The Pates in Spain fall mainly down after too much Rioja

FRI. 26th.Feb

The Pates arrived on Sunday afternoon, bringing some much needed sunshine with them which enabled us to sit outside and attempt to consume the contents of my cellar-which I had of course restocked in anticipation. For someone who professes to dislike rioja, sir bruce manages to force an extraordinary amount down his throat and had 12 bottles in his shopping trolley on monday morning as we accompanied them to the local Mercadona supermarket and showed them the delights of Conil. And for someone who doesn't drink brandy, his introduction to the 7€-a-litre spanish variety has produced another devotee-and even Briony has taken to drinking it in her coffee.
After shopping we headed down to the beach and walked a way although sir bruce is in severe pain having put his back out and trapped a nerve or something and is creaking along in agony like an old man and wincing and sighing every other step. Ought to pull himself together. We all went to the monday night Buffet (8€) and bingo/salsa lesson evening but failed to either win a line or a house or learn how to dance the Meringue. Pates claimed his back was hurting but I suspect a case of two left feet....have you ever seen him dance? Terrifying.
On tuesday we took them to Cape Trafalgar for my impression of Nelson (much appreciated) and then Vejer, a white Andalucian hill town with much Moorish influence where we had lunch at the Moroccan restaurant. A very pleasant meal, somewhat marred a) when Briony managed to bush past a newly painted white wall and cover herself in paint and b) we emerged to discover a parking ticket on their hire car which sir bruce had parked outside the front door in a loading bay.
It is still a mystery where the paint came from and the hotel was not initially very helpful about helping clean her up. They did suggest that we go down to the police station and plead stupidity about the ticket which was for 90€ as they had cancelled a similar ticket for a client the previous day (of course, if pates had parked where the Gf suggested this would not have happened as she pointed out, several times.) The policeman on the desk turned out to be less than sympathetic to stupidity, obviously having used up his quota for the week the day before but did offer a 30% reduction for immediate payment. So that was an expensive lunch. Vejer continues to delight but the stupendous views were somewhat marred by what appeared to be hundreds of miles of flooded fields. A trip to Bolonia on Wednesday to see the roman remains of Baleo. Included a very interesting museum with excellent english translations and free to EU citizens. Glad to see the euro-gravytrain is diverting some of its slush funds to worthy cultural causes. Stunning beach to hand, where we had a picnic lunch, where the romans had fish salting factories for when they caught the tuna migrating through the straits of Gibralter back to their spawning grounds in the Med. Baleo was v.important place 206BC-6AD and remains are v.good.
The police have sir bruce on their computers as it could not be a coincidence that we were pulled over by the ever-present 2 man shakedown squad. This time however, the stupid ploy worked-either that or the very unnerving sight of pates in his shorts trying to extricate himself from a VW Golf without hurting his back any more than necessary. After much "Inglese..no habla espanol" they gave up and waved us off but I think we're marked.
With the pates on the team for the Wednesday quiz night we came joint first but yet again lost out in the tie-break.........How many millionaires were on the Titanic?......answers on a postcard. But we did win
20€ which went some way towards the bar bill....I wish I'd never introduced him to Spanish brandy. On Thursdayit rained nearly all day and on Friday we were supposed to go to Arcos for more cultural learning but the Gf has picked up a stomach bug and is laid low and taken to her bed with the sick-bowl (we travel with all amenties equipped for most emergencies these days.) Hopefully it will soon pass. We were supposed to be doing dinner tonight before the Wales-France game but that is now cancelled-the dinner,not the game. More news anon.

We are the champions.......

SAT 20th Feb

The free wifi connection is very iffy and the best time to connect appears to be 3am as I discovered whislst enjoying a brief respite from the wind sa I watched the sun-lounge attempting to detach itself from the van. My problems with the wifi were not helped for the first 3 days when I tried ineffectually to enter the password YOGI as written down by the lovely senorita in reception. After I rechecked it with her we discovered that the way the spanish write their numbers had fooled me into thinking that 4061 was YOGI.....gosh how we all laughed ! So having entered the correct password of 4061 the signal is still iffy and drops in and out at random as too many people with nothing to do in the rain are skyping, downloading films and watching football on line....except at 3 am as I discovered.
The sun-lounge was eventually dismantled on Tuesday, whereupon sod's law ensured that the wind dropped, the rain stopped and the sun came out. However it will not be going back up until there at least a week of good weather forecast.......which is nowhere in view yet. I understand it's all the fault of the Jet stream which is sitting over the north african coast instead of lurking up round Greenland where it is supposed to be.
Success at the quiz night where we won first prize of 44€ this week with a highly creditable 44/50 if I do say so myself...and if certain people had heeded my contention that Sable in Heraldry is black and not purple it would have been 45/50 (the Gf did get the question on Meatloaf correct however so I musn't be too harsh).
Most of our winnings disappeared the next day when the cost of sending two books to Marcus in Japan cost 17.30€ which was 3 times what the books cost.

Anyway, we have now had 2 days of sunshine, the Pates arrive on Sunday which will ensure that the rain returns for the duration of their stay, and I'm off to Jerez with the boys to watch the last day of F1 testing whilst the Gf goes shopping so that Dave & Briony have milk & bread to greet them in their chalet.

Settling in

Monday 15th Feb...........

Moved on to pitch on Friday and more or less got sorted before walking into town for essentials - the Gf had run out of white wine and I was back to drinking Cruz Campo beer which is a mistake unless playing the 'any port in a storm' card. Unfortunately the local supermarket ( Mercadona) seemed to stock only Cruz Campo in bulk ( It is brewed round here ) so I was forced into buying individual cans of various types for tasters, including one at a perky 7.2% which I will report back on. We spent a lot of time on Saturday morning trying to get the van levelled as it had indeed sunk a few inches to the left and needed remedial work as the rain running off the roof for most of Friday was flooding onto the 'eventual' sun lounging area and the waste tank wasn't draining well, being on the right hand side.We also erected the sun-lounge awning with the usual shouting, swearing and skinned knuckles so we now had a nice dry sun-lounge to sit in.. another foray into town found my beer of choice in the other nearby supermarket (Maxi Dia%) which is Estrella Damm and at 5.4% much like Stella Artois, although I have to say that the 7.2% Voll Damm Doble Malt was very tasty but pricey at 0.47€ against 0.30€ for Estrella and about 0.20€ for Cruz. Watched the rugby and very good games Wales-Scot and France-Ire. How Scotland managed to lose is a mystery and one has to feel for Andy Robinson. France continue to entertain and look the team to beat. I gave up watching England on Sunday as I had better things to do with my life like emptying waste tanks and toilet cassettes which was far more entertaining, served a purpose, was appreciated and was full of honest endeavour which is more than can be said for the travesty in Rome.
The weather was fine so we ventured downtown on the scooter and had a nice long walk along the beach in the sunshine. Conil was looking quite spruce and tidy despite the problems of the recession in this part of Spain so I hope they are managing to ride it out without too many setbacks as tourism is the main industry in these parts.
The fairly reasonable weather however took a violent turn for the worse on Sunday night and we had one of the worst-if not the worst-nights ever spent in the van. We've had gales in the Hebrides, Blizzards in France and mistrals & floods in Provence, but Sunday night was something else. How the sun-lounge is still up I do not know as the wind was horrendous and it's not designed for winter weather-( the clue is in the name sun-lounge)-and consequently we no longer have a nice dry area to sit in.
Monday was much of the same and rained most of the day. The forecast is still bad for the next week and the sun lounge may well be dismantled if there is a window of opportunity in the weather as it continues to cause concern and several awnings have been reported last seen heading towards Portugal.

Feb 11th.

Still smarting from failing to win the quiz outright (and 43€) by just one question and coming 3rd out of 3 in the tie break.
.. .the good news..........
Arose to brilliant sunshine and by midday the Gf had even taken a few layers of fleeces off and was complaining about the heat. Spent the morning wandering the site looking for a good pitch that was a) not waterlogged b) on the right side for the sun and c) not under too many trees to block the satellite. This involved walking up and down, finding a pitch,kicking earth, estimating satellite alignments, walking back to reception to find that that pitch was reserved for someone due to arive at some unspecified date in the future but who had left a cash deposit last year for a 3 month stay and would be arriving soon, and walking back to start the process again. This was quite entertaining as we were accosted by by a lot a people who we had met last year and who all recounted their experiences in getting down to spain this year. It transpires that it was a complete lottery as to whether you had a nightmare of bad weather through France or not in January, and even a few days made a great difference. Some people sailed over the Pyrenees without a glimpse of snow whilst others were turned back by the french police for not having snow chains. Everybody had a story to tell and the morning passed in a blur. The good weather was drying the pitches very rapidly but the underlying weeks of rain......spain has had its worst winter for 40 years just like last year (?)......has left most pitches so soft that 4 tons of motorhome will sink into very deep ruts. Eventually we were approached by a very nice german couple who saw us looking around and explained that they were leaving tomorrow and that they had themselves put gravel and shingle under their van to make a hard standing which we could see had been very effective. Back to reception to find that this pitch was not subject to any advance booking so we will now be moving onto it in the morning.
The bad news.....
The 15 day forecast predicts rain, gales & thunderstorms without a break....................................bugger

You've got to laugh........

Feb 10th.........Conil de la Frontera

As last posted, we left Benecasim in relatively good weather, heading south via central Spain as opposed to the coastal route and tolls. The first problem happened a mile outside Benecasim when I pulled into the local garage for fuel and promptly began to fill the tank with petrol. A guardian angel made me look at the pump and think 'diesel isn't €1.14 a litre, oh **** this is petrol'. The tank was half full with 40 litres of diesel and I had now put in 4 litres of petrol. Decision. Call for assistance and drain the tank or go for broke and fill with diesel and pray I get away with it. We were in the middle of nowhere and the thought of waiting there for help was not attractive so I put another 50 litres of diesel in, paid the bill to a very smirking assistant and prayed. I had intended using the local roads for the days drive but decided it would be better to break down on a motorway if recovery was going to be required. The next 100 miles was passed in total silence as we listened to every noise from the engine. Tension relaxed at coffee break and another 30 litres of diesel was added to the tank. The road was toll free,dual carriageway,newly upgraded and totally featureless with long uphill stretches and into a violent headwind. The van computer system showed a fuel consumption that beggared belief and only served to heighten the suspicion I had buggered the engine.......the engine , however, never missed a beat. Arrived at Santa Elena via the spectacular 'gorge over which they throw dogs' which separates Andalucia from the rest of Spain and our chosen campsite for the weekend. A strange place. A village high above the gorge that time forgot. A new viaduct is being built and the village is either a)making a lot of money out of local labour being hired in the construction or b)being killed off by the construction work. Hard to tell but lots of very new houses had huge mobile cement mixing lorries parked outside. Large campsite but we were one of only three people there. Allocated pitch NO.100 at reception and the electrics were all controlled from there via a large control panel so no arguement. Pitch 100 was under the trees with great view over the rolling olive groves but no chance of the sat.dish locking onto anything. Normally this would not be a problem for a few days but with the opening wwekend of the 6 nations ahead it was critical. Pitch 71 offered looked a far better bet and after going in frontwards, backwards, sideways and eventually sideways the other way, the dish locked on to astra2 and we were in business. Walked back the 1/2 mile to reception ( this is a national park we're in) to explain we had moved..no problem.. flick the switch and electricity to pitch 71. Unforunately he forgot to update the records and so when the night staff came on at 10pm. he checked the records and turned off the electricity to pitch 71 in the middle of a video (being efficient) and I had to walk the 1/2 mile back to reception to explain the position. My, how we all laughed.
In the interests of cross border fraternisation, I had explored the village as the Gf prepared dinner and surprisingy found myself in a bar. Only populated by men, the silence as I walked in was deafening, but I can order a beer in 15 languages now and I'm working on the rest. The only problem was that the fruit machine played that theme from The Good the Bad and the Ugly and I kept expecting Clint Eastwood to walk in. Actually it was so funny that I took the Gf in for coffee on sat. morning to prove I hadn't made it up....
On saturday we watched the worst game of rugby ever...Italy v Ireland.. followed by a great England v Wales and then a v.good France v Scotland on sunday.Site filled up with a Dutch rally. Had jolly good walk through olive groves. Weather warmish. Nights still cold

Monday 8th Feb....

To CoRDOBA. A return visit to a city that impressed last year. The Mezquita is a fascinating monument that deserves more than one exploration. This time we stayed in a fairly poor but expensive municipal campsite right in the town within easy reach of eveything by foot or bus (€1) as opposed to the cheaper campsites outside but requiring mucho euro fares. Spent monday afternoon at the Mezquita and the old town and then on Tuesday (after local reccommendation from the campsite )drove the van out to MEDINA ALZAHAR to see the ruins,excavations and reconstructions of the city that was once as powerful as a Rome, Byzantium or Mecca. An extraordinary place that was well worth a visit ( and free to enter).

Wed 10th...

To CONIL DE LA fRONTERA. Rained all day. Arrived Conil 2pm. Campsite waterlogged.Been raining like a rehearsal for the great flood.Portugal even worse. Paid for a month €265 but refused to attempt access to any pitch such was the state. Eventually parked in road outside restaurant and hooked up to a spare pitch. Found Nick and Barbera and heard full harrowing details of blown turbo experience in Narbonne. AA totally useless. We are insured with same company.....note-check options next renewal.
note....new turbo £1000 !!!
Quiz night.....came joint 2nd with 2 other tables on 38 & 1/2 points. Winners had 39 points In tie-break we came last so relegated to 4th!and no prize.! Question..... how many years did the 12 great train robbers get in total.? Answers on a postcard to...

Gas,buses and sun

FEb 3rd.................

We have at last exhausted the charms of Benecasim and will be moving on. In the end, it has turned out to be a reasonably pleasant place....the site itself is top notch....and we have visted Castellone again by bus to see the wondrous Monday market which was the largest sale of cheap, nasty clothes I have ever seen - no rural charm of a Provencal market here. Had our first Ever problem with local public transport and had to wait 1 + 1/2 hours for the bus back which then dropped us a mile from the campsite having appeared to make an arbitrary decision not to go the publicised route but detour off to see his girlfriend for lunch. Subsequent enquires confirmed the total optimism of the timetable and the lottery of the routing. We made 4 trips, to and from the same start and finish and went 4 different ways despite having a map of the route from the Tourist Info. We also paid 3 different prices for the same journey.
The weather is sunny and warm in the sunshine but chilly in the shade and cold at night. This led to the second gas scare when we tried to ignite the gas heating and discovered very low pressure just like last year when the regulator failed. Without boring everyone, the fault was eventually traced to the use of Butane which is crap when the temp. drops below +4. We have a Spanish butane bottle and after talking to everyone around us I have now changed this for a propane one which has solved the problem - fortunately they sell gas on the site and were quite happy to swap butane for propane which is not usual. We bought the butane in Andalucia where the temp is never near 4 degrees and so they only sell butane which is slightly more efficent. Good job I didn't listen to Gaslow who I phoned and who suggested changing the regulator-again. For those readers who buy gas, a new 7kg propane cost £11.50, unlike Calor Gas in the UK at about £18.
We have had a trip to the hills behind Benecasim which were settled by Carmelite monks and seen magnificent views for hundreds of miles along the coast and remains of 12th.C monasteries ; the nearby town of Grau, port of Castellone, well worth an hour or two of one's time, very nicely done; and the next resort along the coast, Orepesa, which we discovered via 'the coast road' , a very closely kept local secret. The road did indeed more or less follow the coast, but also was near vertical in places. The scooter did stirling work to get us there. A very neat and tidy place with lovely beach and views, but deserted at this time of the year.
So we shall pack up on Thursday, stock up with the 1.75€ Rioja and head inland and south to La Carolina,
between Valdepenas and Jaen, in a national park, where we trust the air will be a bit warmer.