Gut Busting Menu Items !

Although I have to confess at being a little disappointed, with the rain finally succeeding in thwarting our last couple of days of sightseeing in Northern Spain, we should I guess be thankful for at least having managed to drive, what had been a little under 700 miles, from our home in the South all the way to Santander with some pretty decent weather throughout and, in-between, spending a good couple of days in Segovia. We had seen the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast for the UK, as well as being told by family and friends, that the British Isles had been experiencing a heatwave over the last couple of weeks, so our fingers were firmly crossed that this would extend a little longer, especially as we would be travelling quite extensively up and down the country during our time in the UK 🙏

Now prior to our departure from Santander I had received a text message from our friends Paul & Debs, they were currently in the UK, but would soon be on their way to their holiday home in Spain, in their Motorhome and via a road trip tour of France, Northern Spain and Portugal on their latest 90 day ‘Schengen Shuffle’ trip. Out of sheer coincidence, their ferry to France, from Portsmouth, did not depart until 11pm on the very same evening that we ourselves were due to dock in Portsmouth at around 5:30pm. They suggested a brief coffee and catch-up somewhere just outside of Portsmouth, although we often speak with them on-line we had not actually seen them, in the flesh so to speak, for eighteen months. However, my concern was that we didn’t know whether our ferry would actually arrive on time, being very much dependent on the sea conditions, this can often mean docking much later than scheduled and then, once we had, disembarking the ferry has, on a lot of previous trips, taken as long as one hour before finally joining the queues of Cars, Caravans, Motor Homes and Camper Vans waiting to get through the UK Immigration and Customs control point, so the combination of these things could all have had an impact on the time that realistically we would get ‘On the Road’ to commence our road journey. We were intending travelling straight up to Wiltshire, hoping to get there before it got dark, at around 8pm, as after that we would need to use our headlights which, since importing our car into Spain, were now set for driving in Europe. We had been unable to purchase any headlight ‘Beam Benders’ for use in the UK so, any delays upon our arrival could make it touch and go as to whether we would make it in time. However, as it happened, we were able to purchase some in the on-board ferry shop and using the ‘free’ onboard WiFi to message our friends we contacted them and arranged a mutually convenient location to meet up, which was only only a short drive from the Port.

Over the last twelve year’s, we must have been using this ‘Bay of Biscay’ route back and forth on around at least fifty separate occasions, and I can count, probably using no more than three fingers, how many of those were calm crossings, although it now looks as though I will have to utilise a further finger in any future references 🤭 as this turned out to be one of those rare, but very pleasant, super calm crossings, much to Shazza’s pleasure, as she normally has to confine herself in a horizontal position in the cabin for the full duration of the crossing 🤢🤮

Now we are by no means flushed with money, but we do like to splash out and pay an additional cost for access to the on-board ‘Premium Lounge’, which is a very comfortable seating area which means that we do not have to do battle in either of the two on-board restaurants as food and drinks are also provided in the lounge. The two main restaurants, one of which is table service which in truth isn’t bad, although you do have to reserve a table in advance and they tell you what time your table reservation will be available, the other entails a canteen style affair and by the time that you have made your selections, followed the line down to the pay point, find a table, then your meal is, at best, Luke warm, unless of course you select the salad options. Although, you do also have to book the ‘Premiere Lounge’ at the time of booking the actual crossing, as access numbers to the lounge are limited and so, if you leave it too late it is ‘usually’ already fully booked. The Premier Lounge, as I have said, is not a Restaurant facility as such, although it does have a wide selection of self-service buffet style food available, both hot and cold, and cakes and desserts at Breakfast, Lunch and in the early evening, with an assortment of drinks, alcoholic and non-alcoholic, teas and coffee, all of which is included in the cost of the Lounge Access, their are no restrictions on how much food, or drinks, you can help yourself to. The seating area in the lounge is large and very comfortable, with large panoramic windows and I think many must spend most of their time in there, as we tend to observe the same people occupying exactly the same seating areas whenever we return to it, all areas of the ship provide free ‘ninety-minute’ access to the WiFi, although you can purchase packages that give longer accessibility so, using this lounge during the crossing can be a lot more comfortable than staying in your cabin. However, Shazza and I like to roam around the ship, exploring the inner and outer decks, and even if we do not require to purchase anything we still have a walk around the gift shop and duty-free area, but on this occasion we did purchase a bottle of Shazza’s mums favourite tipple and I treated myself to a bottle of my favourite Cologne and Shazza bought a new Perfume, and of course not forgetting the necessary ‘Beam Benders’. When the crossings are as good as this we like to get outside on deck and enjoy a breath of fresh air and, if we are lucky, to do some Whale and Dolphin spotting. We had seen a pod of dolphins swimming off the bow just as we left Port, but no more Dolphins, or Whales, during the rest of the crossing ☹️ Then, feeling re-invigorated and windswept, we returned to the cabin to just prop ourselves up on our respective single beds and flicked through the TV channels, as usual there was nothing much of interest unless you are interested in afternoon ‘Soaps’ in Spanish, French or English so we just relaxed on our beds and read our books on our Kindle devices. It wasn’t long before I was enjoying one of my favourite bits of these crossings, the impromptu siesta’s 🤭 But to be perfectly honest, for us this really is an opportunity to enjoy some enforced relaxation, which is the very much required calm before the storm of our upcoming hectic period in the UK.

With such a calm crossing we docked on schedule and, after a slight delay 🤷‍♂️ we disembarked and made our way to the holding area until we were waved towards an Immigration booth. The young, friendly female Border Control Officer obviously hadn’t noticed our ‘foreign’ registration plates when she asked, “How long have you been away for ?”, an answer we suspected she already knew, as she had checked our passport stamps before asking the question and which reflected that we had last departed the UK on 12th June 2023 with no European exit stamps except for the recent Santander one. Shazza responded in a matter of fact sort of way, “Nearly Two years”, she said, “Oh, do you live in Europe ?”, again an answer she already knew, from our Spanish Residency Visa’s, “Yes, in Southern Spain” Shazza responded, “Are you back in the UK for long” came the next question and so Shazza explained that it was a three week visit to see Children, Grandchildren, other Family and Freinds, “Oh very nice, enjoy your holiday” she said, handing us back our passports and then we were on our way. It hadn’t felt like a ‘grilling’ but we knew that it was 😉

We sent a text to let Paul and Debs know that we were on our way and soon, the four of us were sat around a table in a Cafe having a well overdue catch-up and general gossip. Although texts on on-line social media channels are fine for short conversations and exchanging the odd photo’s, you cannot beat a good face to face chin wag 👍 Although we didn’t make any firm commitments we agreed that, once our family visitors had departed, we had got our car serviced and had the bathroom renovation completed, if the opportunity arose, before they had to return to the UK, we could both try and find some time to have another meet up, somewhere in Spain. I was a bit frustrated with myself as usually I would take such opportunities to take a photo of the four of us together, for our personal photo album as well as one to put in the blog, but we knew they needed to get to the Port to check-in for their outbound ferry, and they knew we needed to get back on the road to make our way North, so after hugs and kisses and saying our goodbyes, we waved each other off. But it will be another one of those ‘Chance Encounters And Fortunate Coincidences’ that we have had several of over the year’s, and will remain in our memories for when we do meet up again and say “Do you remember the time when…………….”

Due to our stop to meet Paul and Debs, once we got back on the road the traffic had become much lighter and so we had a relatively easy run to Swindon, the majority of it on dual carriageway or motorway and mainly in daylight, although it was just turning dusk as we arrived, so it wasn’t dark enough to be able to check whether I had fitted the stick-on beam benders in the correct place, we didn’t intend doing much night driving so I wasn’t overly worried, and as long as it didn’t rain and become overcast when we would then of course need to use our headlights 🙄

We had booked into a local hotel for three nights, it was one that we had used on previous occasions, it was clean, comfortable and quiet and would serve to give us some space at the end of each of the hectic day’s, having three very excitable and energetic granddaughter’s demanding our complete attention and, very recently, the addition of a new puppy, which apparently cries at night. We rang to tell them that we had arrived safely and were inundated with millions of questions, okay, a slight over exaggeration, but all three granddaughter’s asked the same questions, repeatedly, “Are you coming for breakfast ?”, “What time will you get here in the morning ?”, “Are we still going bowling ?”, something that we had arranged to do in our earlier on-line video calls before leaving Spain, “Can you take us to the park ?”, “Why are you not sleeping at our house ?”, ‘How long are you staying ?”…….. well I guess by now you get the picture, so although we had enjoyed our calm before the storm relaxation on the ferry crossing, we still doubted whether our ageing batteries would last very long, perhaps they may allow us a short siesta break at some point during each day, but somehow we doubted it 🙄

We had a fantastic couple of days, the Twinnies are now rapidly approaching their 10th birthday’s and the youngest her 7th, so at least now we can have proper conversations with each of them, although there is now a downside, the twinnies are much more ‘streetwise’ and so tend to be more prone these days to disbelieve, rather than take at face value, many of Grandad’s tall stories anymore, although the youngest, still innocent and naive will still spring to my defence and tell her big sister’s “Of course it’s the truth if Grandad says it is” bless her little cotton socks 🤭

We were both back at the hotel, in bed and fast asleep by 9:30pm on that first active day 😲😴 but we awoke refreshed the following morning ready for 🤷‍♂️ well whatever our ‘little darlings’ wanted to do that day. A walk to the park, followed by a call in to the ice-cream shop on the way back, then out to the local McArthur Glen shopping mall for a look around the shops, the toy shops, bookshops, girls make-up and accessories and then a play in the indoor children’s play area, although at least in there we were pleased to be able to have a sit down and it was only our ‘Ear’s that got a work out’, listening to three-different voices shouting from three different directions, “Nana, Grandad, look at what I can do”, I just knew that our necks would be aching the following day. We were pleased when it was time to go for our late Lunch, the girls had selected their favourite Pizza Restaurant. The three of them never seem to stop, no wonder they are all so skinny and can eat all the junk food, they are like those ‘Duracell Rabbits’ you see on the TV, whilst Shazza and I put on several Kilo’s of weight just looking at the ‘Gut Busting Menu Items !’, oh to be young and to be able to eat whatever you like 🙄

For their upcoming birthdays the girls (twinnies) want to go on a girlie shopping trip to Birmingham with mum, and although dad will be going too, Orla stated, “Yuk, I don’t want to do that”, and then pulled a face in disgust. When I asked her what she wanted to do she said, without any hesitation, “Go to watch football with dad, then go to the pub” 😂😂

We had been enjoying some fantastic weather, the UK ‘Works of Fiction’ must have an upgraded crystal ball to the Spanish, and it was showing this early warm sunny weather to continue, although chilly first thing in the morning and last thing at night. The problem we had was that we were expecting cooler weather here than we had in Spain, so of course we had packed mainly cooler climate clothing, darn this unreliable bloody global warming 🙄

We travelled up to South Yorkshire on Shazza’s birthday, she didn’t want a fuss and her family would have likely organised a surprise celebration of some description or other, had they have known exactly when we would be arriving ‘Up North’, so Shazza had purposely left our arrival date a little vague, her mother being sworn to secrecy. We enjoyed a relatively relaxed start to the Easter period with a fairly quiet ‘Good Friday’, but we had visits, on different days over the Weekend, both from and to, her three Brothers and one of her Aunt’s and Uncle, who had invited us for tea on Easter Monday. On the Tuesday we drove to Lincolnshire to spend a day visiting my mother in her care home, she is not doing badly to say that she had only been given a couple of days to live, back in October 2022 😲 We took her out for the day and had a family lunch in a local pub with my brother, his wife and one of my nieces, and once again, we had the luxury of a really warm sunny day, albeit we were in our winter woolies 🤭 but at least we had remembered to bring our sunglasses 😎

We had left home some thirteen days ago now, it had flown past so quickly but we still had another thirteen days before we were due to return to Portsmouth to catch our ferry home and we still had lots to do. We were looking forward to having an opportunity to meet up with some more of our long time friends, another couple whom we regularly stay in touch with and who have visited us in Spain several times, for this re-union visit we had arranged to meet up in a place that neither of us had been to before, but more on that in the next ramble 😉

Our journey continues…………

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena