A Driving Adventure During A Fuel Crisis ?

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