Into Switzerland...

07.05.2013

A good run through the Vosages after a brief but unnecessary detour into Nancy for supplies of bottled water and red wine ( I wanted to make sure that we had plenty of the essentials on board as Greek wine is crap and Turkish is expensive and Italian supermarkets not as plentiful as elsewhere so as we were heading into Germany via Switzerland  decided to stock up asap on French wineboxes. We had to cross the centre of the town at 9.30  ... And I mean centre... to find the Auchan S/M which was not good and expensive and then discovered lots of better options on the route.....) Anyway, we are now sorted . Spent the night at Bad Sackingen in aire @ €10.

08.05.2013

Great run down to the Italian border, with stunning views of snowcapped mountains (Bob was most upset when I discovered that the pass over the St. Gottard was still closed)  stopping at incredibly expensive Swiss campsite which is OK but close to motorway and noisy. Bob did the driving from Bad Sack.. down to Kussnacht and managed to negotiate gods own traffic jam round Zurich and roadworks from hell on the only single carriageway joining two motorways between Schwyz and Altdorf that was twisty and narrow which she loves.....not. It took ages to find anywhere to pull off and changeover and when we finally did it was only 1/2 mile from the next motorway.....hey ho, all good experience but I did have to change my trousers.
Queued for an hour to get through the stacking for the St Gottard .....strangely busy for a Wednesday I thought....and then took the pretty route to Bellinzona where we  stopped at the extremely expensive TCS site near the noisy motorway.
Original plan to have tomorrow as rest day has been  altered and we shall head to Parma to ham it up.
......later......have discovered after a walk that the noise is not the motorway but the raging Ticino river just over the bank so apologies.

The adventure begins....

May 6th 2013
Spent the night at Gravelines and left at 9am in glorious sunshine.....  just the ticket for the start of an adventure. As we are fulfilling my desire to follow the crusader trail we have adopted the personas of a knight and his squire and the Gf (courtesy of Blackadder) is now referred to as Bob ...(to whom I find myself strangely attracted when we wrestle like lads do..).
Bob decided to do driving on this trip in case of emergencies like P&M in Croatia last year and before we left drove down to Somerset for the service and most of the way back. All that remained was to get her (him) driving on the continent which has happened for nigh on 40 years.....so after the morning tea   stop, Bob took the wheel for a couple of hours thro Belgium and down to Luxembourg. In his (her) defence, the roads in Belgium are now the worst in Europe with potholes the size of dustbin lids which have to be dodged constantly whilst trying to avoid being rear ended by Lithuanian maniacs delivering Russian prostitutes by the lorry load to paedophiles in Belgium and then having 30 miles of roadworks with lanes so narrow that traffic was moving in sequence to avoid side swiping.......and the lane markings were non existent in places where we had to switch motorways so it was a bit fraught.....but Bob coped well and I only screamed once.
So well in fact that we made Luxembourg ahead of schedule and merely stopping to refuel at £1 a litre, pushed on to Metz by 3.30. We intended overnighting at an aire by the river Moselle but it was overflowing(campsite, not river) so we stopped at the camping municipal next door which was very pleasant. 5 main walk into town which is well worth a visit and the cathedral is most impressive with stained glass from the 13th.C to Chagall in the 20th.
Very buzzy city. Good place to visit.

On the road to Turkey

More than 12 months ago I saw the chance to join a group on a trip to Turkey and persuaded the Gf that despite her trepidation and misgivings  this  would be fun.  So after a great deal of planning and research we are sitting in aire near Calais on a very pleasant sunny evening (which happens to be her birthday) contemplating a thousand mile journey to San Marino where we shall meet up with the other 10 vans in 5 days on Friday 10 May before heading across the Adriatic to Greece and on to Turkey. We've been vaccinated against hepatitis despite my protestations that I didn't share dirty needles or bodily fluids with homosexuals and tetanus despite my assertion that I had bad reactions to it ( and subsequently had a very uncomfortable 4 days). The van has been serviced and prepared so tonight -in  true Crusader style - will be spent in prayer as we prepare to take the Cross and meet the infidel at gates of Asia. We are looking forward to a great adventure.

Scary stuff.........

Wild man of the woods meets his match.......

Another Month passes..........

4th.MARCH 2013

Well there's a month gone and apart from the loss of many little grey cells and probably quite a lot of the functions of my liver, not a lot to show for it.Except that it's been a very social,enjoyable and fun.

The Gf returned to the Uk on March 2nd in order to be with the family for Mothering Sunday and will return on the 11th. In the end Nick drove us to Seville ( 90mins drive, 30 mins to discover how to get into the car park)
as he and Dave had hired a car for a month and were looking for things to do to justify it. Larry has still offered to provide the transport for the return trip but as he will have to drive friends to Gibralter airport the following day I may ask Dave...or Mike...or Bryn...whatever. Or drive the van there as a last resort as I would have to use the long stay carpark at 14€ for only a very short stay, plus 14€ in tolls plus fuel for a 180 mile round trip at 30mpg as opposed to 45mpg in a small car.

Right, so what's been happening to explain the attractions of wintering in Spain. Well not really the weather. The sun has shone a great deal and is very hot but overnight temps have been down to a very unseasonable 4-5c making evenings and early mornings very cold. There has been snow less than 100 miles away (Seville & Ronda) and blizzards and bad snow from Madrid to the north. This has been caused by the Jetsteam lying just over the straits of Gibralter rather than north of Scotland and pulling cold air down over the whole of Europe rather than pulling warm air up from Morocco.
Consequently we've had winds most of the time that are very cold if you are not sheltered or outside of 12-3pm. The Spanish think its start of the ice-age and wear more clothes than the Gf whilst the brits stoically walk around in shorts as its just like the average uk summer. The Gf now has a ski mask whilst cycling and has alarmed more than one passing police car and several shopkeepers. She's been christened Eskimo Nell on the campsite and on one very hot afternoon with no wind when she dug out her shorts for an hour or two people came from all over to gaze in wonder. I jest but those who know her will understand completely. As we move into March the temps have risen overnight due to cloud cover but we also have strong winds causing minor havoc. The low temps have meant using more gas for heating than anticipated ....electricity is metered on monthly stays, and charged at 0.25€ kwh and we are already running at about 10€ a week so using gas makes sense. Except that We now have refillable LPG cylinders and unlike the rest of europe, Spain has not embraced Autogas universally following a massive loss of life after an LPG storage tank explosion. So we have to drive to Jerez to refill which is about 40 miles away. Not really a problem as we can have lunch and a day out in a very pretty city. We've only had to go once so far but are probably getting close to one cylinder needing a refill soon. Hopefully it will last to our departure which will now be next week so that we can fill up on the way to Portugal (which has more Lpg stations than Spain).

On the quiz front we've won 4 times out of 7 and both the GF and I have each won the weekly whist tournament once bringing total earnings to date to a rather handy 126€. Since Harry & Joan have amassed 122€ in the same period we have rather cleaned up between us as no-one else has won more than once. We all felt so chuffed with this that we took Mike the Quizmaster out to lunch just to start the rumour mill rolling and managed to spend 190€ on a meal for 5 in a fantastic restaurant on the beach within feet of the crashing surf with a view to die for. Since we then won the next quiz we managed to annoy a lot of people.

Boules has become very competitive with the ladies now having the edge, the Gf,Patricia and Joan making a formidable team even without Sabena who left a couple of weeks ago. The afternoon matches are extremely good fun and the apres-boules does nothing for the liver.

Lots of good evenings at the restaurant, including a very good Valentines dance, a paella night and a complimentary Andalucia day meal ....when the food is free why do we spend more on alcohol?

Don & Sandra did an excellent BBQ spare ribs on their enormous gas bbq which is so large I'm sure that they have to tow it behind the motorhome for all the usual suspects and a very alcoholic lunch lasted from 12-7pm when it got too cold to sit out any longer.

Despite what I said about the weather we've been out and about on the bikes and had a lovely day walking along the beach towards Trafalgar, 3hrs each way and a picnic. Discovered that the tyres on my bike were wearing badly so the local bike shop replaced them with very good michelins for a reasonable 40€ (17€ each plus 6€ for fitting which as removing the wheels from electric bikes is a daunting prospect seemed a good deal to me).

That'll do for now, I'll post more later in the week.

FEBRUARY 7TH 2013

The days roll by and it's strange where the time goes to now that the sun has returned and the sky is deep blue.....the only downside being that the jet stream has decided to settle a long way south of its normal position and that the nights are colder than we would like, exacerbated of course by an abscence of cloud cover.Still, it's lovely and warm by 11am.
The festival was held after all and after the procession had passed we cycled up to El Colorado where they all head for to watch the festivities which seemed to consist of eating and drinking as much as possible whilst making as much noise as they could before damaging eardrums. This years extravaganza seemed to have attracted more people than ever, with more highly decorated floats (full of alochol) and many more people...either there's no recession in Andalucia or they've  given up and  said let's just enjoy ourselves.
That Sunday, the 27th, saw the weather change for the better as the clouds disappeared and the shorts came out.
The campsite organised a bus trip to the mountains to see the White Villages of Arcos, Grazalema, El Bosque and Ubriche which was a very jolly affair. Things went downhill at the first coffee stop, where after a long discussion about the Spanish having started selling a brandy at only 30%, Harry and I embarked on a mission to discover why, which involved tasting as many as we could everywhere we stopped. By the last stop we stepped off the bus straight into a bar and missed the tour of the town completely and have agreed that 30% brandy is definitely an inferior product and should be avoided in preference to the 36% or the 40% which is even better. An enormous glass of brandy in these bars generally sold for €1.50.....more of this later.
Better result at the quiz which we won with Paul & Caroline, and the princely sum of €60 between us. When we first arrived, Harry & JOan suggested we team up for the quiz but they were currently partnering Don & Sandra who had friends arriving in 3 weeks who they were going to team up with when they arrived. So we agreed, especially when Paul & Caroline said they were only staying for a month and would therefore only be around for the next 3 quizzes. The Harry/Don combo took second prize so the change of partners seemed a dream team. Unfortunately, the dates got a bit muddled and  Don's friends arrived on Sunday,leaving H&J with no partners so we had to dump Paul & Caroline this week,who were a bit miffed,and team up with H&J when we stormed the quiz and won another €60. Fortunately, despite only finding one other person to team up with, Paul & Caroline came second which proves something. Despite always doing well in the quiz, winning 2 weeks in succession is a first and half of the winnings went on brandy at the Terry's  Bodega in Jerez where they sell their 36% at €5 a bottle which seemed remarkably cheap and necessitating the purchase of 3 to take home.
The ladies boules team of which the Gf is now captain had a remarkable run of success and the GF is now going for the Grand Slam of winning the boules,quiz and whist.....the situation was so serious that when Tony & Sabena offered us a day out to Santa Puerta Maria for lunch and a visit to Decathlon we accepted with alacrity as Decathlon sell proper boules. I was sorely tempted by the tournament edition set at €89 but common sense prevailed and I settled for the €29 reduced fron €39 set. And promptly restored the mens winning form with some stunning play.
Taichi is great fun and I shall continue when I return home. My work with the fan was rewarded with a gratefully received "Moy Bien, Paul"
A quiet lunchtime saw the Ceremony of the Good Luck charms after Justin had sent us the 2013 charm to hang in the van and bring us good luck in our travels. The 2012 model, now redundent after stirling work in protecting us for 12 months had to be disposed of in a fitting and solemn manner and the result can be viewed at .http://www.youtubecom/watch?v=fIflbuhC6WE
My thanks to Don for his support and Harry for his constuction work.
 A very pleasant evening with Nick & Barbera, Dave & Geraldine at the Paella night and a bike ride to La Barossa with Tony & Sabena for lunch.
And Larry & Pat have offered to take us to Seville when the Gf is flying home for Mothering Sunday which solves another problem.

And time slowly passes.....

January 24th.2013

The weather is distinctly iffy. When the sun shines it is very hot but we have had a lot of cloud, some cold winds and an exceedingly violent storm last weekend with winds of 55pmh plus. Fortunately it had been forecast so hatches had been battened but it still caused a few problems. Social life is very bubbly, and more people than ever are attending events .The management put on their usual free meal in honour of the Conil festival which consists of the whole town joining a procession of decorated wagons loaded with the entire stock of alcohol from the supermarket and walking to the next village where they have a bbq in the woods.Its called the Romeria de San Sebastian but was unfortunately cancelled on Sunday as the high winds meant that they couldn't get the floats decorated in time but it may kick off next Sunday although the forecast is not looking good for that.But the lunch was still good anyway. We play boules with Tony & Sabena when the sun shines & canasta with Harry & Joan when it doesn't.The Gf does pilates and I'm doing Tai Chi twice a week. Harry has started a Progressive Whist night,after a reasonable showing last year, which is even more popular this year and makes a very convivial evening. We've walked and cycled( weather permitting) into town and along the beach and have several offers of joining others for mass electric bike rides....the popularity of electric bikes increases every year, and they can even be hired in town now. The Gf is still wary of cycling if the wind is cold after last year when she was laid low with sinus and throat problems, so cycling is mainly on hold at the moment. Nick,Barbara,Dave & Geraldine arrived on Friday, in time for a very rollicking night at the restaurant with music by an aged rocker called Chris Cody who was excellent . We are not having success at the quiz. Wednesday night saw 118 people participating, 30 teams which is probably a record and we came 5th. We scored 39 and the winners scored 43 and we could have equalled them if certain peoples had been listened to. Our new partners, Paul & Caroline are ex-schoolteachers and their input should be better. I caved in to Picasso as the answer to 'Spanish painter 1904-89 who was born & died at Figueras' when I knew full well that Picasso had died in France, in the 70's & was 90+, and that Dali must therefore be the answer but they seemed so positive. There were other examples but I'm sulking so move on.
Last note on the weather, people who arrived yesterday spoke on having driven from Calais in 6 days and  had snow for 5 of them right down to Caceres, which is only a days drive from here. At least its much warmer than home.