Say Hi to Dawn

Hi Dawn.

Today I woke up feeling very happy for some reason.  I like to sleep with the window and blinds open (fly screens down of course). This is one reason that I don’t like wild camping – you feel the need to close all the windows at night.  I looked out of the window and could see a grey sky – oh what a shame it was going to be a cloudy day. Then I looked again and I could see that the leaves on the top of the trees were golden in colour and realised that it wasn’t a dull grey sky I could see but it was dawn and the sun had not yet risen enough to brighten the sky. Within a few minutes the sun was shining and the sky was completely blue. Another sunny day in paradise.

We sometimes just look at each other and laugh at the life-style that we now live.  Our thoughts are often with our friends and families at home who are going through some rough times at the moment and we wish them all the best. But we always take some time to also appreciate every day that we are given and just hope that we are lucky and healthy enough to do so for many years to come.

At the end of the month we have been four months on this campsite. We arrived on New Year’s Eve and although the weather was much better than what we had left, it was still quite chilly in the evenings and the trees were bare.

Now the trees are almost in full leaf and look so beautiful in the morning sun so I thought I’d share some early morning pictures with you.  It’s getting quite warm now during the days and we have to spend most of the day in the shade so it is getting towards the time that we should be moving on and I am quite looking forward to it now although nervous that I will be driving the van again after 4 months lack of practice.

Nice quiet campsite - just as we like it

Notice the catherine wheel on her buggy that we bought for Connie - actually it was for me.

Connie enjoying the morning sunshine - she stays out until she is absolutely baking

Fellow Motorhomers

Now I must tell you about Terry.  Terry has his own blog and you can find a link to it on the right of this page. Terry is travelling with his border collie Jack. It’s just the two of them, so anyone out there who thinks you can’t do this with without a partner, Terry is a great example that YES YOU CAN. 

We first met Terry and Jack in Wyndhams and we know him well enough to sit at the same table etc.  He’s from Burnley and has a lovely Lancashire accent which reminds me of the 8 month contract that I worked at Country Holidays when I stayed in Nelson with Debbie (who has become one of my closest friends) and her two children.  I loved the place, and the accent – if only people didn’t have to work it would be a fantastic place to live  - now I’m rambling again.

Terry is quite a few years older than us and it’s his first winter in Spain – and he’s absolutely loving it and wishes he’d done it years ago.  He’s the most chilled person I know, tanned, always has a smile on his face and spends most of his time, when he’s not walking Jack (or as Terry puts it “taking Jack a walk”) playing golf, pool and darts.  What more could a bloke want. 

Anyway my reason for writing about Terry is something that happened the other week. Terry has put this on his own blog but I wanted to repeat it as we were there with Terry recounting the story.

A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday morning, Terry trundled off to the supermarket in Altea to get some bread.  Unfortunately when he got there it was shut, so he headed off across town to where he thought there might be a bakery open.  This was something of a 40 minute walk by now.  Again no luck, the shop was cerrado.  So on his way back, luck struck. He came across a café where outside there were some “emergency” items of grocery for sale, displayed in a box on top of a beer barrel.  So Terry picked up a baguette and walked into the café to pay.  The only other people in the café were a couple of old Spanish men drinking coffee at a table near to the door.  Having walked a long way Terry decided to have a quick coffee but when paying for the coffee and the baguette the girl behind the counter gave him a strange look and asked for one Euro – he thought – that’s a bargain, it’s normally a Euro just for the coffee.

So Terry sat down at a table to enjoy his coffee – baguette lying on the table.  Whilst drinking his coffee the two elderly gentlemen stood up to leave, as they approached the door they picked up their box of shopping and walked off up the street, leaving a very embarrassed Terry to finish his coffee and take home his baguette.

Well the way Terry told this story had us all in stitches, his accent, hand gestures, the sparkle in his eye like a naughty boy and the fact that he couldn’t stop laughing all the way through.  Terry if you don’t dine out on that one, we certainly will.

I just wonder what the wife said to her husband when he returned home with only two baguettes instead of three? Maybe the answer was “Some strange English bloke just walked over and stole it”.

Terry – keep it up.

Now there’s a thing

One for the motorhomers here.  It doesn’t matter how long you have a motorhome you will always find something that you didn’t know about it. Quite often it’s a switch, or a socket but our latest thing is our bedroom ceiling fan.

A few days ago it was getting quite warm so I turned the fan on – but it didn’t work – here we go I thought – something else to add to the repair list for when we get back.  We assumed that 1 – it was somehow connected to the vehicle battery which was flat or 2 – it was connected to the 12 volt circuit that is not working.  That’s a shame, when it’s getting hot in the van, fans are quite useful.  Then Iain said that the other day he had turned it on and it worked, so I had another little fiddle with it.  Lo and behold it came on, and I twiddled with the knob that had blue and one side and red at the other and the fan went off and came on again.  I’d learned something new – we have a thermostatically controlled fan.  Whoever would have thought of that – except the Americans of course.  Now we just leave it switched on all the time and if the van gets warm, the fan comes on.  How “cool” is that?