AN EVENTFUL INTERLUDE........

11th.Feb 2015

The weather is odd but better than the UK and the rest of Spain. The days are sunny and even hot between  12-4pm but the nights and mornings are much colder than usual, necessitating uncalled for expenditure on heating. Normally we would spend €1 a day on electricity but the last month was €2  a day and a trip to Jerez to fill the LPG as well. The Med coast has similar patterns but the overnight temperature is at 0° or worse. The Spaniards say they have never known such a prolonged cold spell or such snow GH further north...... But with the € rate at 1.32 as opposed to 1.16 this time last year who's complaining ?
Last week saw the knockout boules competition. We drew for partners and I got Pat who's normally good, and the GF  drew John. Pat and I played like s**t and  ignominiously lost 13-0 in the first round whilst the GF stormed through to the semi finals. After a liquid lunch she narrowly lost to the Liverpudlian    who was beaten in the final by Bryan and Jacqueline so the honours were split between the uk and france.
We followed that with another  3rd place in the quiz.....the usual suspects again taking the first 3 spots. I did redeem the Bowdidge honour by winning the whist drive.
On Friday night the restaurant put on a BBQ before the England-Wales game and with the healthy French contingent here it was a fairly riotous night, the game not starting till 9pm here.( have I mentioned that there are more French than usual because they are avoiding Morocco for fear of Islamic trouble). On Saturday a good crowd gathered for the France-Scotland game, made very raucous by the French.
On Monday we took the van out for the day to Jerez, filled the LPG and walked round the town and had a light lunch.......Jerez is a v.nice city, many beautiful buildings (mostly concerned with sherry of course) and we never tire of meandering round the elegant streets.
On Wednesday it was our turn to win the quiz, with our rivals tying for 2/3 places. The best turn out yet so a very healthy 40€ prize.
I keep trying to have the odd dry day but without any significant success. The more wine I buy the more people drop by and vice-versa but the supermarket has an offer on Pata Negra Valdepenas 2006 at 4 bottles for 10 € which appears to be the tipple of taste for most.
We have some new card partners, Charles & Gill, with whom we play an excellent game of Nomination Whist when the wind is blowing or the sun goes in.
Ken & Jacky emailed to say they are going to Bonterra Park at Benicassim and as that would fit in with our return travel plans  we are trying, without success at the moment to get a booking there for 21feb onwards. As Chris & Malc will also be there it would  be a good place to stop for a week but the signs are not good so far. I rang the C&CC to see if we could join the rally only to be told that a rally only booking was £75 admin cost !!!!!! There is another site close by so we might try that.

IT'S BEEN 3 WEEKS

The GF is doing pilates twice a week and sticking to it; I started Spanish lessons but fell by the wayside......homework is a bugger when you could be off enjoying yourself.
The initial flush of winning the quiz faded and we came third the next week and then fourth. Our main rivals have reorganised into 2 strong teams and are snaffling the prize money. The whist nights are spectacularly supported and the competition is fierce for the €10 or so on offer to the winning lady and man.
The main event has been the Japanese lucky charm ceremony at which Joan's dragon was the star- 20ft long with 5 ladies underneath and made entirely of rubbish and gaffer tape. There are a couple of videos on YouTube with 2 more waiting to be uploaded.....I'll put a link in later. We found fireworks in a firework shop in San Fernando thanks to Laurent & Jacqueline whose son has a bike shop there (its complicated) and they very kindly took me over there. The dragon has been adopted by Martina and Jeanmarie who run LaRosaleda as they aim to use it in the summer.
The post ceremony party consumed much rioja and went on well into the night having transferred to the bar at some stage as the sun went down......it has been very chilly in the evenings and early mornings. After a glorious first week we had a few days of wind and rain but the sun returned last weekend and after the wind dropped it is most pleasant with spectacular sunsets.
We've walked on the beach and around the town; cycled to fruit farm for oranges and the bee farm for honey ( I've branched out from honey made from bees feeding on the orange trees to lavender honey and something labeled Extra Virgin which sounded intriguing).
Larry & Pat invited hired the camp car and invited us to join them on a trip to Jerez where we made the obligatory visit to the Terry's Bodega for a dozen litres of brandy (6 for me and 6 for Harry) .......its only at the bodega that you can buy the 36° instead of the 30° available in the supermarkets to combat drunkenness. At €8.10 a ltr. bottle  its extraordinarily drinkable . We had an excellent lunch an pottered around.
So all in  all, life is exceedingly pleasant at the moment, and with 5 evenings a week taken up with something the time just flies...........

IT'S embarrassing.......

Wednesday

We won the quiz tonight.........

GOSH....NEARLY A WEEK

Wednesday 14.1.14

Saturdays apres boules drinks became quite lively chez nous and was noteworthy in that there were twice as many people as had been playing boules for some strange reason. However it did reacquaint us with a lovely French couple, Laurent et Jacqueline, and result in an invitation to join them on Sunday morning for an oyster lunch. They have been full timing for 16 months and still crave the delicacies of la belle France so after New Year had a crate of oysters couriered from Arcachon which we know well as oyster central.
I had expected a nice demi-douzaine  so was rather overwhelmed to discover that the order had been 9 dozen which had to be consumed asap. Larry and Pat were also invited but both ladies declined oysters and made inroads into the pate,rilletttes,foie gras and prawns, leaving Larry and I trying to keep pace with Jaqeline shucking oysters for dear life. Don't know how many we consumed but we think that 2 dozen each wouldn't be far out. Accompanied with a fine Muscadet and then  Sylvaner, a very enjoyable afternoon was spent. Laurent is 70+ and was a professional photographer and is still accepting commissions. More later.

Weather has been a bit cloudy but nice and warm. Been down to beach twice and walked each way and its still lovely.
Nick & Barbara/Dave & Geraldine arrived Monday and we will see more of them in the next few days.
Excellent meal compliments of the management on Tues in preparation for the annual St.Sebastian festival on sunday
......as usual with a free meal, much wine was purchased to was it down thus writing off the rest of Tuesday.

The site is getting busier, especially with French visitors who are apparently shunning their usual playground of Morocco for understandable reasons. Regular readers will recall my comments last year about the enormous numbers of French  motorhomes in Morocco which now may well be in decline this year and thus hurting the Moroccan tourist economy.
And just to annoy anybody, I am not Charlie, because I don't agree that its OK to gratuitously insult somebody's religion and deliberately cause offence in the name of free speech.

THERMAL VESTS TO SHORTS & SANDALS IN 24 HRS

Saturday 10.1.2015

Wednesday night down to -5° and woke to another day of thick fog which lasted for over 150 miles but as we dropped down off the plateau after Caceres at least the temperature began rising. Came out of the fog 50 miles from Seville and then stopped at Jerez to top up the LPG as there still appears to be nothing nearer to Conil. Despite Repsol installing more autogas points, there is a black hole from Jerez to Algeciras even though Cadiz is a major city. As we are not staying so long down here this year , we shouldn't have to go back to Jerez to refill especially if the weather remains as warm as it is now.
So arrived Conil 4pm in bright sunshine and big blue sky all round. New van is too long for our pitch of the last 4 years so we have a bigger one close by but not in the same avenue...which may deter the usual suspects from dropping by for a beer or three........but unlikely. Apart from Paul & Marianne who can't make it because of ongoing problems with Paul's shoulder (which may spare my liver further damage) the same crowd are here so much renewing of acquaintances . Our first job was to drive up to the van wash
facility and I managed to blow the horn when passing the boules pitch just as Harry was throwing and he said words which should not be repeated in polite company to much laughter.
It took a lot of high pressure washing to get 6 days grime washed off and it took two of us to do it but now we are clean again.
Thursday night is Whist night where
the GF won the ladies prize of 9€ so we are starting off well. Quiz night starts next Wednesday and in the absence of P&M it had already been decided that we would team up with Harry & Joan......the bidding in the transfer window was extremely competitive apparently when it was known that we would be looking for new partners. We shall be the dream team once again.
Friday was spent sorting ourselves out, erecting awnings etc and generally getting comfortable which included getting the shorts out as it is so warm. A walk up to the supermarket for wine & beer, boules in the afternoon and an excellent flamenco show in the restaurant with a meal for 8€.  to round off an excellent first day.

THE WEATHER COULD BE BETTER.....

Tues.6.1.2015

Started raining on the Bordeaux ring road and never really stopped all day. The works on the A63 have finished and whilst it is a cracking road all the way to the Spanish border, it is also expensive. The alternatives are fine if you have time but will inevitably use more fuel anyway so no choice really. Bordeaux to Burgos was an easy drive except for the fog,low cloud and rain and the temperature around 3°.
Burgos is new to us, a campsite on the river within walking distance of the old town and must-see cathedral so intend stopping 2 nights. Arrived 16.30 and had nice walk along river to stretch legs. Tonight is epiphany and town deserted but must have been a procession somewhere.

Wed.7.1.2015

Extremely cold overnight, down to -3.5°
Woke to thick fog and a frozen water tank.....might not have enough in it. Found a button that says tank heaters which I've ignored up till now but it seemed to do the trick. Fog and temp  seemed set and  so decided to forgo the delights of burgos until another (warmer) day. So drove for 250 miles or more in freezing fog that seldom gave more than 100 yds visibility, and about 30 mins of warm sunshine. The dashboard readout only went above 0° for a short while and mostly hovered around -2.5°. Arrived Caceres about 16.00 intending to stay on aire but the temperature decided us to find the campsite on the outskirts so that we could be nice and warm for €16 (£12.80).
Spanish diesel similar price to france @ €1.11 ltr or 90 p

SNOWBIRDS HEAD SOUTH.........

Or Les vagabonds d'hiver as the French call themselves, are sitting in Bordeaux surrounded by thick fog having only had a fleeting glimpse of sunshine and blue skies........

Left home on Saturday lunchtime anticipating queues on the M25 at Blue water etc but sailed through of course, and the new toll system at the Dartford crossing which has done away with toll booths in favour of number plate recognition appears to have eliminated 10 mile tailbacks ( I've opened an account and registered van and car so the charge is £1.67 instead of £2.50 per crossing )
The van was loaded as usual but we now have more space so cupboards not overflowing. I also managed to spend a small fortune before Xmas having some extra electrical tweaks, not realising that the labour charge was going to be £67 per hour...I also had Simon from Dave Wallis Car Audio adapt the Cobra alarm to include a loop to wrap round the bikes which are now much lower on their new Thule rack ( which is brilliant) so that they are alarmed as well.

So whizzed down to Tunnel, put on first available so no wait, at 18.20, and heading into Calais 35 mins later, at which point the phone went and the Phantom tracker centre said our motion sensor was going off and did we know that the van was in Calais?.......
This is a new bit of kit fitted when I bought the van and upgraded the Phantom tracker. When switched on it sends an alert if the van is in motion so that if somebody stole the keys and disarmed the alarm system, when they drive off the motion sensor alerts the centre and reports every 30 secs.
The switch is hidden under the steering wheel and I didn't know it had been fitted at first and nobody bothered to tell me that it had and where the switch was. This caused a lot of grief when I drove the van for the first time.....
So I couldn't work out why it had been triggered in Calais when I had already driven to the channel for 21/2 hours...( my first fear being that the installation of the new bike loop had buggered something )......
Then it dawned on us that we had been trying to find a handy safe place for the mobile phone (the GF's shelf being cluttered with iPods,notebooks,sweets,mints,chewing gum,cables,chargers etc) and she spotted the shelf space under the steering wheel and stuffed the phone in it...... managing to knock the rocker switch from off to on. Red face and call to phantom  to apologise for stupidity and assertion that the switch must be off as I hadn't touched it for 3 days.( the switch can't be seen so very difficult to remember which way is on or off).
Great start !......but no damage....

Cold overnight but soon warmed up Sunday am and pleasant run down to La Suze sur Sarthe, just south of Lemans.
This aire was flooded last year but fine this. It has even been tarted up with full electric hookups for 6 van.....and as there were only 5 there at 3.30 we were lucky. They charge €5 but the machine wasn't working so we walked up to the village and bought our first tarts aux pommes .

Monday morning cold and misty......filled up with fuel at SuperU for a mere 90p a litre (£1.20 last year) and as we get better fuel consumption  things should cheaper this year.
Straightforward run to Bordeaux. With 50 miles to go the sun came out and the sky was blue all round....then we ran back into fog as we neared the rivers and as it gets dark its getting foggier.