Champagne Charlie AKA Champagne Mary. Seriously slipping into the Bellevue Resort stylee ha ha. Notching up the glitz and glamour of the holiday for our first lunch here whilst awaiting the room to be ready. Love it…

Would you like me to pour that down your throat for you your Highness? Maybe accompanied by the occasional grape or two? Perhaps a back massage? Enjoy my love, enjoy, we deserve it after the last few weeks.

A cracking snap of the family in front of the stunning hotel beach and topaz seas. It IS fun in the Philippines. Day #1 here and we are ready for fun fun fun. I got us a Junior Suite which is ACE for families guys (if you happen to come here). Extra bed in the living room area and hey presto family covered in one room. Also, you get this view from your balcony – holy cow, it is indeed paradise found.

Then, some fat bloke eclipses the beach completely. I promise you it is still there. Shit, I forgot to breathe in. This month is it on the beer I am promising myself. July 1st I am planning to cut the carbs down a tad, get a job, and get back into all my old suits ha ha. Still off the fags though so know I can do that easily too. Skinny Bitches is the new drink for this tummy moving forwards… Weeee. Beach-Belly being worked on for the next trip.

OK, maybe not that bad. Lovely snap with wifey and Jude Jude. Happy Happy families. Sorry, Ollie, you could not join. Not the same without you mate. Home soon though.

See what I mean. It’s paradise. Plain and simple. This place is 10 minutes from the airport. 30 minutes from Seaport. 20 minutes from our house. It’s just so convenient, so is also a favourite lunch and/or dinner destination when we stay at the house. Food is awesome by the way, and you eat with these views. Yeah, nice!

Be seeing you shortly swimming pool. This was like a lukewarm bath. Heavenly. Even my Mary got her newly bonded hair wet. OK, maybe not at her doing. Good work Jude Jude.

Daddy and munchkins having fun. Throwing Jude. Amy asked for the same; “Sorry sweetheart, don’t want to put my back out…”

It’s exploring time now. Off to the beach and off to the pontoon. Let’s go family. I like this shot because Amy actually looks shorter than Mary. Age matches height ha ha. So, yes it is a sloping beach.

And JUMP kids… Tomorrow we have booked to get out of the topaz sea into the deep blue on a boat-trip adventure. More of that to come tomorrow. Very excited. Well, not about the 0600am departure time. What does the 0 stand for? Oh My God, it’s early (thanks Robin Williams).

Cautious walking because there are Urchin warnings everywhere – and believe me, you don’t want those spines in your foot. So I was leading a path to see if there were any, but I think the hotel had cleared the shallows already. Mary was very disappointed, as she was actually shopping for fresh Uni not exploring like the rest of us.

Affinity pool – I found these two human-footed mer-people. Affinity is the right word too. I just want this to go on, and on, and on…

It’s a stunning hotel, just stunning. Not massive and therefore not crowded. The staff are off the charts nice and attentive. Love these guys. You get comments like; “Hi Sir Brian, I didn’t see you at breakfast. Is all OK?” Amazing. Far right of the picture. The 2nd-floor balcony is our room. Bloody nice. Look ahead = ocean. Look right = beach and pool. Tough old life…

Whilst exploring we found 100’s, literally 100’s of these little fellas. So many starfish. Not in the shallow shallows, and not in the deep shallows. Literally, just in the middle shallows. Almost like a band of them. Almost snakeskin looking. Weird. Camouflage I suppose.

“Feelers. Nothing more than feelers. Trying to forget my feelers for you…”

I always said my Mary was an Angel from above for me. Well, check this photo out. I promise you no photoshopping. I took this photo and that beam of sunlight was right there to her at that precise time. Amaze-balls. Stunner!!!

A walk down the pontoon to the elevated viewing platform. Stunning views. “What you think gang?”

I wonder if this one ends up on Facebook? Hmmmmmmmm

Jude Jude showing off those starfish. See what I mean. There are hundreds of the little buggers.

Boat posing now. “Her name is Mary and she dances on the sand….” (Did you just sing then?)

Also loads of these guys in the crystal clear shallows. Multi-coloured chocolate chip starfish. Quite leathery and spiky to the touch. But super cute. I love these guys. So many colour variations, including blues. This one is a baby, they really can get quite big.

So Mary wanted to know what a baby one would look like from a red and an orange one, so did some match-making. AKA attached them to each other. OK, that means we need to come back next year to see the resulting offspring.

Pretty much fearless and so inquisitive is this 5 years old. All I had to do was pick it up and hand it to him, and that was that he had the confidence to do it himself. I love the fact that, like me, he loves wildlife and exploring. It reminds me of being his age with my grandfather Joe. Brilliant memories.

Look at this little lads confidence. Wow!!!

Off he goes to collect another one. I wonder what he is going to do with this big one?

Yeah, baby, that’s it mate. He chased his 11-year-old sister away. Classic. As you can tell from this shot, Amy is not so confident and exploratory. AKA scared shitless of starfish.

Wow, what a day. Happy families over dinner. Thanks to The Bellevue Resort and lovely staff, and family K for the most relaxing and fun day. Cares and woes have all but disappeared. How lovely.