Day 5 – Vigo
”What time is it ?” came a muffled voice from under the covers, “It is exactly 7:30am” I replied, “Oh ! can I have a bit more sleep this morning, I feel really tired, I don’t want coffee yet” she said in a sleepy voice. “You can sleep for as long as you like this morning, we won’t be going anywhere” I told her, “What do you mean ?” she asked, a little more awake now, “Can’t you hear that sound on the window ?” I asked her. She raised her head off the pillow, “Is that rain ?” she exclaimed, “Yup, started at around 3.00am” I told her. She put her head back on the pillow and pulled the cover back over her head, I put the kettle on, made myself a cup of coffee and read the News headlines on my iPad.
To be fair, the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast the possibility of light drizzle throughout periods of the day, anything from a 10-40% chance, which told me that they didn’t really know and were hedging their bets, but what was currently falling out of the sky was a lot more than just ‘light drizzle’, this was heavy rain 🤷♂️ In truth, it hadn’t come as a complete surprise to me, the sky had been threatening it since yesterday afternoon when we were returning from our walk, it was just a little late in arriving and, since we had to change our plans from heading into the ‘Picos de Europa’ mountains, due to the arrival of the wet stuff, I also knew that we were going to get some sketchy weather over this side of the coast throughout the coming days, and it looked much of the same as we progressed North, so for now, we would just keep taking one day at a time.
Shazza slept for a further two hours and the rain, although looking as if it was easing a little, continued to fall. I suggested to Shazza that perhaps we should bite the bullet and go down to the hotel restaurant and have breakfast, we were out of snacks and would need to eat something. However, Shazza declined, not about eating breakfast but about going to the hotel restaurant to eat it. It wasn’t about the cost as such, more the principle, we may both be thrifty by nature, but we were not on any sort of budget constraint or having to account for every cent. We could afford to eat all our meals in the hotel, breakfast’s and dinners, if we chose to. It was more about the charge for these hotel breakfast’s, against what we knew we would actually eat, we could purchase a decent filling breakfast, for the both of us, for just €6-8 in a local Cafe, here they would charge us €26, even if we only ate toast and jam, and had a coffee 🤷♂️ We could understand it if we each enjoyed a full cooked breakfast, followed by the fruit, or sticky buns, and drank orange juice and gallons of coffee, then €13 each was probably quite reasonable, but we don’t. However, and in all honesty, I would have paid it and wouldn’t have let principle get in the way of my hunger.
We agreed to wait a little longer and thankfully it did pay off, as there was a break in the weather at around 11:00am, although the clouds looked as if they could still discharge even more of their watery cargo at any time, but we took the gamble. It was also good to get out of the confines of the room for a while and get some fresh air. On Google maps I had identified a couple of Cafe’s in one of the back streets just a couple of levels above us, about a twenty minute walk away, although it took us slightly longer, as we didn’t exactly race up the steep steps 😮💨 unfortunately, in this particular direction, we didn’t have the luxury of mechanical devices to aid our ascent 😢 As we sat outside the Cafe, under the shelter of the large awning style canopy, we had quite a nice view over the Port area below us, and a view of the sea as it flowed into the river channel, we enjoyed our usual coffee’s and Tostado’s, which were generous large baguette sized portions. Their were several other’s sat at tables around us, from their conversations we knew that they were all Spanish, but wether they were locals, or visitor’s, we of course had no idea 🤷♂️ We observed Council workmen with one of those trucks with a telescopic lift on the back, they were doing something to overhead cables that stretched between the lamp posts, other people were just going about their normal daily business, all wearing raincoats of some description, and many were carrying umbrella’s, some had bags, so presumably out doing their daily shopping, many walking, totally oblivious to anything else going on around them whilst they were talking on their mobile phones, cars and buses passed up and down, their tyres spraying water up onto the pavement from the puddles in the road, fortunately we were sat far enough back from the road so as not to be splashed, soggy looking pigeons looking sorry for themselves argued with each other for the best position under the tables, waiting eagerly for any scraps to be dropped. For a time, Shazza and I sat silent, just taking in what was going on around us, we love this people watching stuff, normal daily life going on around us, similar I presumed to what was going on in many other towns and cities all around the world, but, who may have been watching us I wondered 🤔
“So, had it not have been raining, what would we have been doing today my love ?” I asked Shazza, “You will now have to wait until tomorrow to find out” she replied, I seized my opportunity, I baited the hook and cast my line, “What do you mean wait until tomorrow, today is your activity day, tomorrow is mine again” I said, with a straight face. “No way !!, that isn’t fair” she announced, “It’s raining today so we cannot go anywhere” she exclaimed, “Well that isn’t my fault” I responded, “No, I’m not having that, no way” she said quite adamantly. I burst out laughing, “Got you, hook, line and sinker” I said. “Right, just for that, tomorrow I am going to find at least four of the most boring Stately Homes and Gardens, and spend the whole day dragging you around each and everyone one of them” she said, and then smirked knowing that she had been caught off guard. Of course, neither of us knew at that point what the ‘Works of Fiction’ actually had in store for us for the following day, a drive to a Stately House may actually be the only option 🤷♂️
As we sat, with nothing better to do, other than just let time pass us by whilst enjoying some open space, we heard the faint rumblings of thunder and decided that we had better make our way back to the hotel, at least it would be all downhill on the way back. We paid the bill, a mere €8, we agreed that it was probably best to make a contingency for dinner too, as we may not want to go out if the rain continued, so, on the way back we called in at the Supermarket and purchased some pre-packed food, Salad bowls with Pasta, Shazza chose Salmon whilst I went for a combo Prawn and Octopus, we also threw a few extra snacks and fruit into our basket, well it could be a very long afternoon. We were not in a hurry to get back to our prison cell, albeit a luxury one, so we wandered up and down the aisles, with no intention of buying anything else, but it killed a little bit more time 🙄 Then we sensed eyes watching us, possibly store security, dressed to look like a shopper and thinking we were perhaps shop lifters 😲 We made our way to the checkout a bit sharpish and by doing so, probably looked even more suspicious.
The remainder of the day continued to be mixed between periods of heavy rain and drizzle, so we both ended up taking a lot of ‘mini siestas’, combined with doing stuff on our iPads, drinking tea, or coffee etc. Shazza started to finalise her plan for the following day’s activity, or that’s what I assumed as she kept shielding her iPad from my view whenever I looked across, although for all I know, perhaps she was watching a Porn channel 😲 I did offer a suggestion, no, not for what Porn channels to watch, I wouldn’t divulge that kind of personal information 😂 My input, not that she asked for it, was to perhaps go on a culinary experience, which I thought may appeal to her, a tour of Vigo’s Tapas Bars perhaps 🤷♂️ she just gave me one of her school teacher looks over the top of her glasses and then said, with a hint of sarcasm in her tone I must say, “Well, we could go the whole nine yards and combine it with a tour of some vineyards perhaps ?”, I laughed and then responded, “Great idea, but actually, the Tapas tour and Wine Tasting are one and the same thing my love” then I gave her a wink 😉
I think that in truth, we both actually needed this rainy day, it provided us with the perfect opportunity to take our foot off the gas and actually relax, to take a much needed rest day, we have been pushing ourselves to do something every single day, either with the long drives with a bit of sightseeing thrown in, or like yesterday, because the weather was good, we felt that we had to be out and about, doing something. The reality is, we are not on a time schedule, in fact, we are not on any sort of schedule, other than having to be back by the beginning of October when Shazza’s mum is coming out to stay with us, so perhaps, upon reflection, we are on a sort of time schedule 😂 But we don’t actually have to go, or be, anywhere specific, and we certainly do not have an ultimate final destination, we will end up wherever we end up 🤷♂️ Our only real consideration actually being the weather as we do, at this time of year, expect at least a few days of rain, but we can certainly handle that, but, if it does look at any point as if the periods of bad weather will be protracted, then we could just head South again, there are lots of Regions we still have to explore all over Spain, or we could just go straight back home, the choice is actually our’s to make. However, at the end of the day, and putting it into some sort of perspective, this has actually been the only really bad weather day that we have encountered, so far, on this road trip.
The rain continued to switch between heavy downfalls, with a few rumbles of thunder, to just horrible drizzle, and at one point, during the early evening, we put our coats on and went out to the front of the hotel, thinking that we may make it to the eateries just a fifteen minute stroll away without getting too wet, but we agreed that we would probably end up looking like drowned rats and would feel uncomfortable sat in wet clothes in a restaurant, we returned to our room and ate our Salads, which were actually extremely flavoursome and filling, we both said that we would have them again without hesitation, if needed. We each put our earphones in and whilst I caught up with some Motorhome, Cycling and Sailing ‘Vlogs’ on ‘You Tube’ on my iPad, Shazza watched whatever it was that she was following on her’s. It had been a long day, but a restful one, fortunately, the ‘Works of Fiction, were forecasting a much better weather day for tomorrow.
To be continued………………..
Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena
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