I am not one who ‘generally’ tends to allow myself to worry about things that I have no control or influence over, you my reader’s will probably have got sick of hearing me quote that particular statement within these rambles over and over again. However, when you have moved your whole life from your natural ‘home’ country to live a new life in a ‘foreign’ country, one in which you have to keep applying to renew your residency Visa every few year’s in order to permit you to continue to do so, then that philosophy can, at times, go flying out of the window 😲.

After gaining our initial Visa and Residency Permit three year’s previously, we then had to go through our first renewal just a short twelve months later. It is actually a two part process, first you have to apply to the Immigration Authorities to approve the renewal of your Visa, for without this approval you cannot apply to renew your actual ‘Residency Permits’ (TIE) and, if that Visa approval is not forthcoming then, when it expires, you have 90 days in which to leave the country 😲 Unless of course you are an ‘Illegal Migrant’ who have been living, and/or working, in the country for a number of year’s under the radar, and then you just have to sit and wait for an Amnesty period to be announced 🤷‍♂️ Why pay thousands of pounds using the ‘Legal’ route these days, I am seriously beginning to wonder because, it appears that you are more likely to experience more and more rules and procedures for being a law abiding citizen 🤷‍♂️

Our first renewal period, in June 2024, was a bit of an anxious time, but only because it was the first time that we had gone through it, and so we were unsure of the actual processes and procedures, or the timelines involved, although we were using the services of our Spanish Solicitor’s and, as it happened, the anxieties that we had, at that particular time, proved to be unnecessary, as the two separate processes went seamlessly and were completed without any issues, all within a short four week time frame.

So here we are, two year’s later, and it is time to go through what would be the last ‘Tempory Residency’ renewal process, for after this one, in June 2028, we would have completed our mandatory five-year ‘Temporary Residency’ period and could then apply for our ‘Permanent Residency’. Although that word ‘Permanent’ is a bit misleading, because in respect of Spanish “Foreign Residents’ Visa’s, the so called ‘Permanent’ one’s still currently have to be renewed after every 5 year period 🤷‍♂️ Although, there are mutterings amongst the grapevine, that these 5 year renewals could be extended to every 10 years 🤞However, the grapevine is often not an Official medium for accurate information.

Now you can only apply sixty days in advance of the Visa expiry date to renew them, so, on the 15th April we commenced the process of applying to renew both our Visa’s, and Residency Permits (TIE Cards), but this time we actually felt quite relaxed about it, and you know what happens when you do that, yes, the ‘Dark Forces’ have their beady eyes on you 🙄 As I am sure you would expect by now, of course ‘yes’, me and my OCD Buddy were already prepared, we had all of the documentary evidence ready, the stuff that was officially required and which our Solicitor’s had confirmed to us that we needed. They then confirmed that our Visa renewal applications had been submitted digitally by them and so, all we had to do was sit and wait for the approval confirmation, before we could then proceed to Stage two. They also assured us that we would not be caught up in the delays currently being experienced by the recent introduction of the Spanish Governments ‘Migrant Regularisation Programme’, the one that was currently in operation between the 1st April and 30th June. This was an Amnesty period directed towards those who had been living, and/or working, ‘Illegally’ in Spain and it was estimated that there could be in the region of half a million undocumented ‘Illegal Immigrants’ 😲 However, for ourselves who didn’t fit into that category, as we had paid thousands of pounds taking the ‘Legal’ Residency route, so all we had to do was wait until our ‘routine’ Visa renewal applications were confirmed. On receiving that confirmation, our Solicitor’s would then move to Stage two of the process, this would involve them securing appointments for us to attend ‘in person’ at our local Guardia Civil Immigration Dept, in Estepona to submit our applications for the renewal of our physical Residency Permits (TIE Cards). Our current Residency Visas were due to expire on 13th June, so we had commenced the process in good time on 15th April.

We started to get a little nervous when, just three weeks before our Visas were due to expire, we received notification that the Immigration Dept were now demanding evidence that we had in fact been living in Spain over the last year 😲 This had not been part of the previous Visa renewal process, so we had not prepared for it and now, with the clock ticking and time rapidly running out, we had to ask how they wanted us to prove that 🤷‍♂️ Those communications ate into another two days of our rapidly dwindling time frame. They wanted ‘Official’ Bank Statements from both our Spanish and UK Banks, and that wasn’t as straightforward as you may imagine. For the Spanish Bank Statements, no of course we couldn’t just go on-line and print off statements ourselves, that would be far too easy, no, they had to be done at the bank and each page, front and back, had to contain their official stamp, so we had to make an appointment to be able to do this, and of course, there were no appointments available for three days 😲 However, the Immigration people were happy to accept copies of our UK Bank Statements ‘without’ official stamps 🤷‍♂️ provided they were on official bank headed paper. Have I ever mentioned previously in these rambles about how frustrating Spanish Bureaucracy can be ?

We were in, and out, of our Spanish Bank within five minutes of our appointment and fortunately, the local branch of our Spanish Solicitor’s is in our local town, so we hot-footed it to their offices and handed them the documents, which they scanned and sent to the Immigration Department. Then all we could do was sit and wait, and wait, and wait and sweat it out as each day passed, with our Visa expiry date growing ever closer. So when I say in the future, “Do not worry about things that you are unable to Influence or Control”, bear in mind that there may be some exceptions to that philosophy, especially if the results of those ‘thing’s’ could have a major impact on your personal lives 😲 We had, through no fault of our own I hasten to add, given those evil ‘Dark Forces’ another opportunity to strike at us once again.

With less than one week left on our Visas, finally we received the ‘digital confirmation’ that our Visas Renewals had at last been approved 😮‍💨 That was, ‘Cutting It A Bit Too Fine For My Liking’. It should have been more of a joyous occasion than it actually was, so let me just describe it as a great relief (Massive Understatement). Unfortunately that news came on a Saturday morning, so we will have to wait until Monday to prompt our Solicitor’s to attempt to secure us our appointments to submit our TIE Card renewals. However, this is where the delays could really kick in, for the local Immigration Offices that are dealing with the ‘Routine’ Residency Card Renewal Applications, are one and the same as those also processing the ‘Migrant Regularisation Programme’ initial Residency Card issues, and they have not been provided with extra manpower to process this massive extra workload, so you do not have to be an overly intelligent person to realise that of course there were going to be inevitable delays, unless of course, miracles of miracles, our Solicitor’s manage to just happen to time it right with their request, and get us a relatively quick appointment confirmation, and ‘Pigs may fly’ is the immediate thought that sprung into my mind. Obviously, for practical everyday reasons, we would like to be in possession of our updated TIE Cards, as they also serve as our Spanish Identity Cards, but in reality, provided we did not need to travel outside of the Spanish Mainland, or needed an Official Service, they are not quite as important as the Visa’s, for it is the Visa’s that provides us with the proof that we are actually ‘Legal Residents’ for another two year’s. So now it is just another waiting game, but with a slightly little less stress and anxiety 😮‍💨

It raised another couple of questions in my mind about this ‘Migrant Regularisation Programme’ ? So let’s say you were one of those living here illegally, and potentially earning an undocumented income, or just living on UK Pensions (State and Private) and you decided to take this Amnesty opportunity and register as a Resident. Would the Spanish Authorities then come after you for ‘Tax Evasion’ 🤔 Even Brits, just living here on their UK Government State Pensions, as many do, although they possibly will not have been paying tax in the UK, if that were their only income, as it is under the Personal Tax Threshold, but under the ‘No Double Tax’ Agreement, as we ourselves discovered, the UK State Pension is, by agreement with the UK, taxed here in Spain and not in the UK and ‘With Ignorance Of The Law’ being no excuse, well that could be a very interesting point couldn’t it when it comes to the question of having declared it 🤔

The other question I ask myself is, in respect of the Financial Requirements for obtaining residency, under those requirements, we, legally have to prove that we have the annual income specified to obtain residency here, which is currently €36,000 per annum, for a couple. So, does that apply to those who register under this ‘Migrant Regularisation Programme’ ? Or perhaps it is once again a case of one rule for some, and another rule for other’s. It could be that it isn’t just the UK that has two tier standards, or are these questions that, as a legal but foreign resident, I shouldn’t be asking out aloud 😲

We now have no immediate plans to depart Spain, by choice or otherwise 🙄 Looking at some of the issues with doing so, it is probably a good job that we don’t plan on holidaying elsewhere within Europe at this moment in time either.

So, this ramble is really just an update on our Residency status, as I had mentioned it in a previous recent ramble, before there then being silence on the subject, and now you know why 🤷‍♂️ The next renewal for our ‘Permanet Residency’ status should also be interesting, well at least for you my reader’s, for on that one we need to prove that we have not been out of Spain for more than the permitted 10 month period during that first 5 year period, and then of course, any other surprise requirement that the Authorities decide to throw into the mix 😲

Just as a footnote, yes living here for the majority of the time is a truly wonderful privilege, and one that we both enjoy very much. However, there are frequent formal processes that have to be conducted and complied with, and they can, occasionally, create frustration and a degree of anxiousness. So I hope that through these rambles, documenting our ongoing lifestyle here, can also provide an insight into some of the other ‘things’ that have to be taken into consideration, it is not just about enjoying the heat and the sunshine, the beautiful Spanish scenery, the laying on beautiful beaches and swimming in azure coloured seas, or people watching whilst enjoying a ‘Cafe con Leche’ or perhaps even the occasional Anti-Covid Vaccine 🤭 Although, the reality is that, all of those above things that I have just mentioned, make the Bureaucratic aspects pale into insignificance.

Until my next ramble……………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena (Well it is now 😂)

As I looked contentedly out of the passenger car window, it was a reminder for me, if one was actually needed, at just how diverse the landscapes are, here in the southern part of Andalusia. The Province of Cadiz stretches from the Mediterranean coast, on the East, with the Strait of Gibraltar to the South, and the Atlantic coast on the West. In between there are a combination of mountain peaks and lush green fields with views that spread out for miles as far as the eye can see, their are Natural Parks with thick forested areas and acre upon acre of Olive groves and orchards containing a wide abundance of different varieties of fruit, with the orange orchards being the easiest to distinguish from a moving car, for quite obvious reasons. We drove past reservoirs that are now full, although they had been as dry as a bone over the last couple of year’s, but now we see cattle and horses in the fields surrounding them and they are now able to wander and graze in the open fields and down to the waters edge where they can now drink their fill. Up along the mountain roads you have to take care as you will often come across herds of goats grazing on roadside bushes and see them up in the branches of trees nibbling on the more succulent leaves, the danger coming more from the stationery cars that have stopped on the road to take photographs of them. But these landscapes, whilst beautiful can also be a source of extreme danger in hot Summer months, when high temperatures, or carelessly discarded cigarettes, can ignite Wildfires which, when fanned by the strong winds can become infernos of heat in a matter of seconds, we have already suffered two of these in our region in the last couple of weeks, even before the temperatures pushed the mercury over the current 30 degree(c) mark, fortunately the authorities had responded quickly and soon had them under control, but it served as a timely reminder for us to check our route beforehand, Google maps now show where such wildfire outbreaks occur, we certainly wouldn’t have wanted to find ourselves heading towards one of these inferno’s.

So, some of you may very well be asking why am I commencing this ramble about being on a journey in the car 🤷‍♂️ Although probably the more logical question would be ‘Where were we travelling to ?’ Well I will get around to that, but first, to give this ramble some sort of context, I should tell you that this story actually started some three mornings earlier………………..

It was Friday the 22nd May, the morning had commenced just like any other, a slow leisurely start before going out on our normal daily walk. As is our normal routine, we had stopped at one of our favourite Cafe/Bars to enjoy our mid-walk refreshments and, because we had done enough chitter chattering during our walk, we sat in silence with our own thoughts and just enjoying the same marvelous views, whilst of course conducting our usual people watching routines, it would be rude to break this now ritual daily pastime. However, things were about to change, for out of the blue, Shazza breaks the silence between us, “We should go on a short mini-break” she announces, “That’s a good idea” I respond, “Where do you fancy going ?”, I enjoy mini-breaks but in truth I was really thinking that this was just going to be another one of those futuristic travel ideas, the ones we discuss but that rarely ever materialise into anything because, although we quite regularly have these conversations where we come up with numerous ideas, and locations, for potential trips they never actually come to fruition. We are both as guilty as each other for that, the simple reason being that neither of us can ever make a decision about where to go, or when 🤷‍♂️ But of course, I played the game and continued to elongate the conversation, well I suppose it did pass some time whilst enjoying the heat of the morning sunshine, and so I of course asked the next logical question, “When are you thinking of wanting to go on this mini-break ?”, but upon hearing her reply I couldn’t help but burst out laughing, “Well, I thought we could perhaps leave first thing on Monday morning”, she just gave me one of her ‘I am being serious’ looks, “Why are you laughing, we don’t have anything urgent that needs doing and how long does it take to pack a suitcase ?”. Now of course, my beloved was right, for a mini-break generally only means, in her mind, anything from a couple of days or, perhaps a whole week, but not anything much longer, not a major holiday, or anywhere outside of our immediate local area, say within just 2-3 hours drive, so we wouldn’t need to pack very much for just a few days. I tried to be gentle with my response, “Well ‘we’ my darling may be ready at such short notice but, as we don’t yet know where we want to go, let alone find accommodation, with vacancies, at such short notice, so I really do think that we may just have to allow a little more planning time”. She glanced me one of her ‘not very impressed’ looks and returned to silent mode. However, I knew better than to think that this would be the end of the matter and I could hear the cogs turning in her brain as we walked back to the car 🙄

So we returned home from our walk and sat, enjoying lunch on the balcony, but without mentioning anything to each other about our earlier ‘mini-break conversation’, but we were both sat, somewhat surreptitiously with our iPads, scrolling through ‘Google Maps’, looking for some sort of mini-break inspiration. I was thinking that we perhaps we should get away from the coast, somewhere up into the mountains where we could stay at one of the many rural B&B type ‘Fincas’, many of which have swimming pools, which would be an absolute necessity in the current temperatures 🥵, many of them will also provide Dinner in the evenings, if requested in advance. That, I thought, would be a much nicer relaxing break from our usual repetitive daily routines or 🤔 Perhaps we could visit one of the numerous inland villages, or towns, that we have not as yet visited, where we could just stay in a local rustic hotel, with a pool of course, but somewhere where we could perhaps venture out during the cooler morning periods if we felt the need, to visit some of the other small whitewashed villages and towns within that immediate local area and then spend the searingly hot afternoons lazing around the pool with a glass or two of something cold 🍺 Mmmmm 🤔 decisions, decisions……….. Shazza gave out a very loud ‘huff’, closed her iPad and picked up her Kindle, I knew that there were far too many options for her, especially with her not knowing exactly what it was that she was seeking, so she gave up looking, we have been here before on numerous occasions.

Whether it was divine intervention, or just plain good old serendipity, I really do not know but, after getting brain fog myself with all of the different opportunities available, and believe me, their were loads, my iPad ‘pinged’, informing me that I had an Email. It was out of sheer coincidence, and I have to say, damned good timing, that an advertising promotion Email, from the RIU Hotel Group, arrived in my ‘Inbox’ informing me of their latest worldwide availability offers. Now I should perhaps clarify for you that I have actually been a ‘loyalty card’ member of this Spanish owned hotel group for very many year’s, so they are quite regularly sending me promotional literature. They have some very nice 4* and 5* hotels, and resorts, all around the world and we have stayed in quite a number of them over the last 20 years, although, these occasions were mainly when we were still living and working in the UK, and those were primarily ‘Winter Sun’ holidays at different ‘Long Haul’ destinations, like Mexico, Jamaica, Tunisia and Egypt and usually for periods of 10-14 days. We do like RIU hotels and resorts, for they provide what are generally considered to be luxury, but without being overly ‘Posh’, we do both enjoy a bit of luxury, but definitely without all of the pomp and pretentiousness. Now it goes without saying really, but being a Spanish owned hotel group, they do also have several hotels and resorts within Spain, including Gran Canaria and the Baliarics, although, strangely enough, only a handful here on the mainland, and many of them are just hotels and not full resorts. We have stayed in one fairly local to us in ‘Nerja’, which is just three hours up the Costa del Sol coastline from us, and of course, very nice it was too. However, they do also have a large Hotel Resort location even closer to us, on the Atlantic Coast, just half an hour or so south of Cadiz, and the resort itself is only an hour and a half coast to coast car journey from us. However, we have considered this particular RIU beachfront resort location previously, but then always very quickly discounted it, as that particular resort is one of those large family fun one’s, the sort that attract scores of excited ‘Little Darlings’ running all over the place morning, noon and night, and of course being a resort, they have all of the associated kids entertainment programmes with the associated noise that comes with them, so obviously this would certainly not be the sort of place for a pair of ‘Old Wrinklies’ just looking for a little bit of peace, tranquility and relaxation 😳

However, I thought to myself that I may as well just look at the current offer at that location, just out of curiosity really, as you do. I was a little surprised, especially as it was the school half term holidays, that price wise it did actually reflect a very good deal for a 4* star resort on an “All-Inclusive’ package and with it being beachfront and seven on-site swimming pools, on-site restaurants, several bars and lounges and very importantly, on tentatively checking the availability dates, it confirmed that it had availability from the Monday through to Friday as we wanted. “Shazza, I may just have found somewhere, and not too far away, for us to go on that mini-break” I said. I verbally provided her with the essential information before passing her the iPad so that she could look at the images on the website. To be totally honest with you, I had expected her to pull a face and discount the suggestion, as she had done many times previously but, to my complete surprise she said, “Why not, it’s only for a few days”. So I logged on to their website, requested a sea-view room with balcony, and secure on-site parking for the car, just for the four night’s and the booking was confirmed almost instantaneously.

So, here we were, within just a few hours from when Shazza had first made the suggestion at the Cafe/Bar, we had actually made a decision and the booking was made and confirmed, bloody hell that was totally out of character for us 😁 Now all we had to do was relax over the weekend, throw a few items of clothing into our small suitcases, well not true actually, as my OCD Buddy would never let his military discipline do anything less than fold such items nicely and with precision 😂 Shazza on the other hand, who had never been anywhere near a military establishment, just threw her clothes in. But we didn’t really need to pack very much, swimwear for the lazy days around one of the seven on-site pools, a couple of pairs of decent dress shorts, and short-sleeved shirts, for the evening meals in the on-site restaurants, and for taking evening drinks in one of the many bar lounge areas. If we did want a change of scenery, or to get away from the noise of excitable Parents and their ‘Little Darlings’, we could always walk down to the long stretch of white sandy beach, which could be accessed from the back security gate in the garden area, or we could always take the car and visit other places in the area, along the coast, North or South or even drive inland.

Looking at the advance ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts for our time away, it looked like that particular coast was going to experience 33-36 degrees(c) and a minimum of 22 degrees(c) during the early hours, much the same as the heatwave currently effecting a lot of other locations elsewhere in Europe, so in reality I didn’t anticipate wandering much further than the swimming pools 🥵

We could not officially check-in until 3pm, but we decided to leave at 10am anyway, and make a stop en-route at the small hilltop town of Medina Sidonia, a place that we have often passed along this route, always intending to stop but never doing so. In fact, being only a one hour’s drive away we could have visited this town on just a short half day trip from home, but we had often just forgotten about it, out of sight out of mind, as the saying goes. But depending on how much of interest there was there, we could perhaps kill a couple of hour’s and have lunch before then heading to the hotel which would be only another hour’s drive away.

We pulled into a car park (Free Parking) just outside the entrance to the town, only a couple of minutes uphill walk and almost immediately we came across a side street Cafe/Bar, the type that Shazza refers to as ‘Old Men’s Bars’, meaning a place that is utilised generally only by the locals and not tourists, and not just by ‘Old Men’ I hasten to add. We went inside to the small, but busy, inner sanctum and were greeted by the usual ‘Buenas Dias’ without heads lifting or eyes moving from the newspapers they were reading whilst consuming their coffee’s, beers or second breakfast’s, we of course responded in the usual manner. The bar area was busy but the man behind the counter looked at us and nodded, an acknowledgement that he had seen us and would take our order once he had finished doing whatever it was that he was currently engaged in. He then looked up at me, “Dos Cafe con Leche” I said, he nodded and motioned for me to find a seat, he would bring it to us when he had prepared it, “Cuanta Cuesta” I enquired, “Tres” he responded and I left the money on the counter and we went outside and we sat at a table, a few moments later two piping hot cups of coffee were delivered, “Muchas Gracias” I said, ‘Dinada” came the response. We smile at each other because when you are learning how to speak a language, any language, it is always in complete formal and grammatically correct sentences, but the reality, especially here in Spain, is that they do not waste breath on superfluous unnecessary words and, if you use them, you just stand out as being a tourist 😂

In the height of Summer the central Plaza would be full of tables and chairs belonging to the adjacent Cafe/Bars that sit on the roadside opposite the Plaza, but it was extremely windy on the day of our visit (40mph gusts) and although the sun was shining and it was already in the high twenty something’s, being at the top of a hill, believe me that wind made walking challenging at times. it was a Monday, unfortunately closing day for a lot of the retail establishments but nevertheless, we strolled along the pedestrianised street that naturally followed on from the Plaza. We looked in the windows of the artisan stores, no big corporate branded stores here, but the town had everything you would need on a daily basis if you lived here, two Banks, three Pharmacia’s, Butcher’s, Baker’s ( Although we didn’t see any Candle Stick Makers 🤭), Fishmongers, even a small interior market hall with its own cafe. Medina Sidonia also has castle ruins further up the hill, and although they would certainly have provided superb 360 degree views of the surrounding countryside, they are only ruins, so we decided not to bother and just weaved our way in and out of the narrow cobbled streets.

It didn’t take us long to see everything their was to see here, well, apart from the castle ruins that is, so it was still too early for lunch so we made the decision to make our way to the hotel, we could always leave our suitcases in the car in their car park and hopefully find somewhere to eat nearby, until the official check-in time.

We pulled up outside the large hotel reception area a little before 12:30 and was greeted by a very friendly and smiley female concierge (Or should that be Conciergess 🤔), she told us that we could off load our suitcases and leave them in the large internal lobby area whilst we parked in the secure official car park across the road. After parking the car we went inside, to see if we could leave our suitcases in a store room until check-in time, again, we were greeted by another friendly female member of the RIU staff, she was a pre-check in representative and provided us with lots of information on the resort facilities, before directing us to the main reception desk, where we expected to be told that we were too early. However, another very friendly and smiley female took our TIE Cards (Spanish Resideny Identity Document), checked her computer and informed us that our room was ready 😲 After a very swift check-in procedure we were handed our Electronic Room Key Cards, two Pool Towel Cards and a Resort Map which contained one of those ‘QR Code’ things which would provide us with all the information that we may require during our stay. She said we could leave our suitcases and they would be delivered to our room for us, we declined the kind offer, after all they were only small ‘Cabin Bag’ size and were not heavy, plus they were on wheels. It felt a longish hot walk to find the accommodation block that we were in, although in reality, once we had familiarised ourself with the resort facilities it wasn’t as large as it first appeared. Fortunately, we were accommodated in a two-storey block of only twenty rooms, away from the noise of the pools and entertainment facilities, whether this was by design when they saw that we were just a couple with no kids, and being of a certain ‘senior’ age group, I don’t know, but it could not have been more perfect. The room was on the second floor and was immaculately clean, and large, and when I stepped onto the large balcony, complete with two chairs and a small table, it looked over a side garden out to sea, this was the RIU standards that we had previously become accustomed to, we both looked at each other with big beaming grins on our faces, we immediately felt that we were on holiday and that we could have been at a resort anywhere in the world, it brought back very many happy memories, RIU had not disappointed once again. But even better than that was the fact that we could go and take lunch in the buffet restaurant 😋😋😋

Anyway, you will be pleased to know at this point of the ramble, that I am not going into a day by day account of what we did, which wasn’t that much to be completely honest, each day we ate, we drank, we lazed around the pool and we enjoyed the evening entertainment, rinse and repeat, the perfect mini-break and one which, once again, just goes to prove, especially to us, that we should not judge a book by its cover 🙄

So, all in all, okay we had only really changed one set of regular daily routines for another ‘Temporary Change Of Daily Routines’, but they do say after all, that a change is as good as a rest, and we can concur with that wholeheartedly. Whilst we initially intended to keep somewhere close to our healthy diet regimes, and to be honest, with the wide variety of food available, to suit all dietary requirements, so it would have been easily possible to have kept to them, but in truth, the temptations away from them proved just too great to resist, even for Shazza 😂 We do not usually like being where there are large groups of people in a confined area, but we had no worries about contracting any rogue bacterial infections, as we both well and truly overdosed on the wide variety of Anti-Virus Medications that were freely available 🫣🤪

Even though this had only been somewhat of a short mini-break, the days had just flown by so quickly, a sure sign that we had both actually truly enjoyed ourselves but to be honest, we were both ready for home now, if only to detox 😂 It had been a bit like a busman’s holiday in one respect, exchanging one beachfront location for another, but at least for Shazza, much more than myself, she had had a well deserved break from planning menu’s and then preparing and cooking meals, here that was all taken care of for her. But it did confirm something that, in reality, we already knew, and that is that we are no longer the sort that can be away from home for long periods of time, these shorter mini-breaks are much more enjoyable, for we have become home birds and, as Miguel and Katya, our Spanish neighbours keep telling us, whenever they return from their Camper-Van trips, “You go on a holiday, and then you come back to your own permanent holiday location”, and they are so right.

Even whilst we were on this current mini-break holiday we started to discuss doing a similar thing elsewhere in Spain, even if that did mean considering the RIU establishments on the other Spanish Islands. However, it would not stop us from trying other similar hotel groups either, we have already stayed at a couple of the Spanish ‘Parador’ group of hotels, although they are extremely expensive just for the accommodations, without any meals included, and they also tend to be in isolated locations so you do need a car. But I still have a yearning to do the ‘Finca’ experience so who knows 🤷‍♂️

We had breakfast at the hotel on our final morning and were still back at home before lunchtime. The temperatures here on the East Coast during the day are a little cooler, climbing to just 28 degrees(c), and a humid 22 degrees(c) at night, but we can certainly feel that 6-7 degree difference, but June is just around the corner and so those daytime temperatures will just keep climbing day by day, to anywhere between 35-40 degrees(c) by the time we reach July and August 🥵 Time I think to get ourselves down to our own on-site Pool and to also enjoy some sandy Beach day’s 🏖️ For now though, my OCD Buddy is pleased to be back to the more usual daily routines 🤗

Until the next ramble…………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena 😉

I may have mentioned in my previous ramble that the days here were becoming much warmer and, although it is still officially Spring, it has felt as if Summer really is finally on its way. It has remained much the same pattern over the last three or four weeks since my last ramble, apart that is, from two or three consecutive days when it was unusually cloudy and overcast, but even then it had remained dry with temperatures hovering around the 20-22 degrees(c) mark, however, since the departure of that brief wayward weather system, it has been virtually wall to wall sunshine and, surprisingly, the mercury had even risen on one afternoon to 26 degrees(c), although to be honest, that sort of afternoon high is unusual at this particular time of year, even for this part of Southern Spain, but of course we were already preparing ourselves for we know that by the end of May the mercury is likely to regularly be showing daily temperatures of 30+ degrees(c), so whilst Shazza is building up her supply of Factor 50 sun cream, I will be stocking up with Anti-Hantavirus Vaccines, well you have to keep up with the changing bacterial threats don’t you 😂 Fortunately all of my usual suppliers maintain their stocks of these anti-viral medications 🍷🍷🍷

I have to be honest though, it is very nice to once again be able to sit on the balcony first thing in the morning with my coffee, watching the sunrise appearing at a little before 07:30am, with the daylight remaining until 9:30pm and so being able to also witness some beautiful sunsets. Having experienced the worst Winter here for the last ten years, where the mornings and evenings have certainly been far too cold to sit in my favourite room in the apartment, it now feels good to be back to some sort of normality and I am beginning to feel a lot like Keir Starmer, super-glued to my seat and unwilling to move 😂

We still find ourselves having to smile, if not bursting into fits of laughter, when we read both the daily and advance weather forecasts, for they never seem to be able to agree with each other, let alone get it anywhere near right, and so, just by way of yet another example, we were supposed to awake very recently to thunder and lightning and heavy rain, which would last, according to you know who 🤔 for a full 48 hours, whereas our much more reliable ‘Forrest Gump’ meteorological forecasting service, revealed blue sky and sunshine on each of those days. When I sit and reflect on it now, it seems that no matter where we may happen to have lived, be it in the UK, travelling in our Motorhome in our more nomadic days and even now, living here in Spain, no matter what the location the weather always seems to have an influence on our daily lives, either being too cold, too wet, floods, wildfires, too hot and even suffering prolonged droughts 🤷‍♂️ However, this ever changeable weather does provide certain ‘personal’ advantages for me, for without this ‘Works of Fiction’ subject, what else would I find to consistently ramble about 😂

We have also noticed, over the last week or so, that there is a much larger visible presence of Police in the area, and when I say larger presence I mean from there usually being literally no, or very little, visible presence to us now seeing, on a daily basis, lots of Police Officers (Policia Local, Policia National and Guardia Civil) on both foot and mobile patrols in the Marina and the Town, many more Police vehicles on the roads doing road side checks and even Guardia Civil Helicopters patrolling the coastal shorelines. At first we wondered if there had been a major incident in our locality, should we be concerned we wondered as we had seen nothing reported in either the local or national media 😲 Then it all became evidently clear for this increased presence, as we started to observe that certain Public Areas were also starting to be maintained, cracked paving tiles along the seafront promenade, which had been in a state of disrepair for the last couple of year’s, were now being replaced, many stretches of the main A7 Road in our immediate area were being fully re-surfaced, not just pot-holes being filled in, but was this not just scheduled work prior to the arrival of the new Summer Season’s tourist hoards 🤷‍♂️ Of course not, this recent increase in both the highly visible Police presence and the local Maintenance services, was due to one main event happening later in the month, which we became aware of by the large number of Advertising hoarding boards that had started to be erected, and covered with large posters with the faces of the Politicians representing the different Political Parties, yes of course, it was time for the Local And Regional Political Party Elections 🤷‍♂️ Once they were over, of course normal service would resume, the Police foot patrol officers would return to their air-conditioned offices within Police Stations, potholed-roads, that had not been repaired before the elections, would remain pot-holed, the cracked and broken pavements would remain cracked and broken, or perhaps that is just me being far too cynical again 🤔

However, apart from that, our own routine daily lives have just continued as normal and to be completely honest with you, it seemed a little pointless trying to pen a weekly ramble over the last three or four weeks as we really have not been up to very much, just the normal daily routines. We are of course still awaiting the outcome on our applications to renew our VISA’s and Residency Permits but we are not overly concerned about it, for as you know from my previous rambles around Spanish Bureaucracy, they rarely tend to do quick 🤷‍♂️ What is the worst that could happen 🤔 If, for whatever reason they choose to decline to extend our ‘Legal Immigrant’ status to reside here, then we will just remain here ‘Illegally’ for the next two years and then apply for ‘Official’ Residency status as ‘Illegal Migrants’, after all they are granting residency to half a million ‘Illegal Immigrants’ right now, so we may have a better chance using that route 😂

There is a heck of a lot of building works going on around us at the moment, a new nine Villa luxury complex at the bottom of the hill, each of these at a starting price advertised as being in excess of €880k, although the final price with Spanish Tax (IVA) and any other additional features (Swimming Pools, Luxury Kitchens & Bathrooms, Glass Curtained Balconies) that the new owner’s may wish to have included, will take the final price to over €1 Million, although there is not one new social housing development for the local populous included in any of the ongoing developments 🤷‍♂️ They have also just started putting in the foundations for another luxury Apartment complex, half way up the hill (or is it half way down 🤔) from our location and also, after a period of some two years of building Phases 1 & 2 of even more luxury Villas, they are now in the process of completing Phase 3, a complex of Luxury Apartments on the opposite side of the complex that is directly adjacent to us 🤷‍♂️ Fortunately, none of these new ‘Urbanisations’ will have any impact on our actual views, as they are all being built on land further down the hill, but the state of the roads, from all of the heavy construction traffic continuously driving back and forth over them, have left their scars 🤔 The main inconvenience for us is the noise from all of these construction sites, but more particularly, the amount of dust that is being created, our car exterior is constantly covered, on a daily basis, in a thin sheen of sand and construction dust, making washing it a pointless exercise 🤷‍♂️ However, every cloud has a silver lining as they say, and that is being reflected in the increase in the prices of existing properties that surround these new developments, which of course includes our own community of Apartments. However, as we have no intention of selling, we have not had a current valuation conducted on our own property although, our recent new neighbour, living immediately next door to us, purchased it for ‘well over’ €200k and that apartment has had no modernisation done to it since these were built, over twenty years ago, so who knows we may now be living in our own little gold mine 🤔

On the 4th May we hosted our first family visitor’s of the year, Shazza’s Aunt & Uncle, they have visited us almost every year over the 11 year’s that we have owned the property, but generally they used to come out during the Winter month periods, usually between December and March. This time they would be staying with us for 8 days, arriving late morning on the first day and departing late evening on the last day. We went out every day, although they had by now seen most places within our local area, so finding somewhere new to visit was always going to be a challenge for us.

It was 437 years ago, when Sir Francis Drake paid a visit to Cadiz, with his flotilla of warships, that being of course for a far less touristy or friendly purpose, which is referred to historically as, the ‘Singeing of the King of Spain’s Beard’ which delayed the ‘Spanish Armada’ by a full year. Now similar to our own ‘Province’ of Malaga, for which ‘Malaga City’ is the capital, Cadiz is also a large ‘Province’ with ‘Cadiz City’ as its Capital.

There are three ways to enter the Island Isthmus from the mainland, a road from the South, or a choice of two road bridges on the Eastern Side. I plotted a route on the Sat Nav to a Car Park on the North Eastern side and discovered that it was in fact just a little over 80 miles from us, on a straightforward, primarily all dual-carriageway road, which would take across the most Northerly of the two road bridges with a total journey time of just a little under ninety-minutes.

Unlike Sir Francis Drake though, we had no hostile intentions and so ‘The King of Spain Had No Reason To Fear Our Visit !’ on this occasion. Although Shazza and I had made a day visit to Cadiz many year’s previously, that was during our more nomadic motor-homing days and, to be completely honest, it was a very brief visit and so we have always said that one day we would like to return to do it a little more justice. On the selected day of our trip the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast a very warm and sunny day, although being on on an Island jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean, we anticipated that it may be a little blustery so we went prepared. As Cadiz City is less that a two hour drive away from us, and our visitor’s had never been there before, it seemed like a decent opportunity to tick another place off our own ‘To Do List’, whilst also providing them with another memory of their visit to us.

It was extremely easy finding our way to our nominated car park, although we were a little surprised, with it being within a very short and easy walk into the ‘Old Town’, to find that there were ample parking spaces available when we arrived at around 10:00am, and even more pleasantly surprised when we came to leave to find that it only cost €1 an hour to park. Cadiz is a very walkable city, no need to catch buses to get from one area to another, although they did have the customary tourist ‘Hop On, Hop Off’ buses which I guess take you to all the major Tourist attractions without you having to find them for yourselves, or if you are limited in time. However, the discovering of these places for ourselves is the bit that I tend to like, just wandering around aimlessly through narrow cobbled streets and discovering Plazas, large and small, or beautiful Green Parks, and of course the many different watering holes, for it is thirsty work being a tourist 😉

A few photo’s below from our day………………

After a lot of walking, although still not having seen everything their was to see in the ‘Old Town’, our visitor’s were all walked out, so we suggested driving a little further down the coastline, only around half an hour to ‘Chiclana’, well not to the town itself, which is a couple of miles inland, but to the nearby ‘La Barossa Beach’, a long stretch of beautiful white sandy beach with a promenade that had a lot of eateries overlooking the sparkling blue sea where we could enjoy a very late lunch. We had been here before and knew that our guests would enjoy it.

Apart from the full day trip to Cadiz and the Beachside lunch, the rest of their time spent with us we just remained in the local area, with walks to the Marina and into our local town, and a short drive into Estepona, for they tend to like just enjoying the weather and being sat with a nice glass of something cold, or eating relaxed lunches and going out on several nights for Dinner. Fortunately, they only experienced one day of drizzle with grey overcast skies and a very strong wind, although the wet stuff was just a bit hit and miss, but the majority of their days with us were very warm and sunny 😎

We took our visitor’s back to Malaga Airport for their evening flight home. Once we returned home ourselves, it felt very strange, for after entertaining, being tourist guides and the in-house catering for guests, for eight days, the apartment felt empty and so very quiet. We were both all talked out, so we sat in silence on the balcony with a nice hot cuppa. We knew that it would take us a good couple of days to get back into our own normal routines, it always does, comprising of one day doing a full domestic clean, including Shazza stripping the beds and catching up with all the laundry and ironing, and then one complete day of doing absolutely nothing, not even stepping out of the apartment to go for our more usual walk, we both agreed that we had done enough of that recently 😮‍💨 We enjoy having family and friend’s stay with us, having different people to converse with, in our own native language and catching up on all the news and gossip from back home, as well as sharing our beautiful location and lifestyle with them. But it is much the same as when we have been away somewhere on holiday ourselves, it is always nice to get back to some sort of normality afterwards.

As I write this, the local elections here have not yet taken place, although I guess that it will be much the same as any other elections, in any other country, where some political faces may change, a different party may gain overall majority in the Coalition Government that we have here, but in reality nothing much will change after that, pre-election promises will still continue to be broken, that is par for the course, just the same old story really on the merry-go-round of Politics on our planet, why any of us ‘normal folk’ should expect anything any different I do not know 🤷‍♂️ We are still awaiting news about our VISA’s but not holding our breaths, we still continue to adopt the philosophy of not worrying about things that we have no control of. It appears that the War on Iran, that a certain President claimed to be over weeks ago, is still ongoing, as is the one between Russia and Ukraine, so it is good to see that not much has changed in the eight days that I have purposely not been reading the Global ‘Doom and Gloom’ media reports. Spain has just announced that it has enough Aviation Fuel for the next three months so, at least you can leave Spain to go on your Summer holidays, although I am not quite sure how you would get back from any of the Countries that are running out of it 🤷‍♂️ Normal fuel prices for vehicles (Petrol & Diesel) are falling slightly here, although still not back to the prices they were before the crisis, funny how they always go up immediately there is news of a shortage, but are much slower in coming down when there isn’t one 🤔

But to end on a much more positive note, the sun is still shining, the temperatures are still climbing, the sea and the sky are both still a lovely shade of Blue and to top it all, my favourite Cafe/Bars still have copious supplies of both Anti-Covid and Anti-Hantivirus Vaccines. So yup !! It is a tough life here in our little corner of the Iberian Peninsular, but never fear for I am determined to be brave and suffer it for as long as I am able to, and you can rest assured that I will continue to dedicate myself in providing you, my reader’s, with these lifestyle hardship updates, well at least for the next four weeks until our Residency Permits expire 😁🫣

Until the next ramble…………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

There are times in our lives when we have to make hasty decisions, based entirely on only the information that you currently have at hand at that particular moment in time. Gambler’s will ‘generally’ take the higher risk decision, in order to reap the ‘potential’ reward linked with that decision, financial or otherwise, whilst those, like myself, who are much more risk averse, will tend to choose to take the safer bet.

For a little over a week, we have enjoyed being back in the comfort of our own home, enjoying walking out in the gloriously warm sun-filled days, rather than be in a potentially wet and soggy France, worrying about where our next tank of Diesel fuel may come from. After taking the decision to cut short our road trip through France, and just out of curiosity, I continued to keep checking the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts and I began to question myself on that particular subject ‘Had I Actually Backed The Wrong Horse’, as the ‘Works of Fiction’ now revealed that, whilst not exactly sun-drenched, most of France, especially the Regions that we would have been driving through, were relatively dry, albeit cloudy and overcast. Then, with what would have been just one week into our French road trip, the media headlines reported that the ‘Strait of Hormuz’ had re-opened, fuel would still be readily available and the prices were decreasing. However, that in reality was a short and very fragile ceasefire agreement which looks, if recent media reports are to be believed, is not going to last, with reports that both Iran and the USA have broken that agreement. So perhaps the fuel issues will continue to rumble on for some time yet, who knows 🤷‍♂️ To be completely honest, initially I was more than a little frustrated with myself, for not taking the gamble and sticking with ‘Plan A’, but as I now reflect on that decision, if we had, would we have been able to fully relax whilst on our road trip or would we have been continually looking over our shoulder having to worry about fuel availability 🤔 However, like any form of gambling, you place your bet, you roll the dice or turn the card and then sit and await the outcome 🤷‍♂️ Fortunately, my gamble did not result in any financial loss, indeed, as I searched to try to find some sort of a positive outcome for my decision, I consoled myself with the knowledge that we perhaps did benefit, financially at least, as we had returned home with more money than we would have done if we had have completed the full duration of the trip, although somehow, even armed with that knowledge, it certainly didn’t make me feel like fist-punching the air in celebration, for it still felt like a lost opportunity to me. But on another positive note, whilst Shazza may not have celebrated her birthday in a ‘French’ Restaurant in France, we did still get to celebrate it with a very pleasant Spanish lunch, under the sun canopy of one of her favourite Spanish Restaurant’s in our own home town, then we followed it up just sat, relaxed and enjoying the sea views, with a spot of good old people watching, from the shaded terrace of a Beach Bar for good measure🍹🌴 We both say quite often these days that we do not actually feel our ages, but much younger, by as much as twenty or so more year’s, so with that in mind, I sang Shazza a ‘Birthday Song’……………..

🎶 Enjoy Yourself, you’re older than you think,

Enjoy Yourself whilst you still have the ability to think,

Enjoy yourself, Enjoy yourself, you’re older than you think !! 🎶

Of course, I braced myself for the physical and verbal assault that would surely follow 🫣 However, she saw the funny side of it and said, “Best I order another couple of cocktails, then I can blame the memory failure on the alcohol” 😂

The weather, since we have been back, has been …… well quite normal for this time of year in this part of the country, ‘Hace calor, pero no demasiado’ as we say here in Spain, (It is warm, but not too hot) with the average daily high’s of between 22-24 degrees(c), sun high in the sky, barely a cloud and just a gentle warm breeze blowing in from the sea, so it is certainly back to wearing our much more preferred clothing of shorts and tee-shirt (Cortos y camiseta) 😎

We had only been away for just a little over two weeks, but in that time there had been a few subtle changes, mainly the number of seasonal beach bars and touristy type shops that have re-opened, or on the brink of re-opening, the latter just adding the last few splashes of paint here and there, washing down the plastic tables and chairs, all that sort of stuff. There was definitely an extra buzz in the town as the early bird tourists also appear to have arrived, beginning to replace the silver rinse brigade ahead of the main holiday crowds, but without the increase in the number of the much younger ‘Little Darlings’ in tow 🤭 Although that seasonal element may soon be arriving in greater numbers, subject of course to how much Aviation Fuel the holiday flight tour operators still have, but if, or when, they do arrive they will once again swarm the promenade, beaches, ice-cream parlours and take up all of the car parking spaces, which is the non-official announcement that the annual Summer holiday season has once again commenced 🙄

As you may imagine, on returning home we quickly settled back into our usual daily routines, but we also had to start thinking about a more immediate priority, the administrative preparation required to commence the renewal of our Non-Lucrative Visas (NLV) and to what would be the last renewal of our ‘Temporary’ Residency Permits. It should be quite a straightforward process, we have already been through this process twice now in the nearly three year’s we have lived here, our Solicitor’s, who do all of the ‘official’ stuff on our behalf, have most documents on file and hold our ‘Digital Certificates’, meaning that they can access official databases to get any necessary updated official documents and make all the necessary on-line applications, we just have to provide up dated financial information which have to first be ‘Officially’ interpreted, strange but I thought numerals were written the same in most European languages, 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. but there you go, in Spain you learn something new everyday 🤷‍♂️ We will of course have to attend the Immigration Office in Estepona in person, twice in fact, once to submit the applications in person to renew our ‘Residency Permits’, which involves them taking our fingerprints yet again, then the second visitation is to collect our new Residency Permits, which will again be valid for a further two year’s, which will take us up to our 5 year point when we can then apply for our ‘Permanent Residency Permits’, although they too still have to be renewed, but every 5 year’s, instead of the current 2 year periods.

The only issue that I could foresee was in there being a major delay in the administrative processes, due to potential blockages created by the Spanish Governments recent controversial announcement that, with effect from 16th April, it is opening up official residency applications to grant half a million, or perhaps even more, ‘Undocumented Migrants’ who are currently already living and working in Spain, the opportunity to gain ‘Legal Residency’.

I broached the subject of the ‘potential’ delay in our own renewal process with our Solicitor’s, however, they stated that there ‘should not’ be a problem as the ‘Undocumented Migrant’ processes are being conducted under separate database processes. Although, it has been reported in the local media that there are no additional Immigration Staff being employed, so I am not sure how delays are not going to become inevitable, but we can only wait and see how things turn out 🤷‍♂️ Our own current Residency Permits expire in the middle of June, but we cannot actually physically go to the Immigration Office to submit the forms to renew them, until the actual date of expiry, if we can get an appointment on that date that is, we then have to wait for them to re-check our submitted documentation before they make, and then issue, the new Residency Permits, which effectively means that we will not physically get our new permits until some point in July, at the earliest 🤷‍♂️ This is not really a major issue for us, provided that we do not need to leave the Country, but if we did, in say a family emergency in the UK for example, well that would involve another quite separate administrative headache.

For people reading this who may be considering re-locating to Spain thinking ‘Oh my goodness, that sounds complicated and too much hassle’, all that I would say is that in reality, this renewal procedure is to gain a two year ‘Temporay’ Residency Permit, and so it is only a few weeks of slight disruption and officialdom, short term pain for long term gain, as the saying goes. After the last two year renewal, then it is every five year’s between renewals on the ‘Permanent Residency Permit’ and that process then comes with much less administrative requirements, and do not entail the restrictions that come with holding the ‘Temporary Residency’ permit. Additionally, if you use authorised professionals to do the majority of the Administrative requirements on your behalf then, in reality, it isn’t that cumbersome, but it does give us Brits something else to have a good moan about 😂

There appears to have been a lot of changes happening in respect of Migration this year, the introduction of the EES system for ‘third country’ citizens wishing to enter any of the EU Schengen Zone Countries, that has brought about its own well documented issues with long delays at various ‘Ports of Entry & Exit’, with people ‘allegedly’ queuing for hours and some even missing flights because of it. Now, another Immigration process here in Spain, to register ‘Undocumented Migrants’ already living and working here illegally, and provide them officially with ‘Legal Residency’ status, then, in July, when Gibraltar officially becomes part of the Schengen Zone, which if I recall correctly, a certain British Government Minister said would never happen 🤔 which then means the EES procedures will also be adopted at the ‘Ports of Entry & Exit’ in Gibraltar, although there will no longer be any land border, but again this will only effect ‘Third Country’ nationals arriving, or departing, via Gibraltar then, as if that wasn’t enough to be going on with, purportedly, towards the end of the year, the EU are introducing the European Travel Authority (ETA) procedure, who wants to take any bets on whether the date of introduction of that will not be pushed back yet again. So what may come next is anyone’s guess, perhaps an identity and global locator chip placed under our skin ? ‘Many a true word spoken in jest’ Eric 🤷‍♂️ Anyway, as I am not the official European Tourist and Travel Information Service, enough about any and all of that, I am sure you are capable of reading associated media articles, or ‘Official’ information websites, on any of these subject’s for yourselves 😂

By way of a change to our normal daily routines we opted, on yet another warm Sunnyday (Yes it was actually sunny, and it was a Sunday 😁), to drive the relatively short distance into Estepona. We had read that there was a ‘Ruta de Tapas’ event on, between the 17th-19th April, so this was to be the last day. This annual event is where a large number of Cafe/Bars, I think around seventy-four, offer a specific Tapas and one drink for a set price (€3.50) and each establishment provides a different type of Tapas 😋😋 The event is combined with a market, held in one of the main streets, where the stalls offer tastings, and of course sell, Spanish Wines and Vermut, a whole range of Spanish Cheese, Hams, Chorizo’s, Bread and Pastries and their was one stall where there was a competition for the best leg of ‘Jamon’ slicing, which is a very serious specialisation here in Spain with National Competitions being held around the country so, of course it would have been rude not to attend such a local event.

It was a beautiful day, but we had forgotten that, being a Sunday, it was also the day of the weekly market held in the Estepona Marina, which is where we had decided to park 🙄 It was crowded when we arrived at midday, although there is a large piece of waste ground utilised as overflow parking so we managed, only just mind you, to find an unoccupied piece of hard dried uneven mud to leave the car. We have actually attended this market on numerous occasions, although these days, usually only to bring our visitor’s here, who seem to like buying ‘stuff’ that they didn’t know they needed, then get it home and realise that they didn’t 😂 As it was, on this occasion, with no visitor’s in tow, we just by-passed the row on row of ‘Tourist Tat’ stalls and took a slower than usual walk from the Marina into Estepona Town. I have to say that whilst we could feel the increased buzz of people in our own town, here in Estepona we could actually see it, for it was very busy, probably a combination of the sunshine, weekly market and the special weekend events that brought out locals and tourists alike out in their droves. The first thing we needed when we reached the town was somewhere to re-hydrate, but not at any of the seafront hostelries at their inflated prices. We headed slightly uphill into the back streets, not far out of the main town, and found ourselves, a new to us, Argentinean owned ‘Bodega’ with tables and stools positioned outside and, quite coincidentally as it happened, discovered it was one participating in the ‘Ruta de Tapas’ event, so of course, it would have been rude not to enjoy a tasty morsel with our refreshments 🤭

It was such a pleasant environment and the ambience was good so we stayed and enjoyed another drink, but we were both being good and enjoyed ice cold ‘Toasted non-alcoholic Cervesas’ with me foregoing my more usual Anti-Covid Vaccine. We then pushed down back into the town and located the market stalls, as you may imagine, it was crowded, not just with those perusing the stalls but the street was lined with Cafe/Bars so there was plenty of people watching going on, although this time we were probably the victims of the people watchers, fashion police and body beautiful judgementalists and, after our recent over indulgent period in the UK, well the body beautiful judgement panel would have had a field day 😂

They say that ‘A change is as good as a rest’ and certainly making these occasional variations to our daily routines does make a difference, for no matter how much we like our own environmental bubble of tranquility, the seafront, marina and town, sometimes following the same routines can get a bit boring. With the mid-afternoon temperature in Estepona peaking at 26 degrees(c), we had one more re-hydration stop on our walk back to the car and we both agreed that the time is rapidly approaching, when we will have to soak ourselves in sun cream before going out, and we may also need to start to wear sun hats as the Summer is well and truly on the horizon, although I cannot say that we are looking forward to June, July or August, when the daily temperatures will undoubtedly rise towards the 40+ degree mark 🥵🥵 We returned home late afternoon and spent the evening on the balcony, Shazza reading a book on her Kindle device whilst I commenced drafting this latest ramble, the sun keeping the balcony pleasantly warm until well after it got dark at 9pm.

The following morning and ‘Forrest’ revealed to me that yet another sun-kissed day was in store for us, although Shazza was slower this particular morning at peeling herself from under the lighter summer weight duvet. When she did, I proffered a number of suggestions for her to ruminate over, whilst she drank her coffee, 1) a sunbathing day down at the pool, swimming not compulsory though, 2) perhaps a day on the beach, or 3) just our normal daily walk routine. She looks over the top of her mug of coffee at me, “Can we have a day off today ?” She says, with puppy dog eyes. I let out a chuckle, “Every day is a day off for us isn’t it ?we can do whatever we choose to do, and that includes choosing to do nothing at all”. Although I knew that unlike myself, Shazza couldn’t sit still for two minutes, so her day off comprised off re-organising her wardrobe, bringing out Summer clothes and storing her heavier winter one’s, changing the bedding, pottering around in the kitchen making something or other, her day off just actually meant not walking anywhere outside in the searing heat, we had both done enough of that over the last week. Sometimes it is just good to be able to sit with your feet up, and be thankful for where you are and for what you have, or then again, you could just sit with your feet up 😁

So, as we enter yet another new week, where on earth do they go to I ask myself yet again 🤷‍♂️ However, we have no specific plans, other than trying to progress a little further if we can, administratively at least, with our VISA and Residency Renewal procedures and, of course, we will continue with our walks, although they may soon have to be shared with days around our pool, as this activity does also provide us with an alternative ‘Exercise’ regime, however, the water temperature, at least for my liking, still isn’t quite ‘Crown Jewels’ safe just yet 🥶 Although, there is certainly no good reason why we cannot just grab a sun-bed and commence replenishing our fading sun tans for it has been a very long, cold and wet Winter period this last few months. And, as we discovered late yesterday evening, it is also looking likely that we may have some short notice family visitors arriving, for a week’s stay with us, within the next fortnight, although I guess there may still be a possibility that some third parties, who are located in countries much further away, may yet still have an input into whether that visit does actually materialise 🤔 But as far as we are concerned, it will be what it will be, we have no control over those sort of things so we will continue to just take each day, week and month as it comes 🤷‍♂️ It seems that everything that is going on in the world today is actually in the hands of a self acclaimed ‘God’, you know what ? he actually looks familiar, now where do I know him from 😂😂

Until the next ramble……………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

There are times when I really do wish that I could look into the future, although on this occasion, just having the ability to look forward over the next 5-6 weeks would have done for me 🤷‍♂️ Would the ‘Works of Fiction’ have got their forecasts wrong and allowed us to have a decent drive and exploration through France ? Would the ‘Strait of Hormuz’ re-open and start to at least ease the global fuel crisis ? Unfortunately I was not given the luxury of having time in which to make a decision on which direction the next leg of our journey would take. Then of course, I had another irritation to contend with, that being my OCD Buddy who was insisting, no, let’s be truthful about this, he was definitely demanding, that he had an input on any decision that I was considering, whether I wanted him to or not 😲 I knew it was a mistake to have allowed him to accompany us on this trip 🙄

However, in truth, it was not my OCD Buddy that was to be my biggest issue on this particular occasion, it was the clock that was against me, usually I can make advance, considered, decisions but, on this occasion if I didn’t make a decision soon, then the freedom to do so would almost certainly be taken out of my hands. Part of me wanted to just say ‘Go with the flow and stick with the original plan’, for in the past fate has always looked out for us and been on our side so, perhaps we should just let fate play our hand for us once again 🤷‍♂️ However, something was nagging irritatingly inside my brain, telling me that this was one decision that we really had to make for ourselves and soon, as time was not on my side. Now, if I elected to choose the ‘head over heart’ practical decision, that being to postpone the French adventure and just return to Spain, then we would need to amend our existing pre-booked ferry and that was the one thing that would pre-determine our fate, for if we were unable to amend that booking, irrespective of what the weather was like in France, or even the availability of fuel, then regardless we would be going to France as originally planned 🤷‍♂️

Personally speaking, apart from seeing our Grandchildren, which was actually only for three days, out of the nine that we had scheduled to be in the UK, we also had other family members to visit whilst we were in the UK so, I never really consider our visits to the UK as being an actual holiday, well not in the true sense of the word, as we always have a lot of travelling to do up and down the country and in a short space of time which gets to be quite tiring. To be completely truthful, I would have much preferred to have just driven up through Spain and straight across the border into France and not bothered with going to the UK, after all, our Son, Daughter-in-Law and three grandchildren had already pre-booked their usual annual two week Summer holiday, coming to stay with us in August, so it wasn’t as if we would be sacrificing seeing them, provided the Airlines had sufficient fuel and didn’t have to cancel flights. With our short stopover in Northern Spain, before catching the ferry to the UK, we had now been away from home for very nearly two weeks already and it was looking increasing likely that we may not even get to do any part of France 🤷‍♂️

The weather in France was one consideration, although it had gone from being a total washout at one stage, to there being several dry periods here and there, but the ‘Works of Fiction’ were changing their forecasts on a daily basis, at home in Spain we just go with the flow, but when you are away on a trip you just want it to be a bit more reliable so that you can plan on what you do and where you choose to go 🤷‍♂️ The temperatures even in France were still remaining on the much cooler side and, apart from experiencing a very short two day mini-heatwave in the UK, primarily with the wind chill factor, it had been bitterly cold and we were certainly hoping to get to go somewhere a lot warmer. The other quite important consideration was of course the fuel situation, for whilst there had been reports of a ‘potential agreement’, on a two week ceasefire in the Iran – USA conflict, that hadn’t actually materialised and therefore the fuel situation in Europe was deepening. We had seen prices for Diesel, within the UK, increase, during the short period of time we had been there, it went from £1.85 per litre when we had first arrived to £2.06 and we were now seeing some fuel stations ‘purportedly’ running out of both Petrol and Diesel. I had of course been keeping an eye on the fuel situation in France and had seen much the same issues being reported over there, although the Diesel prices there were being reported at being currently at €2.50 per litre (£2.17) and many of the smaller independent fuel stations were actually beginning to close down 😳 Although, I do have to say that what you read in the media, and the real situation, can very often be two quite different things. In Spain however, it was being reported that the fuel situation was stable and prices remained at around €1.87 (£1.63) 🤷‍♂️ although, to be fair the Spanish Government were still subsidising the cost, but for how long was the overriding question 🤷‍♂️

So, with time rapidly running out, my decision, based on everything that I was reading on a daily basis, had to be a common sense one, the last thing we wanted was to find ourselves stranded somewhere in France unable to get enough fuel to get us back home. Additionally, apart from the fuel issue, being stranded, for who knows how long, would have meant additional costs for food and accommodation, and if the weather was not good, being confined, unable to enjoy getting out and about would have driven us both mad. So, both my OCD Buddy and Shazza agreed with my reasoning, albeit reluctantly, for I had been looking forward to this France trip so much. Although I had made the decision, and before Shazza got back on to the Brittany Website to try to amend our ferry booking from France to Spain, we still tried to counter that decision with all of the ‘But what ifs’. However, we agreed to first try to see if we could amend our ferry booking, if we could, then that was it, we would be heading back to Spain but, if we couldn’t, then we would be forced to stick with our original ‘Plan A’ and, come what may, France it would be. As it was, Shazza, even at such very short notice, had no problems whatsoever with amending our booking, that told its own story, as we had no issues with booking the cabin accommodation that we wanted, and we even managed to book for use of the VIP Lounge again, which is generally severely restricted in its numbers and is often fully booked, so perhaps lots of other’s were now cancelling their holiday trips due to the fuel situation 🤷‍♂️ I had mixed feelings once Shazza had made the amendments, were we lucky to manage to change our booking ?or were we unlucky that we had been able to 🤔

So, we would now be heading on a 32 hour ferry journey back to Santander in Spain, as opposed to a much shorter 9 hour crossing to Caen/Oustreheim in France. I have to confess that, personally speaking, I had mixed feelings about it, although I think that Shazza was more relieved that we would be going back to Spain and had felt a certain sense of relief that I had at least come to a decision. I felt more disappointment, and a big part of me wished that I had just said let’s risk it and head to France as planned. However, as if to confirm that I had probably made the correct and logical decision, that same day, after amending our travel arrangements, when I did my rounds of the European ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts I saw this……………..

That thought of a rough crossing was tempered when I was looking at the Spanish News Media publications, and then a rather large smile returned to my face, okay it wasn’t France, but at least we would be returning to sunshine and much hotter temperatures😎

In our original plan, once we had finished the French part of the trip, we had planned to also do some sightseeing in Northern Spain and then down the Eastern Coastline before returning home, Donastia, Pamplona and Zaragoza and although we may not have packed too many shorts and tee-shirts in our suitcases on this trip, we had both brought swimwear and flip flops and it was looking likely that they would get to be worn quite a lot, if not on a beach then in a hotel pool, the holiday excitement started to return 🤗

As we would be arriving in Spain a lot further West than originally planned, I got back to doing some amendments to our original route planning, so instead of Donostia and Pamplona we agreed on travelling from Santander to Logrono, Zaragoza, Valencia, and then either Murcia or Toledo, dependent on how we felt, or more likely how many clean clothes we had left 😂

After having spent some time with Shazza’s mum, and also seeing her three brother’s and their families, and a couple of her Aunts and Uncles, it was time to head South again, so we spent another long day travelling back down to Swindon to spend a final day with our Grandchildren. We had travelled down the previous evening so that we could spend the following full day with them, as on that same day, in the early evening, we would be travelling back down to Portsmouth to get our ferry for our crossing back to Spain, we would depart Portsmouth at 10pm on the Friday night and arrive in Santander at 08:00am on the Sunday morning. Now I had planned to celebrate Shazza’s Birthday (17 April) in the French seaside resort town of La Rochelle, so that was a little disappointing that it wouldn’t come to fruition, but we could still celebrate it somewhere else in Spain, I just wasn’t sure where ?

When we turned up at our Son’s house early on the Friday morning, they were ready for us and Chris had Baked Shazza a Birthday Cake and the Grandchildren had decorated it, they had got a load of Birthday Balloons and they had also hand-made her some Birthday Cards, so although her Birthday wasn’t actually until the following week, it was a nice surprise for her, and a very nice way to end our visit with them.

We had a good, incident free journey, down to Portsmouth that evening after saying our farewells, which is always a lengthy process and one that I always have to allocate additional time for on my travel itinerary, when we visit them 😂 We had refuelled in Swindon at a supermarket fuel station (£1.87 per litre), just before going to our overnight hotel, knowing that we would have enough fuel to get down to the ferry and still have sufficient to at least start our road travels in Spain. However, I still made a stop at a Supermarket fuel station again, just a couple of miles from the Port, it is one that we usually use to top up when we are returning from the UK, although it only took 10 Litres and was still priced at €1.87, but at least now I was confident that we had a full tank, just in case things had changed in Spain when we got there.

In previous rambles over the year’s, I have made regular mention of the ‘Dark Forces’ that tended to plague us, more so when we were living full-time on our Motorhome adventures but they had kept paying us irregular visits since living in Spain, although their unwanted sudden appearances had been getting fewer. However, I should have known better than to rest on our laurels, for that is when they are at their most mischievous, and just as we were feeling rather smug with ourselves that we had managed to turn a ‘Negative’ into a ‘Positive’, in respect of our revised travel plans, they had been in the shadows watching us and we were to discover that ‘The Dark Forces Were To Strike Once Again’.

The ferry crossing was not as bad as the Weather and Wind Apps had forecasted, although I have to confess that it was a little more than what I had considered ‘Lumpy’ on our crossing from Bilbao to the UK. We certainly needed our sea legs this time and walking anywhere on the ferry, during the long passage, made it look as if ‘everyone’ had had one too many alcoholic beverages as we all involuntarily zig zagged our way to wherever it was that we were going 🙄 However, it didn’t prevent us from making our way, several times throughout the journey, to the VIP Lounge to eat our meals, not even Shazza suffered with any sea-sickness so it cannot have been all that bad, although she couldn’t read her ‘Kindle’, choosing instead to keep her gaze firmly fixed on the horizon outside of the large glass windows. Although I discovered that consuming several large glasses of Anti-Covid Vaccine, at every possible opportunity, had physical, not just medical attributes, as they appeared to counter the zig zagging effect, or then again, perhaps I just didn’t feel it when I bounced off the walls when returning to the cabin 😂

I was looking at the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts for the period when we got off the ferry, just casually looking to where we may be on Shazza’s actual Birthday. I was hoping to try and surprise her by pre-booking, without her knowledge, a nice luxury hotel for perhaps a 3-4 night stay, with either an outdoor swimming pool with a bar, or one that was beachfront, just so that she could totally relax and unwind a bit after all our travelling. But to our horror the original ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast had changed completely, and now the Spanish Media and ‘Works of Fiction’ were in cahoots with each other and had updated their last sunny predictions to this.

Let me ask you, have you ever wondered what it is that you must have done in your life that was so bad to have so much ‘bad luck’ rain on your parade 🤔 If it wasn’t ‘Brexshit’, a Pandemic, or a war somewhere in the world that impact globally, then it was the bloody weather, and yes of course, it could all change once again at a moments notice, I mean we all know how inaccurate, or just completely wrong, the ‘Works of Fiction’ often are. However, Fate certainly didn’t appear to be smiling upon us this time around, perhaps we have already had more than our fair share over the year’s and simply just used up all of our allowance 🤷‍♂️ However, I couldn’t be doing with anymore of this trying to second guess it all, “Perhaps we are not supposed to take extended holidays anymore, for this is the third consecutive one, that we have had to cut short” I said to Shazza in, I have to admit, quite a frustrated manner. Now she knew that normally I would just be quite passive about it, saying ‘Oh well, it is what it is, it is totally out of our control so I am not going to worry about it”, but on this occasion she knew that not only had I been quite excited at the prospect of touring several areas of France, and that I was extremely disappointed about having to make the decision to postpone it. However, although it wouldn’t be quite the same experience for me, I had cheered up at the thought that we would at least get some sort of a holiday before returning home, just the two of us spending time together, somewhere new just doing what we do and making more memories in the process. However, I had felt under time pressure to come to a reluctant decision over France, and now it was looking very much like our amended Spain trip was in jeopardy. We decided to wait until we arrived in Santander, if it was raining and the forecast hadn’t changed then we would just head straight back home, if they had changed the forecast yet again, back to a much dryer and warm outlook, then we would continue with ‘Plan B’ 🤷‍♂️ “Just out of interest” she said, “What is the weather like back at home”. But I had a grumpy head on by that time, which I have to say, is unusual for me “I haven’t looked and does it matter anyway, for what it may show now, or tomorrow or the next day, it could say the complete opposite a day later” I responded, so okay, perhaps I had not quite got over my disappointment of France completely 🤔 But she looked anyway, “Just out of curiosity” she said. I knew then that she had made her mind up on what she wanted to do and there was a certain joy in her voice when she showed me the forecast for the next ten days.

We arrived in Santander as scheduled at 08:00am, the sky was grey and cloudy and it was wet, not raining hard, just spits and spots as they say. We were one of the last to be offloaded as we had not pre-booked ‘Priority Disembarkation’ so we were in a queue to get through Immigration Checks. Now I had expected to just sail through (Excuse the pun), after all we were EU Residents and would not have to go through the EES procedure of facial recognition and fingerprints, but no, their were no separate lanes and we had to queue with all the British vehicles who did have to go through it, although once we got to the checkpoint we didn’t have to do all the EES stuff, which was lucky for the vehicle behind us who didn’t have to wait very long before getting processed themselves. “Well they haven’t got this very well organised” I said to Shazza, but our delay was only going to get worse as we were then stopped at the Customs Check Area, where they wanted to do a search of our vehicle for non-authorised products being brought into Spain, not weapons, explosives or drugs no, much more important than that, Meat or Dairy products 🤷‍♂️ Thank goodness I had eaten my ham and cheese sandwich for breakfast before departing the ferry that morning, otherwise my day may just have got even worse 😳 Whilst I was stood at the rear of the car watching them rummage through the boot contents, it was both wet and cold, it was only 10 degrees(c) and I had chosen to travel, in the anticipated sunshine, in a bloody tee-shirt 😡

It was 09:15 before we finally pulled away from the Port, whilst Shazza elected to do the first bit of the drive I double checked the weather forecast for both Logrono and Zaragoza , “Let’s just go home, to hopefully some dryer and warmer weather” I said, “Still wet then ?” she responded, although it was more of a rhetorical question. The ‘Dark Forces’ had won this particular battle I conceded 🙄

It would, the Sat Nav informed us, take 9 hours and 22 minutes, to complete the 1034 Kilometre journey (643 miles) to get home, and that was without a re-fuel or comfort stops, so I had estimated that it would be around 9pm when we arrived. The grey wet weather stayed with us until almost the half way point, with temperatures dropping, in the mountains, to -3 degrees(c) and an ice and frost warning displayed on the dashboard, it barely managed to reach double figures and we had the heating full on. Shazza drove for around two and a half hours before needing a ‘Comfort Stop’, so we took the opportunity to top up with fuel (€1.87) and make it a ‘Brunch stop. I then drove for five hours and gradually, as we got beyond half way we saw the temperature rise to 15 degrees(c) and started to see some blue sky and sunshine. We were just a few Kilometres North of Seville when I started to get tired, well it was more a case of monotony really, the scenery was, as usual, beautiful, but the roads were straight and long and I had been driving with the ‘Cruise Control’ on as there was very little traffic on the roads. We decided to make it our last fuel stop before getting home and also using it as a ‘Comfort Stop’, but without stopping for a coffee or anything to eat on this occasion, we were both still full from our earlier ‘Brunch’, although we did buy a bottle each of nice cold water. Fuel was still €1.87, not bad for motorway service stations, although I only needed 21 Litres, but the temperature was now 24 degrees(c) and the Air-con was set to ‘Cool’ and Shazza drove us home, although we stopped for something to eat just half an hour from home, realising that there was nothing in the fridge or freezer and we had no bread. Even so, we arrived home at exactly 7:15pm, spot on 10 hours and that had included three stops, “Someone was obviously not adhering to all the speed limits” I said to my little Luis Hamilton, but she responded with, “Well, let me see, who was doing most of the driving this time”, 😳 It was windy when we got out of the car, but still 21 degrees(c) and sunny, it doesn’t get dark here now until 9pm. However, although tired from our long drive, we still had to unload the car, that took three trips from the car park, up and down the stairs to the apartment, but we were glad to be home, in our own surroundings and no longer having to live out of a suitcase.

On our long journey home we had discussed all the disappointments of this trip, apart from seeing our Grandchildren, which is of course always nice, but we agreed that we probably have to admit that, as we are both getting more senior in year’s, long road trips are beginning to take their toll on the both of us. We tend now to enjoy shorter holiday trips, one’s where we go away for maybe just five or six days at a time, allowing two days for travelling to and from whichever destination we choose and then, three or four days exploring that location. We would probably enjoy doing two or three trips of that sort in a year, rather than one long extended one. That is probably the way we will now go in the future, no more extended trips, sticking to Spain, Portugal and possibly even the Southern parts of France on our road trips, but taking flights to the UK in the future, and then short City Breaks to some European destinations.

As I now sit on my balcony, rested from our previous days travels and enjoying my first morning coffee back at home, whilst looking out on the blue Mediterranean Sea, the blue sky, even freighters and cargo ships passing to and from the Strait of Gibraltar, at least there are still some vessels moving I think to myself, but I find myself questioning, once again, why we actually feel the need to travel anywhere else, when we already have everything we enjoy and need right here 🤷‍♂️ I then start to read the main headlines on the World Media pages and it doesn’t look like the World is going to get any better, anywhere, in the near future with all the conflicts going on, impacting and causing so much chaos, not just the current fuel crisis, the cost of living, the general economies, the environment and even disruptions to global travel and yes, not even the ‘Works of Fiction’. I am not surprised at why there is a lot of depression and despair these days, but this morning I elect to put on my much more positive head once again. I accept that no, I cannot control or influence any of what is going on in the outside world, but yes, I can control and influence what is going on in our own lives, and that is all that matters, so here we are, back at home in our own little bubble of tranquility, back to normal everyday routines and yes, there is certainly something good to be said for that 😉

Sorry to disappoint all my reader’s who were looking forward to reading all about our French adventures, but I guess there will, at some point in the future, and perhaps even before the official start of our Summer, still be some to read about, albeit perhaps only much shorter mini-adventures, for now though, I have to say that it feels really good to be back in the safety and comforts of our happy place, that is of course unless Donald Trump decides to continue with his MAGA campaign and invades, or goes to war, with someone else, perhaps now that his mate in Hungary has been dethroned it may be them next, or even the whole of Europe, after all, he likes to go Large, and not just at McDonalds 😂

Until the next ramble…………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

On checking the ‘Wind Map App’ just prior to departing Bilbao, it looked as if we would be in for a bit of a bumpy sailing across the Bay of Biscay. I just don’t know what is about any of these weather related forecasts these days, but they just don’t appear to get their predictions correct. There were ‘swells’ which did cause the ferry to roll slightly, but that is normal, we have been on previous crossings where we have bounced of the walls when trying to walk along corridors, and many a time Shazza, who can get sea sick just standing in a puddle, has laid on the bed in the cabin and stayed there for the full duration of the trip 🤢 However, on this occasion we were able to go to the VIP Lounge where we took all our meals, Lunch and Dinner on the first day and Breakfast and Lunch on the second and, over the 32 hour crossing we did occasionally walk around the various decks on the boat just to stretch our legs so, all in all, a very reasonable crossing.

We had a cabin that had a nice big viewing window, however, apart from the odd fishing vessel, or a freighter or two on the horizon, we rarely saw anything else, not even any Dolphins or Whales on this trip. So it came as a nice surprise, when I just randomly took a look out of the window, to see us passing a three masted sailing yacht.

Five days after leaving our home in Southern Spain, we arrived in Portsmouth, England on schedule at 9pm. We did wonder if, due to the UK ETA procedures, there would be separate Immigration lanes for British Citizens and Non-British Citizens and, if so, whether driving a Spanish Registered car through a UK Only Citizens lane would create any issues. As it turned out there were no separate lanes, however the Immigration Officer had noted our Registration Plate as when we presented our Passports he asked, “Are you visiting for long ?” and “Where are you travelling to today ?”, he was quite friendly and wished us a pleasant stay and then we were on our way, it was all quite painless really. By 10:30pm we were checking-in at our pre-booked hotel.

I won’t bore you too much with our time spent with our Grandaughter’s, suffice to say we had a very active few days with them, Ten Pin Bowling, walks to the Play Park, visits to various Eateries and Ice-Cream Parlours, yes ice-cream, even on cold days 🥶 Although the adults quite sensibly stuck to hot coffee and cake. Swindon also has a couple of nice country parks and we visited them too.

So, after a very active few days 😮‍💨 it was time to head three and a half hours North to South Yorkshire, we would be staying this time with Shazza’s mum and enjoying a short, but much welcomed, two day mini-heatwave, temperatures reaching 24 degrees(C) 🥵 Our time whilst here would be spent either visiting Shazza’s other family members, or them visiting us but the fuel crisis was constantly on our minds. Although we could have easily have got to Doncaster with fuel to spare, we had decided to just keep topping up when we could, so we departed Swindon we called in to a ‘BP’ fuel station on the outskirts of the town, Diesel here being £2 per litre, we only needed 14 Litres, although we could have got it a little cheaper at a Supermarket fuel station, but that would have meant deviating off our route. As we drove up we noticed that a lot of the pumps had collars on them stating “Fuel Not Available At This Pump” 😳 that applied to both Petrol and Diesel, however, we did manage to find a pump there that did have diesel available. When I went in to pay I asked the chap behind the counter if the fuel supply was getting worse, he told me that he should have had a tanker deliver him fuel five days previously, but that it hadn’t arrived until the previous day, and then he was only permitted to have half of the tanker contents 😲 Every time we drove past a fuel station we looked at the prices, but also we looked to see how many had ‘No Fuel’ collars on the pumps and some did, but other’s didn’t 🤷‍♂️ However, a few minutes away from Shazza’s mums we knew that there was another fuel station, so we stopped and topped up again, this time with 17 Litres (£2 Litre). However this time there were no fuel collars on any of the pumps and, when I asked about whether they were having any issues I was told ‘No’, and that they had two deliveries a day, because they were on a major motorway route, and the tanker drivers had, ‘allegedly’, told them that they couldn’t get it out fast enough 😳 So it seems that we had experienced a ‘Tale Of Two Cities’, a North South divide. The main thing was that as it stood, we had sufficient fuel in the tank which would get us back down for a final day visit to our Grandaughter’s in Swindon, and then still have sufficient to get us to Portsmouth and into France, but we would try and refuel again at a fuel station we have used previously just a couple of miles before the ferry port before getting our ferry to France, where Diesel, according to media reports, is apparently between €2.20-€2.30 per litre and still on the rise 😲 So, here in the UK, dependent on where we re-fuelled, we were still able to get diesel at a cost of between £1.86 and £2.00 per litre. We would continue to monitor the fuel situation on a daily basis, but we also had another dilemma, that being the adverse weather in France !!

We knew, well roughly at least, the direction we would be heading in France, as we journeyed from the Northern Coast of Normandy down towards the Pyrenees and the Spanish Border, although we had no specific route, as we wanted to be flexible as to where we would go and where we would stop, for we had planned on spending around 3-4 weeks just exploring the numerous different Regions, Cities and Towns in France, before exploring some places in Northern Spain, that we had not previously visited, like Donastia (San Sebastian), Pamplona and Zaragoza before heading home again, which would be a total road trip, including the 9 days in the UK, of around 7-8 weeks 🤗

However, each morning and evening, whilst we have been in the UK, I have checked the weather forecasts for the different areas we would potentially be travelling through, disappointingly it showed wall to wall rain, North to South including Northern Spain 😲 It was looking as if those ‘Dark Forces’ had it in for us yet again, our only hope was that the ‘Works of Fiction’ would do what they normally do, and get it wrong. However, in Northern Spain, on the Eastern side, although they were currently forecasting that they too, in the North and Central areas, were currently having day on day of rain, but that was due to change with effect from the 12th of April, when the sun would return, with daily temperatures of between 23-27 degrees(c), now that sounded more like it 😎 However, we only had a short window of opportunity if we wanted to ‘try’ to change our ferry bookings from France to Spain, for even now, at such short notice, that may not be possible, decisions decisions 🤔

We had both been looking forward to a few weeks exploring France, for whilst it was nice to see family in the UK, with all the travelling, and family visiting that we do, it isn’t really a holiday for us. Even when we were living full-time in our Motorhomes, both ‘Big Momma’ and ‘Little Fokker’, we never really travelled that much in France and so there are so many places that would be new for us, which we were quite excited about but, will they be as enjoyable in the rain ☔️

The media reports showed no sign of the fuel crisis easing, and whilst it may still have been available now, even if a ceasefire was agreed between Iran and the USA, they were saying that it could still take months for the flow of Oil, and other essential goods, to reach countries. So, our primary fear now being that as fuel reserves diminished, UK, France and even Spain may introduce fuel rationing, to essential user’s first with domestic users being the lowest priority. Governments do not want to create a state of Panic that would creat people bulk buying, so they are cautious not to be open about the real situation, but they could implement rationing at short notice.

We could not have foreseen this crisis at the time of booking our travels and advance accommodations, but now, we were both asking ourselves whether it would actually make more sense to just cut short this extended holiday trip and go straight home ? At least once at home we were not really reliant on diesel fuel for our car, we could still go out walking and could do our general shopping at local stores, in small amounts that can be carried up our hill, and over a period of days rather than in one large shop. To be truthful, we had anticipated that most of our time, whilst we were on the road, would be taken up on deciding which places we would be travelling to next, researching what there was to see and do in and around those places and what scenic routes we could take to them and not being concerned about the availability of fuel, or what the weather situation would be like in mid-April in Europe 🤷‍♂️

I did mention to Shazza that when I looked back on it, that we had not been very lucky on our last two or three road trips, having to also cut them short too, for one reason or another 😤 But, with my more positive head on, I also just mentioned that at least we were not being bombed, or finding ourselves homeless, or not being able to go on, or return from holiday as flight’s were being cancelled at short notice, it would be so easy for us to get despondent, but as I said to Shazza, “There are always people who are worse off than ourselves”, although I am not sure that in reality my words provided any sort of consolation, for either of us 🤷‍♂️ Shazza told me that she would leave the final decision on what we did completely up to me, not that she was putting it all back on to my shoulders but more because it was she that had wanted to come to the UK, as part of the overall trip, but she knew that I was really looking forward to the France part of the road trip. So this was probably going to be a practical head over heart decision for me, no pressure then 🙄

To discover the decision that I made, based of course on availabilities of an alternative ferry, if required, all will be revealed in my next ramble………………

Adios mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

We awoke on our first morning in Bilbao, not knowing what sort of weather would greet us, the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts had all reflected differences of opinion, nothing new there then, I thought to myself, but the main disagreements were not as to whether it would, or would not, rain, more as to how much of the wet stuff would actually fall down upon us. It was also a Sunday, which meant that the majority of shops would be closed, as is pretty much normal here in Spain, but unlike our own area down on the Costa del Sol, these closures also included a large majority of the Cafe/Bars and Restaurants. However, sometimes it pays to have an OCD Buddy, one who had prepared for this in advance, and had fortunately had the foresight to provide a list of around six establishments that would actually be open, where we could at least grab a morsel for breakfast and lunch. We could of course have taken the option of having breakfast in our hotel restaurant but, at €20 ‘each’ for the privilege 😲 for Shazza and I at least, that expense just would not be justified, as I am not really a breakfast sort of person and Shazza is happy with just a bowl of yoghurt and fresh fruit.

I looked out from the large glazed windows on the enclosed balcony, the sky was a little cloudy but the road, pavement and large wide riverside promenade were completely dry. The branches on the trees that lined the riverside were blowing, in what looked like quite a stiff breeze but there were lots of people walking, jogging and cycling and, whilst they were all well wrapped up in outdoor coats or rain jackets, there was no sign of any of them with umbrellas, neither in the up position or being carried, so we got ourselves showered and dressed and headed out into the streets of Bilbao.

Our hotel room directly overlooked the tidal ‘River Nervion’ which eventually flows out into the Bay of Biscay, and was located on the Eastern side of the city, within the ‘Old Town’ district. On the opposite bank was the newer and much larger modern side and, weather permitting, over the next couple of days we would attempt to explore both. But first we needed a little bit of sustenance and this particular morning’s breakfast establishment was, according to ‘Mr Google’, just a short twelve minute stroll away, what he didn’t reveal was that ten minutes of that walk was all uphill, Shazza certainly didn’t rush to thank me for that one 😮‍💨

It was a very small local back street Cafe, the sort we like, and where a generous slice of warm ‘Tortilla’, accompanied with a chunk of crusty Baguette, and a hot freshly brewed cup of ground coffee beans, cost us €3.50 each and, even I managed to eat, probably due more to the energetic morning walk which had made me have an unaccustomed breakfast appetite. When we had initially arrived at the Cafe it was quite busy, a group of females, comprising of a mixed age group, were all dressed in running gear and wearing some sort of Athletic ‘Bibs’, advertising something that we were unable to interpret, we assumed quite naturally that they were probably participating in some sort of a weekend charity ‘Fun Run’, or perhaps even that they were part of a local community running group, however, we were to discover a little later that morning, the true meaning of those bibs and that it was part of a very much larger Regional event 🤔 Mid way through enjoying our relaxed breakfasts we saw, out of the windows, the first few drops of wet stuff darkening the pavement and road surfaces outside, but we had come prepared, with our rain jackets and hats, although, by pure good luck, by the time we had finished our breakfast’s and paid our bill, it had stopped, perfect timing we both agreed.

We had no real plan of action for the day, other than acknowledging that the weather may play a role in the extent and duration of our explorations, but for those that are regular readers of these rambles, and followers of our mini-adventures, you will know that we just like to wander aimlessly, quite often getting lost down narrow cobbled streets and alleyways, but in doing so, nearly always stumbling across things that provided us with memorable experiences, today would prove to be another one of those days 🤗

We did agree that we would initially remain on ‘our side’ of the river and explore the ‘Old Town’, but you know us, and so that didn’t really mean anything, we would end up where we ended up 🤷‍♂️ We are not the sort that go hunting out Museums, historical or otherwise, or even Art Galleries, although occasionally we may elect to visit a few, as we do with Cathedrals, Monasteries, Convents and Castles, however, we do like looking at the old style Architecture, and there was plenty of that on offer in the old part of town, we also have a strong tendency to lean more towards the kind of places that provide local delicacies, if you get my drift 😉 with perhaps the odd opportunity, here and there, to partake of some of the more ‘fortified’ refreshments, well it can be thirsty work this exploring lark 😂

From the hillside cafe we made our way back down to the river and decided to just follow the lovely wide promenade walkway. The streets and pavements were much busier now and we saw a local Bilbao TV & Radio Station setting up a platform with cameras and associated recording equipment ? Across the river we could hear the sound of a public address system with loud music emanating from them, frequently interjected by verbal announcements, which we of course were unable to understand, we cannot understand many of the ones that are delivered in English 🤷‍♂️ We saw dozens on dozens of people all wearing the same ‘Athletic style Bibs’ that we had seen earlier, and there was a lot of people carrying and waving huge flags, our curiosity was certainly raised as to what was going on, could this be like the large marathon events held in other cities around the globe 🤷‍♂️ Initially we were a little confused, as generally we could interpret Spanish words on advertising posters, and could generally decipher parts of the local Spanish conversations that we overheard, but we were having great difficulty understanding anything we heard on this particular morning, that was until ‘The Penny Finally Dropped’ 🙄

Although you know that Shazza and I are generally ‘History Heathens’, I think that I should perhaps just provide you with a little bit of historical context for you to understand this particular, and quite unique, area of Spain that we are in, for this small corner of Spain is the ‘Basque Country’, which not only has its own quite separate cultures, culinary and otherwise, from the rest of Spain, but quite unique to this region it has its own centuries old language, which even the bulk of Spanish speakers themselves do not understand, let alone International tourists with a smattering of Espanyol 😲 So bear with me whilst I attempt to condense a whole cultures history into a very, very brief explanation 🤷‍♂️

The ‘Basque’ region is currently very much the same as many other regions in Spain, much like our own region of Andalusia, it is what is known as an ‘Autonomous’ Region, largely self-governing, but whereas all other regions in Spain all speak ‘Spanish’, with some small regional dialect differences, the Basque Region is unique in that it has its very own ‘Officially Recognised’ language. The Basque region has been, for very many years, even prior to the notorious Civil Uprising against the Castro regime, been lobbying to become an Independently recognised State within the borders of Spain, and several local ‘Referendums’ are still being held where a large majority of inhabitants of the region continue to push for this to happen, but the Central Spanish Government have resisted this call and so it is still very much an active and ongoing debate. Now I admit that this is my own very ‘simplistic’ interpretation of the matter, it goes a lot deeper into cultural differences and traditions, but you can dig into this further yourselves if you are interested. The Autonomous region of Catalonia attempted to do this itself more recently, but in a much more aggressive manner, and it ended up with Central Government putting tanks onto the streets of Barcelona 😲 Anyway, enough of that, back to our brief but more peaceful and enjoyable visit to just a small part of this Basque region.

Now some publications and travel documentaries would have you believe that the ‘Basque’ people are quite insular, secretive and even unwelcoming and unfriendly to ‘outsiders’, including their native Spanish compatriots. Now that may possibly be true of those in much smaller rural close knit communities, I really honestly don’t know 🤷‍♂️ However, what I do know, from our short personal experience here in Bilbao is, that that is certainly not the case, most do speak the normal Spanish language and they certainly appreciate visitor’s who attempt to speak it, but Bilbao, much like Santander and Donostia (San Sebastian) which are themselves International tourist locations, do also speak some English.

By way of an example, Shazza and I we were both stood waiting, amongst the crowds, on a bridge spanning the river, waiting for some sort of a procession to pass by when a woman, with a toddler in tow, came and stood next to us, to also view the procession. I noticed that she too was wearing one of the Athletic style bibs, so not being backwards at coming forward, and in my limited but sufficient Spanish, mixed with a little bit of ‘Spanglish’ 🤭 I asked her the significance of them. She explained, in Spanish, not Basque, that today was the eleventh, and final day, of a run by a group of purely ‘Basque’ people. This group of runners had spent the last eleven days running around towns and villages through the whole of the Basque Region, an annual event, to celebrate the continued existence and support of this local Autonomous community, only true Basque born and bred people wore these ‘Bibs’ and, whilst they did not all participate in the whole eleven day run, many inhabitants from the local towns and villages would join the run in their area, and then many of them travelled to be here in Bilbao where their would be entertainment, music, culinary events and general partying in the streets, the whole day and well into the evening. She then asked us the usual questions, where we were from, why we were in Bilbao and then said that she hoped that we would join in the festivities and have a really enjoyable day. Purely by coincidence, very much later that day, on our way back to the hotel, she saw us and recognised us, she stopped us and asked if we were enjoying ourselves, and then said that she hoped that we would enjoy our second day exploring her city. Now whilst we had many memorable moments that day, that one particular moment just rounded off our day perfectly, we certainly had no prior knowledge of this event when we had originally booked our ferry tickets, but it is unplanned coincidences such as this, that make visits to places just that little bit more special and which create such lasting memories.

Anyway, I digressed a bit again didn’t I 🤔 Along the riverside path there were all sorts of tents and gazebo’s being erected, at one very long tent their were rows on row of trestle tables and chairs set up, and in a cooking area there were seven huge deep circular pans bubbling away on top of gas fired stoves, I could see that each pan contained something different, meats, vegetables, rice and then, right at the end there were large containers stuffed full of long Baguettes, this was obviously going to be one hell of a communal feast, the question buzzing around inside my head was, is this for invited guests only, perhaps a reward for all the participants of the eleven day run 🤔 We certainly couldn’t see anywhere selling tickets 🤷‍♂️

We continued walking, weaving our way through armies of extremely jovial folk, family groups with babies and toddlers, groups of teenager’s, some mixed groups and others gender specific, all had come prepared with rucksacks on their backs and carrying large flags identifying the ‘Basque Region’. Many were holding plastic beakers containing beer or wine, but there was no drunken or loutish behaviour, well at least not yet, after all it was still morning. Then we saw the groups of more ‘Senior’ members of this community with a lot of the men folk wearing the traditional ‘Black Basque Beret’, although these days they can be purchased in different colours and are worn more as a fashion accessory, but they are still a highly significant piece of headgear in these parts, dating back to the ‘Castro’ era and the resistance fighters that opposed the regime, but today was not about protests, or rebellions, it was about celebrating a way of life that has survived through multiple generations. We did not at anytime feel unsafe or intimidated, although it was quite apparent that we were ‘outsiders’.

We turned away from the river and into the narrow paved streets, there were primarily 3-4 storey high buildings, of differing colours and designs, many had local retail outlets at ground level, fruiterias, mini-markets, pastelerias, clothes, shoes, hardware stores and of course small bars, in fact a lot of small bars, in every street we wandered down, and every one was full, with people spilling out onto the narrow streets with their drinks, and plates of Pinxto’s, talking, laughing, and joking. Above were the accommodations, from the number of bell presses outside each door we obviously assumed these were more individual apartments rather than single occupancy dwellings, the Basque flags draped from many of the balconies. We obviously realised that as good and considerate as my OCD Buddy had been, at preparing a small list of hostelries that would be open on a Sunday, this turned out to be no ordinary Sunday and we would not be short of choices, provided that we were prepared to wait our turn in getting to the bar area. Of course, these were the traditional ‘Pinxtos’ Bars, we made sure we did not make the mistake of referring to them as ‘Tapas’, that would almost certainly have got us lynched 😲 So, when in Rome, as the saying goes, although we were in Bilbao, today’s lunch would comprise of what the British call a ‘Pub Crawl’, well we would be on the equivalent, ‘A Pinxtos and Vermut’ bar crawl, note not my typical Anti-Covid Vaccine of choice🍷 but it was my second favourite so I wasn’t complaining 😉 and, as Shazza had no reasonable excuse as she had no driving to do, she elected to join me and I knew then that this day could get, on a personal basis, quite messy 😳 Whilst we were in several different bars we heard the music and as we looked out we could see the ‘white hooded’ processions passing by, there was no way I was going to risk fighting my way back out to grab a photo, so you will just have to take my word for it.

We had been extremely fortunate with the weather, we did encounter a few very brief periods of the wet stuff but certainly nothing of any significance, and when the raindrops fell we didn’t have too much difficulty in finding a Bar to shelter in, the younger element didn’t appear to notice the wet stuff, but more importantly, none of the organised events and celebrations had been affected, and so we were grateful that the ‘Works of Fiction’ had, in the main, got this one wrong.

It was amazing at just how quickly the morning had turned into afternoon and then early evening and we were beginning to get quite leg weary, Shazza informing me that we had covered a distance of some seven miles and, to be quite honest with you, we were both beginning to feel a little worse for wear, although it certainly had nothing to do with the distance we had covered, perhaps one too many ‘Pinxto’s’ 😂 We made our way back to the hotel with the aim of having a bit of a Siesta, before coming out again to join in the nigh-time festivities and finding somewhere to eat dinner. We ended up spending a little more time engaged in ‘Siesta’ 😴 and did not awake until well after midnight 😳 by which time we had lost any motivation to rejoin the revelry that we could still hear going on outside, but it wasn’t intrusive.

DAY 2:

I had been awoken again in the very early hours of the morning, not this time by the sounds of music or laughter, but by the sound of heavy rain pounding on the balcony windows, at least the ‘Works of Fiction’ had delayed its earlier forecast and had allowed the bulk of the Sunday celebrations to be conducted without too much disruption, and on that happy thought, I drifted back off to sleep.

By the time we had awoken again, at a more respectable time later that morning, and surprisingly, feeling none the worse for wear from our slight excesses of the previous day, I again looked out of the windows and discovered that it was another fairly bright morning, a little bit more overcast than the previous day, but at least it was still dry, although, on checking the ‘Works of Fiction’, it did not look as if it would be staying that way for very much longer, still, we needed to get out whilst the opportunity allowed, across to the more modern side, to hunt down breakfast and to explore what we could of the more modern part of Bilbao.

Our first stop would be at a Cafe that I had discovered on ‘Mr Google’, it advertised itself as a ‘Healthy Eating’ establishment, although not ‘Vegan’ or even ‘Plant Based’ as their were Ham, Eggs and Cheese within the menu options, but that said, there were certainly many more choices that were more in keeping with Shazza’s palate, probably around 80% of what was on the menu. To be quite honest, even the Pinxto bars the previous evening, had several non-meat options, although I wouldn’t go as far as saying that any were ‘Vegan’ or totally ‘Plant Based’, but at least Shazza did now eat eggs and some fish so she had enough choices to prevent her from starving. Later on that second day, whilst we were dodging between rain showers, and more by luck than judgement, we did come across another cafe/bar that advertised on a large neon sign, ‘Healthy Food Porn’, only natural sugars, no glutens and no artificial flavourings or colourings, although on this occasion, still stuffed from our healthy breakfast’s, she only had a Roasted Bean Coffee with Oat Milk and I settled for freshly squeezed Orange juice.

By the time we had finished our very generous breakfast’s the heaviest of the rain had stopped and it was now just a continuous light drizzle, we decided to take our chances on either the wet stuff stopping completely, or else we would have to find somewhere else to take shelter, it was going to be one of those sort of days 🤷‍♂️ It was a normal weekday so it was very busy with traffic and pedestrians and, oh my goodness, they must hold the record here for the most number of traffic lights, roundabouts and pedestrian crossings and, as their were multiple exits off of the roundabouts, we found ourselves stood for long periods just waiting for the pedestrian light’s to turn green, good job we were wearing hats 🙄

We made our way to a large park, on a drier day we would have enjoyed just walking around it but instead, we discovered a shopping mall right next to it, and yes, of course it would have been stupid not to 😂 It wasn’t a large shopping mall but it was sufficient time to take a leisurely stroll and then when we came back out again, it was to a surprising brief spell of sunshine. Now of course, you cannot come to Bilbao and not go and take a look at the ‘Guggenheim’, it is what modern Bilbao is now famous for. I had seen this on numerous Travel Vlogs on ‘You Tube’ and several TV Travel Documentaries, so I already felt as if I had seen it all before, but yes, you are right, it would have been rude not to 🤷‍♂️ Although, and because we really are history heathens, we unanimously agreed not to pay €30 each to go and look inside, and that would have been the case even if it had been thunder and lightening 😂 But it wasn’t, so we didn’t have to put those principles to the test.

To be honest, we both do like Architecture, primarily the older stuff, but we do also like some of the modern stuff, however, I wasn’t exactly overly impressed with this, it didn’t seem to live up to all the hype, or perhaps we had just seen it, from every angle, including drone footage, too many times before. We persevered and walked around it, even taking a couple of photo’s, although I could have just cut and pasted those from some other media publication and you would never have known 🤭 But no, we were there and these photo’s were taken with my very own ‘clicker finger’, honestly. I should just say though, that as we crossed a footbridge back into the ‘Old Town’ district, the ‘Guggenheim’ looked a lot more impressive from a distance.

Another thing that I do enjoy is walking along Riverside promenades, this one in Bilbao can be walked on both sides and at several locations, on both sides, are various sculptures, some just modern art sort of stuff and other’s are statues of various people or scenes. There was one that we came across with four women dragging rope but there was no explanation of what they were representing. It had intrigued me, to the extent that I had to do some research to discover whether this was just an artistic sort of thing with no particular relevance, or……………….🤔

What I discovered was that these Bronze Statues are known as ‘Las Sirgueras’ (Rope Girls) and are a fairly recent addition to the riverside Paseo, only being unveiled in 2021. They are to honor the 19th Century ‘Basque Women’ who physically towed cargo ships, laden with ‘Iron’, along the Estuary during the Spanish ‘Carlist Wars’, whilst the men folk were away fighting and so, these statues represent the recognition of ‘Invisible Women’s Contribution’ to the Industrial, Economic and Social Development of Bilbao. Even though our walk had been interrupted several times by the wet stuff, it hadn’t really spoilt our wanderings and, as usual, we had no specific ‘must see’s’, apart from the Guggenheim of course, we just walked along a street then, for no reason inparticular, would divert down another, then another to see if there was anything of interest. The city centre didn’t offer much, we are not shoppers and just like many other modern cities and large towns, the busy internal streets were filled with the same corporate retail chains so we chose to just head for the riverside and the outer periphery, to look at the views. There were boats doing the usual tourist scenic trips and to be honest, although a little chilly, it would have been a good day to do one, as most looked pretty empty, apart from a handful of souls on board. However, over the last couple of days we had probably walked beyond where the tour boats would have gone, and along both banks of the river, so we didn’t bother with a boat trip ourselves. Once back on the Eastern side of the river we were back in the Old Town district where the riverside promenade was more of a relaxed tree lined avenue sort of walk, the river on one side and the quieter roads on the other. On our first day we had walked a little over seven miles in total, on this second day only five miles, but we were beginning to get a little leg weary so when we came to our hotel we both agreed that we were still pretty much full from our earlier generous breakfasts, so we didn’t need lunch, although it was well past lunchtime, but a rest and a coffee in our hotel room would suffice, okay, and probably a brief Siesta 😂

Whilst Shazza read a book on her ‘Kindle’ I did another check on the street map just to ensure that we hadn’t missed out on anything, but we hadn’t, their was a Basilica in the Old Town District, but Shazza wasn’t overly enthralled so we decided that we would go out later that evening just to find somewhere to eat before returning to re-pack our suitcases and rucksacks, ready for our drive to the Brittany Ferries Terminal the following day. We generally find that for cities like Bilbao, two full days of exploration and sightseeing is just the right amount of time for us, although in larger cities like Madrid, Valencia, Seville and Malaga, well they required perhaps a little longer, although the latter two being on our doorstep so we can, and have, done them in several day visits. But we had enjoyed our short two day visit here in Bilbao and agreed that it really does have much more to offer than just being a gateway to the UK.

The following morning, we checked-out of our hotel and manoeuvred our way through the ‘Old Town’ labyrinth of narrow one-way streets, towards the ferry terminal, which Google Maps showed would be a journey time of just 22 minutes. We stopped at the first ‘Repsol’ fuel station that we came across, just to top the tank up for when we first arrived in the UK, the cost of a litre of Diesel in these parts had now hit the €2 mark (£1.74) 😲 however, it was still readily available and I had read nothing to indicate that it was going to be rationed here in Spain, although we were not confident on just how long that would remain the case if the US/Iran conflict were to go on for very much longer.

Checking in at the terminal and going through the outbound Immigration formalities was a breeze, we just presented our Spanish Residency Cards alongside our British Passports, which are no longer stamped, and we were directed to our appropriate boarding lane. We were one of the first cars to be boarded, as we had payed for ‘Priority Disembarkation’, we were directed to the parking garage on level 3 on the ferry and positioned right at the exit door, at least we would get a good start upon arrival in Portsmouth on the Wednesday evening, where, if we were on schedule, at 9pm meant that we would then only have a 90 minute drive to our pre-booked hotel accommodation in Swindon. But for now, it would be 32 hours of enforced relaxation, although I had previously stated in an earlier ramble that it was only a 27 hour crossing, I obviously now am beginning to have an issue with my numeric abilities 😂

Next stop, dear old Blighty so, until my next ramble…………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

We pulled out from our car park at 07:20am, now normally my OCD Buddy would be in a state of high anxiety at this point, after all, we had scheduled ourselves to depart promptly at 07:00am, but even he appeared to be in holiday mode and was quite chillaxed about the twenty minute delay. It was daylight, the sun was up, although it was still low in the sky, necessitating the need to wear sunglasses even at that early hour of the morning 😎 but it was already 12 degrees(c), so at least we had a good dry start to our long drive. The ‘Works of Fiction’ though, forecasted that we would encounter the start of the wet stuff before we even reached Madrid, some six hours drive away and to be honest, we would be spending a lot more time driving at higher altitudes, so I guess we would be very much closer to any threatening rain clouds 😉 It made me remember that, although you only really think of the more popular mountainous areas in Spain as being the ‘Sierra Nevada’, Picos de Europa or the Pyrenees, the rest of Spain, North to South, has very many more mountainous regions and, as the bulk of our journey would primarily be inland, we would be travelling through a great deal of them, so we would just have to wait and see how long it would be before the sunglasses had to be removed.

I had elected to do the first stint at the wheel, which would allow Shazza to tuck into her pre-prepared healthy home-made breakfast of Natural Oats, Blueberries, Greek Yoghurt, Nuts and Honey, when her stomach clock told her the time was right, which actually turned out to be only around thirty minutes after being on the road 😂 As she is not one for taking photographs, there will be no images of the landscapes for the first three hour’s or so of the journey, but regular reader’s of these rambles will have seen them many times previously anyway. To be completely honest with you, my own initial thought, before even commencing this journey, was that it would probably be quite a long and boring road trip even for us, as we had seen it all before, very many times. However, that proved to be a totally wrong assumption on my part, as the landscapes were still just equally as awesome as they had previously been. I often say in my rambles that the landscape views, whether they be in our own local area, or on our wider travels, never get boring and this trip was already proving that to be the case. However, once I got to have my turn in the navigator’s seat my clicker finger would once again be working overtime, so take that as a pre-warning of things to come, by way of photographs, a little later in this ramble 😂

Both our local Spanish media, and the European Weekly News publication, had both warned of a high ‘Guardia Civil’ Police presence all over Spain, which actually commenced the day before our travels, and would continue until after the Easter Holiday traffic rush, with lots more random stops, checking for valid vehicle documentation, physical checks of vehicle serviceability and, in some circumstances, breathalyser checks, although it sounded more likely that such checks would be more evident on all major routes heading ‘South’ towards the very popular Coastal tourist hot-spots, rather than on the cooler Northern routes, where most tourists tend to avoid at this time of year unless they enjoy winter sports. I didn’t have any particular concerns, due to the fact that we are both quite anal about our vehicle documentation being up to date, and the serviceable condition of our vehicle, as for the breathalyser checks though, Mmmmmmmmm 🤔 I did have to wonder how much alcohol there was in Shazza’s mouthwash ? I always tend to abide by the varying speed limits and we would be well on our way to Madrid, before my very own little ‘Luis Hamilton’ got anywhere near the accelerator pedal 😂 The other points of interest en-route, other than the wonderful landscapes that surrounded us, were noting the ‘Diesel’ fuel prices along our route, apart from the really cheap local suppliers, which we tend to stay away from, ever since our second fuel contamination incident whilst we were travelling in the ‘Little Fokker’, our last Motorhome, several year’s ago. We tend to stick now to using the more popular brands, Repsol, Cepsa, Shell or BP, and we noted that they were all selling Diesel at a very similar price, varying very slightly from €1.85 per litre (£1.61) to €1.88 (£1.63) even at the Motorway Service Stations, although that was still €0.30cents per litre more than before the fuel crisis, and that price at the pump was ‘allegedly’ with the 11% IVA tax discount from the Government, although the media has reported lots of fuel companies profiteering by putting up the prices, but not taking off the Government subsidy 😲 It will be interesting to see what the comparative prices are like in both the UK and France, although it wouldn’t really matter, if you need fuel then you pay the price, whatever it is 🤷‍♂️

After being at the wheel for a little over three and a half hours, and still being a little over 200Km South of Madrid, whilst I would have been quite happy to have kept driving, we both needed a ‘Comfort Break’, so we elected to stop at the next available services, have a coffee, take the opportunity to top up the fuel, even though we didn’t really need to as we could have got well beyond Madrid before actually needing to do so, but in the current fuel climate we aired on the side of caution, and that was when we also took the opportunity to change seating arrangements.

You will note two main things from the following photographs, these being taken whilst still South of Madrid, the beautiful bright blue sky, with the occasional wispy white clouds and also how relatively quiet the traffic was on the roads, this is quite normal here in Spain and is what makes it such a pleasurable country to drive in, away from the major cities. However, we had expected to see much more traffic on the Southbound carriageways as this weekend was supposed to be the start of the great Easter getaway period 🤷‍♂️ To be completely transparent with you, yes we saw two major tailbacks on the Southbound carriageways, each stretching back several kilometres, but these were due to accidents and not due to just the sheer volume of traffic, it made us glad to be heading North, but still a bit cautious, as we still had to get around Madrid on the Ring Road 🙄

We of course saw quite a few traditional Spanish Windmills along the way, which always reminds me of the legendary story of ‘Don Quixote’, but we also saw, very many more, of the more modern Windmills, which, although now being essential modern day necessities, for providing ‘fossil free’ energy requirements, unlike the older versions which were for the production of flour, but these modern one’s are not as scenic as the older ones.

We were pretty much still on schedule when we reached the Southern outskirts of Madrid, we would be heading East on to the Ring Road around the city, which would then swing us back around to the Northern side of the city, passing close to the ‘Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas Airport’, which is the primary International airport serving the city. With it being a Saturday, usually a very busy shopping day, and being on one of the main routes to the Airport, we had anticipated the traffic to be extremely busy and hectic, much like the M25 route going around the Western side of London and serving as the main route to Heathrow Airport, and commonly joked about as being one of the largest car parks in Europe, as the three and four lanes of traffic are regularly at a standstill, but we were pleasantly surprised, although it wasn’t anywhere near as traffic free as our journey had been thus far, under the circumstances it was very much quieter than even we had anticipated, we encountered no hold-ups and when we saw the constant flow of aircraft coming in to land, we knew that we were very close to our exit on to the A1 motorway that would take us North, almost all the way to Bilbao.

Just to the North of Madrid, going through one of the outer suburbs we saw a sign for a ‘Burger King’ right at one of the main exit junctions, with easy access to get back on to the Motorway. We were both hungry now, and Shazza had had a fair stint at the wheel. We don’t usually eat in ‘Fast Food’ establishments very often, but when you are hungry and want just a short stop, and ‘Comfort Break’, then they do provide a useful service. To be honest, I don’t usually enjoy these sort of establishments as more often than not the ‘French Fries and Burgers’ are generally only Luke warm at best. We had to do battle with the new, well at least to us, modern way of ordering our food selections, on a machine which just kept providing lots of different screens, what type of Burger, Standard, Large, Jumbo ? Did we want a ‘Combo’ ? Standard Fries, Large Fries ? Extra Cheese, Bacon ? What sort of Sauces ? What drink selection, then the list of Small or Large ? We had to do this for each of our individual choices, before then going through the payment options, Apple Pay ? Card Payment ? Or Pay Cash at the counter ? Whatever happened to ‘Fast Service’, like going to the spotty faced youth at the cash register, pointing to the large neon menu board above their heads, ordering, paying, getting your food and drink, finding a table, eating and leaving 🤷‍♂️ We could have gone in to a standard restaurant, eaten a three-course meal and still have left the establishment quicker than this allegedly modern day ‘Fast Food’ establishment ! However, the girl at the cash register was so friendly and helpful to this grumpy old geriatric standing in front of her, “Are you taking it away or Eating In ?” she asked, “Eating in” I replied. Then she gave me a number thing to put on our table and told me that she would bring our order to us when it was ready. We were not waiting very long, just a few minutes, and when it arrived the Fries were hot and so was the Burger, the longest part of the whole process was ordering at the bloody machine, but I suppose that youngsters, probably the age of our granddaughter’s, with their lightening fast gaming fingers and thumbs, can probably do all of this technology stuff in seconds 🙄 I suppose the one consolation was that the young girl hadn’t offered to help me to my seat 😂 and, by the way, neither was she spotty faced.

I was quite surprised when, on finishing our meal and leaving the establishment, Shazza announced that she was happy to keep driving, although I knew that she would prefer to be occupied at the wheel, rather than be bored sat in the Navigator’s seat, especially as their was nothing to Navigate along these long mile after mile stretches of motorway. For me, well it meant I could keep my clicker finger active for a bit longer 😁 It wasn’t long before we were back into the mountains, there was still no sign of the wet stuff, although we noted that the white clouds were getting thicker the further North we travelled.

The external temperature dropped significantly, at the highest altitude it dropped as low as 5 degrees(c) and we had to put the car heater on 🥶 The scenery changed too, there was much more lush green pastures, thick green forests, a tell tale sign that this area experiences a lot more of the wet stuff than we do down South. The higher we climbed the more the mountains became barren craggy rock faces and, rather than the roads cutting through the valleys and between the peaks, we were now encountering more and more tunnels that cut straight through them, and then, the first spots of rain appeared on the windscreen. But we were not downbeat, we had covered virtually 80% of our journey in beautiful sunshine, much more than we had anticipated given the forecasts provided by you know who 🙄 We made one more stop for a ‘Comfort Break’ and Coffee stop, we changed driving positions so as to give Shazza a break, she would take over again just before we reached the outskirts of Bilbao. With the impediment in my right eye, Shazza was very much better better at manoeuvring her way through busy city streets, I was better at navigating and guiding her through those streets, letting her concentrate on the traffic, bus lanes, traffic lights, pedestrian crossings etc. and I could give her advance notifications on how far in front each turning was, which lane to be in, and this actually generally works out quite well for us.

As we entered the city streets, it was quite busy, the shops don’t close in Spain until 8pm, but we still had daylight and the rain had stopped, thank you to whoever was responsible for pressing that particular ‘off switch’ 🙏 We pulled into the Hotel’s underground car parking area and were lucky to immediately find a space, it looked very busy and so luck was certainly on our side and although the parking space was a tight fit, we were able to park sideways, near a wall and away from other cars, so hopefully we would return to it in three days time with no unwanted dents or scratches 🙄 I had guesstimated a twelve hour journey, start to finish, including associated stops, so we expected to arrive at 19:20pm, as we had departed twenty minutes later than originally scheduled, our watches said 18:55pm, so well done to my little ‘Luis Hamilton’ who, in all fairness, had done the bulk of the drive that day, although I did do a total of around four and a half hours over two stints 😉

By the time we had checked-in at reception and got to our lovely big room on the 6th floor, we were both too tired to want to go back out into the city, just to find somewhere to eat, to be honest, we were still quite full from our burger lunches, but then again we had just been sitting in a car so had no chance to work any of it off, so we just wanted to get settled into our room and relax with a nice hot cuppa. Dependent on whether the ‘Works of Fiction’ got the next two days forecasts right or wrong, would dictate just how much sightseeing we would be able to do over those next couple of days, we both prayed that they would come true to form, and get it wrong, as the weather outlook for both days was not very good, two full days of the wet stuff ☔️🌧️🙁

We cannot control the weather, but we would be quite disappointed if we could not get to do some sightseeing whilst we were here, so we would just have to wait to see what tomorrow brings. So, until the next ramble…………………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Of course, I can perhaps understand some people, who may be reading this ramble, thinking that we are totally irresponsible for even thinking about going on ‘A Driving Adventure During A Fuel Crisis’ 😲 However, the majority of my regular readers will appreciate that this trip had been in the planning stages for very many weeks, if not months and well before this current global fuel crisis had even started. So it has been many weeks now since we initially took the first steps and pre-booked our two Ferries, as they get fully booked very quickly and we wanted to ensure that we got the sailings, on the day that was most convenient for us, and also to get the cabin grades that we preferred. That involved making two separate ferry bookings, the outbound one from Spain to the UK and then, ten days later, the return journey from the UK to Northern France, and of course we also needed to combine those dates with advance hotel bookings in both Bilbao and also one for our first few night’s in the UK. Now this did involve either paying advance deposits, and for some hotels, payments in full up front.

Now of course, our plan is to travel the entire length of Spain, South to North, in order to get to our first point of departure, then travelling many miles visiting family in the UK, before returning via Northern France to our home in Southern Spain, which will of course involve us covering very many miles in that time, and of course requiring us to use several tanks of Diesel fuel in the process. However, as the fuel crisis intensified dramatically just prior to our departure, we did give the matter some very serious consideration including, should we just postpone the trip ? Although, for some of our advanced accommodation bookings, that would entail losing money, for other’s, like the ferry bookings, we could have perhaps just changed the travel dates, but we had no idea of how long this fuel crisis would extend.

So, as the countries we intended to drive to and visit, Spain, UK and France, all of the reports that we were reading, on a daily basis, were telling the public that fuel, both Petrol and Diesel, was still ‘widely available’ and there was no reason to start panic buying, albeit the costs of such fuel was now being sold at very much over inflated prices. So, rather than cancel our pre-booked trip, we both agreed, having taken everything into consideration, that we would just treat this latest global crisis much the same as we had to, after the ‘Lockdown’ periods were over, during the Covid Pandemic, normal life still had to go on. In the Countries we are visiting, fuel is not being rationed and, so far at least, freedom to travel has not been stopped, using either public or private transport, so basically every day life is still going on as normal, people are still flying out on holidays, cruise ships are still operating around the globe, although perhaps not in the ‘Straight of Hormuz’ 😲 International Sports events are still taking place, including fuel guzzling Formula 1 Grand Prix, people are still using their motor and sailing yachts for their personal leisure activities, and other International events, requiring the use of all modes of travel, are still going on, so at the end of the day, what impact would our road trip have on the worlds fuel reserves 🤷‍♂️

Now if we had have cancelled this trip, perhaps choosing to wait for things to get better, or even worse, then how long would we be waiting ? What other world disasters may happen next week, or next month or the month after that, to prevent us from doing anything else that we may want to do in our lives 🤷‍♂️ So, whilst we are both fully aware of what is going on in the wider world at the moment, we have done our own personal risk assessment, yes we have considered the If’s, But’s and even the Maybe’s, and have come to the conclusion that we are going to continue with the original plan, but of course we will continue to monitor the availability of fuel in each country that we happen to be in at the time, and then, if required, re-assess the situation accordingly, and believe me, my OCD Buddy will make sure that those assessments are conducted with military precision 😉 Hopefully though, there will be sufficient fuel available throughout our trip, and we will top up our fuel tank at every opportunity, how that works out for us, well you will read that for yourselves as you follow the next few episodes of these rambles, who knows we may even have to start one of those ‘Go Fund Me’ accounts on Facebook, although not asking for you to donate money, just 20 Litre cans of Diesel Fuel 😂

Anyway, back to the real subject of this ramble………………

The two, or three days, prior to going on any ‘long’ trip, which usually means for us going anywhere for longer than just one week, but even so, we always tend to initially view it as a bit of a pain in the arse if the truth be told, there just seems to be so many pre-trip things that we need to do, although to be completely honest, I do question as to whether many of them fall under the category of ‘need’ doing but, to save myself a lecture, I did not share that thought with my beloved 😁 I did wonder whether this had anything to do with Shazza’s more usual pessimism, thinking that if something terrible was to happen to the both of us, and we never returned home, then at least the Apartment would be in immaculate condition for the kids to be able to put it straight on to the market, and be in a suitable condition for prospective purchaser’s to view it 😂

Shazza always tries to plan what we are going to have for our pre-trip lunches and dinners, so that she can effectively run down whatever there is in the fridge and freezer, and of course to use up the remainder of any fresh produce, so by the time we leave, I for one will be sick of the sight of Spicy Red Lentil Soup, Vegetable Stir Fry’s with Tofu and Salads 🙄 We of course do our mandatory apartment ‘plus’ clean, which is much more in depth than our usual weekly routine one 🤷‍♂️ but at least we will not have to do any cleaning immediately upon our return albeit, at the time of beginning to draft this particular ramble, three day’s before we had even departed, we did not have any idea of when that return date would actually be, four weeks, perhaps even five or six 🤷‍♂️ I guess though, either the lack of diesel fuel or adverse weather will be the main dictator’s of such ultimate decisions.

Once the domestics have been sorted then we have to try and think about what clothes we are going to wear throughout the holiday, so that Shazza can do laundry to freshen everything up before we go, which of course then entails the subsequent ironing, which she insists on doing herself, even though I am quite capable of doing these sorts of things, however, I think the real reason is not because of her love of ironing but more because she does not like the razor sharp creases that I have a tendency to put into her blouse sleeves, on her trousers, jeans, and shorts, but some Military habits still remain 😂 She also has a thing about changing bed sheets and pillowcases on our bed, the day before we go, so that we have clean bedding to return to.

Although we tend to share the domestic workload, as in the apartment cleaning, we also each have our own ‘other’ areas of responsibility to take care of and, after being together for so long, these tasks are now just automatic, no lists or discussions required. I just accept that Shazza will have taken care of her’s, without the need for me to question the fact, whereas she on the other hand always asks, “Have you done this, and did you do that”, I guess it is just one of those women kind of things, and of course I am always prepared for it, “Yes Sergeant Major, all present and correct” I reply, even if I haven’t quite got around to completing all of my associated tasks but, I am always ready when the time arrives 🤷‍♂️ My primary tasks before, and after, the domestics duties, are to get my pre-holiday haircut, get the car re-fuelled and give it a wash ‘n’ wax, through one of those automated machines I hasten to add, then once back home, checking all the under bonnet bits and pieces (or ‘Hood’ as my friends across the pond refer to it) the fluids, and of course the tyre pressures, although the automatic tyre sensors provide me with that information, so I no longer have to go physically around each individual tyre, unless they need adjustment that is.

I also tend to look after the Administrative stuff, Passports, Travel Money, at which point I do feel that I just have to ask, why was it that the UK could not have changed to using the Euro when it was actually an official part of the brotherhood of neighbour’s ? It would certainly have made life a lot easier, for everyone, not just for me, even all of those British travellers who regularly holiday in countries all over Europe where the Euro is widely used, instead of constantly having to exchange money back and forth, there is just no consideration towards simplifying things these days 😂 Although, the British Government is currently working towards closer ties with the EU so who knows, maybe one day it will happen, but don’t hold your breath as their are more important things for them to worry about right now, like have they got any Navy vessels serviceable and fit for purpose 🫣

Then, as I start to see a bit of light at the end of the pre-holiday checklist, I make sure, for at least the tenth time, that we have our Ferry and Accommodation Booking confirmations and Reference Numbers, before we finally move on to what we both consider as being the worst task of all, packing our individual suitcases and rucksacks 🫣 Shazza, once she had completed her packing, then puts on her Customs Officer Uniform and scrutinises my suitcase contents, “Do you really need that many shirts, trousers, shorts, jackets, shoes 😲 and of course her favourite, what on earth are you taking that for ?”. Then, if that wasn’t enough to be going on with, my OCD Buddy turns up on the scene and bloody well insists that we double check the route, for the third or fourth time, why I do not know, when we have travelled this route regularly over the past eleven or so years 🤷‍♂️ I guess the only benefit that we do currently have, with this travelling M’larky, is that whilst in Spain we travel, and check-in to our accommodations, using our Spanish Residency Card and we do not have to go through the European EES process at the borders, and then, once we arrive in the UK, we revert to using our British Passports, so we do not have to queue to go through the British ETA process, and vice-versa on the return trip, but I am reasonably confident that the ‘Authorities’ will manage to cock that up too, at some point. So to be honest, we already feel as if we have been through the mill before we have even left to start our holiday 😮‍💨 It used to be such an easy, painless and exciting prospect, now it just seems to be much more of a chore, complicated and bureaucratic, or could the truth lay much closer to home, that being that we really are just getting old and have got used to liking our much simpler ‘routine routines’ 🙄

We knew that it would be a very long day of travel on the road, when we did finally depart home on the first day of this year’s extended road trip, driving from virtually the most South Easterly tip of Spain right up to our hotel accommodation in Bilbao, on the Northern Coastline of Spain, a distance of some 1,046 Km (650 miles). Now normally we would be in no rush when we were just heading up to catch a ferry, so we would have spent a few days breaking up our journey en-route, making stops along the way to explore some places that we had not already stopped at on previous road trips. On trips such as those we would also have selected to use the much more scenic ‘normal roads’, as opposed to the much quicker and direct ‘motorway routes’. However, this time, because we were going directly to Bilbao, we would stick to the Motorways and head up via the Madrid route which, if we were to do it without any stops would, according to ‘Google Maps’, take us 10 hours, however, we knew that we would need to stop for an unspecified number of ‘comfort breaks’, dependent on how much fluid intake we had during the drive, then a stop for lunch, one re-fuel stop which could be combined with a ‘Comfort Stop’ and then stops to enable us to change over driver duties, so I ‘guesstimated’ that we would probably be talking of a total journey time of twelve hour’s 😮‍💨 We also wanted to arrive in Bilbao whilst it was still daylight, as our hotel accommodation was in the centre of this busy city, and so it would be better traversing the streets and traffic during daylight, so that would mean an early start, we agreed that we should depart at 7:00am, when the sun would have already risen so that the first full day of our driving trip, start to finish, would be completed in daylight.

Although all the pre-trip organisation was a little frustrating, we were both quite looking forward to our latest adventure and although it would be a long first day’s drive I said to Shazza, “Well at least whoever is driving the first stint can still take a bit of a nap on the way up to Bilbao”, she gave me one of her confused looks, “What on earth do you mean ?” She said, in one of her questionable tones. I reminded her that our car did of course have all of the mod-cons, meaning that it already had the latest advanced ‘driver less’ technologies, Cruise Control, Automatic Lane Activation Sensors, Automatic Braking, Automatic Light Adjustments and, forward, rear and side traffic sensors, so it could virtually just drive itself 🤷‍♂️ “Silly Bugger” she replied 🤭

The advance ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts had pre-warned us that we would be greeted by the wet stuff as we headed into Central and Northern Spain, typical, we both thought to ourselves, just when the much higher temperatures and sunnier weather had returned to our area on the Costa del Sol, although we did laugh as we took an optimistic view of it, “Well at least we would have already re-acclimatised ourselves ready for the much cooler temperatures in Northern Spain, the UK, and in Northern France on the return leg of the journey” we both hunched up our shoulders at the very thought of it, as a consequence, neither of us packed too many shorts or tee-shirts for this trip, mainly jeans, chino’s, long sleeved shirts, sweaters and rain coats 🙁 But all that paled into insignificance, because we were excited at getting to see our Grandchildren once again 🤗

And so, the big day arrived and we commenced our latest Eric & Shazza’s mini adventure………………

To be continued……….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

It arrived without warning, as these sorts of things often do, it was the early hours of the Wednesday morning, I was having my usual late night quiet period before bedtime, when I must have inadvertently suffered an unanticipated period of ‘Personal Contemplation’ 😴 However, I was startled back into full consciousness mode by the strangest feeling, one that made me believe that the whole room had just moved, my initial thought was, no surely not, ‘Had I Just Been Dreaming ?’, but that brief thought came to an abrupt end when Shazza, who had already gone to bed two hours earlier, came rushing through and said, “Did you feel that ?”, so it must have been quite some movement to have awoken her from her sound sleep. I looked out from the balcony windows, just to see if there was anything obvious that may confirm our suspicion that we had perhaps just suffered a ‘tremor’ from an earthquake, for example, my balcony window being a lot closer to the seafront than it had been when the sun had gone down that evening 😲 However, fortunately everything looked quite normal, the street lights were still on, but their were no other people looking out of windows, or standing out on the streets, and so we were still not quite sure what it was that we had just experienced, we waited to see if there would be any other ‘tremors’, one’s that would alert us to the need that we may just have to gather some clothes, and other personal items, in case we needed to evacuate the building 😳 However, nothing had actually moved inside the apartment, furniture was still in its usual place and nothing had fallen off the walls, it appeared that it had only been the actual building that had been given a bit of a shake, so we chose not to panic and agreed that it probably wasn’t such a big deal, although it had been a weird feeling all the same. These sort of events are not uncommon throughout Andalucia, so it was more just a case of it being a first experience of such an event for us personally. We felt no other movements, so we just decided to go to bed, on doing so I turned to Shazza, “Well on this occasion the earth did really move for you my love” and laughed, “Yes, and I can tell you this, I certainly didn’t like it very much” she replied. ‘Oh well, I suppose that put and end to any realistic hopes that may have entered my head, about the possibility of any further, more natural, earth moving opportunities occurring during the remainder of the early hours’, I thought to myself 🙁

I have commented, several times in my previous rambles, about other villages and towns, in our Region, experiencing tremors from minor earthquakes, even as close to us as Estepona, but this is the first in our own particular immediate local area and, with the increasing frequency of these incidents, I somehow do not think that it will be the last. The following morning was one of the few occasions where I was in a bit more of a hurry to check the local ‘News & Gloom’ media reports……..

However, what is probably a little more concerning is that the Earthquake that caused this tremor, happened, not inland, but out in the ‘Alboran Sea’, for it is these type of oceanic events, although at much greater magnitudes I hasten to add, that can create ‘Tsunamis’. After considering that thought for a few moments I turned to Shazza and said, “I hope we live high enough up this hill”, she hadn’t reacted to that comment as I anticipated that she would, she just said, in a rather nonchalant way, “Let’s hope we never have to find out”.

On the Thursday morning, and quite separate from the previous nights incident, we received an advanced ‘Orange Weather Alert’, notifying us that ‘Storm Theresa’ was now on its way and was anticipated to reach us on the Friday, I suppose we should be grateful that it wasn’t ’Saint Theresa’, as that may have had other wider Biblical connotations to it 😲 Although, I mused to myself after having that humerous thought, that all of this ‘Armageddon’ hypothesis is now getting to be a lot like that old fable, the one about ‘The Shepherd Boy Who Cried Wolf’ too many times until one day it happened, but he was ignored and got eaten by Wolves. One day this ‘Armageddon M’larky’ will happen, but you will ignore my soothsaying and those ‘Dark Forces’ will wreak their almighty havoc upon you, remember then, if you have the time for such thought’s, that you heard it here second, because another popular publication just happened to mention it first, very many year’s prior to me commencing these ramblings, damn it, always the ‘Best Man’ and never the ‘Groom’, although when I think about it, that is probably correct 😂

On the Thursday night, we suffered two power outages, one at 10pm and another at midnight, but each hadn’t lasted that long, only five minutes or so before the power was restored but, was this the early indications that the storm had made landfall I asked myself ? Storm Theresa had already severely battered the Canary Islands and was travelling North, hitting the Western Andalucian coastline first, although it seemed strange that we were on the Eastern side but were still being warned of major coastal events, it must be one hell of a wide storm I remember thinking, before then seeing a photograph of the dark clouds in the papers on the Friday morning, now tell me, you reader’s out there, that you cannot see a pack of Wolves heads poking out of those demonic clouds 😳

We were both awoken again, during the early hours of the Friday morning, to the sounds of the gale force winds, and the heavy rain battering the external window shutters, although we are quite familiar with these sorts of noises now 🤷‍♂️ But then, just a little later later, due to normal early morning bodily function requirements, if you know what I mean, I had to force myself out from the warm hug that the duvet had been providing me with, and so, as I was already up, I thought that I may as well go and put the kettle on for our morning cuppa, if the electricity was still available that was 🤔 It was, so I sat on the balcony, as usual, and observed the scene being played out in front of me. The heaviest of the rain, that had persisted throughout the early hours, had all but disappeared, well for now at least, although the sky still looked black and threatening and the latest weather picture reflected that we hadn’t, as yet, been hit by the main storm front. However, powerful gale force winds were still battering the Palm Trees outside and, from the balcony windows I could see the white stallions galloping in waves on to the shoreline, battalion after battalion they came relentlessly, but these were not Tsunami like conditions, although in truth I have only ever seen a Tsunami on TV or disaster movies 🤷‍♂️ but it became clearly obvious to me that I had to make the sensible decision, which was to inform Shazza that we should cancel our normal daily walk for that day, but for some reason neither of us had felt a deep sense of disappointment at that decision. The wind screamed and whistled and we could, quite clearly, hear the tumultuous waves as they crashed onto the shoreline below, but we felt extremely safe in our hilltop sanctuary, provided that there wasn’t another earthquake tremor bad enough to force us to evacuate, I mean come on, it really would have been a disgusting sort of day to have had to go and stand outside 😂 I also had to smile a little sarcastically when I considered the ‘Civil Authorities’ advice in Earthquake and After-Shock situations, ‘Go Outside And Stay Clear Of Buildings’, Mmmmmm I thought 🤔 “And if you live in an area surrounded by tall buildings ?”, I was waiting for a gruff voice from the sky telling me that then, I would just have to ‘Suck it up” 😂

The weather has certainly been very unpredictable over the last three months or so here in our part of Spain, and I guess elsewhere too, but I cannot speak with any confidence on what it has been like in those other areas. But, saying that, over the last week here, it has been beautiful and very warm, dare I even mention out aloud the words, ‘Shorts and Tee-Shirts’, so we have of course been able to go on our usual regular local daily walks, but in addition to those we have also had another day out in Estepona, and yes, just in case you were wondering, including the drive to the Organic Farm, and as Shazza informed me, rather sarcastically in my opinion, “Well it would have been be rude not to” 🙄 In that same week we had another day out, but this time in the opposite direction, to the town of La Linea, which as I have mentioned previously, is the Spanish town that is quite literally just across the road from Gibraltar and a short hop, skip and jump from Morocco (See Photo at top of this ramble). However, more recently we have partaken of our normal daily walks into our own local town again, enjoyed our usual coffee stop and on the way back we made the impulse decision to partake of lunch in our favourite Moroccan Cafe/Bar/Eatery, in the Marina. On that walk back from the town we had seen the arrival of the large trucks and trailers with their Fairground Equipment, they hold several fairs here throughout the year but, rather unusually, we hadn’t seen any advance signage of this particular event happening 🤷‍♂️ There is no particular relevance of me telling you that, other than, as I sat on the balcony on that stormy Friday morning I thought to myself, no way would you get me on a ‘Big Wheel’, or any other of those elevated fairground attractions, in any type of weather, but especially not in these current conditions, it’s bad enough trying to keep upright on terra firm in high winds but, also being soaked through to the skin, and suspended a hundred feet or so in the air, come on, where is the enjoyment in that, I may be getting more senior in years but I certainly haven’t lost all my marbles, well not just yet 😂

However, then I had a more serious thought, one where I hoped that this latest storm had best hurry up on its journey North, as in just a little over one weeks time, we would be on a 27 hour overnight ferry journey, crossing the notoriously bumpy ‘Bay of Biscay’, it can be bad enough under normal sea state conditions, I certainly didn’t fancy it under storm force conditions 🤢🤢 Having also looked at the advance ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts for Bilbao, for over the 72 hour period prior to that ferry journey where we would be in Bilbao sightseeing, but it certainly didn’t look too promising, weather wise, at least not for the actual ‘outdoor’ sightseeing part of the visit we were hoping to do, so we may just have to consider a much more extensive ‘wet weather’ itinerary I thought to myself, with a bit of a smile on my face 😁

Although that happy thought soon came crashing down to earth when Shazza informed me that during her own pre-visit research, she had identified a handful of more ‘Vegan’ style Cafe/Bars and eateries, that soon wiped the smile off my face I can tell you 😲

Now whilst I may have somewhat inadvertently wandered into the territory of, pictorially at least, indications around the consumption of Anti-Covid Vaccines 🍷, it seems quite appropriate for me to then perhaps just to mention yet another media article I read, on that rather wet and dismal Friday morning, one which actually brought a bit more happy news, and if I am honest, perhaps even brought a bit of a smile back on to my face, although for other’s, it may well be dependent on your opinion on the particular subject.

Now I did briefly mention this subject in a previous ramble, but just to refresh your memories, if this stricter law had come into force, then even as little as just one small glass of beer, or wine, or any other alcoholic beverage, would have meant that you would have been ‘over’ the drink-drive limit and subject to a fine and points off your licence (The points rule is slightly different here in Spain but I won’t go into that now). Personally speaking, for us it would not really have actually created a problem, if the proposed new limit had have been introduced, as Shazza rarely drinks alcohol and, on the very rare occasions when she does, and we both want to have a drink, then we are fortunate enough to be close enough to the Marina, and Town, to walk to the different watering holes, then walk back or get a taxi. I do acknowledge though that there are very good reasons for such laws, but, I ask myself, why not just go to a ‘zero tolerance’ as the legal limit is already quite low at just 0.5grams, but that level does at least allow for being able to have one drink ? Unless of course, there were other more ‘compelling factors’ involved in the decision making process, yes I do have my cynical head on again. By just dropping it to 0.2grams, would very likely catch out even ‘responsible’ drinkers who may not be fully aware that, just the one drink, that they may have had with their lunch, or dinner, would actually take them over the legal limit, meaning that even they would have ended up, if stopped and checked, with being fined, which, apart from the ‘Safety’ concerns, would then of course have included the procurement of very much more money into the ‘Coffers’, but for whom…… Police ? Councils ? Government ? 🤔 Now if the whole premise around this, was solely focused on road safety and saving lives then, surely the ‘zero tolerance’ approach would have been the way to go and made a lot more sense 🤷‍♂️ And to be honest, those who regularly drink to excess, and still choose to drive, will continue to do so, so who was this proposed new law aimed at targeting 🤷‍♂️ However, that said, I personally believe that the reason that this proposed new law was actually voted down, was not, for any ‘practical’ or common sense reasons, but more to do with ‘Political’ manoeuvre’s, for here in Spain whilst there is a two party ‘Coalition Government’, it relies on support from several smaller ‘Regional’ and ‘Minority’ parties to maintain its Parliamentary majority, so in the end it is much the same as many other Governments around the world, more a case of ‘You didn’t scratch my back so I am not scratching your’s’ 😉

Anyway, I hadn’t intended to publish another ramble until after we had commenced our upcoming road trip, and truly I really hadn’t intended to, but I would not have remembered most of this recent stuff during or after that trip, so I followed the common practice of most Government’s, and made a ‘U turn’ on that earlier decision, you however should consider it in a more positive perspective and consider it as a bonus ramble 😂 I may just have to close my eyes for the next week, until we depart on our extended road trip, for if I don’t, you know what will happen, something else will happen in the meantime that I will feel the urge to write about 🤔 Now we cannot have that can we 😉

As far as any other Earthquakes, After-Shocks, Tsunamis or survival of this current storm goes, if you are reading this then you know that we survived, well at least long enough to press the ‘Publish’ button 😂

Until the next ramble ……………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena