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You may wonder, as you commence reading the introduction of this current ramble, what on earth has any of this got to do with our current road trip 🤔 But for those who are familiar with my year’s of incessant verbal diarrhoea, you will know that, at some point, these introductory ramblings will bear some sort of relevance to the road trip 😉

I was born in Leeds in West Yorkshire, which is the fourth largest Urbanisation in the UK, the large city is built around the River Aire and it also has a fantastic canal, the ‘Leeds & Liverpool’, which, as the name suggests, is a waterway that Links the city of Leeds to the city of Liverpool, and numerous other towns and villages along it’s route, taking in some awesome scenery. Leeds is located in the Eastern foothills of the Pennines and is a place that I will forever call my home, albeit that I have spent very little of my life actually living there. For the last sixty year’s or so I have always, irrespective of all the places that I have lived in the world, supported the great Leeds United football team, although I do have to confess, it has been a somewhat painful experience at times, even more so in recent years 🙄 Over the last couple of years Leeds United have been playing in the league known as the ‘Championship’, which is one level below the top ‘Premiership’ where teams like, Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle etc. play their football. Leeds United narrowly missed being promoted to the Premier League last season, so we (as in the royal ‘we’) were going for it again this season and it was currently a three-horse race, although that expression, for either some non-English people, or for those of a non-sporting persuasion it may, and understandably so, create a little bit of confusion 😂

So, to put non-interested parties reading this out of your misery, here follows the relevant bit. Although we now live in Spain, I have still managed to watch all of the televised ‘Live’ Leeds United matches this season and, as the crucial end of the season drew near, we were going to be in the UK right at the end, for the important final 3-4 games, but even so, on this trip I had still managed to see all but the final game. Leeds managed to secure promotion to the top league before this season’s games were fully completed and so, as a consequence we ‘will’ be playing ‘our’ football in the ‘Premier League’ next season 🥳🥳. However, they still had a chance of finishing in first place in their current league and so winning the coveted silver trophy but, it would depend very much on the outcome of this very final game of the season as it was now a very tight ‘two-horse race to the finish line’ 😲 which they needed to win, nothing less would do.

We awoke early on the Saturday morning, our last day at Shazza’s mums before heading to Swindon in Wiltshire, which would be around a four hour drive away, traffic and roadworks permitting 🙏 We were in no great rush and so had planned to leave Shazza’s mums at around 10:30am, “We should get to the hotel, checked-in, and in the room, in time for you to be able to watch Leeds last match of the season” Shazza said. On a normal Saturday, most football matches would kick-off at 3pm, but it at least showed to me that my beloved had taken this very important final match day of the season into consideration for me, “Not today I’m afraid my love, for today all of the final games in the Championship kick off early at 12:30pm” I told her. But I also told her that it didn’t matter, as I could listen to it on the radio in the car on the way down as we were, after all, already promoted, so at the end of the day it didn’t really matter, just as long as we win this last game and win the league cup. It wasn’t as if we could have got up much earlier and headed down to Swindon as we couldn’t check-in to the hotel before 2pm anyway 🤷‍♂️ But I felt that to even have suggested that, would have been rude to Shazza’s mum, and also not fair to Shazza herself, who I am sure wanted to spend a few final hour’s with her mum as they wouldn’t be seeing each other again for a while. However, she was adamant that I should watch the match so, she suggested that we stay at her mums for a little longer, watch the match, and then leave straight after the game, as you may imagine, she got no argument from either me, or her mum 😉

Sporting references now finished and all I have left to say on the matter is that it was a very joyous and jubilant drive down to Wiltshire, I will leave you my reader’s to guess why 🥳🥳🥳🥳

For a Saturday we found all the roads once again pretty much free flowing, yes there were still plenty of red and white roadside decorations with the customary speed limitations, but no delays. After checking-in to our room we were both pretty hungry, with our slightly later departure we had taken the opportunity to have a sandwich before we left Shazza’s mums. We hadn’t needed to re-fuel the car, as we had already done that a day or so before and, somewhat surprisingly, Shazza hadn’t required any ‘comfort breaks’ en-route, so we didn’t make any stops. Fortunately though, there was an ‘eatery’ right outside our hotel so we went and ate straight away and then had a nice relaxing evening watching TV and reading books on our Kindle devices in our room.

Just digressing slightly, I am not an ardent reader of books like Shazza and, unlike her, on the rare occasions when I do, they are always non-fiction and usually either travel related (Motorhome or Yacht travels) or stories about other people going to live in other countries. Even then, if the writing style of the author of such books doesn’t grab my interest within the first chapter, I will put the book down and that is the end of that 🤷‍♂️ I am guessing that is probably very much the same sort of reaction that some may have when reading my rambles, especially the ones that start off talking about football 😂 Anyway, I came across two books, the author had published the original book, then followed it up with a sequel. Why these books had gained my particular interest was because they were an English couple, around the same age group as Shazza and myself, and they had bought a place just up the coast from us on the Costa del Sol, however, they had found it too hot in the Summer and so had decided to move to the Asturias Region, which is on the North Coast of Spain. I started reading the first book on the ferry to England and am now half way through the sequel. Just in case any of you have similar literary tastes, the books are called ‘Northward Bound’ and the author is ‘Alison Stewart’, available from ‘Amazon’ and no, before you ask, I am not on any sort of commission 😁

We had informed our son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren that we had arrived safely at our hotel, and told them that we would see them at around 10:00am the following morning. We had not planned to do anything special, our son was doing a BBQ for lunch, so it was just a matter of going for a walk in the park, letting the girls play on the play equipment and then, just generally spending time with them all at the house. The following day was May Day, a public holiday, we envisaged that the roads would all be busy with holiday traffic but as Portsmouth was only a couple of hour’s drive away we didn’t need to rush off, we didn’t sail until 9:30pm that night, although we would have to check-in forty-five minutes before, so I had initially planned to allow four hours for the journey to cater for any potential delays. Our son was at work though, the disadvantage of working in the retail trade when the holiday shoppers are out looking for bargains in the numerous ‘Sales’, but for retailer’s it can prove to be quite a lucrative period. We checked-out of the hotel and made our way back to the house to have our last day with our daughter-in-law and grandchildren, we took them all out and treated them to lunch before deciding to hit the road a little earlier than originally planned, just as a precaution, for although throughout this whole trip in the UK we have had no problems on the roads with delays, we were conscious that the pesky ‘Dark Forces’ would be lurking somewhere, waiting for an opportunity to ambush us and strike that third blow 😲 We said our farewells, which is always an extended and tearful affair, tears from the Granddaughter’s that is, with their pleas for us to move back to England, so that we can live closer to them and they can see more of us. Of course that would be only for the next couple of year’s before starting ‘senior school’, then friends, boyfriends and other more interesting stuff would be much more exciting than visiting Grandparents, yes they forget that we too were once their age, been there, done that, got the tee-shirt 😉 So me being me, I just told them that we miss them too, but I promised that I would send them even more photo’s of us on a more regular basis 😂

Our route was pretty straightforward, mainly on Motorways and Dual Carriageways but, when we checked our ‘Sat Nav’ as we set off, it announced that it was re-routing us, to avoid road closures on the M4 Motorway, I should have known that it would be ‘Too Good To Be True’ to have a three week trip to the UK without one single problem on the roads 🤷‍♂️ However, we discovered that the ‘Sat Nav’ wasn’t up to date with the road conditions, for it had intended diverting us off the Motorway at the junction before the one we originally intended taking, but within no more than a couple of minutes of joining the Motorway the traffic came to a grinding halt, so well before even the diversion exit we were supposed to take 🤷‍♂️ We crawled inch by inch, stop start, stop start, with the minutes ticking away, but finally got to the slip road off the motorway. The new diversionary route took us through small country villages, along narrow lanes, we were just following the snake of slow moving vehicles who were also following the diversionary route. Eventually, almost an hour later, we were directed on to a main dual Carriageway, but the A4, not the A34 which is what we needed to be on and, if the timing could not have been any more imperfect, we were in an area where we lost our mobile phone signal, so I couldn’t even keep a check on our location on ‘Google Maps’ 😡 Shortly afterwards we saw a sign to come off the A4 and where we could get on to join the A34 Southbound route, we sighed with relief. At this point we were not overly concerned and quite thankful to have had the foresight to allow much more travelling time, thanks to my OCD Buddy 😉 If we hadn’t, we would probably have become more than a little ‘twitchy’ by now, and the ‘Dark Forces’ would have been chuckling away to themselves.

Our relief was only short-lived though, we came off the slip road and up to the roundabout where we should then have joined the Southbound A34, well we would have done had their not been a big red sign announcing ‘Road Closed’ on the exit to the slip road, with yet another diversion sign, but this one took us in the wrong direction altogether, we found ourselves heading Northbound on the A34 in three lanes of stationery traffic going absolutely nowhere !! We finally got some traffic news on one of the radio stations “Multiple Accidents on the M4 East towards London are creating major issues, with tailbacks reported as far as Junction 15 at Swindon, diversionary routes off the M4 are also backlogged with the volume of traffic causing heavy congestion”, it was going to be one of those days 🤷‍♂️

Needless to say, and rather than continuing to give you a blow by blow account, we did ‘finally’ get back on to the route that we needed to be on, and thankfully encountered no further delays for the rest of our journey. We made a stop at a large TESCO Supermarket, refuelled, bought a sandwich and still arrived at the Port with plenty of time to spare 👍 Talk about luck being on our side, as we went through the vehicle security check area, prior to boarding the ferry, the female Border Force official pointed to the car in front of us to pull in to the search area and just waved us passed 👍 Although it would not have been a problem for the authorities at this side, with the goods we were carrying, it would have been a major inconvenience for us if we had been stopped and asked to ‘unload’ the car boot, and then had to re-load it all again.

We didn’t have to wait too long to board our ferry and then we made our way straight to our cabin, settled ourselves in, and put the kettle on. The ferry departed exactly on time at 9:30pm, we ate our sandwich and didn’t leave our cabin again until the following morning. This would be a slightly longer crossing for the return trip, 35 hours as opposed to the 27 hours on the outbound crossing, leaving on the Monday night but not arriving in Santander until 07:00am (08:00am Spanish Time) on the Wednesday morning, which was perfect for us as our long drive home would then all be done in daylight.

We have done this ferry route, and the Bilbao one, many times over the year’s and, depending on which side of the boat our cabin is on, we sometimes catch a glimpse of some Islands off the coast of France, although I never know exactly where we are so cannot identify them on Google Maps, perhaps one of my reader’s may be able to enlighten me from the photograph’s below 🤷‍♂️ On this particular trip we were on the ‘Starboard’ (Right) side as we headed South, so Mainland France was on our ‘Port’ (Left) side, the sea was so calm, it was sunny and the view quite clear so we could see what looked like a Church on the smaller of the two Islands, quite possibly a sanctuary for those who found themselves shipwrecked, but the other looked as though it was inhabited.

On the morning of arrival, because it is early, they wake you up by playing a soft musical tune through the speakers, this allows you to get up, get sorted, grab an early breakfast if you want one, we never do, and then wait until the announcement is made to vacate your cabin. I quite enjoy watching the ferry as it enters the outer harbour and sails serenely past the beaches, houses and shops until it gets into the Inner harbour and docks.

We had arrived in Santander on time, perhaps even a few minutes early and, although there was the usual delay before we finally disembarked the boat we were through the Immigration check-points quite swiftly, and heading towards the ‘Customs’ checks and ‘Search’ area. We approached slowly, giving the officials no excuse for thinking that we were in any hurry to avoid them, there were already several vehicles in the search area and we could see the occupants emptying their car boots, so whether it was because we were driving a Spanish Registered vehicle or not, I do not know, but they payed no heed to us whatsoever and we just drove through 😮‍💨🙏 Outside of the Port area and clear of the city, we headed on to the first of the many ‘Toll Free’ motorways we would take on this journey, it was 08:45am and we were on our way. I anticipated getting home at around 7pm, but that would be very much dependent on any traffic delays, which here in Spain is extremely unlikely and, how many stops we made along the route. With the issue with my eye now no longer an issue, we would both take a share with the driving and I have to say I was more than ready to get back behind the wheel, but Shazza had taken the first stint so I just sat back and enjoyed the views, the car virtually knew its own way home by now anyway and so it wasn’t long before Shazza had set the ‘Cruise Control’, relaxed and enjoyed the almost empty roads. We had a full tank of fuel, so we knew that we could complete over half the journey without having to stop and re-fuel again. The chill though was very noticeable, with the low clouds still lurking in the valleys and on the tops of the forested areas, it was 6 degrees(c) as we climbed up into the mountains, but we knew that it would not be long before the temperature would rise through the mid-teens to the low twenties, the Spanish ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast the evening temperature at home to still be 22 degrees(c) and sunny at 8pm with sunset not until 10pm 😎 We were prepared and, for the first time in a month, we were back into our shorts and tee-shirts, sheer bliss. Although to be fair, the weather in the UK during our trip has been magnificent but sorry folks, we are taking it back home with us 🤭

We did meet one diversion where we had to leave the motorway, due to re-surfacing work on all three lanes on our side of the motorway, but it was only for around 10km and we were diverted on to a major ‘N’ Road, so it didn’t create any real delay. We stopped briefly on four occasions, just for comfort breaks and once to re-fuel, we both took two stints behind the wheel and we finally pulled into our car park at home at 6:30pm that Wednesday evening. I can neither confirm, nor deny, whether Luis Hamilton, and co-driver, stuck religiously to the national speed limits 🙄 However, this was the quickest time, 9 hours and 45 minutes, with stops, that we have ever completed this journey, it must have had something to do with the new Michelin Sports tyres that I had just had fitted whilst in the UK 😂

Finally, just to finish off this series of rambles, and to what has been very nearly a month of being away from home, the Plumber arrived the following ‘afternoon’, not 10:00am in the morning as arranged, ‘Manana Manana’ and all that 🤷‍♂️ but we do now have a new water boiler and lashings of hot water. We arrived home to discover that our local Reservoir sits at literally just below 100% of its capacity, our Swimming Pool has now been re-opened for use and all drought restrictions in our Province have been lifted so, all’s well that ends well, as the saying goes 😉

Until the next ramble, whenever that may be 🤷‍♂️

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

After a bit of a whirlwind first couple of weeks back in the UK, which had involved driving a lot of road miles, after returning from our Lancaster and Morecombe trip we decided on having a quiet weekend, our final week would not be as frenetic but there were still things that we wanted to do ourselves. We had pre-ordered lots of ‘goodies’ from Amazon which had now all been delivered. We had known before departing Spain that we would have a car boot full on the return trip, so had limited our outward trip to just the essentials, two small aircraft cabin bag sized suitcases and our two individual rucksacks, but my concern wasn’t fitting it all in, which would be a challenge in itself, but more the fact that some items would, if checked by the Spanish Authorities, potentially attract ‘Customs Duty’ (Small hand held Electrical Appliances) or in fact be considered as ‘Prohibited Items to Import’ (Shazza’s Plant Based foodstuffs, Oils and other ingredients for cooking) but we had agreed that for once we would take the risk 😳

Shazza and I have always been law abiding citizens throughout our whole lives and never risked even the most minor of demeanours, however, it seems to us that it is always the honest individuals that seem to be the only one’s to get shafted by the Authorities, easy targets. On this one and only occasion it wasn’t actually as if we were smuggling drugs, weapons, explosives, people or, heavens forbid, cheese and ham sandwiches into the country 😲 All very serious offences without any doubt, but all of which seem to go unpunished, due mainly because it would appear that the Authorities do not have the time, inclination or perhaps the manpower resources to deal with the real and actual perpetrators of such crimes 🤷‍♂️ So, although our stomachs may be churning inside our bodies, we would attempt to put on our innocent and smiling faces, as we pass through the ‘Control Points’ and trust that they just wave us through 😳🫣 Then perhaps we may need to stop at the nearest rest stop and change clothes after what will, without any doubt, be yet another ‘brown trouser moment’ to add to our previous list of similar moments during our former Motor-homing experiences 😂 Anyway, what is the worst that could happen to us if we were to get stopped and searched 🤔

On the Monday we set off early, with Shazza’s mum, to drive the short distance to ‘Meadowhall’, a large shopping complex on the outskirts of Sheffield. Before we had departed Spain we had both conducted an inventory of our wardrobes and agreed that we were both now in need of some modern replacements, although we wouldn’t throw away those cast off’s, we were sure that the 1970’s fashion items would become fashionable again, at some point in the future 🤭 We had each made a list of our requirements, comfortable casual footwear (Sketchers), casual shirts, shorts and lightweight jackets for the cooler Spanish Autumn and Winter periods (Hoodies or Fleeces). We do not tend to treat ourselves to new clothes very often, only when really required, or when buying something for a special occasion, like we had to do for our daughter’s wedding celebrations in Austria last Summer. We do not generally buy each other gifts for Birthday’s, Anniversaries or even at Christmas as, if we need anything, like new Kindle’s, Phone’s, iPad’s, or even Colognes and Perfumes, we just buy them as we need them 🤷‍♂️ So this clothes shopping extravaganza would be a real, and very rare, treat for the both of us 🤗

The Tuesday was a day off for me, giving me an opportunity to try and continue to catch up with drafting another one of these rambles 🙄 Not being a professional literary author, I am not one to carry a pocket book in which to write notes as we go about our travel adventures, so I hoped that my memory, and photographs taken, would still be good enough to prompt me in to remembering all the things that we had done, the places we had visited and some of the things along the way that we had heard or observed. Shazza on the other hand had her own day off, well at least from driving, as her mum and her two sister’s, Shazza’s Aunt’s, live locally and all three have a weekly day out, shopping and going for lunch and coffee, so Shazza, after very recently attaining the special status of joining the elite 60’s club, joined in with this small ‘purple rinse’ group 🤭

The Wednesday was a much more productive day for me, it was time to give the car a thorough clean. In Spain, due to the nature and impracticalities of the location of our apartment, more so the distance of the car parking arrangements for the ferrying of buckets of water back and forth, it means that cleaning the car entails driving it to the local car wash, which actually does a reasonable job on the exterior, but nowhere near as good as I would do it by hand, and there are no hoovers available for doing the interior. Whilst I do always pay for the highest level of car wash, which includes a coating of wax, the wax spray nozzles are not powerful enough to apply any wax to the rear of the car, so this was an opportunity for me to do a complete clean of the interior, give the outside a good wash and then hand apply a good coating of wax. However, whilst we were personally enjoying the lovely hot and sunny weather, it was not so good for washing or waxing the car as both the water, and the car wax, dried out very quickly leaving dried water streaks, and hard wax deposits on the car, so I was restricted to doing it over the next two much cooler morning periods and, I also already knew that, after our long drive back to Southern Spain, it would probably be just as bad again and covered, from bonnet to boot, with encrusted insect remains 🤷‍♂️

Shazza on the other hand wasn’t having a completely restful day, as she was catching up with all the laundry we had amassed on our travels, and of course the ironing, but at least we were not now driving all around the country, perhaps we should suggest to all our family members that they should move and all live in the same one location 😂. In between times, we had also cut her mum’s ‘three’ lawns, twice, repaired her leaking toilet cistern, attached a new lock to her bathroom door and ordered and hung a new set of bedroom curtains, you wouldn’t think that she had three grown up son’s who all live within a thirty minute drive away 🙄 All the days we do spend staying at her mum’s, Shazza does all the cooking, don’t misunderstand me, this is not either of us complaining, after all her mum is nearly 83 year’s young and so has difficulty in doing ‘some’ of these things for herself, but it is simply the reason why we do not consider coming back to the UK to visit, as being an actual ‘Holiday’ as such for us. We also realised that in fact, three weeks in the UK is too long a period, we could have done everything in just two weeks and were now just stretching things out to kill a bit of time before reporting to our pre-booked return ferry home. It wasn’t as if we wouldn’t be seeing family again soon either, as one of her Aunts, and Uncle, who we had seen a couple of times already on this trip, would be coming out to stay with us for a week within just three days of us returning home and, we had just booked the flight tickets for her mum to come and stay with us again, for two weeks in October. But we were also reading reports that the Airport at Doncaster, just a shortish 15-20 minute drive from her mum’s house, and which had closed only a few year’s ago, which had previously had direct flights to and from Malaga, was to re-open in the Spring of next year, so perhaps on our next visit, instead of the long drives, we will just catch a flight from Malaga to Doncaster and hire a car from the airport upon our arrival 🤔 Although that would have one distinct disadvantage in that we would not be able to bring as much contraband back home with us 😂

Over the next couple of days I finished cleaning the car, had got the pre-ordered new tyres fitted and, I even had time to go and get a haircut, which would save me a job once we returned home. We had also sorted, and re-packed, our ‘additional’ luggage items ready for loading into the car. So we had a free day on the Friday, our last day at Shazza’s mums, so we decided to take a short trip to a local historical stately home and gardens, and then have a nice lunch out somewhere, before going back and secreting the contraband, packing the car ready for the start of our journey down to the South of England 🤭

In the numerous year’s that we have been travelling and staying at Shazza’s mums, including the numerous year’s when we actually lived in the UK, I had never heard my beloved ever make a mention of ‘Cusworth Hall & Park’, which is only a very short drive away from Doncaster. The other amazing revelation to me was that entry to the House and Gardens were completely ‘Free’, ‘My Most Favourite Word In Any Dictionary’ 🤗 Although, I had reservations on just how good it would be if they were not charging an entrance fee, something almost entirely unheard of in the UK 🤔

We pulled up into the large car park and Okay, they lied, for there was an actual fee to park the car, but even that charge was very reasonable and very much less than the cost of one cup of medium sized ‘Latte’ at Costa Coffee 😂 The grounds looked quite vast but our first stop was the house. Now the house itself does of course have some history attached to it, being built in the 1700’s, and it now has ‘Listed Building’ status and is a museum, but my brief on-line research, before my eyes fully glazed over, didn’t reveal any earth shattering revelations that I could astound you my reader’s with, all I will say to any history buffs reading this is, go and check out what ‘Mr Wikipedia’ and ‘Mr Google’ have to say about it but don’t even think of blaming me when your eyes start feeling heavy 😴

Although Shazza had been here on a previous occasion, very many year’s ago as a child, when I suspect the park and gardens had more adventure appeal than the actual house, she was quite excited this time around to get inside and have a good nosey around the place. Now I do not normally take too much interest in such places myself, however on this occasion I was actually quite surprised and rather enjoyed it, probably because each room showed the different periods of its, and the immediate local area’s, history.

What was unusual to see in this particular residence was that they had made replica displays in the kitchen, scullery and laundry room areas, which we were able to wander in and out of, whereas normally, in the majority of Stately homes, the below stairs areas are not accessible to the public.

From the kitchen we decided to do the ground level first before proceeding to the second floor, although if you look at the external photo of the house it shows a third upper floor level, for which public access was not permitted 🤔 Probably because that was where the ‘ghostly spirits’ took their coffee breaks 👻🤭

There was room dedicated to the history of the early justice system, from the medieval periods up to the inception of the official uniformed Police Service. I have to confess that I found the information in the displays quite interesting although, having seen some of the punishments for things like stealing a loaf of bread, it made me wonder what our punishments would have been like in respect of our own upcoming future minor misdemeanours 😳 Although there was one offence, during the medieval period, which had a punishment well deserved, and I personally believe that this particular one should be continued right up to this present day 🫣

Now sometimes, visits to such historical places can end up being very enlightening, I mean I can remember as a child, and right up to this modern day, eating ‘Nuttall’s Mintoes’ sweets, and never thinking once about where they came from, but it wasn’t until this particular day’s visit that I realised that they were invented in Doncaster 😲 A good job they were not invented in ‘Nuneaton’ then, I thought to myself, or they may never have seen the light of day and have been enjoyed by millions for over a century 😉

Now, if I thought that this revelation about ‘Nuttals Mintoes’ was informative, my curiosity was raised even further when I saw, locked behind a glass fronted exhibition case, what looked, at first glance, to be a pretty boring water jug. But what made it interesting to me was the inscription upon it…………

We spent a little more time popping our heads into various other rooms, costumes and jewellery worn by the ladies through the decades, the two great World Wars and the role of the Hall and it’s other buildings during those periods, then as we moved forward into the 60’s and 70’s era, there were household accessories, domestic equipment and products that even I began to recognise as being common place in my own parents households when I was a teenager 😳 It was time to get out of there before I came to a room showing the future 😲 We made a brief stop at the Cafe and enjoyed some ‘more up to date’ tasty delicacies to have with our coffee’s, before we took on the challenge of the Park Grounds, where Shazza’s mum wisely elected to perch on a bench and wait for us to return, I think it was one of the groundsmen we stopped to chat with who referred to one of the walks as ‘Heart Attack Hill’ which had been instrumental in her decision 😂

There were so many different walks around the vast grounds, that we could have stayed here for hour’s and, other than the Cafe, which we had sampled earlier, their was also a micro brewery on the site with a small ‘Pub’ with an additional seating area in a small walled courtyard, however, visitor’s were also encouraged to bring their own picnics and sit on the grass overlooking the scenic lakes and enjoying the long reaching views across the fields to the outskirts of the city of Doncaster. Shazza and I strolled around the perimeter path of the lakes, enjoying seeing Canada Geese, Mallards, Moorhens and a couple of Swans, before we walked back up ‘Heart Attack Hill’ to re-unite with her mum. To be honest, although she certainly would not have managed it, for us it actually wasn’t as bad as it sounded, or perhaps we really are fitter than we think 🤷‍♂️ Overall, and I can say this in all honesty, that what I thought was going to be a bit of a boring day out for myself, actually turned out to be a wonderful day out and I once again asked Shazza why she had not brought me here before ? She said that she didn’t know why, although perhaps, I thought to myself, she may have had memories from her younger days when she may have came here on previous romantic interludes. I didn’t press her on the matter, some memories are best kept to one’s self 😉

As we returned to the car, Shazza’s mum mentioned remembering that there used to be quite a large Garden Centre very near to where we were, although she had not been there for year’s she said, so didn’t know if it would still be there. I checked on ‘Google Maps’ and discovered that it was, so, as this would be our final day with her, and not seeing her again until she visited us in Spain in the Autumn, we took a detour and spent a good hour at the huge garden centre, one which sold everything, and not just for the garden, we even bought a large home-made treacle tart, which Shazza said she would heat up and we could have with a tin of thick creamy Devon Custard for supper 😋😋

We had been out since the early morning and it was now late afternoon, apart from the brief snack at the Cafe at the Hall, we hadn’t eaten anything else and we were all ready for something substantial to eat. This time it was me that remembered an establishment where we had all visited before, a couple of times in fact on some of our previous trips here, it was spacious, the staff were friendly and the food, from what I could remember, was basic, but delicious, ‘Pub Grub’ with several Vegan options for Shazza which didn’t include a Goats Cheese Salad 😉 We agreed unanimously, albeit it would normally have been a traditional Friday takeaway Fish & Chip supper evening. On the way to the eatery I sent a text message to ‘Michel’ (He was actually French and not Spanish) and was the Plumber in Spain, just to confirm that he was still coming to fit a new water boiler for us on the following Thursday, the day after we returned home. Within a couple of minutes he sent a text saying, ‘Yes 👍 Will be there at 10:00am’, so that was another thing that had been whirring around inside my mind that I could now forget about. God help me if I ever get Dementia, I thought to myself, that would certainly make my OCD Buddy redundant 😂

We were all pleased to get home, we were exhausted, it had been a long day, but Shazza and I still had a final task to complete, the loading of the car and an almost certain jigsaw puzzle that would undoubtedly involve us filling every available inch of space. However, we consoled ourselves in the knowledge that we have been here before, several times in fact, when we first purchased our apartment and were carting lots of personal household stuff across, although that was in our then much smaller car, so this should be a breeze, shouldn’t it 🤔 We actually did get it all packed away quite quickly, except for the final few bits, but they would fit into our rucksacks which would go behind the front seats. Then, we sat and enjoyed our warm treacle tart and custard, washed down with a mug full of hot strong tea, we both exhaled, the long trip was nearly over, our journey South would commence the following morning. Then once home we could sit on our sun-filled balcony, looking out over the sea views and just relaxing. Well, we would, after we had unpacked at the other end, Shazza had got the laundry sorted, we had done the shopping to re-fill the food cupboards and the refrigerator, got the water boiler fitted and working and then, got ourselves and the apartment ready for our guests impending arrival 😮‍💨 We agreed that perhaps after that, we would need a holiday ourselves to recuperate from our ‘Holiday’ 🤔 or better still, just remain here in Spain in our own permanent holiday location and accommodation, bugger the adventures, well at least until the next one 😂

Our current journey continues, but is nearing its conclusion……

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

After we had our breakfast in the hotel with our friends on the Friday morning, we wished them farewell and a safe journey back to their home in Scotland. Although we do frequently keep in touch, via text and video chats, we had not physically seen them for some time, so it had been nice to meet up with them once again and have a proper ‘Face Time’ catch up.

As I mentioned in my last ramble, we had decided for our last full day to drive the short distance, all of ten minutes from Lancaster, to the small seaside resort of Morecombe, which is famous for being the birth place of one part of the legendary comedy double act that was ‘Morecombe and Wise’.

I do not know how famous, Internationally speaking, that the comedians ‘Morecombe and Wise’ were, but in the UK, especially with people from a certain era, myself included, they were truly comedy legends. Their real names were Eric Bartholomew and Ernest Wiseman, but after a less than successful start to their comedy act using their real names, they changed the name of their act, Eric took the name of his home town of ‘Morecombe’ and Ernest, from Leeds, shortened his first and last name and for some reason it worked 🤷‍♂️ However, sadly, they have now both passed away.

The ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast another chilly but sunny start to the day, with temperatures once again warming up nicely as the day went on. I have to say once again that so far we had been really lucky with the warm weather on this trip, on some days it had been hotter here in the UK than across in Spain, but we also knew how blustery coastal locations can get, so we took our lightweight rain jackets, more for protection from the wind than from any prospect of seeing any of the wet stuff. I guess I should also just mention here that we had also been lucky for another reason, now whether it was the responsibility of our own ‘Dark Forces’ that tend to stalk us quite regularly, or some other dark and sinister force, but it seems that we had timed our trip well, as back in Spain, as well as some parts of Portugal and Southern France, their had been a major power outage bringing all of Spain to a virtual standstill, Transport, Banking Institutions, Retailers and, with no electrical power the water pumping stations could not function either, so no electricity and no domestic water for anyone 😲 The Spanish Government were conducting an investigation into the cause of this major outage to its critical infrastructures but had quickly issued a statement ruling out a ‘Cyber Attack’, so what were they not telling us 🤔 Within the next twenty-four hours the majority of the country had its power and water supplies restored. So how lucky where we to have been in the UK when this had happened and had managed to escape becoming victims of such a major inconvenience 🤔 I must admit, Shazza and I mused over the fact that we were still waiting for the third ambush from our own ‘Dark Forces’, but surely they couldn’t be responsible for this, could they ? If it was, then we would have outfoxed them yet again and they would not be happy, so we had better continue to remain extremely vigilant.

Anyway, we parked up in an inexpensive ‘Pay and Display’ car park, right opposite the seafront promenade but some way outside the main part of the town, around about a forty-five minute walk which would provide us with ample opportunity to get some more much needed exercise, Shazza informed me that we had done over 17,000 steps the previous day, which to be honest didn’t mean much to me, my legs had told me all I needed to know 😮‍💨 We had timed our arrival just right as the tide was in, if we hadn’t we would have required to look through binoculars to see it, as the British tides mean that when the sea recedes it goes out for miles. The beach areas outside of the town were mainly pebbles with rocky outcrops, which were always good fun for children going rock-pooling and, there was also a natural sea water swimming pool, but a bit too cold for a dip just at the moment 🥶 Not that we had brought our ‘swimmers’ with us and I certainly wasn’t going to go ‘Skinny Dipping’, we leave that sort of thing to the French 🤭 We were both quite pleasantly surprised as we got closer to the main town seafront, as we discovered a long stretch of golden sandy beach which we imagined would be full during the much warmer Summer holiday periods.

Shazza and I hadn’t known what to expect from this small seaside town on the Lancashire coast. It certainly didn’t have much of the glitz that its much more famous neighbour commanded, but actually we found ourselves rather liking it. We found the seafront very clean and tidy, their were a handful of hotels and traditional ‘Bed & Breakfast’ establishments, Ice cream parlours, fish ‘n’ chip shops, Cafe’s, Tourist Tat shops, but they were not ‘in your face’, as in many of the larger more popular seaside resorts, no, Morecombe had a sort of rustic olde worldly sort of charm to it. The public garden areas that lined parts of the promenade were kept immaculate, very neat and tidy with flower beds strewn with colourful shrubs and flowers, which enhanced the sort of yester-year feel about it. After our longish walk into the main area of the town’s seafront we found a small ‘Costa Coffee’ and went in and grabbed a couple of medium sized Latte’s, although we soon discovered that there was nothing yester-year about the prices here 😲

Behind the charming seafront though it was a very different story, apart from a very large and modern ‘Morrisons Supermarket’, there was a lot of empty shops, with graffiti now scrawled all over them, the town had certainly seen better days but now looked impoverished and a bit sad, but that said, the people that we spoke to were friendly enough and engaged in the usual pleasantries, when prompted of course. We had been a bit mischievous, greeting people we met with a smile and, “Buenas Dias”, but they all responded with a smile in return and said “Hello” back to us, we were the one’s who were quite amazed, we hadn’t anticipated people in this Northern English town understanding Spanish, although it may have been because it had a Yorkshire accentuation to it 😂

Shazza and I quite liked the feel of the place, of course there was the sea, that always got a deserved a tick in the box from us, although it was more of a muddy brown colour rather than our more normal Mediterranean Blue, but it sounded just the same as it washed over the beach and pebbles and so, if we shut our eyes, with the warm sunshine on our faces, well we could have been on any beach in any part of the world really 🤷‍♂️ Across the estuary were the lush green mountains of the nearby Lake District, and it had a long promenade so a good source of daily exercise potential if you wanted it. Morecombe may not have had much in the way of retail therapy opportunities, but certainly more than enough to suffice for one’s daily needs and, with Lancaster being a short car journey, bus ride or even train journey away, and yes it did have it’s own rail station, so it was not difficult to get to a full range of retail therapy outlets. We both concluded that Morecombe could actually be an ideal location for those of a fit, mobile and otherwise healthy disposition, people of say a certain age, to while away one’s senior year’s 🤭 But, for now at least, we were not looking for an alternative retirement location to the one we were currently enjoying, no, we were just exploring yet another one of the many places that we had never visited before and subsequently ticking it off our ‘To Do List’, albeit, until now, Morecombe had never appeared on any such list 😂

Now of course, as mentioned earlier in this ramble, the town had a famous son, and so it was only right and proper that it would have erected an appropriate statue in his honour,and so, no visit to Morecombe would be complete without seeking it out.

As I am sure you can imagine, there must be hundreds of locals, and visitor’s alike, who have stood next to this brass iconic statue and had their photographs taken, many simulating the now famous pose. To be honest, personally speaking, I think it would have been a little ‘cheesy’ and lacking of any personal finesse to have had a photograph taken in such a manner myself, ………………….but hey, you have read my rambles for long enough by now, to know that I don’t possess any personal finesse and actually, I do ‘cheesy’ poses next to bronze statues very well I will have you know 😂

As we wandered back along the promenade we both found ourselves singing the famous song, sung at the end of each one of the duo’s weekly comedy TV programmes and strangely enough, it was one of the songs that I used to sing regularly, come rain or shine, when I was sat on the tractor doing my daily morning ‘bin emptying runs’ when we both used to work as Campsite Wardens, fortunately I was wearing ear defenders so most of the time I pretended that I couldn’t hear the abuse from the camper’s as I drove past their caravan pitches. “What did you do with the money ?” One camper had shouted out to me, “What money ?” I responded, “The money your mother gave you for singing lessons”, ‘cheeky blighter I thought to myself, so I drove on, singing even louder over the noise of the tractor engine 😂😂

🎶 Bring me sunshine in your smile, Bring me laughter all the while,

In this world where we live there should be more happiness,

So much joy you can give to each brand new bright tomorrow.

Make me happy, through the year’s, Never bring me any tears,

Let your arms be as warm as the sun from up above,

Bring me fun,

Bring me sunshine,

Bring me Love 🎶

The tide had already started to recede, so our view from the promenade back to the car was of just mud and marshland, “We have just completed 10,000 steps”, Shazza announced as we arrived back at the car, “Just another 7,001 then, to beat yesterdays tally” I said with a smile and a wink, her response was not suitable to put in print in this ramble 😂

We went for breakfast on our final morning before checking out of the hotel and then we commenced our journey back to Shazza’s mums in South Yorkshire, it was another sunny morning and, although another chilly start, at least we had the warmth from the car heater until the sun shining through the windows warmed it up enough to turn it off. Shazza had elected to drive yet again, although I had assured her that my eye issue appeared to be a lot better now and I was happy to take a stint behind the wheel. Whatever had caused the inflammation seemed to have been cleared up with the eye-drops that I had been religiously administering since leaving home, however, she said that she was happy to drive. I was more than happy as it meant that I could once again enjoy looking out of the windows at the wonderfully scenic views and, although it was the same route back, the views from the other side of the road were different.

So, in our first two weeks of being back here in the UK, all of our family and friend’s visitations had been completed, except of course the return visit to our Grandaughter’s on our way back to the ferry in a little over a week’s time. However, before then we still had a few things left to do, but I will leave them for a future ramble 😉

Our journey continues………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Other than our long time friends, Paul and Debs, whom I mentioned in my last ramble, who we briefly met up with in Portsmouth when we arrived, we also have some other long time friends, Dougie and Avril, who live up in Scotland and who we also regularly keep in touch and meet up with, in both the UK and Spain, whenever the opportunities arise. Before we left Spain we agreed to meet up with them again whilst we were back here in the UK, and after consulting the map, trying to identify a mutually convenient location, we agreed on the small city of ‘Lancaster’ in Lancashire, a place that neither of us had visited before so, on the day after visiting my mother down in Lincolnshire we once again got back on the road, this time a journey North West across the Pennines, a range of hills that divide the County of Yorkshire (White Rose Country) from the County of Lancashire (Red Rose Country). Those who have an interest and knowledge of ‘English History’, particularly over the ‘Tudor Period’, will be aware of the ‘War of the Roses’ which started on the 22nd May 1455 and lasted until the 16 June 1487, even today, some 570 years later, there continues to remain an intense rivalry between the two Counties. Although it has to be said that these days that rivalry is reflected more when it comes to competitive Sporting events. However, and just to be on the safe side, what with Shazza and I both having Yorkshire accents, we thought it probably wise if, when out in public in this foreign territory, it would probably be best if we spoke in Spanish and let our Scottish friends take the brunt of any English/Scottish border rivalries 😂😂

Before we commenced our journey North we made a brief stop at a local, and highly recommended, tyre depot. I had decided that before returning to Spain that I would change all the tyres on the car, which is now four year’s old, for although we may not actually need to do so for several more months, it would probably be easier to get it done here as I wanted to get a professional opinion on which alternative brand may be better than the ‘Continental Sports’ that I already had fitted on the car. Attempting to have that sort of conversation at a tyre depot in Spain, with my poor level of conversational Spanish, could very possibly end up causing confusion and ultimately something getting lost in translation 🤷‍♂️ Now you would imagine that the UK tyre dealer would obviously want to lead me towards the more expensive brand, which in this case was my preferred choice of ‘Michelin Sports’. However, he said that both brands were actually good quality tyres and it was down to my own personal preference, although in his opinion the Michelin brand was the harder wearing, with less road noise and they had additional load bearing capacity over the Continentals, but they were £25 per tyre more expensive. I selected the Michelin brand, at which point he smiled then informed me that Michelin were actually commencing a new promotion on their tyres, but it did not start until the 1st day of May, which was the following week, but it would save me £25 on each tyre, making them exactly the same price as the continentals 🤷‍♂️ so ‘A Perfect Win Win Outcome’. I ordered the tyres for fitting on the first day of the promotion, which would be four days before we would commence our return home journey to Spain 👍

There were two things that we have found that haven’t changed here in the UK, one is the sheer amount of traffic on the roads, whether it be on Major motorways, Dual carriageways or even normal ‘A Class’ roads and the other, the very familiar road decorations, namely the miles and miles of red traffic cones and roadworks, but I guess when you think about it, the two things do logically go hand in hand, with lots of traffic consistently using the roads then the road surfaces are constantly needing to be repaired, ‘A Never Decreasing Circle’ 🤷‍♂️

I know that I often tend to compare our old lives in the UK with our new lives in Spain, and although their are positives and negatives for both, the climate, and current beneficial economic advantages, tip the scales in the favour of the latter but, on saying that, and as we continue to drive through this extremely diverse and beautiful landscape of England on this trip, we found ourselves agreeing that if, for whatever reason, we felt the desire to return to what is our natural homeland, at some point in the future, then we would happily do so but, hopefully, by that time, perhaps the Political and Economic landscapes would have changed, for the better, for it appears to us that the promises made by the Politicians during the ‘Brexshit’ referendum in 2016 and the UK officially leaving the European Union in 2020, many of the promises made have, so far at least, failed to materialise and the country, purely from our own personal perspective, appears to have gone into a further steep decline 🤷‍♂️

Shazza elected to be duty driver, yet again, but I wasn’t complaining as it gave me the opportunity to look out at the varying landscapes as the busy M62 motorway sliced through the glorious and extensive Yorkshire Moors, the acres of dry stone walled fields that criss-crossed Saddleworth Moor, a place with a sinister past. The Moors murders were a series of child killings committed by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965. The victims were aged between 10 and 17, the bodies of two of the victims were discovered in 1965, in graves dug on Saddleworth Moor, a third grave was discovered there in 1987, more than twenty years after Brady and Hindley’s trial. Another body is also thought to be buried there, but despite repeated searches it remains undiscovered. Saddleworth Moor spans an area of some 29.4 square miles and reaches over 400 metres above sea level.

The dark stone buildings of the farm small-holdings dotted throughout this vast landscape punctuate the scenery, with thousand of ragged fleece lined sheep wandering up the steep moorlands. I catch a glimpse of a Motorhome away in the distance, the only indication and evidence of one of the numerous country roads that wind there way through this spectacular scenery and although it is a wild and desolate place in the Winter months, now, in late Spring, with the sunshine, it is just a mass of colour, differing shades of greens, browns, yellows, with white and purple heather stretching as far as the eye can see, the grey granite rocky outcrops against the blue of the sky above and, hidden from view, the numerous valleys, walking paths with fresh water springs, rivers and lakes along the routes. As we follow the Motorway route past the famous old towns of Rochdale and Oldham, with their Canals and old factory buildings reflecting a more affluent history we pass the Northern side of the city of Manchester and wend our way up towards Preston, with the undulating views and more dominant green colours of the ‘Forest of Bowland’ and then, as we approach our destination, we can see in the distance ahead of us, the peaks of Cumbria and the popular area that is ‘The Lake District’. Even just looking out of a car window at all of this amazing scenery that surrounds us is just so utterly relaxing, and it makes me think again of the lyrics of that song by Louis Armstrong, 🎶 I see skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed days, the dark sacred nights, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world 🎶

Even with the minor deviation at the start of our journey, all the Motorways, although very busy, were free flowing and we were making very good timing. Dougie and Arrival were also having an uneventful journey and making good time so, as we could not check-in to our pre-booked hotel in Lancaster, we agreed to meet for lunch at a Garden Centre in the grounds of ‘Ashton Hall’, just South and a few minutes outside of the city.

Ashton Hall was originally built and completed in 1381, although it was re-built in 1856, the only remaining feature of the original building being the tower that now forms the Southern Wing. The Hall and Land was purchased by Lancaster Golf Club in 1993 and other than the Golfing aspects, the Hall can be booked for Events.

After an enjoyable light lunch the four of us made our way to our pre-booked hotel accommodation. Whilst we prefer to use ‘Premier Inn’ accommodations whenever possible, unfortunately the one in Lancaster was fully booked so we had to use the ‘Holiday Inn’ which was virtually next door. Both occupied a nice riverside location with a convenient riverside walk which would take us into the heart of the city, approximately forty-five minutes away, the exercise would do us good and we hoped that Avril would be able to manage it, having very recently recovered from Cancer and the lengthy treatment that goes with it, fortunately she is in remission and is actually looking quite well. However, we were in no rush and could always stop if and whenever she needed to and we could always get a taxi back, if it proved a little too much for her. We spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing in our rooms and had selected a local Indian Restaurant for Dinner that evening, which Shazza said she would drive us to.

Having done a little bit of research on the area beforehand, I knew that there was the Lancaster Canal with a towpath walk, the Castle and Prison and a Museum that we could visit, as well as a wander around the city streets, although in reality Lancaster wasn’t the proportions of a major city, more the size of a traditional town. However, nearby, within only a short ten minute drive, there was also the old seaside town of ‘Morecombe’, just North of the much more popular and touristy resort of ‘Blackpool’, famous for its annual Christmas Illuminations, the Pier, and Blackpool Tower and a place that we have visited ourselves on numerous occasions over the year’s, well it would have been rude not to 🤭 However, having never visited Morecombe and, what with Shazza and I already beginning to have withdrawal symptoms, having been away from the coast, beach and sea for nearly three week’s now 😂 We planned to take a drive to Morecombe on our last day, after saying goodbye to our friends after breakfast, they were only staying for the two night’s and so allowing us a final day of sightseeing to ourselves.

It was a little chilly the following morning so, after a good breakfast in the hotel, we commenced our walk into the city wearing warm outer jackets, but the forecast was for a nice sunny and much warmer day. Dougie and I walked in front of Avril and Shazza, each of us catching up on our respective conversations, although our pace being slightly faster so occasionally we would stop and let the girls catch up, not because of Avril, who was managing the walk very well, more that the girls, whilst engrossed in conversation, found that their tongues were moving far faster than their legs 😂 Eventually we headed away from the riverside and headed towards the centre of town where we found a suitable place to stop and have a coffee, which we all needed. We had no real plan and just sauntered through the pedestrianised shopping streets until we came across the Museum, unfortunately, and pretty typical for us now, it just happened to be closed on the day of our visit 🤷‍♂️

On checking ‘Google Maps’ on our phone we discovered that the Castle and former Prison was open, and it was only a few minutes walk away so that was our next port of call. Looking across the street towards the entrance it looked quite impressive, and equally as impressive as we entered through the large arched entrance into the courtyard.

Of course, to visit the prison entailed an entry fee, why didn’t that surprise us 🙄 but it wasn’t the cost that prevented us from going inside, more the fact that the only tours available were ‘Escorted’ one’s, none of us ‘History Heathens’ liked those, we would have preferred to have just wandered at our own leisure, rather than having to keep stopping and listening to someone give us all the historical mumbo jumbo, each of us being selective on just how much information we wanted our ear’s to be bombarded with 🙄 anyway, needless to say we didn’t bother, we just wandered around the inner courtyard area, poked our noses into some open doors just out of curiosity and then sat in the now very pleasant and warm sunshine just chatting amongst ourselves and of course, taking the obligatory photo’s of each other, it would have been rude not to 🤭

After a spot of lunch we considered what else we could do, Lancaster also has a Canal and towpath walk, however, after checking ‘Mr Google’ it was located on the opposite side of the town from the riverside walk and another four miles walk back to the hotel. Avril certainly wouldn’t have managed that and was beginning to feel tired so they elected to go in search of a taxi. We arranged a time to meet up later and had selected a village pub, about a ten minute drive away where we would have Dinner.

Shazza and I decided to make our way back to the river and return to the hotel via the way we had walked in earlier that day, to be honest, we had not done very much walking over the last several days so we both wanted to get some exercise in. The river was tidal and so earlier that morning the tide had been in and the river flowing, we had seen rower’s from the local boat club going up and down, but on our return the tide was out.

It felt a lot longer walk back in the heat of the afternoon sunshine and we were looking for the pathway that led back to the hotel, however, before getting there we came across an Aqueduct that carried the Canal across the river, I hadn’t actually noticed it on the walk into town, probably too busy talking 🙄 There were steps leading up to it, we both looked at each other, deciding whether our legs would have the energy left in them to carry us up to the top, “It would be a shame not to” Shazza said, and so we took a deep breath and took on the challenge.

By the time we got back to our room in the hotel we were both heavy legged and knackered 😮‍💨 We had a nice hot cuppa and then engaged in that much needed Spanish tradition of taking a ‘Siesta’, albeit a little later than is usual. That evening we drove to the village pub and enjoyed a wonderful meal in tremendous surroundings, the menu may have reflected typical ‘Pub Grub’ but what was served was of a much higher standard, the perfect ending to our second day spent with some really dear friends. As they would be departing for their long journey back up to Scotland the following morning, we agreed to meet, a little earlier, to enjoy our last breakfast of the trip together.

Our journey continues………………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

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

It was Saturday morning, we were scheduled to board our ferry in Santander, on the North Coast of Spain, which is around a four hour drive from Segovia, but not until the Sunday afternoon. Had we have stuck to ‘my’ original itinerary and stopped off at Toledo first, then we would have had just a relatively short drive to Segovia and then had the full day to do some sightseeing, stayed overnight and then just headed straight up to the ferry on the Sunday morning. However, my beloved, having other ideas about our route arrangements, meant that we would now have to look for another place to stop on our route between Segovia and Santander. After studying the map, and not having too much time to take any major deviations from it, we realised that we had already visited most of the major places and, those that we hadn’t, well they were to be part of a ‘future’ combined sightseeing tour where we would spend perhaps a week or two in this part of Northern Spain covering four or five towns and cities. However, a bit of good timing had just happened to play a part in the choice for our next destination.

I regularly follow selected travel Vlogs on ‘You Tube’, either Motorhome or Sailing related one’s. A week before we left home I just happened to be watching one of my sailing Vlogs, they had very recently moored up in Santander and done a day visit into the city. Now Shazza and I have often caught ferries from, or returned to, Santander on very many occasions over the last twelve year’s or so, but we have never really explored the city itself in any great depth during those times, we were either in a rush to catch the ferry to the UK, or to get back home to Southern Spain. So, after watching the sailing vlog, which revealed much more to Santander than either of us had really appreciated, I suggested that this could be the perfect place to stop, we would have the Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning to explore, before then going to check in for our ferry at 1:45pm. Shazza gave her murmurings of approval then went on-line to research the accommodation availabilities. She had booked us a hotel right opposite the seafront and, according to Google Maps, only a five minute drive to the ferry vehicle check-in area. Additionally, and very conveniently, the hotel was just a two minute walk from the city centre and it had secure underground parking so, after a not such a good week, just prior to starting this trip, it seemed as though the stars were aligning for us once again, although to be honest we were still a little apprehensive waiting to see what the third thing would be that the ‘Dark Forces’ may have in store for us, but this time we were both on high alert and prepared for them. We had seen all the at sea disaster movies and ‘Titanic’, at least 5 times, so we knew how crowded the Lifeboats would be and, with Shazza not liking wet environments, we had planned ahead and brought ‘Kevin’ our inflatable dinghy with us, just in case we had to abandon ship, the bonus being that we knew from the British Media headlines over the last couple of year’s that, if we were anywhere near the French Coast in a dinghy, the French Coastguard would escort us safely into British waters and then contact the English RNLI ‘Who Would Come And Rescue Us’ 😂

I conducted the ‘Forrest Gump’ weather watch process out of the hotel room window and, much like the previous morning, the sky was grey, but thankfully it was dry 🙏 We decided not to bother with the buffet breakfast and agreed to just hit the road and get an early start, we would find a place to eat somewhere along our route where we could also re-fuel the car, so we checked-out of the hotel, put the luggage in the boot and off we went, it was 08:00am. My eye was a little blurry so Shazza elected to drive, we would swap later if my eye cleared. Just ten minutes into our journey we came across a small ‘Repsol’ service station, we much prefer using these branded fuel stations when in Spain, although at a push we will use ‘Cepsa’, ‘Shell’ or ‘BP’, although the latter two are always more expensive, however, this one did not have a Cafe so breakfast would have to wait. It would take us a little over an hour before we joined the main A62 motorway at Valladolid, which would then take us North towards our destination, the A62 being a very familiar road to us now. Although the road, until we reached the major motorway, was still all dual carriageway, it was traffic free and quiet, looking out at the changing rural scenery, forested areas, undulating arable fields and the occasional hamlets which were just stuck out in the middle of nowhere, it made the time pass extremely quickly. Once we had got onto the A62 the traffic increased, although compared with the UK motorways that we would soon encounter, in comparison these were always relatively quiet, anyway, we selected the first available services and stopped for breakfast, just our usual ‘Tostados’ and a coffee. Although the vision in my eye had cleared, Shazza said that she was more than happy to continue driving, the truth being that she can at times be a nervous passenger, especially when in busier traffic and, although she doesn’t voice it, I sense that she is probably much more concerned than she makes out about the slight impediment in the focus out of my right eye when in confined spaces, so she feels more comfortable when she is in control of the car. To be honest it works out quite well as she admits that I am better at navigating than her, she can then just concentrate on the actual driving, although I get the better end of the deal because in Spain, on long stretches of the motorway, there isn’t a lot of navigating to be done 🤭 It is strange really because, when we are at home, I generally do all of the driving in our local area, unless of course we are going supermarket shopping in the town where we have to park in the underground car park, which has subdued lighting and the fluorescent lights play havoc with my vision, it always reminds me of those scary murder mysteries that you watch, where several of the lights in dark areas always flicker, before a dark shadowy figure emerges from the gloom 🫣😳 but in my case it is just Shazza with her shopping bags.

We had made very good time in getting to our destination and although we didn’t really need to re-fuel again, just a few minutes outside of Santander we decided to just top up, the fuel being cheaper here in Spain than in the UK and, by doing so, it would mean that when we got to the UK that we would be able to drive from Portsmouth to Wiltshire, and then a few days later, drive up to South Yorkshire, before needing to re-fuel again.

Santander, being a major Port and Tourist City, was very busy with traffic, three lanes of bumper to bumper vehicles, but the hotel was easy enough to find with the aid of ‘Google Maps’ although, finding the entrance to the underground parking along a semi-pedestrianised back street was a little more complicated, and then we discovered that we needed to check-in first to get the electronic card to gain access to the car lift 🙄 Shazza waited in the car, whilst I went and did the check-in process and returned with the said electronic card, the lift descended us to the third subterranean level where our allocated parking bay was located.

The ‘Hotel Bahia’ was very plush and large, located just across the road from the seafront with a nice long promenade that led to a sandy beach, to one side was a lovely spacious park and just behind it were all the main shopping streets, dispersed between a combination of the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ buildings of the city, their were modern shops, Cafe/Bars and restaurants in pedestrianised streets whilst their were also other shops along narrow streets with traffic, criss-crossing busy one-way roads, then there were churches and old historical stone buildings that were now being utilised to accommodate official Government administrative offices, it was a bit of a maze really but typical of most Spanish towns and cities, hopefully we would get a chance to explore them later, once we had got settled into our room and had a coffee, all the makings, and kettle, were provided in this hotel room.

We had been allocated a room on the third floor that looked out upon part of the rear of the Cathedral and directly below the window, a pedestrianised area that had several Cafe/Bars, but we were high enough above so there was no noise. For security purposes we needed to use our electronic access room cards to operate the lifts, although we had not received any information on checking in to advise us of this, we were a little confused when the lift doors closed and then opened again only for us to discover that we were still on the ground floor level 🙄 When we eventually got to our room it was very spacious, as was the en-suite bathroom with its large walk-in shower, I thought to myself, we would have one of these ourselves, in just a few weeks time, when we had our en-suite bathroom completely renovated 🤗

We don’t know when the wet stuff had started, it was a fine drizzle so we hadn’t heard it on the windows and we had both been otherwise engaged, Shazza stuck with her nose in her Kindle and me surfing the Internet on my iPad, but we both agreed that we needed a breath of fresh air and we hadn’t eaten since our breakfast Tostado’s earlier that morning. Shazza had found a ‘Vegetarian’ Cafe on Google and it was only a two minute walk from the hotel, although it didn’t open until 8pm, but we thought we would do some sightseeing first and then call in and eat before returning to the hotel. As it was, as we passed the location of the Cafe, we discovered that it had recently closed down, although it had to have been very recently as the last on-line review had only been put on two weeks ago 🤷‍♂️

The drizzle turned into light rain and although we discovered the pedestrianised streets, they were not undercover, so we went in hunt of a suitable eatery to get us out of the rain and somewhere that would offer Shazza something other than a ‘Goats Cheese Salad’ 🙄 Fortunately, being a ‘Flexitarean’, I like that description because it makes me sound fit and youthful 🏋️💪🏃‍♂️🤭 but it means that I can eat anything, at any eatery, whether it be ‘Vegan’, ‘Vegetarian’ or otherwise, however, as Shazza had treated me to the ‘Suckling Pig’ restaurant in Segovia, I wanted to return the gesture by finding her somewhere where she had a few more healthier options.

It was beginning to get dark, it was wet, although not really cold and we had wandered up and down the numerous avenues and alleyways (I feel a Tony Christie song coming on 🤭) 🎶 I did what I did for my Shazza 🎶 😂 However, whilst there were plenty of Bar/Cafe’s and Restaurants, with the usual variety of Salad options there was nowhere that specialised in, or offered, a vegan type selection, grilled or roasted vegetables with a baked potato would have sufficed and the only establishments offering anything like that were those that sold Vegetarian ‘Pizzas’ 🤷‍♂️ In the end, Shazza’s stomach clock dictated that anything would do, even a ‘Veggie Burger’ and we fell upon a small little corner eatery that advertised speciality ‘Burgers’. It was quite a popular place with all age groups and with families and we were fortunate to grab the last unoccupied table. We liked it because it had a homely feeling to it, not a ‘Burger King’ or ‘McDonalds’ corporate fast food establishment and the list of menu items, both starters and mains fitted on to one sheet of A4 sized paper, presented to us on a cork clipboard. I had a house special which was, to me, just a normal thick ‘home-made burger’, thick slice of proper bacon, cheese and a mustard sauce, not a single lettuce leaf, sliced tomato or gherkin in sight and it was accompanied with a modest serving of proper ‘skin on’ thick cut chips, ‘Muy Sabroso’ (Very Tasty 😋) as we say here in Spain. Shazza had decided against a veggie burger and opted for the ‘Veggie Lasagne’ which unfortunately, whilst being full of melted cheese and pasta, lacked any of what should have been the ‘main ingredient’, the vegetables, so she had lucked out once again 😢 We decided to commiserate by opting for a dessert, Shazza ordered a slice of Chocolate Fudge Cake and me a slice of American Carrot Cake, what arrived looked and tasted ‘Delicioso’ (Delicious) but we only wanted a slice of cake, not a quarter of the whole cake 😲 We did the best we could but in the end we both failed to meet the challenges placed before us. The photo’s below are of what we both left !!

When we left the Cafe it was properly dark, although the rain had stopped and the streets were buzzing with life, the Cafe/Bars were pretty busy and even in the damp night air the ambience was infectious, so much so that we just wandered aimlessly taking it all in.

We had slept well and awoken early but were greeted with heavy rain tapping on the window. We were disappointed as we had hoped to do some sightseeing during the morning, before having to check-out at 12pm and then reporting to Brittany Ferries for our 2:30pm sailing. We sat checking the morning news media on our iPads and my attention was grabbed by this particular headline………………

This had happened on the day that we had departed Segovia. At first I thought it was perhaps a suicide with the way the headline was worded, but reading the article it would appear that the man was taking a photograph from the viewing area when he lost his balance and fell. The thing is, the turreted wall at the viewing platform, where we too had taken some photo’s, is safe enough, unless you actually climb on to the wall to get a better photo, or perhaps try to take a Selfie with the Aqueduct in the background 🤷‍♂️ Whatever the circumstances, you have to ask what lengths, and risks, would you take for the sake of a holiday snap 🤔 I have to confess to you my reader’s, not even I would go to such lengths to provide you with better photographs in my blogs. Yes I already know what some of you may be thinking, self, self, self Eric 😂 However, at least you are safe in the knowledge that I am still here to continue to provide you with lots of future photographs from our travel adventures, I know, you don’t have to tell me just how grateful you feel about that 🤭

Fortunately the heavy rain eased to light drizzle by 10:30am and we decided to go for it, neither of us were hungry and we knew that, as we had booked access to the ‘Premier Lounge’ on the ferry, we could get a late buffet lunch once settled into our cabin.

Being a Sunday morning the streets were pretty quiet, the shops were closed, although a handful of small Cafe/Bars were open. We wandered towards the Cathedral but that was getting ready for the morning Catholic service, so we gave it a miss. It was nice to just amble through the streets and the nearby park, but we were not relaxed with having to keep one eye on the time with the knowledge that we had to complete packing the last bits into our cases and backpacks, we would leave the cases in the car once boarded and just take our backpacks and essentials up to our assigned cabin, but we needed to check-out, then go and retrieve the car from the depths of the underground car park before finding our way through the maze of one-way streets to the ferry terminal, to describe my OCD Buddy as being a bit nervous, bordering on irritable, knowing that we could not afford to wander aimlessly for too long, would be a bit of an understatement 🙄

To be honest, at this point it was damp, not particularly cold but we were just killing time, we walked across to the seafront, the sea looked nice and calm, but we knew that things could change once the ferry left the safety and protection of the inner harbour and entered the open water of the notoriously choppy ‘Bay of Biscay’. We had both had enough, to do the place justice we would perhaps need to return on another day, when it was both warmer and we would not be under such time restrictions, so we made our way back to the hotel.

We had assumed that the traffic on a Sunday would be less busy, we were wrong ! Even Google Maps couldn’t keep pace with the number of side streets, some traffic light controlled, causing the busy traffic to accumulate, other side streets were only one-way traffic, and those one way streets were not in the direction we wanted them to be, Shazza was getting a little overwhelmed having to keep her eyes going in all directions, the rear view mirror, door mirrors, side and front windows and so she missed my instruction to turn left at the appropriate time, so we ended up doing two circuits of the same streets, but at least we got to see buildings and shop fronts we had missed the first time around 🤭My next very clear navigational instruction was, “At the traffic lights, go straight across and then, immediately after the lights, take the slip road to the right”, unfortunately we were in three lanes of busy traffic and in her deep concentration she mis-heard me and turned right immediately ‘before’ the traffic lights and we ended up in a car park 😂 But all credit to her, Shazza never gets flustered, she maintained her calm, we both laughed and between us, eventually, we managed to navigate ourselves safely to the vehicle check-in huts at the ferry terminal. We smiled when we considered the fact that no other vehicle had ‘beeped’ us, not once, as we slowly and maybe just a little nervously, manoeuvred ourselves through the busy streets, and we could only assume that on another day, this may have been a different kettle of fish, if we had been displaying UK vehicle registration plates instead of our Spanish one 😂

As usual we handed over our Passports at the Immigration Control desk, but on this occasion they were open at the pages which displayed our Residency Visas, the friendly Official asked us for our ‘TIE’ Residency Cards, then checked them on his computer before inserting an exit stamp into our passports and passed them back saying, “Que tengas unas buenas vacaciones’ (Have a nice holiday). We didn’t have to wait too long before being boarded, then we got settled into our cabin before making our way to the ‘Premier Lounge’ where we enjoyed a spot of lunch whilst sat watching the ferry manoeuvre from the mooring and out to sea, through the large floor to ceiling windows, it was like being at the helm of the vessel myself. There was only the slightest of swells as we entered the vastness of the ‘Bay of Biscay’, it would be a 27 hour crossing, our next stop Portsmouth.

Our journey continues so, until the next ramble………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Looking at the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast before we departed home, it seemed as if it would be touch and go as to whether we managed to get to Segovia before the wet stuff arrived and, disappointingly, our planned full sightseeing day the following day also looked as if that could be a wash out too, so we both just crossed our fingers in the hope that it was just another one of their ‘brain fart’ predictions 🤭

We (Shazza) had decided to make an early start so, the night before our departure, she dusted off the alarm clock and set it for 6:30am 😲 We were pretty much organised beforehand though, I had already put our small individual cases, and a shopping bag of essentials 🤷‍♂️ into the car the previous evening so that we could get away promptly, and so it was that by 7:30am we were pulling away from the car park. Shazza had decided against wearing shorts, she doesn’t do wet or cold very well and having looked at the forecast for our destination she had talked herself into the safer option, albeit that it was already 17 degrees(c) and felt pretty warm when we departed with dawn just about breaking. With only around six pesky little black dots floating around in my eyeball, I had opted to take the first stint at driving, before the remaining members of the small fly family had awoken and joined them, I had planned on attempting to do around three hour’s before we made the first ‘mandatory’ Shazza breakfast stop, then we would change over driving duties. As it was I managed around two and a half hours before Shazza’s stomach clock required attention, although we also made a further two stops, but just for a coffee and ‘Comfort Break’. In the main the roads were relatively quiet, although getting around Estepona, Malaga and Madrid slowed us down a little more than we had anticipated due to the volume of traffic so, with our driving breaks, it ended up taking us a little over eight hours before eventually arriving at our pre-booked hotel in Segovia. Worth just noting, considering how I like to always mention the customary ineptitude of the ‘Works of Fiction’, from the very pleasantly dry and warm 17 degrees(c) when we departed, the temperature continued to rise steadily in the bright blue sun-filled sky all the way to Segovia, it was 21 degrees(c) when we arrived at 4pm and we had not seen a single drop of rain throughout the whole journey, so we agreed that shorts and tee-shirts would probably have been the better option 🤷‍♂️

The hotel was very nice and our allocated room, on the first floor, was clean, airy and spacious and overlooked a quiet back street. Surprisingly, neither of us felt that hungry so we decided to just relax in the room after a long drive and so we made ourselves a nice hot cuppa, we had brought our own supplies as usual as you can never guarantee getting them provided in the room, it had been a good decision.

Not knowing whether the ‘Works of Fiction’ would get it right, or wrong for the following day, we both agreed to get out and do as much sightseeing as we could in what was left of the daylight and sunshine and we both needed to stretch our legs after the long drive. According to ‘Google Maps’ on our iPhones, the city centre, and more importantly, the iconic ‘Aquaduct’, was only a thirty minute walk from the hotel. From the amount of traffic, and pedestrians, that were out and about, it was apparent that the ‘Siesta’ period was over and although normally we would just wander amongst the side streets and narrow alleys, we agreed this time to just follow the directions to the Aquaduct and then take it from there. There was quite a lot to see in Segovia, the Iconic Roman Aquaduct, is made up of 24,000 large granite blocks and they are joined together without any mortar. It has 160 arches and stands, at its highest point, 28 metres (93 feet), and amazingly it still carries water 16km (10 miles) from the ‘Frio River’ into the city. But there is so much more to see, such as Medieval Walls that skirt the city, Romanesque Churches, Cathedral, Alcazar and of course, as in most Spanish Towns and Cities the ‘Plaza Mejor’, some of which are more impressive than other’s but, just how much we will actually get to see in Segovia we didn’t know. Now, and, as you already know, Shazza and I are very much history heathens, but we do like looking at old impressive architectures like these, and no, before you even think it, with Shazza herself due to reach a milestone birthday in only a few days time, that doesn’t mean that these days we could both now just stand in front of the mirror to view some wonderful old architectural structures 🤭 What does impress us though is that these, and many other historical structures around the world, were built many thousands of year’s ago (Not of course referring to our own personal bodily structures) and they are still standing today, many of them still functional, but just how many of today’s modern structures will still be around in perhaps only a thousand year’s, let alone tens of thousands 🤔

Of course, standing at the bottom and looking up is good, but I wanted to get higher up and view it from there and that meant climbing steps, lots of them 😲 Their was a ‘Mirador’ (Viewing Point) but of course it involved waiting patiently in line, behind all the other tourists, until they had taken all of their obligatory ‘We were here’ photographs.

We were so impressed that we wandered along the base of the Aquaduct, to places that were devoid of people and not on the tourist route, but time was beginning to crack on, it was still quite pleasantly warm and we were in our short-sleeved shirts, although we had taken fleece-lined jackets with us, just in case the temperatures suddenly dropped or the forecasted wet stuff arrived. After we had exhausted viewing the Aquaduct from as many angles as possible it was time to begin our more usual exploration technique, we had got ourselves lost and disorientated, but rather than go to ‘Google’ we just agreed to wander and rely on each other’s instinct, once again that technique proved to be the best decision, as we saw lots of wonderful old style houses, churches and other religious looking buildings, hidden down the maze of cobbled streets and alleyways.

After a lot of ‘’shall we go this way’ decisions, combined with instinct, and probably quite a lot of just sheer luck, we found ourselves back in the much busier pedestrianised cobbled streets, so we once again joined the hustle and bustle, occasionally stopping to look in some of the food shop windows, I certainly put on a few kilo’s just salivating at all the meat products on display, local specialities along with the usual ‘Empanadas’ and Chorizo’s, but I resisted, although that may have had more to do with Shazza giving me a tug on my shirt as I headed nearer to the entrance, “I am just saving you from yourself” she said, with a grin and a wink, she was right of course because I have the willpower of a Gnat 🤭

We came to the end of this long but narrow street of shops and suddenly it just opened up in front of us, how fortuitous, the ‘Plaza Mejor‘ with cafe/bars and restaurants lining the square and, at one end, the large Cathedral, it was like a find one get one free offer 😂 By this time we were ready for some liquid refreshment and I can neither confirm, or deny, whether I may or may not also have suggested us partaking in perhaps a Tapa’s or two 😉 She talked me out of the Tapa’s bit by informing me that she wanted to treat me to a meal at a restaurant she had researched which had good reviews.

We should have known better, but we were both quite thirsty after our long meanderings, as well as being suckers for good people watching opportunities, the Plaza offered great views in the last of the evening sunshine and so it was that, not for the first time, we once again permitted ourselves to be mugged in broad daylight. We ordered two small beers, and yes they were cold and very refreshing, but I couldn’t recall having said to the waiter at the time of ordering that I had wanted to purchase shares in the establishment 😲 €9 for two ‘small’ beers, three times the price we would pay at home, probably a good job I hadn’t ordered the tapa’s although, upon reflection, I perhaps should have invested in a few shares in this establishment as they were certainly ‘milking’ the customer’s 🤔 “So where are you taking me for dinner this evening ?” I asked, which prompted her to give me the full song and verse but I will précis it for you, as Mr Google explains it quite well and much more concisely.

Although she had not booked a table at the ‘Jose Maria’ restaurant in advance, she told me that it was just around the corner and, if we couldn’t get a table at that particular restaurant then there were a couple of other establishments, not that far away, she assured me, that also had got good reviews. Now I have had plenty of ‘Hog Roasts’ over the year’s but I cannot recall ever having ‘Roast Suckling Pig’, so I wondered whether there would be a difference 🤷‍♂️

We managed to get a table, probably because although late for us to eat dinner, it was too early for the Spanish, so the place wasn’t that busy, perhaps the rather nice linen tablecloths and napkins had put off other tourists who may have felt under-dressed for such an establishment. We on the other hand knew, from our experience of living here in Spain that, other than for very formal occasions, their is no dress code, the Spanish enjoying a much more informal and relaxed dining experience, so although we were wearing jean’s and short-sleeved shirts we were not out of place. The uniformed waiting staff were very friendly and attentive and although we had spoken in Spanish we were a little bit miffed that they immediately spoke to us in English and presented us with menu’s also in English ☹️ I guess that with not looking Spanish, and them being more used to dealing mainly with ‘Tourists’, they had assumed that we fitted into that category 🤷‍♂️ We each selected a nice glass of red wine to accompany our meal and a starter to share, marinated roasted pepper served with white sliced onion, anchovies and a huge chunk of bread. Shazza went for a more ‘vegetarian’ option for her main course whilst I obviously went for the local delicacy of ‘Cochinillo’. Now when Shazza had this, several year’s ago when she was a meat eater, the baby piglet came whole in a ceramic dish and was accompanied with vegetables in a tasty broth and some nice crispy crackling. My version was served on a normal dinner plate, but only a leg, no vegetables of any description and the waiter ladled a clear broth over the top of it. Now I am used to Pork Crackling but whilst the skin on this portion was crisp, it was wafer thin and certainly not what I had envisiged. To be honest, it was quite underwhelming and when we did finally ask for the bill I nearly fell off my chair 😲 I can only assume that both Senor’s ‘Zuckerberg’ and ‘Rajoy’ have inferior gastronomy standards to our own. Shazza and I both agreed that it was not the experience that we had imagined it would be, we probably should have just stuck with a selection of nice tasty Tapa’s, but at the Plaza establishment which we had only just recently acquired shares in 🤭

By the time we had finished our meal and departed the restaurant it was dark outside, but still pleasantly warm, however we were tired and all walked out, it had been a very long day, so we headed back to the hotel, made ourselves a coffee and then went to sleep wondering what type of weather would greet us when we awoke the following morning 🤷‍♂️

We had both slept well and, when I took a peak outside the window I could see the wet road and pavement, although it wasn’t raining at the time, so it had fallen at some point during the early hours and, unlike the previous day, the sky was wall to wall grey cloud and when we checked the forecast it continued to show a full day of rain. We went down to breakfast, included in the price of the room, where they had all the usual buffet breakfast options, it would see us on until we decided what to do for the rest of the day. Having got back to the room we agreed to go out whilst it was dry but we would take our rain jackets instead of our fleeces.

The only place left on ‘my’ actual to do list whilst in Segovia was the ‘Alcazar’, Google maps showed it to be further away than the centre but still within a comfortable walking distance. It had been too late to actually visit the Cathedral the previous day, usually somewhere that Shazza likes to visit, and it would be on today’s route, but somewhat surprisingly she said that she wasn’t that interested really, “Seen one Cathedral seen them all really” she said quite nonchalantly. So we agreed that ‘It Was Worth The Risk’ to get out and just hope that the ‘Works of Fiction’ get it wrong once again, we certainly didn’t want to spend a whole day stuck in a hotel room, as nice as it was.

Once outside we found that although the sky was grey, it was actually quite warm and we had to take our rain jackets off and carry them. We took a slightly different route and just followed the old city walls, which took us straight to the Aquaduct Plaza location and then on to the Plaza Mejor and Cathedral, it seemed much quicker than the previous day’s wanderings 🙄 As we passed the Cathedral, which was now open to visitor’s, I checked again with Shazza to see if she had changed her mind about going in for a look around, “We do have all day to do sightseeing there is no hurry” I said to her, but she was quite adamant that she wasn’t really that bothered 🤷‍♂️ The plaza was eerily quite, lacking any real number of other people, only the odd one or two sat having morning coffee and croissants, we made an assumption that they were probably French tourists as we saw nobody eating either ‘Tostados’ or ‘Churro’s or a ‘Full English’. We wandered along a few narrow cobbled streets until we reached the lower walled ramparts, in several areas along the wall they had viewing platforms, from one of them we could see a side view of the ‘Alcazar’, but it didn’t look that impressive and I began to wonder whether it would be worth the effort once we arrived, as we had been disappointed at a few other Alcazaba’s that we had visited. Whether it was because we had left the protection of the tall buildings in the city, or because we were now in the open, but the temperature seemed to have dropped quite rapidly, forcing us to put our rain jackets back on, although it had still, so far at least, managed to remain dry.

I had looked on the Alcazar’s website the previous evening and saw that the entrance fee was €10 each, although to enter the gardens there was no charge, but neither were there any ‘advertised’ discounts for those who were classed as ‘Seniors’. We entered the spacious building where we needed to purchase our tickets, we had arrived early and so there was no real queue, just a couple of other’s in front of us. When it came to pay the person behind the desk asked if we wanted to go up the tower, we both just said ‘Yes’ but didn’t ask if that incurred an extra charge, not that it would have mattered, we may as well do and see everything now that we were there 🤷‍♂️ I handed over a €20 note and was surprised when they gave me our tickets and €4 change 🤔 I didn’t think anything about it at the time and just put the receipt in my wallet. Now we could have paid a little extra and got one of those ‘Audio’ thingies that give you certain facts and information during the non-escorted tour, but that would certainly have been a waste of money for us history averse heathens 🤭

It was quite enjoyable just wandering in and out of all the rooms and the balconies, climbing stone steps to get to different levels and most of the rooms had displays from the different historical periods, we discovered that whilst it was used as a Royal Residence at one point, but the Alcazar was later handed over as a Military stronghold and Training Acadamy, and is still managed by the military to this day. Although there was a lot of displays in respect of the military history, which we did both find interesting to look at, Uniforms, Weapons etc. but a lot of the information was probably wasted on us, however, those interested in Military History would certainly have enough to see and read here, enough to keep them occupied for a good few hour’s, there is no time restriction on your visit. The only time constraint is for the climb up the 152 steps to the top of the tower, which is done at certain time slots in order to control and limit the numbers ascending and descending the very narrow spiral steps.

The tower was the last part of our particular tour and we made our way back down to the front public gardens. Now at this point I decided to dispose of the payment receipt, pointless carrying it around in my wallet, but taking a final glance at it I couldn’t help but have a snigger, “What are you sniggering about ?” Shazza asked, “Well, you know how you always ask if there is a discount for Senior’s and then find some pleasure in pointing out that it is just for me ?” I replied, “Did they take it off automatically without asking how old you were ?” she said. “Yes, they did” I answered, “So why is that funny ?” She said with a questionable look on her face, “Well my love, they also gave you a Senior’s discount too”, and I gave out a chuckle, needless to say she wasn’t impressed. “Just think how much money we can save now with both of us getting a Pensioner’s discount” I said 🤭 “And how do you fancy not being able to see out of your one remaining good eye ?” She said, and waved a closed fist at me 😲

We took a different route back towards the city centre, just wandering aimlessly down narrow cobbled streets as we normally do. We didn’t see many people, probably because we were off the normal tourist route, and just to confirm that, not one ‘Tourist Tat’ shop did we see, it was so quiet and peaceful and probably just as important, it had remained dry. We were both getting ready for a drink and some lunch, the Alcazar had a large Cafe/Bar within the public garden area, at tourist prices of course, so we started to look for a more suitable back street hostelry, somewhere that the locals would frequent, rather than the tourist muggers establishments.

From the outside, the entrance to the Cafe/Bar was small but, on entering, the internal space was quite large, although the majority of the tables were not occupied. There was an elderly chap stood at the bar and in one corner a table with two middle aged women drinking coffee. “Buenos Tardes’ they all said in unison as we approached the bar, which is normal here in Spain, “Buenos” we responded. The barman gave us a welcoming smile, “Bienvenido, como puedo ayudarte?” (Welcome, how can I help you ?) he asked, we of course answered in Spanish, ordering two coffee’s, a Cafe con Leche and a Cortado and asked if he had a menu. He gestured for us to go and sit at a table, telling us that he would bring our coffee’s to us. This was just a normal type Cafe/Bar, nothing sophisticated just good basic food, Shazza ordered a Calamari Sandwich with a side portion of patata’s, whilst I selected a Tortilla (Spanish Omelette) sandwich and a side portion of patata’s, expecting them to be the small baguette sized rolls that we are used to in our own area. What arrived made us both look at each other with raised eyebrows, the baguette rolls were twice the length and width and, the portion’s of patata’s, two individual bowls, were not the French fries we had anticipated, but small fried cubed pieces of potato, and each bowl contained massive portions. Had we have known the portion sizes we would have just ordered the one bowl 😲 We ordered a couple of beers and apologised for the both of us not managing to eat all of our food, we hate wasting food but we certainly couldn’t have stuffed anymore in. “No hay problema, estaba bien ?” (No problems, was it okay ?) he asked, “Muy Sabroso, Gracias” (Very tasty, thank you) we both replied, he gave another smile and we asked for ‘La Quenta’ (The Bill). Our eyebrow’s raised again when we received the bill, only €30 (£25) for four drinks and two generous sized and tasty meals. The old chap was still stood at the bar when we left, we hadn’t seen him with a drink all the time we had been in there, he had just chatted away to the barman, whom we assumed was the owner, the two women had left once and then returned again later and, as we left, as is customary, they all said “Luego” and we returned the pleasantry.

It was early afternoon and there was nothing else we needed, or wanted, to see or do, so we decided to go back and have a leisurely afternoon and evening in our hotel room. We also doubted that either of us would want a full meal later, so we had stopped off at one of the shops that I had been salivating outside off the previous day and this time there was no tug on my shirt, I purchased a small slice of something or other, a sort of outer pastry with three different flavoured meats inside, then we stopped at a small supermarket where Shazza purchased herself a pre-packed fajita with a ‘Vegetarian’ filling and a couple of packets of crisps, that would do us, probably not our most healthiest of meals but we must have already, over the last couple of day’s, walked a lot of the unhealthy calories off, well at least I was convinced 😂

Literally, just a couple of minutes walk from the hotel we felt the first spots of rain, “Perfect Timing” Shazza said, “This Forrest Gump principle of weather forecasting is far superior than the ‘Works of Fiction” I responded.

So that was the end of our two day visit to Segovia, it was well worth it too, plenty to see over the time we had spent here, and probably with even more to see within the local area had we selected to stay here longer but, for our purpose, it was enough and another place that we can now tick off our ‘To Do’ list.

Happy Easter to everyone, don’t eat too many Chocolate Eggs 😉

The journey continues…………………

Until the next ramble,

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

Have you ever sat and thought about how complex the human brain is, I mean it must store absolutely millions of memories in an individuals normal lifetime and it can recall a vast majority of them, almost instantaneously, at the merest trigger, a single event, or piece of music, or photograph and whilst doing so, it can still continue to develop and learn and store even more information throughout a person’s lifetime. It is the same organ that can also stimulate, through memories, sights and sounds a whole range of different emotions, happiness, sadness, excitement, fears etc. So, well to me at least, it also seems strange that such a powerful and intelligent organ can, for no apparent reason, just suddenly start to power itself down, erasing some of those memories, information and even emotions, for reasons that even top neurological scientists cannot, as yet, fully explain 🤷‍♂️ However, whilst in the process of powering down, it would seem that, whilst it can still retain memories from many decades ago, rather surprisingly it often fails to be able to recall much more recent events, or even remember names, or faces, of close personal relationships. Okay, I know that you may be thinking that this is a somewhat strange subject to commence this ramble, and no this ramble is not going to be about ‘Dementia’ or ‘Alzheimer’s’ disease but, as my regular readers will already have assumed, somewhere within these ramblings, there will be some sort of relevance to that subject matter 🤭 and also, just before you start thinking about it, no I am not suffering from either cause of memory loss, maybe a bit of brain fog occasionally, but that is most likely due to me over medicating on Anti-Covid Vaccines 😂

As you may have already gathered, yes I was sat in the piece and quiet of my balcony one evening very recently when this subject popped into my thoughts, Shazza had, as usual, retired to her own personal space with her book, and so I too was having another one of my quite regular thoughtful moments, which I guess was prompted by our upcoming trip to the UK. I mean it was, when all is said and done, only really a bit of a short holiday, albeit a slightly longer one that we would normally take these days. But with everything we were doing in advance of that trip, the emotion my brain was stimulating within me, just took me back to the times just prior to the end of our numerous ninety-day ‘Schengen Shuffle’ trips, the period when our time in Spain was coming to an end and we had to leave our apartment which was always, without exception, a very reluctant sort of affair for the both of us, as neither of us were ever anywhere near ready, or eager, to return to the UK.

We would have spent most of the last seven of those ninety-days getting the whole apartment cleaned, Shazza would empty, and clean, all the kitchen cupboards and clean the kitchen appliances, hob, grill, oven, all that sort of stuff, just so that we wouldn’t have to do it when we returned ready to enjoy our next ninety-day stint. Shazza also ensured, through her domestic accountancy skills, that we would have eaten all of the contents that were in the fridge and freezer so as not to waste anything, we don’t like throwing good food in the bin, and then those two appliances could be defrosted, cleaned and switched off. Then, finally, after covering all of the furniture with dust covers, we would close all of the security shutters then turned off both the electricity and the water at the mains, our last day here was without any stretch of the imagination, always a sad one 😢

So okay, wake up and smell the coffee Eric, I said to myself, or at least I thought I had said it to myself, but had to question that assumption when Shazza called through from the bedroom, “Who are you talking to ?” 🤭 Now, in all reality, this was actually nothing like those past ‘Schengen Shuffle’ events, as there was no need for Shazza to completely empty the food cupboards, or the fridge, or freezer, although she would still of course make sure that we didn’t waste any of the fresh produce, which of course meant that our final week here would involve eating lots of vegetable stir fry’s, roasted med veg dishes, mushroom carbonara’s…………yes, I am sure you get the picture 🙄 Although, on the positive side of that, at least during our daily walks, which we have still continued with over this last week, we were not at least having to go on any mandatory visit’s to any ‘fruiterias’ or farmer’s markets, so a bit of a blessing in disguise really 😂 Neither would we have to cover the furniture with dust covers, however, we did still do a full ‘normal’ weekly domestic clean, so at least we wouldn’t have to do that when we came back and, Shazza had done all of the washing and ironing, and changed the bed linen, it’s always nice to come back to a nice bed with fresh linen and pillow cases and, in case you were wondering, yes I did also do my usual fair share of the weekly domestic cleaning tasks, we each have our own set tasks and routines, although this time we did spend a little extra time on the guest bedroom and bathroom, as we were due to receive some family visitor’s to us, within just three days of our return from this trip 😲 We both went and re-fuelled the car and put it through the car wash, then I went out and cleaned the car interior, as well as all the lights, wing mirrors and all the windows, inside and out, because the wax that the car wash puts on to the windscreen tends to linger for weeks, smearing the screen everytime you use the wipers and, additionally, and yes it may be another OCD thing, but I do like to at least start a long journey with a clean car, albeit it wouldn’t take long for it to be covered with the remains of suicidal insects and other bugs 🤷‍♂️ Neither would we need to turn off the electric at the mains, although we would unplug all of the unnecessary electrical items, water boiler, kettle, TV etc. although we would still be turning off the water at the mains stop cock, as living above another apartment we didn’t want to risk suffering a leak whilst we were away which, in the unlikely event of one happening, would impact not just in our own property, but potentially the one below us too 😲

In the ‘almost two year’s’ that we have now lived here, this would actually be the first time that we had left our home empty, for such an extended period of time, so although logically, we knew that it certainly wasn’t the same as when we had left it during those frequent ‘Schengen Suffle’ trips, both our brains, for some inexplicable reason, stimulated the same type of sad emotion that we had experienced during those periods, a feeling of sadness, even an element of reluctance and lack of desire to be going back to the UK, which when we analysed it later, really is crazy because we are both genuinely looking forward to seeing our respective family members, our three granddaughter’s and some of our friends 🤷‍♂️ So, getting back to the subject in my introductory paragraph of this ramble, you just knew that their would be a link somewhere didn’t you 😉 The brain, although very powerful and complex, does sometimes it would appear, well to me at least, seem to confuse some of those past emotions with similar events in the present 🙄 Anyway, enough of that Eric, this ramble is digressing a long way from the much simpler direction that I had originally intended it to go 🤷‍♂️ And to think that only a couple of rambles ago, I was concerned about having enough content to keep you my reader’s enthralled 😂😂 So it all comes back to the good old brain subject I suppose and, as one of my longstanding reader’s actually commented, ‘you’, as in my reader’s, can choose for yourselves what content you want to take on board, or just select ‘memory dump’, my reader statistics will inform me of what decision you selected 🤭

So getting back on track, unlike those previous ‘Shengen Shuffle’ trips, when we would stay here in Southern Spain until the very last possible minute, and then have to race to do the long 10-12 hour journey, to either Santander or Bilbao, which usually entailed having to depart in the very early hours of the morning when it was still dark, and even well before the birds had started to rub the sleep from their eyes, this time, we would be in no hurry, well so I thought, stupid me 🙄 we were in no rush to catch our ferry, as fortunately for us these days, their is no such thing as a ticking ‘Schengen Clock’, so we had the luxury of allowing ourselves four days to get to our ferry this time, with some selected overnight stops en-route 🤗

We had checked all of the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasts, but not for what was to greet us when we arrived in dear old Blighty, we had already been keeping a constant check on those temperatures for weeks in advance of this trip, and it was not looking too good 🥶 No, these particular ‘Works of Fiction’ checks were for the weather situation further North in Spain.

As British ‘Citizens’ we are of course well versed with the the expression, ‘The North South Divide’, with this common statement implying, more in a humorous way than with any seriousness, that the North actually commences as soon as you get beyond the ‘Watford Gap’. However, at this juncture I must now apologise to those of you, my reader’s, who may not be familiar with the geography of the United Kingdom, and so may not know where, or what, the ‘Watford Gap’ actually is, so by way of a brief explanation, it is a bit of an ‘in house’ British joke, as the ‘Watford Gap’ is a Motorway Service Station just outside of London, and even well below the area of middle England, that is quite appropriately called ‘The Midlands’, let alone the actual real ‘Northern area of England’ and so the term, ‘North South Divide’ is a statement made, mainly for political purposes, to differentiate between the ‘inequalities’, perceived or otherwise, of those that live in the alleged wealthier South of the country, well to be more explicit, London, as opposed to those that reside in the alleged poorer North. For obvious reasons, personal views differ on this subject which is very much dependent on an individual’s actual wealth and where they happen to live in the country enjoying that wealth 🤷‍♂️

However, be that as it may, it is actually much the same here in Spain, with their being a ‘North South Divide’ I mean, but this one is a divide, and generally speaking it is primarily to do with the weather and climatic conditions. So, generally speaking, the further North you travel in Spain the cooler it gets, although probably more so inland, rather than the Eastern coastal Mediterranean areas which do remain quite warm. But ‘Up North’ it tends to be very much cooler, and often wetter, throughout the Autumn, Winter and Spring seasons than it generally is in the South, hence the term ‘Green Spain’ when people talk about the Northern coastal areas of Spain, it is green for a reason ☔️☔️☔️

So, as far as our immediate travel days are concerned, although we could have both got away with wearing our shorts and tee-shirts when leaving our home here in the warmer South, we also knew that it was going to feel much cooler when we arrived in ‘Segovia’, so Shazza decided to wait until the last possible minute before deciding what to wear on our first travel day but, as for myself, and my OCD Buddy of course, well we needed to know in advance didn’t we, we couldn’t let such an important decision wait, as we needed a few days to plan, not just to what to wear, but more importantly, as to what to pack, so me and my buddy plumped for travel day jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, Shazza would work to her own unique strategy of waiting until literally the very last moment, and deciding only after having poked her head out of the balcony windows on at least a dozen occasions 🤷‍♂️ I mean we were going to be in the car anyway for most of the day so, in the end would it really matter whether one of us wore shorts and the other jeans, it could just mean that one of us would either be too hot, with the heater on 🥵 or too cold with the air-con on 🥶

Now the map above shows just how far North we would be travelling on our first day (Blue dot obviously our starting point and the Red Pin showing our destination, which would be a distance of just over 320 miles). Initially, we would be taking our usual motorway route, up towards Madrid, before then diverting off to head more inland to our destination. Looking at the map you can probably see why I had originally suggested to Shazza that we make our first, two night stop, at ‘Toledo’, before we would then proceed on to what would have been our second stop at ‘Segovia’, it would have meant slightly less driving hours each day too 🤷‍♂️ And so, our normal journey time to Segovia would be around 7 hours, so Shazza informed me that she wanted to get an early start 🙄 me, obviously the stupid one, believed that there would be no rush, we were not on the clock, so we could have had a leisurely start, a late breakfast and early lunch (Brunch) somewhere en-route, get to the hotel mid-afternoon early evening and then go out later that evening for dinner. However, Shazza had a different plan, well she would wouldn’t she 🙄 She informed me that she would require a breakfast stop, but not a Brunch stop, she couldn’t survive that long in the morning without food, and she reminded me that one ‘enforced’ fasting day in the last week was more than enough 🙄 and so, that fact alone would add ‘at least’ another half an hour onto our journey time and then, she stated that she would much prefer to have lunch when we reached our destination 🤷‍♂️ So, just as a reminder, for those not familiar with the Spanish dining habits, lunch is more usually taken between 2-4pm, then the kitchens close until much later in the evening, usually not re-opening until around 8pm, unless of course you are in a popular tourist location where dining hours are much more flexible. So now, to align our arrival timings with ‘her’ dining requirements, we would need to leave well early to allow for her breakfast stop, whilst still arriving in good time to make lunch, perhaps it may be best if I left all the driving to my own little ‘Luis Hamilton’ for her foot is far heavier on the accelerator pedal than mine 😲 Have I ever mentioned in these rambles that Shazza and I are joined at the hip, are in each other’s company 24 hours of every day and chitter chatter about anything and everything, well obviously we do not always communicate with each other in advance of trips on some of the more finer ‘detailed’ points 😂

It was forecast to be sunny on the day we arrived, the following day, which of course just happened to be our planned ‘full day’ of sightseeing, it was however forecast to be much cooler and raining ☔️🤷‍♂️ But we cannot control the weather, it will be what it will be, it’s why rain jackets and Umbrella’s were invented 🤭 but also, we know how unreliable the ‘Works of Fiction’ can be, so hopefully they are still using their faulty crystal ball forecasting methodology 🤞🙏

Another bonus for us on our travels these days is that we do not have to worry about fluctuating exchange rates between the £UK and €EU, for whilst we are living and travelling, throughout Spain and to be honest, the majority of other European countries, we just use our Spanish Bank Debit or Credit Cards for things such as fuel, food etc or of course, ATM’s if we need cash (€Euro) and then, once we have arrived on British soil, we will just switch to using our British Bank Debit or Credit Cards and ATM’s (£UK), so still having one foot, financially at least, in each country, does provide us with some advantages especially in light of current global economic events 🙄 I cannot say in any real honesty that I am an ‘Admirer’ of Mr Trump, however, I can sometimes understand the principles of what he is saying and trying to do, however, the manner in which he implements some of those ‘principles’, often leaves a lot to be desired. These ‘Tarrifs’ are actually being used as a negotiating tool and it may just end up being the correct course of action, to shake the World Globalisation Powers up a bit, but alternatively, it could actually end with it blowing up in his face, leading to him alienating the USA from the rest of the world and empowering other countries to combine their economic forces. But, as I have said many times previously in these rambles, I have no power to influence or change any of this sort of stuff so, I am not going to worry at all about it, for it will eventually sort itself out, or not, as the case may be and we will just have to learn to live with the consequences of those other people’s actions, nothing new there then 🤷‍♂️

Moving on hastily, and with the very recent introduction of the ETA, for foreign temporary visitors entering the UK, which came into force on the 2nd April, it will also be interesting to see, with us entering the UK in our now Spanish registered vehicle, which Border Control Lane they try to direct us into when we get off the ferry, especially if I wind my window down and greet them with “Hola, Buenos Tardes Senor” (Hello, Good Evening Sir) and then present them with our UK Passports 🤭 Although if it were a ‘Senora’ (woman) Border Official, perhaps my greeting may not be that overly impressive and we may end up being the subjects of a complete and very time consuming vehicle search, I may have to re-think this one through a little bit more 🤔

Now I think that it would be fair to say that, on the whole, we have had quite a trouble free couple of year’s, that was until the recent eye scare incident at the end of last week, when the ‘Dark Forces’ attempted, unsuccessfully, to ambush me. Although the ‘floaters’ in my eye have now reduced somewhat, there is still some underlying inflammation and irritation in my eye, so I am currently on a course of eye drops, which does appear to be helping, albeit very slowly. But if I thought that that would be sufficient to see off those pesky ‘Dark Forces’ I was well and truly wrong, for they were still lurking in the background, sulking over their last failure and seeking retribution. So, just twenty-four hours before we departed on our UK trip, they struck again, and we had been preoccupied so not ready for this next ambush. Our ten year old hot water boiler decided to give up the ghost, although there had been no prior indications of this, other than being informed, when we bought the property ten year’s ago, that a new boiler had ‘recently’ been installed, whatever time frame that word was supposed to imply………. a month, six months, a year, it is an often used word, but one with no real specific sort of preciseness about it 🤷‍♂️ Anyway, at that time of purchase, we were informed that these water boilers tend to only last 4-5 years, due to the hard water in these parts apparently, so we kind of knew really that we were on borrowed time, but come on ! what a bloody time to decide to pack up 🤷‍♂️ We tried, unsuccessfully, to secure the services of an emergency plumber in the tight time-frame that we had at our disposal, the best of the one’s we contacted stated “I could come and replace it with a new one on Friday” he said, as if that was supposed to make us feel any better when we would be over 300 miles away. So we now have booked a plumber for the day after we get back and to his credit, he texted back almost immediately confirming the appointment. The timing is very tight for, as I have mentioned earlier in this War and Peace novel, our UK visitors arrive within days of our return so I am sure they will appreciate having hot water for their showers, otherwise it’s down to the pool each morning, where I am sure the water temperature will be a little warmer than our’s if the water boiler doesn’t get fixed 🤭 So yes, the ‘Dark Forces’ did eventually wreak their revenge on us, so we sit now at 1-1, the bastards 😡 However I now have an uneasy feeling, for there is another well known saying about bad things when they happen, ‘They Always Come In Three’s’, so now, we are on tender hooks not knowing what that third thing may be that those ‘Dark Forces’ will attempt to ambush us with, let’s hope it has nothing to do with storms and sinking ferries 🫣

So, with the only outstanding task now being to put our suitcases into the boot, of what I have to say, is a very impressively clean car 🤭 I will leave you to contemplate on which one of us got their mode of travel attire correct 🤔 WiFi connections will dictate when my next thrilling episode(s) of these rambles will be published 😂 Will I have so many photo’s to insert after Segovia that I will need to publish another one or, will I just wait until we board the ferry to then write about our first four days on the road 🤔 and of course, for you my readers to discover the location of our second overnight stop 🤷‍♂️ I bet you are as excited as I am, and I already know the location 😂😂

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena

My original plan, for our proposed journey Northbound, before catching our UK bound ferry from Santander, was to make a two-night stop, first in the city of ‘Toledo’, for some sightseeing, before then proceeding just a little further North, only a couple of hour’s drive, to the city of ‘Segovia’, for a further two-night stopover, to do some more sightseeing, before we then proceeded to Santander to board our mid-afternoon, and 24 hour overnight ferry, to the UK.

I knew that ‘Toledo’ has long been a place that Shazza has often talked about wanting to visit, whilst ‘Segovia’ had been one of those places still outstanding on my own ‘To Do List’, so my thought was that we could kill two birds with one stone. It would entail a slight deviation from either of the two more usual routes that we would take when travelling up to the Northern Spanish Ferry Ports of Bilbao or Santander, but this slight deviation to our route would be a good thing, for it would provide for perhaps a nice change of scenery for part of the trip.

Personally speaking, I thought that it was a very good plan when I presented it to my beloved, but I was soon brought back down to earth with a thump, for she came up with her own different suggestion, now why shouldn’t that have surprised me 🙄 Her alternative suggestion was to miss out ‘Toledo’ altogether on this occasion and just head straight for ‘Segovia’, her explanation being, Toledo is only a one hour direct train ride away from the bustling capital city of Madrid, which is another City that we both wanted to return to, we had only really seen a small part of it on a very brief one day visit, very many year’s ago. So, she suggested that perhaps on a future mini-break, we could actually base ourselves in accommodation in Toledo, which is itself a very scenic town, and then, from our accommodation base, we could catch a train into Madrid, perhaps returning there over a period of a couple of days, so that would, allowing for travelling time, from home and then back again, mean that those two locations could be done separately, as a five or six day mini-break in their own right.

Okay, I had to admit that her idea did actually make a lot of sense because, apart from our upcoming trip to the UK, which to be honest with you, we are not actually considering as a true holiday for ourselves, more of a ‘duty visit’ which is going to entail lots of driving to different areas within the UK, and that trip itself will be for an elongated period, a little over three weeks in duration, and so, with our Spanish stops on the way up to the ferry, this will take it up to a month that we will have been away from home. We will still have another stopover somewhere else but you will discover where that will be in a future ramble (So yes, there will be a couple more rambles in the pipeline 😉)

These days, we much prefer to do more of what you may consider mini-breaks. So, as well as ‘Toledo’ and ‘Madrid’, we also have other Spanish towns and cities in mind too, many of which are also in pretty close proximity to each other, so Shazza’s thinking was that we could also group those together and perhaps turn them into similar ‘future’ combined mini-breaks 🤔 Although with Shazza, the use of that word ‘perhaps’ actually has no perhaps about it 🙄 We both do still want to continue to enjoy our travel adventures, albeit in truth we are both finding it difficult at times to drag ourselves away from our own very comfortable home, in our own little corner of the Costa del Sol but, there is also something quite nice about being able to do some slightly longer distance travelling occasionally, one’s that we can do independently, using our own transport and making stops at our own convenience. Those trips have the advantage of us not having to first travel to an Airport, or Ferry Terminal, then spend hour’s at Terminals in advance of the actual flights, or sea crossings whereas, using our own vehicle, also means not having to be concerned about weight allowances or size restrictions on our luggage, or the inevitable queues at the security and document checkpoints. No, being in control of such things is, in my opinion, far more enjoyable, much like it was when we were travelling in our Motor Home. Once at our selected destinations we can then choose to explore the local areas, either in our own vehicle, or use the local transportation if required, buses and trains, to get to wherever else we wanted to be, much like we did when we were travelling in our Motor Home, there seems to be a common theme developing here don’t you think 🤔 So best you don’t let on to Shazza about this or she will start checking the ‘Savings Pot’ much more regularly, for any sudden substantial withdrawal 😂😂

There may of course, be occasions, when getting to towns and cities further afield for our mini-breaks, may include us having to consider those alternative means of transport, for certain very practical reasons, faster travel times for example, so we never actually say never to anything, especially if our desire is to visit other Countries further afield, even within Europe. However, for now at least, we still have so much more of Spain, and of course nearby neighbouring Portugal, to visit, both of which we can do easily just using our own transport 🤗 However, I have digressed yet again, so time I think for me to get back to the current here and now.…………………….. 🤔

As you may have gathered, from my last ramble, I certainly had no intentions of publishing another ramble quite so soon, although I had planned to write one, or perhaps a couple more, in respect of our forthcoming Spanish and UK trips. As usual, the three of us, Shazza, myself and my OCD Buddy 🤭 had got ourselves organised. I had sent off the necessary annual 2024 financial data to the tax specialist at our solicitor’s, the Spanish tax year being from Jan-Dec with the initial paperwork having to be submitted in April, although the tax bill itself, once I have been notified of how much it is, does not have to be payed until June. We have also pre-booked our Spanish hotel accommodations, and the one in the UK that we will require upon our arrival and of course, we had already pre-booked and paid for our return ferry crossings, so all we had to do now was to leisurely pack our suitcases and then get on the road. The only minor fly in the ointment, for my OCD Buddy, was with the annual car tax payment itself, a mere €36, so not a kings ransom, which I usually pay online by the beginning of April, however, this year, the DGT (Government Vehicle Agency) has changed the website in which you make these payments, but there appears to be an issue with the ‘new’ website platform and so nobody is able to pay their car tax 🤷‍♂️ However, I cannot see too many people, other than the receiving beneficiaries, getting overly anxious about not yet being able to make their payment 🤭 Neither is this a major issue for us, we have until the end of May in which to make the payment, so we can do that when we come back from the UK, subject to them of course having sorted out their ‘Technical Issues’ 🤔 As I may have mentioned previously, the car tax system in Spain is different to that in the UK, here in Spain it is not ‘Illegal’ to continue to drive your car without having first paid the annual fee, although, once it is out of date, if stopped by the authorities, you can be fined for not having paid it. But for me, and my OCD Buddy, there is a little bit of irritation, as now, not everything will be as tidy, or as complete, as we would have wished prior to our return to the UK. But, even with that one minor exception, and in the grand scheme of things, everything was sorted and we were ready to go, so now we had one week to just sit back and enjoy the sunshine, to get on with our normal daily routines, a daily walk, ‘perhaps’ even an Anti-Covid Vaccine here and there with a Tapa or two for good measure 🍷🍷 😋That ‘perhaps’ of mine, of course having the same meaning as Shazza’s use of the word 🤭)

Over the last twelve months or so, with now having relaxed into this slower paced side of Spanish life, I had allowed myself to become a little too relaxed and, as a consequence, I had left myself vulnerable and off guard to the threats from the ‘Dark Forces’, who were always lurking, awaiting their opportunity to catch me off my guard and so yes, you have guessed it, they seized upon the opportunity and ‘They Tried To Ambush Us !!’ 🫣

My regular reader’s will recall, way back in March 2022, that I suffered a detached retina whilst here in Spain on a 90 day ‘Schengen Shuffle’ visit, which was prior to us taking up permanent residency here a year or so later. But the Spanish healthcare system were excellent, I had found myself, without any prior warning, suddenly and completely blind in my right eye, but they dealt with it with great urgency and within days they had conducted the necessary operation to restore most of my sight, although the retina could not be repaired completely.

So here we are, 3 year’s later and although my sight was slightly impaired in my right eye, I had complete vision in both. The only minor issue, other than the slight impairment, which my left eye had compensated for, was a very small black dot, no larger than the ‘full stop’ at the end of this sentence. This would sometimes be visible and sometimes not, but one morning, just a week before we were due to leave home, this small black dot had re-appeared but this time it had grown a little larger in size and did not disappear at all, but even then, that didn’t overly concern me, it was more of an irritation than actually having any impact on my vision, it was much like a small black fly that no matter how many times you try to swat it, it remains circling around your head, in fact many times I have been seen swatting at this imaginary fly as I am walking down the promenade 🙄

However, within only a couple of hours, that one black dot had multiplied, to more than ten, but of varying sizes, and they were all swimming around in my eye and all over my field of vision. Of course, given my history, my natural first thought was that the repaired retina, once again, without warning, had now started to deteriorate, and was starting to disintegrate into small pieces literally right in front of my eye 😲

We got into the car and Shazza drove me to the A&E (Urgencias Department) at the Costa del Sol hospital which is a forty-minute drive away. When we arrived, the place was crowded with ‘out-patients’ all waiting to see a doctor, we were processed, administratively speaking, very quickly and told to wait, in the waiting room, until we were called, I remember looking at the crowds of people, standing room only, and when I looked at my watch it said 14:55pm and I wondered how long we would have to wait. At 22:15pm, I had had enough, there were people who had been called in to see a doctor, not once, but twice, sometimes even being called for a third time, although in truth they may have been having to go to different departments for X-Rays, Plaster Casts, Bandages and Dressings, but I began to also observe that there were people who had arrived after us, walking wounded, not limbs hanging off, or blood spurting everywhere and they were being called in to consulting rooms. I started to become irritated after being sat for what had been by then, seven very long and tedious hours, in a never decreasing crowd. Shazza just said, “Same here now then as it is in the UK”, on my two previous visits we had actually been seen very promptly, very much different to how it was this time around, I wonder what the reason is here in Spain, the lack of money for resourcing of staff ? No GP appointments so this becomes the first port of call ? An increase in the numbers of the ageing population ? Who knows but what a dramatic change in such a short period of time.

I went to see the nurse in the Triage Room, the one where they had initially booked me in, and asked if she could give me any idea of how much longer I would need to wait until someone would see me. Now you could have blown me over with a feather when she told me that ‘Eye Problems’ are considered minor and come low down on the priority treatment schedule 😲 Hang on a minute, suspected detached retinas should be treated as very urgent, as my original Consultant had told me, delays in obtaining treatment can lead to permanent blindness 😡 Then this nurse went on to inform me that there were no ‘Optomologists’ on duty, so the likelihood would be that I would be told by the doctor, when I did eventually get to see one, that I would need to come back the following morning 😡😡 It was about this time that my generally more passive demeanour started to elude me for a moment or two, although I did not raise my voice or become rude, I mean it wasn’t her fault, but as I tore off my hospital wristband, that she had issued me with earlier, I told her that I was going home and would return the following day. She advised me that if I did that I would only end up going through the whole process again, but she said for me to wait and that she would see what she could do 🤷‍♂️

Funny old thing, just fifteen minutes later, at 22:30pm I was called in to a Consulting room to see a doctor, coincidence perhaps 🙄 She checked my records and confirmed that she was aware of my history, she then made a cursory examination of my right eye and told me that, although she was not an eye specialist, she suspected that I had suffered another detached retina, in my mind I just said ‘No shit Sherlock’ 🙄 She then told me what I now already knew, no specialists on duty until tomorrow morning, she gave me a copy of her initial, but brief, examination report and told me to report to the ‘Hospital Admissions Department’ in a different part of the hospital at 9:00am the following morning to ‘make an appointment’ to see an Optomologist 🤷‍♂️ By the time we had got home we had been out for the best part of 9 hour’s, sat for the most part in an A&E waiting room, we had not eaten since lunchtime but by the time we returned home we both had gone past the hunger stage, we could not see any vending machines in the area around the A&E, although we later discovered that there was a vending area at the other end of the building, a sign would have been helpful. At the end of the day though, neither did we want to leave and miss being called in to see the consultant 🤷‍♂️ ‘At least we had managed to have an unscheduled fasting day’, I unwisely commented to Shazza who, as you may appreciate of someone who is normally a three-meals a day sort of girl, did not appear to be overly impressed by that fact 🫣

The following morning we were both up a little before 07:00am, for obvious reasons I had not slept very well, the worst case scenarios had been been playing over and over in my mind, the first retina repair, three year’s previously, had not been a complete 100% success as the retina had sustained too much damage from the tear, so in my mind was the question, what if they could not repair the original repair 🤷‍♂️ I certainly didn’t relish the thought of going permanently blind in one eye 😲 What if this current delay in getting diagnosed and treated would be too late after the fact 🤷‍♂️ Then the rest came flooding into my thoughts, if I was to undergo immediate surgery again, this would prevent us from returning to the UK as planned, the recovery period would take weeks and travel during that time would again be prohibited, we would have to cancel hotel bookings that we had made on both sides, cancel the return ferry crossings and also inform friends who had already pre-booked and pre-paid a hotel booking in the UK, for an arranged meet up that we had planned for whilst we were in the UK 😲

Now, I am not usually someone who suffers with stress and, had it have just been solely the eye issue, I would have dealt with that in my more usual matter of fact manner, but there were other people involved this time, Shazza included, as one of the reasons that we were returning to the UK at this particular time was for her to celebrate a ‘noteable’ birthday number for her, with her friends and family. Shazza too had had a less than relaxing sleep, for much the same reasons, our forty minute drive to the hospital was conducted mainly in silence that morning, both of us with our own individual thoughts and concerns.

Since we had visited this hospital three year’s ago, it has been modernised and two additional multi floored Annexes constructed, the ‘Admissions Unit’ was in one of the new buildings but we found it quite straightforward, with a bit of assistance from a nice member of the staff who showed us how to operate the all singing all dancing automated machine, which we needed to use to obtain a ticket number just to get into the queue to make the ‘Optomologist Appointment’. Being early we were called straight up to the row of desks and, on one of the desks, there was a ‘Union Jack’ sign, so we approached that and the lady behind the desk was so helpful. It was only 08:30am but the earliest appointment she could make for me was for 10:00am, it could have been a lot worse 😲 She directed us to a lower level of the building where once again we had to obtain a ticket number from another automated machine, this was a little less user friendly, even for the Spanish we observed, but eventually we persisted and got the machine to spit out the all important ticket number we required, we ran off in the direction of the Optomology Department, before the security guard could arrest us for criminal damage to the new machine, ‘come on now’ I thought to myself, my trainers didn’t cause that much damage when I kicked it, and there were barely any scuff marks on it 😂

Although we were an hour early for our appointment we were rewarded for our promptness by me being called in to get through the first round of checks. After a few sight checks, followed by lots of drops being put into both eyes, the young doctor told me that the vision in my right eye was 40%. I commented that I hadn’t realised that it was that bad, I was confused when he laughed, “That is good not bad, last time your vision in that eye was only 5%, the original repair had worked” he said. He told me to go and sit back in the waiting room for the eye drops to work and then he would call me back in. The next bit was going to be the most important factor, the actual physical inspection of the back of my eye, I knew that he would not tell me the verdict and that I would have to wait until I was then called in to see the actual Consultant, who would break it to me and tell me the next stage of treatment, however, I was hoping that I may have been able to pick up a clue from his demeanour.

He spent a lot of time checking my eye, it was painful, as the eye drops had opened up my pupils and the bright light shining directly into them made it feel like a laser burning my eyeball 😲Then, the torture was repeated, this time by a young girl, someone who I suspected was a student doctor learning one aspect of her new career path. The young doctor, who had left the room whilst the student had been examining my eye, returned with a piece of paper, the eye examination report. “Your eye is good, no detached retina, the black dots are ‘floaters’, we all have them, some more than other’s, you get more as you get older” he said, with a reassuring smile on his face. “Is their anything I can do to reduce all of these floater’s and why did they all just appear quite suddenly” I asked, “No medical reason for them appearing all at once, it happens like this sometimes, you will just have to learn to live with them, your eye will adapt to them being there and so you will not notice most of them after a time” he said. I think he was trying to sensitively tell me that it is a price I have to pay at becoming more senior in years 😉 However, at the moment I heard those words ‘No detached retina’ the relief just poured out of me, the stress, the concern just evaporated into thin air, if I could have bottled that feeling, right then and there, I would have done. Although, upon one reflection on the news that I had just received that morning, was the fact that I had not fully comprehended, until then, is that according to him, I only have 40% vision in my right eye, although it doesn’t feel that limited, even if I close my left eye I can still see quite well out of the right one, so if I had been asked to have guessed, I would have put it at least 80% 🤔🤷‍♂️ But who cares, I can see out of both eyes, I do not have a detached retina and I am not going to go blind in one eye, well not yet at least 🥳🥳🥳

Now I must be feeling really good, because I can even make a positive out of a negative with this latest ambush by these ‘Dark Forces’. Perhaps they had been lurking over my shoulder when I penned my last ramble, and they, not wanting me to stop publishing my rambles, decided to provide me with something else to write about 🤔 Fortuitous ? Or just me looking for an excuse ? I know which one I am leaning towards, you on the other hand, may have your own opinion 😂

Anyway, sorry but I have to dash, suddenly got a plague of flies buzzing around my head that need swatting 😂😂😂

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena