to get N. laced up in her extravagant feather corset and help P. apply his turquoise glitter eyeliner. It’s deep house at Pacha tonight….