Our daughter Rachel and her family invited us to spend a few days with them at the beach at Portofino resort near Pensacola, Florida.

They were given a week’s stay at the resort, with a spacious 3 bedroom condominium unit on the 10th floor of a 20 storey unit. The view of the beach is from the balcony of the unit. The Florida panhandle beaches are known for being pristine white – well, at least until the BP mess last year. But the beach was in pretty good shape, even though we had a number of quarter size oil tarballs wash up on shore on one of the days. The resort also had a swimming pool available for each of the units, so we alternated between the beach and the swimming pool It was hot and sunny for the four days we were there. The resort was also very children-friendly, with no loud partying at night and adults were tolerant of young children on the premises and making noise in the pool.