Just Before The Weather Bomb Struck !

Of course, I cannot lie, yes it was nice to be home once again, there is actually something quite comforting about having familiar things around you, and I do not not just mean the usual personal things inside our home, but also the familiar scenery and the familiar noises from the outside world too, the things that we take for granted, and yes, I guess even the usual daily routines that bring the normality to our lives and combine to just make us feel comfortable. It is a bit funny when I think about it now, for it wasn’t really all that long ago when we used to enjoy the adventure of just living in our motor-home, and enjoying being somewhere new every few days, but then I guess that even then, we were actually living in what was our permanent home, with our familiar things around us, the only things that changed were the scenery and the noises and that was one of the great advantages. Covid I think changed our, and a lot of other people’s perspective, because life certainly became more difficult then, living on the road on a full-time basis. Everyday essential facilities became harder to access as Motorhome Aires and Campsites closed down, limiting where you could obtain drinking water and empty Grey & Black water tanks, or get access to Hook-Ups on cloudy days, when the Solar Panels where not getting enough energy and movement was restricted, so charging the batteries was a challenge. Although conversely, it certainly had its advantages too, like being able to find somewhere isolated to park up and wild camp was easier, as the authorities were otherwise engaged on policing the Covid rules for people in villages, towns and cities and not Motor-homers in wild-camping locations. It was easier and safer parking away from potentially infected people, yet still being able to drive to Supermarkets to stock up on provisions, or to drive to fuel stations to top up on both diesel and LPG, as long as you took sensible precautions. It was certainly a life that, at that time in our lives suited us, especially myself, and my OCD Buddy of course, as forward planning and researching for re-provisioning, re-fuelling and park-ups became an almost daily ‘essential’ requirement, funny old thing but I do still miss those nomadic days at times, but obviously not the one’s through the Covid period.

Once we had returned home from this recent road trip, it had actually taken us a good couple of days to get ourselves sorted again, catching up with the mail that had arrived, you know the old fashioned sort that gets delivered through one’s mailbox, as well as all the other stuff that mounts up electronically, I hadn’t paid too much heed to it whilst we were away, in fact, other than researching stuff that we needed for the actual trip, I managed to stay off my electronic gadgets, iPad and iPhone, for the most part and it was actually quite nice, I actually believe that I could live off grid without all of today’s communication technology, although the world is such these days that you cannot do without some of it, the Governments ensure they still can keep tabs on you if and when they need to, using paper money is becoming less and less, everything moving towards electronic payments, paperless bills, official and social communications, I cannot remember the last time I actually wrote a handwritten letter, these days it is either Email’s or Texts on various Social Media Apps, so the question is, can anyone ever really live ‘under the radar’ these days 🤷‍♂️ You need a passport to travel to other countries, you need a photo ID Card to obtain a Driver’s Licence, Banks are closing physical branches, so you need a Digital card to withdraw cash, and you need a Bank Account to receive payments, and so it goes on. Not that we want, or have a need to live under the radar you understand, but the fact of the matter is that we no longer have that choice 🤷‍♂️ Oops, I feel myself digressing again 🤭

It is another part of the year when a couple of annual payments now require renewals, things like the additional medical cover we took out last year, more as a convenience than a necessity, as we are both fully covered by the Spanish State Healthcare system, but this additional cover provides for Home Doctor visits, if we are too ill to physically go to our healthcare centre in town, where it appears that even here in Spain, getting appointments to see a doctor can now take up to a couple of weeks these days 😲 Not that we have needed to, personally speaking, but we hear about it from some of our neighbours who have. The additional medical cover we have taken out also provides for the cost of an Ambulance to hospital, if ever we should need one, for here in Spain, apart from life threatening emergencies, and unlike the UK, if you call for an ambulance here, you have to pay for it. Perhaps the UK should consider implementing a similar policy, it would free up the availability of ambulances for those that actually really need one 🤔 However, back to the renewal and, surprisingly, there was absolutely no increase in the premium from the previous year, now there’s a rarity I thought to myself. It was also nearly time to renew the Car Insurance and again, I was surprised to receive the quote that showed just a relatively small increase in the premium from last year, only €25 (£21) 👍 So I set to, and got both those things sorted, in the knowledge that another round of annual renewals was finished, and will not re-commence again, on its next annual cycle for various things, for another seven months. So the next post-trip task was to check that the bank account balances corresponded with my own personally maintained manual record of accounts as, when we have been away, we generally use a combination of Bank Debit Cards and cash, although, in truth I am usually pretty meticulous with keeping records of our finances, but I still feel the need to check the ‘official’ bank accounts just in case I have inadvertently forgotten something that I put on my card, rather than payed for in cash, some places now it is ‘Card Only Payments’, like paying entrance fees to tourist attractions. Now I could suggest that this constant need for me to double-check is an age related thing, but actually it isn’t, for me and my OCD Buddy have always done this. As for Shazza, well she had her own post-holiday list of things to do, primarily all the laundry, we actually hadn’t done any during our trip away, even though we had said that we would do it whilst we were on the road, if required, but it wasn’t, she had taken enough knickers to see her through, and of course that is what hotel bathrooms come in handy for and, as they had all provided drying lines on the balconies, it would have been rude of us not to make use of these services 😂 Then of course she stood and did all of the subsequent ironing. Then of course there was the normal ‘weekly’ shopping to do, yes including the visit to the local ‘fruiteria’, who actually stock items that the Supermarket generally doesn’t, and from that bit of information you will gather that yes, it was back to the more healthier dietary regime, having both discovered that we had put on a few extra pounds whilst we were away, which to be honest didn’t really come as any surprise to either of us 🙄 So we were really just doing all of the normal pretty mundane sort of stuff that I guess all of us have to do, when we get back from any sort of extended absence from home, but it can be time consuming and in truth, we would much rather have been doing ‘other’ things, or just doing nothing at all, I mean come on, it’s tiring being on holiday isn’t it and we needed a rest 🤭

One evening, a couple of days after we had got ourselves sorted and back into the swing of our normal routines, we went for a walk along the seafront, just to get some fresh air really and not for exercise purposes on this occasion, as we had done plenty of walking on our trip. It was fairly quiet now in the evenings, as far as the number of people are concerned, just the odd handful who, like ourselves, appeared to be sauntering, or ‘promenading’ as they refer to it in a lot of Mediterranean Countries. We were enjoying the stillness of the warm evening air, for their was barely a breeze, the relative calmness of the mill pond like sea helped, as the water gently rippled up onto the shoreline and overall, we were just savouring the sheer peacefulness of it all. Well it had been peaceful, until we reached the Marina, with its bright multi-coloured neon light’s where some of the bars were competing with each for who could play the loudest music, albeit most had little clientele now the bulk of the Summer tourists had disappeared, unlike further North where tourist season was still in full swing. So we were pleased to get around to the other side of the promenade, where normal service to our eardrums was restored.

Spanish people we find are generally polite and friendly, and like any Country, there are always the few exceptions and although you don’t know these people personally, there is still a polite acknowledgement of each other as you pass, sometimes it is just a nod of the head, a smile, or the more usual ‘Tardes’, which is generally used after 2pm in the afternoon, so it can be used to say both ‘Afternoon’ and Evening’ 🤷‍♂️ the more formal form of address at that time of the day is, ‘Buena’s Tardes’ (Good Evening) but the word ‘Buenas’ is generally dropped in casual conversation. We paused and had a coffee at one of our usual seafront Cafe/Bars in the town, where we got the question as to where had we been because they hadn’t seen us recently, and yes, it was Coffee and not Anti-Covid Vaccine on this occasion, as I confess that I ‘may’ have over indulged during our trip, as if there was any ‘may’ about it 😂 We sat silently, just listening to the chitter chatter around us, the Spanish like to come out of an evening, to sit and have coffee, or a beer or glass of wine and tapas, so it gave us the opportunity to do some people watching, as you do, it would be rude not to, and we also sat watching the freighters on the horizon, as they were rapidly becoming just silhouettes in the fading light. The wide expanse of beach in front of us was completely empty, no last minute sun worshippers, fishermen, dog walkers or joggers and their were no leisure craft on the water, it was just a picture of complete serenity and we could physically feel our bodies beginning to relax, enjoying the moment. It was a bit strange really when I thought about it afterwards, for although we were relaxed when we were away, somehow we just feel that little bit more relaxed now, probably because we knew that we no longer had any long distances to drive, or to look for the next place to visit or search for accommodations, we were back at home now, in our more familiar surroundings and we would decide what, if anything, we were going to do tomorrow, when tomorrow arrived.

We sauntered back towards the Marina, and then on to where we had parked the car, recounting some of the highlights of our recent trip away whilst doing so. When we arrived at the area that we often refer to as ‘Our Beach’ we stopped and looked back, over the sea and the mountains. The evening sky was just about to bring its night blanket of clouds over the land, but we still had the blue sky above them and could see the tint of orange of the fading sun as it reflected off the top of those clouds, there would be a colourful sunset that evening. We spoke no words for those few moments but just stood, absorbing the calm and silent scene before our eyes, then we both broke our silence and agreed on just how lucky we felt to be able to live in a place like this, and for probably the umpteenth time, said how good it felt to be home.

Shazza was first to break the silence, “Do you think we are just getting old and now just like the security of routines and familiar things around us ?” she said, although it was probably intended to be more of a comment than an actual question, I shrugged my shoulders, “I don’t think it has anything to do with getting old, in fact, I don’t actually feel old, do you ?”, she took a few seconds before answering, then said, “Sometimes”, in a thoughtful sort of way. Her answer came as a bit of a surprise to me, for after all, she is the one who is generally always saying that “Age is just a number”, and ‘How fit and healthy we both are with no medical conditions’ so we ended up in conversation as to why she felt that way, “I am noticing a few more wrinkles, I now cannot watch the TV without my glasses and, I cannot read labels when I am shopping, without putting my glasses on”, I smiled before answering, “Well I guess that must mean that you are about getting ready for me to send you off to the knacker’s yard then”, I dodged her elbow aimed towards my ribs. “But in all seriousness, Do you feel unwell ? Are you worried about any aspects of your health that you are not telling me about ? Do you feel physically unfit ?” I fired the whole barrage of question’s at her in one go, knowing that her answer would reflect that, in fact, and in all reality, she is in perfectly good health. We have always been very open with each other on such things, so I knew that she would have told me if she had any major health concerns, or had felt unwell, ‘she’ is the one that certainly sticks to a much more healthy diet, as opposed to myself who strays off it more regularly, and we both exercise on an almost daily basis. She gave the anticipated one word answer that I had anticipated, ‘No’ she said, almost defensively. The thought did enter my mind though, perhaps she has developed an allergy to ‘road trips’, for I recalled that she had taken ill during our last extended road trip. I did wonder whether she is becoming more of a ‘home bird’ now, or are these two things just a coincidence 🤔

I put my arm around her shoulder, “Well there you go then and, I haven’t noticed any extra wrinkles, well at least not since last week, can you point the new one’s out to me” then I laughed before saying to her, “Neither of us are immortal, yes we are getting older, that’s just a fact of life, but I for one certainly don’t intend going anywhere soon and I hope your not either, we still have a lot of sunrises and sunsets to see yet my love”. She squeezed my hand gently, I knew that she had just been having ‘a moment’, we all have them from time to time, and I am sure the time will come when I may have one myself at some point 🤭 although, at this particular moment, I do have to say that I feel perfectly content with my life. “Come on, I will race you to the car” I said, and before you my reader’s ask the question, of course I won 😂

Now as you know, or at least the majority of my regular readers will know, I have often referred to the word ‘Fate’ in my rambles, and had done so in one of my recent rambles in relation to our road trip, believing, at the time, that it had once again been responsible for re-directing us from our ‘intended’ direction North, and instead took us in a Southerly direction, and then West into the mountains, where we enjoyed a wonderful few days. But, as a consequence of that change of direction we continued our journey South. However, once back at home, I read the local Spanish papers and it made me wonder, ‘Had Fate Come To Our Rescue Yet Again’ ? Although not in the manner, or for the reason, that I had initially believed that it had 🤔

The main area that we had been touring in had primarily been in the ‘Valencia’ region and, at one point, before ‘Fate’ had intervened, we were intending to head a little further North West, into the city of ‘Teruel’, where we intended to spend at least three full days sightseeing and, on one of those days, we had intended to catch a train for a one day sightseeing trip to the nearby city of ‘Zaragoza’, which was about another one hour North of Teruel. However, had we have done so, during that time period, it would have put us into the ‘forecasted’ weekend of the severe weather alerts, which, at the time, we knew nothing about, but fortunately, the intervention of our invisible and silent friend, had meant that we continued to head South, then ultimately elected to return home a little earlier than originally planned and had therefore already left the areas, ‘Just Before The Weather Bomb Struck’. The town of ‘Manzanares’, the last location we had stopped in, was actually in the ‘Castilla-La Mancha’ area, and our route back, once again took us close to the Murcia Region, and of course back into our own Region of Andalucia, all of which were areas ‘forecasted’ to be hit by this severe weather system. What is it they say, about the difference between when good and bad things can sometimes happen 🤔 “It’s all about the timing” is the phrase I believe 😉

However, without getting too over dramatic about this, and I am sure you all know by now how indecisive Shazza and I both are at times, we can change our minds and directions at a moments notice, well it is extremely likely that, had we have elected to have remained on the road, for that extra ten or twelve days that were available to us, we may also have ended up being ‘nowhere’ near any of those areas, even possibly further South West, on the border between Spain and Portugal, or even over the border itself and into Southern Portugal, as I say, you just never know with the two of us 🤷‍♂️ But as it was, it had been a lucky escape by all reports, we were already at home when the storm’s hit those areas, some quite badly, fortunately it did not reach as far South as our location and, for the rest of that first week back at home, in our neck of the woods at least, there was not one storm cloud or spot of rain in sight, although there was some ‘forecasted’ to arrive over the following week, but we will continue to rely on our own ‘Forrest Gump’ method of weather forecasting for the foreseeable future 😉

Now, one thing that me and my OCD Buddy were interested in, once we had got settled back at home, was just gaining a few facts and figures about or recent trip, just out of general interest really, so for those who may also be interested I list them below, for those who are not, then just scroll past 😉

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The duration of the road trip was 12 days

We travelled a total distance of 1,850 Km (1,150 miles), that was from leaving home to returning home. In that time we did 5 separate journeys, the longest journey in one day being 278 miles, the shortest being 82 miles.

We spent €180 (£156) on Diesel

We spent €1,170 (£1,017) on 4* and 3* Accommodations (one of which included ‘Full Board’)

We travelled in, and through, 4 ‘Regions’ and 8 ‘Provinces’

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From the conversations between Shazza and myself, both during our recent trip and again on the journey home, where Shazza suddenly started to wax lyrical about exploring more of our own Region on future road trips, me, and my OCD Buddy of course, were curious to discover some information more specific to our own region and we wasted no time in doing a little more in depth research on what Andalusia has to offer. So please forgive me if I have already told you some of this before, although I don’t believe that I have gone into as much depth before, even for my own benefit. Of course, I did know that Andalusia comprises of 8 different Provinces and that it basically covers the whole of the Southern part of the Spanish mainland, right down to the ‘Straight of Gibraltar’, across to the Atlantic Coast on the West where it borders Southern Portugal, and across on the Mediterranean Coast right up to where it reaches the Regional Border of Murcia on the Eastern side, and then, up to the North where it borders two Regions, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha. I know that I have mentioned this before but, Andalusia is actually the second largest Region in Spain.

So maps are all well and good, but what about what is actually in these eight Provinces, things to do, or places to visit that would be of particular interest to both Shazza and myself and which would satisfy both our individual, and joint interests. We acknowledge that some locations may be close enough to do in just a day trip, as many parts of the Atlantic coast, on the opposite side to where we live, are within easy reach, just over a one hour’s drive but, others in the Northern part of the Region could take a bit longer, a 3-4 hour drive, where we can then do extended mini-breaks of maybe two or three days, or even beyond that, if we were to include several places and areas in a round robin sort of trip, but these would be locations and places that we have not already visited, which would rule out most of the major Cities and Towns in Andalusia, as we have done most of them already. We could perhaps even base ourselves somewhere for several days, where we could then mix some village/town sightseeing with a bit of hiking. As I started to research the opportunities I began to realise just how much there was for us to do and, yes I have to confess that the two of us, me and my OCD Buddy, did start to get a little excited at all the opportunities available, but it was probably just a little too soon to share this excitement with Shazza 😉

In our previous explorations in and around our immediate area, it had nearly always been Shazza that had planned surprise day’s out, and as you may recall, always with the starting gambit of “What do you want to do today ?”, but in reality it was never a real question in which I had a choice, for she knew exactly what we would be doing on that particular day. She appears to have lost a lot of that enthusiasm these days, so I have now taken over the mantle of advance planning such adventures and boy, do I have a lot of research ahead of me, as the Region of Andalusia has :

Over 270 Castles, 39 Lighthouses, 30 Embalces (Reservoirs), 3 National Parks, 24 Natural Parks, 28 Nature Reserves and 5 Mountain Ranges. There is no exact official count of how many Waterfalls exist in Andalusia, but travel resources mention at least 20 ‘beautiful’ one’s in the region, so I am guessing there will be more, which these ‘travel resources’ do not consider as beautiful 🤭 The same applies to Natural Hot Springs, where again the travel resources mention at least 10. I didn’t bother researching how many Hiking Trails, as we already have several hiking trail books, and a couple of dedicated walking trail ‘Apps’, so we know that there are literally hundreds, some of which are graded as Easy, some Moderate and other’s that we certainly wouldn’t even consider doing ourselves, we are not stupid and know our limitations, so we will let the much younger, so called ‘Influencers’, risk life and limb to grab those scenic photo’s 😂

So now, having taken the blinkers off, I am discovering that there really is so much to see and do here in our own Region, that I had not actually realised and, a lot of it is virtually right on our very own doorstep 🤗 Of course, this does not mean that we will not fancy a change of scenery from time to time, either within other Regions and Provinces of Spain, but Portugal in all reality is only a hop, skip and jump away, around four hours to the Southern part of the ‘Algarve’, probably even quicker if ‘Luis Hamilton’ is in the driving seat 🤭 and although we did some of Portugals Western and Southern Atlantic coastline, in our former Motor-Home travel days, there is still so many areas we have yet to explore. Then of course there is the rest of Europe, so perhaps there is still time to convince Shazza to ditch the car and invest in yet another ‘home on wheels’ 🤔 Now what’s that saying about trying to move mountains ? To be completely realistic though, for Shazza these days, a 4* or 3* Hotel with all the luxuries, against a Chemical Cassette Toilet and Limited Water usage, yeah, you are probably right, you don’t have a hope in hell of convincing her Eric my boy 😂

So whilst I continue to surreptitiously get ready for our next adventure, Shazza is putting her time to much better practical use, preparing menu’s for our next family visitor, her mum, who will be arriving within the next few days and staying with us for two weeks, and she most definitely will not eat our more usual ‘Plant Based’ meal options 🤭 So Shazza has set about planning meals to suit her catering requirements. Then, just before Christmas, my Sister and Brother-in-Law arrive from Australia, to stay with us for 3-4 days, this will be their first visit to us here in Spain, they are on their own wider travels around different parts of Europe, primarily visiting their own children and grandchildren, who have now also elected to live in Europe. So I guess I still have a bit of time to continue with my research into our own ‘future adventures’ and then put my own question to Shazza of, “What do you want to do today” 😉

We had been out for our usual morning walk, on this occasion opting to have a late breakfast, it was much cooler with a temperature of only 21 degrees(c), which was actually very nice in the Westerly breeze. Later, I was sat on our balcony, looking out over an unusually grey coloured and unsettled sea, and grey, rain threatening clouds above, which the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecasted would deposit their wet cargo later that evening, and continue throughout the night and all day the following day, and I have to say that ‘Forrest Gump’ was tending to show signs of agreement, but then the occasional patch of blue sky and glimpse of sunshine appeared, reflecting that it hadn’t quite made up its mind what it wanted to do 🤔 However, after a very prolonged period of searingly hot weather over the last few months, any rain would actually be more than welcome. The wind had started to pick up and whistled at me through the French windows and, as the afternoon wore on, the clouds thickened, the arrival of the wet stuff was looking more likely. I found myself having a moment of reflection, which is quite different to a moment of personal contemplation 🤭 I found myself thinking about the last nine months, and what is still to come over the last three of this year. We would have had four sets of different family visitors come and stay with us, we ourselves have had a month’s trip away, at the beginning of the year, the majority of it spent back in the UK visiting family, and meeting up with friends, and we have just completed our recent two week road trip here in Spain. We have had a new water boiler fitted, and had a complete re-build and renovation of our en-suite bathroom and finally, we have now got our UK Tax situation sorted, he says with fingers crossed, and importantly, received our refund of taxes which they, the UK Tax Authorities (HMRC) had taken, which they shouldn’t have done. So, all in all, it has actually been quite a busy and quite a productive period. I think that we will both be quite happy now to have a much quieter last three months of the year although, we can never be completely off our guard, as we never know when those ‘Dark Forces’ will rear their ugly heads once more 🙄

So, I am not sure what I will find to ramble about in the next few weeks, although you can rest assured that I will almost certainly find something 😂

So, until that next ramble…………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena