The Marbella Club Anne

Travel

Swish Family Robinson

In Marbella, Anne Robinson teaches her daughter, Emma Wilson, to love luxury

Anne Robinson

Here’s what I know: never be the indulgent granny providing the holiday villa for two grandsons, a son-in-law (faultless except for being an Everton supporter) plus a daughter whose ability to be on full-time quality control is as exhausting as it is a scientific phenomenon.

This year, I knew better. ‘We are not,’ I announced, ‘having a month in someone else’s hot house, where the brochure might not have conveyed the wobbly steps to the faraway pool, or the cook’s limited repertoire.

‘We are having six days of hotel luxury, with two significant advantages: all complaints can go directly to reception; and the trip will appreciably reduce the inheritance tax that might otherwise be an inconvenience after I’ve gone.’

To this end, I booked us in to the Marbella Club – famed in the glitzy Spanish resort favoured by fugitive British bank robbers.

Along the way was promised a series of carers to treat us like the Kardashians. What’s more, the flights were from London City – more fun than two nights sleeping on the floor of Heathrow.

The limo sweeps up the gang of four, then me. Three asleep.

Guess which one isn’t? ‘I can’t believe,’ shrieks Emma, ‘you’re dressed in a top

Parker, Emma, Anne, Hudson and Liam

that is showing your midriff. Your midriff is showing, Mummy.’

Dear reader, I am in my Sweaty Betty yoga outfit. Only a bit of a gap between the top and my waist. I haven’t purposely dressed to look like a 77-year-old Britney Spears.

Never mind; kerbside at City, guardian angel number one, Alan, is on cue to take our luggage. Not only does he push the overloaded trolley but, by waving his badge, has us miraculously first in line at the check-in desk. Given the lengths and breadths of the lines behind us, it is thoughtful of my son-in-law, who in his youth marched for the miners with Michael Foot, not to look embarrassed.

Malaga – and another guardian angel whisks us through immigration, passport control and vaccine-doc inspection and into another air-conditioned limo with goody bags.

The Marbella Club, built in 1954 by Prince Alfonso of HohenloheLangenburg, is an ice-white series of single-storey villas, with a glitteringly luxurious reception and a vast number of uniformed staff shaking my hand.

There are beautiful views of grass and sea – and, in our rooms, huge television screens, fluffy white robes, airconditioning and full-to-bursting fridges.

I hesitate to sound a note of regret, but does anyone else sometimes wonder if there could not be hotels for very thin, permanently suntanned, overdressed but somehow underdressed women – and then others for those of us who hate sunbathing, are not underweight and – if we wear fake tan – never quite manage to avoid the blotchy look?

In anticipation, I went to Bicester Village and bought the boys (one just a teenager, one about to be) Ralph Lauren swimming trunks and matching T-shirts in every colour.

I needn’t have bothered. The youngest grandson resolutely wears an old pair of woolly, holey, green shorts at every turn.

I never once see my planned chic co-ordinated look.

Later I spot some of the far-too-thin beauties reading the FT, or the German equivalent – so, even more annoyingly, they are clever trophy wives.

‘Why not assume they are the breadwinner?’ demands Emma.

Either way, it is the husband of one of these who is unfortunate enough to be at the water’s edge when the daughter realises we need to be photographed in the pedalo. But it’s too late to save him. She is already bossily instructing the man to turn my phone horizontally, then move further forward, then further back…

So, for all I know, the snaps of us on the water were taken by the chairman of Blackstone Inc or the CFO of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Emma, for whom parsimony is another full-time hobby, finds two branches of H&M to explore, replacing the youngest grandson’s shorts and T-shirts with material he prefers.

I lose my prize special-edition Polo baseball cap. Grandson number two finds a plastic fan. All this keeps her busy with regular visits to reception to check if one has been found and the other claimed.

We eat at one of the beach restaurants at night, and each night I silently wonder, does my family hold the world record for the time it takes to decide on four starters and four main courses?

After I’ve handed over my credit card for one such meal, Hudson, the eldest grandson, is caught picking it up while asking his mother, ‘Does this need to go in HER phone wallet or just HER handbag?’

The plastic fan came home. My baseball cap turned up in my suitcase. The various guardian angels reappeared to guide us to and from the aircraft.

Did the experiment work? We adored every minute of it. My opening image of Holiday à la Robinson was my 70+ mother choosing to travel in ‘active wear’ with an exposed tummy. Had she lost a bet? But I’m told to say nothing. For we’re heading to a classic hotel in Spain, abandoning her private-French-villa preference. There’s going to be a stream of warm Spanish bodies to swoon, jump and pirouette to her every whim. Endless towel boys and girls to position umbrellas in the shade. More to the right. No, the other right. Plentiful restaurants with gracious managers providing dishes without ‘spicy goop’ or ‘foreign muck’. Guest relations to embrace her daily calls – fixing her Wi-Fi, her telly, her Kindle, figuring out her daily Wordle? A stream of porters and bellboys to summon golf carts and taxis. The only job I’d have left would be to shoo the impertinent Spanish sparrows from her breakfast table. The hotel was luxurious beyond my memory of pre-COVID travel. The turn-down service, the individual bedside mat and slippers with the wafer-thin chocolate in the Tiffany-blue wrapper. Hudson and Parker are too old and too cool for Kids Club. So I’m pathetically grateful they tolerate sunbeds in the same postcode as us and humour us with the occasional game of Bananagrams. The pedalo ‘fun’ – with a built-in slide – was six minutes in when Herself demanded to be deposited on the shore so she could stomp back to the hotel. But hot sand denied her this pleasure. She was forced to tiptoe swiftly, cat-on-a-hottin-roof style, aiming for any shade. This left H and P to test-ride the pedalo slide and take their chances with unhospitable jellyfish. Parker didn’t escape unmarked. Raw, red welts exploded on his thighs. Naturally, to annoy his brother, he declared this a badge of honour. I did manage finally to wear my new strapless summer top I liked so much that I went online to buy another. Except, when I scanned the barcode, I discovered it was a skirt. How to feel old? The largest holiday challenge was people. I’ve never been a big fan. They are everywhere. They smoke. Talk loudly. Their children scream. Breakfast is teeming with fabulously euro-rich toddlers and multiple Filipino nannies – one per child. Each child with an iPad. Each nanny on an iPhone. Not a parent in sight. Yes, I’m sounding old again.

The exception – and my favourite to spot (it’s a bit like birdwatching: no sudden movements; don’t scare them away) – was the ageing bad-ass English rocker, with eye-watering wardrobe … possibly Def Leppard’s drummer. Or a hairdresser from Basingstoke. Hard to tell. Any drama? That missing blue cap, a sentimental favourite of Hers. Now listen – my mother forgets everything. She still calls one of my children the Other One.

I did make an effort to find the stupid hat. I spent two days retracing her steps to the boutique (where she bought another sombrero) and back to the variety of sun loungers – too hot or too shady, so she’d abandoned them. Eventually, I bought her a replacement. At the end of the week, when her suitcases were lifted down – naturally not by her – it turned out the cap never actually left the case. Why should this surprise me? Over the years, I’ve lost count of how often I’ve been sent back to hotels she’s checked out of, to locate keys, rings, phones and bank cards. Anne Robinson bank cards are a kind of global confetti. Move over, Match Attax. And guess who was lumbered with the onus of securing photographic evidence of our six days packed with ‘family joy’? Cameras are an immediate instigator of tension and resentment. And that’s just the children. Her behaviour is far worse. You’ve barely tapped the camera icon before she yells, ‘THAT’S ENOUGH NOW!’ Might you think, when I managed to rope a stranger into taking shots of the five of us, she was grateful? Hardly. The real dilemma? Her phone has the best camera. Hudson, the favourite (yes, yes, I’m still working through the hypnotism therapy to deal with this), is the only one who can extract it from her grip. Somewhere on that device are the few offerings we have for The Oldie, nestled between shots of the inside of her handbag. On the last day, I managed to squeeze in a pedicure. What colour? That Tiffanyblue, of course. A holiday keepsake she loathed. I’m the disappointing daughter who keeps on giving. After our last breakfast, Hudson indulged my wish for a final, quick dip. With the pool all to ourselves, he floated over, and announced, ‘You know, Mum, I can see you’re going to be just as tricky as Her in 30 years’ time.’ More so, me thinks.

Marbella Club was paid for, courtesy of Anne Robinson