Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Lisbon not Lisburn.

Tuesday24th

I'm sitting writing now in the wifi spot of Camping Lisboa.
The sun is setting and M and I are knackered. Todays drive was only 160 miles, but a lot of it was through very large towns, and od course Lisbon.
We found the site which is an astronomical sum, 25 euro per night by letting Norman tell us. He took us last night to camping Setubal, but he left us in the middle of the busy town and refused to tell us any more. Never mind, we slept with 10 other vans on waste ground by the docks! Sorry, back to Lisbon. It has seen better days, looking extremely tired but busy enough with about 65% occupancy!
We had a look around and were impressed enough to just get the bus into the centre.
When I asked for bus details at reception I had my tablt nder my arm. The receptionist chap, said, either leave it or hide it. It was, he said, suitably large enough to be grabbed.
On we went on the bus packed with all humanity. There are 2.8 million people in metropolitan Lisbon, and I sincerely believe folks, they all tried to get on our bus? Made the number 13 look like a Sunday school outing for Jewish children!
The city. I don't know what to tell you about because I saw nothing. It is apparently chocabloc with naval history, some of which we saw, and lasting statues of maritime heroes, again some of which we saw. But when I tell you I was more worked up about watching Margaret and her handbag, catching furtive glimpses from n'er do wells, the hills, oh my god the hills. Vertical limit r us. It was a not very good experience. Not a photo was taken, we both came back to the site in moods!

But never mind that. Tomorrow we're going to a place called Belém In the west, on the coastal road to Estoril, is the suburb of Belém. It contains some of the finest monuments in Portugal, several built during the Age of Discovery, near the point where the caravels set out to conquer new worlds. (At Belém, the Tagus reaches the sea.) At one time, before the earthquake, Belém was an aristocratic sector filled with elegant town houses.

Didn't mean to do that, but I'm fed up writing. I'm gonna fanny about on facebook, check mail, and get drunk. In that order. hope to get some pics tomorrow.

Roughly, what day is it?

Well, a lot has happened since my last offering, I wrote this the other night so you can read it while I get my breath back!



Day 31.
Or, where the hell have the past twenty odd days gone?
In truth, there are three very good reasons why I’ve been so remiss, and I’ll tell you.
When I first started off in the WWW world, most people had 56k modems, they were ridiculously slow in todays terms, but it’s all there was, and we never queried it. In fact, if you were on the internet you waited until six pm because it was only a penny per minute, and, the phone couldn’t be used because it was needed by the internet server.
That’s what it feels like in southern Spain nowadays.
During the day, there’s so much to see and do, there’s no time to even save to Word.
Finally during the evening  I’m wrecked. Just sit and watch a film and chill.
So, after a couple of emails from our Nicola, I thought it selfish of me not to share the fun.
I’m not going to do it chronologically anymore. It’s going to be more about musings as they come into my head really.
Take yesterday. We wanted to visit three places, one of which is a spa town, high in Serra de Monchique, the town itself is the local capital, Monchique.
It sits virtually atop one of the steeper mountains in the range, and as is our want, we decided to get Norman to guide us there. When we were at sea level or thereabouts, Helga told me there was 130 miles worth of fuel left in her tummy. I decided that since our destination was only twenty two away, I’d get her a drink on the way back. The problem with hilltop destinations is its all climb to reach there, and yes there were a few very steep sections of this narrow twisty road.
Now although Helga is really fit, she gets a bit thirsty if she’s left open to any form of exertion, the warning light came on for low fuel and we were “temporarily misplaced”. This is a new Normanism, a term we use when a certain electronic piece of shit has lied to us again. Maybe we can’t use the thing right, but when we use reference points, or coordinates rather than addresses it works.
Can a GPS be illiterate?
Never mind. We found our destination, and it did have a garage. Suitably sated and quenched we drove to the pretty town centre, village really. Seemed familiar, but one town mells into another after almost three thousand miles. In the middle there is a circular route, about sixty feet in diameter that you drive round to get to an exit for parking amongst other things. This wee place has a few bars / coffee shops, and since it was such a nice day they were bunged. As we drove round the circle, dozens of heads turned in unison at the sight of Helga with the sun reflecting of her snow white dress. If she had have had eyelashes on her headlights she would have fluttered them. Now there’s a thought.
After visiting all the touristy spots, and on our way back to Helga, I realized we had indeed been here before just last March. We had been based in Albufiera and hired a car. This had been one of the towns we visited, indeed we had a fantastic lunch very close by but couldn’t find the place again.
It was probably up another bloody mountain.
Albufiera this time, we stayed for two nights in an Aire at the top of the town beside the bus station. We decided to catch the bus into the centre for a nosey and off we went. Although we’d been here before, it was a package holiday and apart from the hotel area we didn’t know the town. The bus was one of those Giro jobs, we since learnt that it does a loop, back  and forward all day. When we finally realized we’d been sitting on the bus a long time we arrived at our destination. No, not the town centre, but back at the bloody terminus. We hadn’t decided whether to try again but our minds were made up for us when the heavens opened, we hurriedly hobbled back to the Aire which although only across the road left the two of us soaked to the skin and water running out of us.
Not only that, but M had done the washing and it was out on the clothes horse!
Tarifa and the sparkly lights of Africa.
We spent an afternoon in Gibraltar which for me was a total disaster. There was a very long queue to get in, the Spanish guards were as sullen and hostile as Gerry Adams at a tory party conference. We found one parking space, at Morrison’s supermarket! We bought some groceries and cheap booze, and left. Toured the area looking for the Valhalla that is a parking space. Nothing.
I don’t like these extremely crowded spaces when I’m driving Helga, I fear that she might rear up and bite some poor unsuspecting pedestrian. We left,  nothing to see here sir. No monkeys, no WW11 relics, no al fresco lunch watching the world go by.
We headed North West towards Cadiz, on the way we saw a sign, indeed one of hundreds on our route, for camping. What we found was a field beside the sea with views over the sea to north Africa, about the same distance, nay less, than Larne to Scotland. We watched the wind surfing youngsters and the kite surfers enjoying their freedom.
Back at Helga we enjoyed our first barby a simple affair of chicken and peppers etc, seasoned with Piri Piri. A nice bottle of wine from Gibraltar sitting watching the lights of Morocco twinkling over the water. The evening was warm, the craic was mighty. It’s brilliant the way simple things give you such a buzz. Slept well that night, and although the sign stated our fee for the nights parking was two euro, nobody came to get it!  



Sunday, March 8, 2015

And they're off.....

Day 13.

Ok, so Barcelona is behind us, we have six more weeks of adventure so c'mon, let's do it.
It's a good bit warmer further south, so we made an early, for us, start. Wonder where we'll be sleeping tonight? We said our goodbyes to the lovely Lidia and pointed Helga towards Barcelona.
This will be fun, I thought. Seeing how the bus driver handled the traffic unsettled me, but as I've said to M, you only need to worry about what is immediately in front of you, and either side.
Norman had brought us fairly close to our previous destination, he should do better this time because I have a picture of a hammer taped to his wiring!
When we first got into Spain, I thought it lacked way behind France in every way. I still believe it, in comparison the place is generally boggin', and the heat of summer just seems to make it worse.
Here's another quandary, I don't really like the big resorts full of kiss me quick hats, full English breakfast, British beer sold here, you know, all that stuff. I like to go away and see the culture and taste it. Margaret likes the Costas. The glaring lights, promenades packed with tomato skinned holiday makers. Give me a mountain or coastline drive anyday.
Well, we've had loads of mountain driving so far, and I think the vast majority of the next thousand miles will be coastal. If we must stay in resorts that's no problem, like all things in life, compromise.
Our drive took us through another small, and low compared to earlier mountain range, down to the coast. HGV's were thinning out and motor homes were growing in number, a friendly wave from each one makes me wonder why caravanners don't do it.
We stopped somewhere to make coffee and stretch our legs, it was here we decided to try ould Norman again. We put the coordinates of an Aire, albeit a commercial one, in and set off. Our biggest problem is trying to understand how they put the addresses into the book. Some sites have almost proper set ups, while others look as if they are actual places, and the others, well that's baffling. Maybe we are still motor homing virgins!
We drove along admiring the different hues of blue coming off the Med, dusty litter strewn roadsides and the manic drivers that are Spain itself.
Time to turn off the road, and this was my mistake. I exited about thirty meters to early, and found us penned in between a .1.6 metre bridge and a 2 metre one. I never noticed the exit route and thought we would have to reverse up a no entry back onto the main coast road. A five point turn in a very difficult environment brought us round so that we saw another car make an exit up a half hidden ramp. We escaped unscathed yet again, this is getting bloody tiresome, and discovered we were once again on the correct road. Norman, who of course had been silent through the whole incident barked into life, "continue for six hundred meters then turn right".
Having no real choice, we soldiered on, it was getting to be another of those situations, were the road was thinning considerably and again no turning space.
All of a sudden, a sign declaring Orange Grove camping and Norman stating we reached our destination. I kissed his wee screen in relief and stepped down to book us in.
Oh no.
Fully booked, this site run by an English family and having all we needed was full. The really helpful lady running it pointed us seemingly reluctantly to an Aire just down the road. They had two spaces, mainly because he had thirty nine vans packed in like sardines. There is well in excess of a million quids worth of fav here, if there was a fire......
We were glad of our pitch though, it again had everything we needed, we'd been to busy at the last place to get all the laundry done, so we would use this place to wash and put away the winter clothes. Oh yes, shorts and tee shirts from now on!
Yes!!!
Most of the residents were Belgian and Dutch with a couple or three English. Boules is how they passed their afternoons, and the vast majority looked as if they'd been down here for months, judging by the colour.
A small thing that has caught my attention. We were kinda half way down France and I noticed a very  pretty girl waiting for her lift one morning, a couple of days later again, I saw another couple of pretty girls, not together, waiting for their lift. They always seem to be on a main road and miles from anywhere. It was all very strange. After about a week of this the penny dropped. They were not waiting for a lift to work, they were waiting for a lift TO work. All bar one were extremely pretty and that's what gave the game away. That and their figures and figure hugging clothing.
But first thing in the morning on the way to work?
Is that overtime, or leg over time?
Anyway, where was I?
Right, we tend not to do to much on our first night, anywhere over here.
The driving or sitting just makes us so tired.
We have yet to buy anything to actually cook, main course wise, because the freezer was full of stuff from the house. In three days it will be time to go meat shopping or fish or whatever looks interesting. By then it will be, or should be a barby every night.
In the morning we awoke to brilliant blue skies and warm sunshine, a wee walk into town for spuds and wine, well, we have to have our priorities right.
All the way down through Spain we passes thousands of acres of vineyards, cherry blooom trees awaiting their bounty of fruit, olive groves fields of vegetables, and here in the Valencia region, countless millions of orange trees. Our walk down to the town took us past lemon groves, grapefruit, and dozens of orange groves. I just leant over the fence and pulled a few from the trees, some of which we ate as we walked along.
Honestly, it makes raiding orchies at home seem trivial.



Saturday, March 7, 2015

Barcelona.

Day 8 or so.
We have the tickets for what we want to visit in Barcelona, there's a free shuttle to take us the twenty or so miles to the centre of town.
The sun was shining brightly as we tore along the motorway, in the comfortable coach. Really wouldn't fancy this rush hour stuff, Nose to tail for miles, the look of apathy on the drivers, and for a lot of them, just another day in the office.
The coach left us off outside the Hard Rock Cafe, a useful meeting point. Our pre booked tickets for the tour bus, the hop on and off type would take us from there to our first stop, Sagrada Famillia, and what a stunning icon it is.
Our Nicola had visited it just before Australia mate, and extolled its majesty and urged us to visit if we got the chance.
It fully lived up to expectations, a huge nave with fabulous stained glass windows and a choir area to seat a thousand choristers. The architecture both inside and out was breathless.
Hordes of us tourists looked in awe, but I'm sure there were hungry eyes looking at the tourists for altogether different reasons. My wallet and Andreas camera were safely tucked into my front pockets. An area even Margaret doesn't visit! Yes Barcelona, for all its beauty has that undercurrent of pickpocket crime alive in its sewers, and comes up to prey on unsuspecting visitors spending their Euro in the city.
But never mind that, after well over an hour we decided to get some rays. Early March doesn't usually lend itself to getting a tan in the northern hemisphere.
Park Guell, is a strange place, it would be easier for you to understand what it's all about if you go to the link. I'm not sure what it was all about, but it was very interesting. A sort of Alice in Wonderland scenario, best to visit the park with no drink taken.
On our way up the long hill on which the park is situated we called in to a local pub for a bit of lunch. This was our first venture into Barcelonas eating out offering. Nothing special, peppers stuffed with puréed cod, and the usual carbonara. Two beers and bread took the price to around €23. A good price
for a large city. The park took about two hours to see, and we were knackered at the end. We caught the bus touristica back to the centre for a beer before the bus back to our camp.
Just had dinner and a couple of drinks in Helga and then bed before ten thirty. We know how to live the life.
Up early to do a bit more blog before our second trip to Barcelona. It seemed warm enough so I left my jacket but good ould Marg wore hers.
My mistake, we had planned to do Las ramblas, the port, marinas, South of the city and the market etc. when we got off the coach, we went straight to las Ramblas, it was cold and windy. Even at ten in the morning the place was hiving with tourists, specially Spanish, French and far eastern. My valuables were neatly stowed away, but it wasn't great weather for parading round Spain. Change of plan, We made a bolt for the bus touristic stop and got on almost immediately. Bloody good job too, because the wind was howling and cold and me in a tee shirt!
Eejit!!
The top deck was closed because it had just started to rain, inside there were only about six other
souls, all wearing coats and winter clothing.
Pretty soon the numbers dwindled and there were only five on the bus now, two Japanese at the very front, us in the middle and a single dark skinned guy behind.
No wonder, the windows were all steamed up, it was a grey old day, even the tourists are hiding.
We found ourselves at the old port and there's a huge shopping mall built, so we got off and went in for a warm up! Needn't have bothered, the design of the building was such, that several large areas were open to the elements, not unlike the Victoria Centre in Belfast. The wind was chasing around here as well, and several parties of French school children running amok didn't help to make it seem better. Had a look around and decided to go to the market for a late lunch and some goodies.
The market, ah yes, the market is a haven for foodies. All sorts, and the thing that amazed me most was the quality, especially the meat. Things have come a long way in Spain in recent years.
No ould banter with the stall holders, most of them couldn't speak English. What kind of place is it anyway.
Delicious cheeses, cooked meat, fruit and veg were the order of the day.the wee restaurant we went into was having staff problems. Yes, they were all ill tempered twats, everything was a hassle. I thought if we watched Fawlty Towers when we got home it would be very fitting. We did and it was.
After dinner and dishes washed, it was time to write another wee bit of blog. I'd taken a lot of pics the day before and hardly any today, so I'd upload them all onto the laptop.
I'm hell for leaving things down and forgetting where. I hunted, along with Margaret for the camera, my heart sank. No camera. I last had it on the bus touristic, sitting on the seat beside me. It was not there when I got off, I'm hell for checking that sort of stuff. The young single dark skinned bastard had taken it. No doubt. No doubt at all, he was the only one who would have had a chance, and why would a young single fella be on that bus in the morning time. Bastard. I'd been screwed. But worse and not so worse. Patsy had offered to lend me her camera, but in the end couldn't, so our Andrea lent me hers. I'm so sorry Andrea. Big mistake on my part, but you can have my hybrid, or I'll get you a new one. After all the warnings, after I was so dam careful. I'm so pissed off.
What's done is done, time to move on.
We had a very leisurely breakfast outside off fresh baguette, from the camp shop, and cheese and ham from our foray into the market.

Thursday, March 5, 2015

And here we are, day six I think. They're all rolling into one.
It was a long drive today 340 miles with just two short comfort breaks. The lure of the sun is getting stronger, not because it's cold, in fact it's been like late spring than early spring, but because we want to unwind the awning, and sit with a glass of vino in the evening sun. Wearing shorts and tees.
The rolling French countryside is a joy to drive through. We'd done a few hundred miles on the majestically sweeping toll roads, to get us down south quicker. I don't drive fast when in Helga, because we're never, ever, in a hurry. I get the speed up to around fifty ish, sixth gear, cruse control, and watch the kilometers climb. We hadn't yet met the vast vineyards, lots of fine white Charolais cattle, very few sheep, but there are enormous great chicken sheds, I think, but they could be pigstys.
We came across a sign tellig us we were approaching a services in the centre of France. Good place for a pee and stretch the legs. It was set on an elevated point with views for miles, there was huge chateau just before but no access to take a wee photo.
French tourism seems to knock ours into a cocked hat, but it could be relative to the size of the country. Everywhere we've been, we've seen all nationalities, hordes of school kids, bursting into animated conversation. One thing about the French, if they'd no arms they'd be dummies!
It's a good job the roads are so amazingly good, there are countless thousands of HGV's rolling along twenty four six. Maybe not quite as many at the weekend, and they all seem to drive in excess of sixty fife mph. Never been passed so much in my life.
Litter, we started counting the pieces of litter we saw on the toll roads, in fact all roads, and saw four pieces in all those miles. It's a very clean country, and it's the people that keep it that way.
now, you'll probably have gathered my wee friend Norman Navigator is a wee prat. I yelled at him in Le Mans, he is on his final oral warning, so lets se where we go.
Not being able to converse in French has certain seriuos drawbacks, not least being able to ask directions. Well, since we were misplaced yet AGAIN, we stopped a spritely looking lady clearly out for a brisk walk. She must have liked walking because at this point we were yet again, in the arse end of nowhere.
Where we wanted to be was about twenty kilometers away, so where we were going was only about five. We were on a warning light for fuel, and the French country roads are not ideal to run out of diesel.
I showed her the map that had Aires de Service du camping cars marked. It was a no brainer, we meant to be west of Beaune, a fabulous region for white burgundy, but we were in fact miles away but nearer to another site. She guided us to the other place in quite good English and we happily found it to be a large modern supermarket with facilities for us nomads. This of course was not long after we thought she guided us into somebodys large farm yard. The way the road was laid out, and don't forget we're on narrow twisty country roads here, seemed to end in a farmyard but in fact went round a sharp corner, and then all was merry and clear. Except of course that wee object of venom sitting in the dashboard. Might change his name to Dashboard Dick.
There was no charge, except for TWO EURO you get ninety litre of water, and fifty five minutes of leccy. There is also a car/van wash a place to empty both wastes, and the supermarket was an alladins cave of gastronomic delights. Margaret, I said, if you dont get me outta here you'll be rolling me home.
We behaved and indeed restricted our desires to be on the safe side. There would doubtless be further incursions into the sacred cathedrals of  cholestrol inducing divinity. Seems to be okay if you're French though, they thrive on it. I bought a very good bottle of Merlot for 2.40 around £1.80 absoutely delicious, wonder what I'd  get for a fiver??                                                                        The name of this village? Saint Bonnet De Joux a lovely place to rekindle the spirit of adventure.
Go on, look it up.

Day 7 or Norman, last chance.

Woke up to bright sunlight and opened the roof blinds. FROST? Whats going on here? We're half way  down France and we're getting frost. A quick look at the outside revealed a lowly two point five degrees of frost.
I had to wash the muck and mire off Helga before we went any further, if only to erase the memory of Margaret walking at the back of Helga, in the pitch dark with only a torch guiding me to sanctuary that was the open road once again. I'm chuckling as I write this, because generally Margaret doesn't "do" darkness on country roads, with not a soul apart from me, to rescue her from all sorts of wild animals. And I was bust at the time getting stuck and unstuck. Still, that's the story of my life.

Anyway, I got Helga all shiny and clean and we headed out again. I put Capagnac into Norman. When Margaret was outside I gave him his sternest talking to ever, if he got us lost, sorry, misplaced again, I would feed him to Charlie. I have to say Charlie has behaved impeccably on the whole journey so far. He is growning his fan base rapidly, might have to give him his own Facebook page.

The village of Campagnac was reached after another very enjoyable drive.It was only two hundred and twelve miles, of more exceptionally good roads. several thousand more HGV's and dozens of motor homes.
We used our own common sense this time in equal quantities of Normans Navigational Nonsense and found our destination in no time. We wanted to throw a party, but since we were there with just one other motor home, who incidently were from England, and since we were right next door to the Gendarmerie, we just had a party for three.
Driving takes its toll. Especially on the continent where you have to be even more alert, and considering our mileage. We've been climbing into bed after two or three drinks and at ten or so at night. I like this though, because we wake early and get everything done at leisure and still manage to get on the road early.
We awoke this morning to rain and what looked like fog. Well, if we had weather like this it was best to drive and drive out of it. Since it was raining, we decided to drive up through the vilage because we saw sod all last night. We started off in what was the direction of the church steeple, up a wee side street and rounded a corner. What we saw there was just the pits, this was a really ancient village and there was no planning  regs in those days. The houses were almost in rows like normal villages except this place had two budings that were out of sync with everything else. No way Helga would get round that corner, so once again, reversing with Margaret leading the way. At least it was daylight, pouring with rain, but daylight. And no beasties!
We gave up and pointed her in the direction of Perpignan.
This was the part of the trip I was most looking forward to. We would drive through the Pyrenees, over the worlds longest highest bridge, or certainly Europes, and down the other  side towards Spain.

The scenery never let us down. Today we would drive three hundred and twenty nine miles of mountain roads, long tunnels, snow covered fields, majestic views, and all in the comfort of lovely Helga.
As we climbed we quickly realized we weren't in fog, but low cloud, in fact in places many places we were driving along above the clouds.
Our first destination would be Millau, the link will describe it far more ably than me. The trip was straightforward, in fact ould Norman took us straight to our destination, a campsite within walking distance of the town. The last stretch of the journey wasn't very pleasant, the cloud had intensified as we were up at over 1100 meters and could see very little apart from the road. When we arrived at our next stop we discovered it to be closed for winter.
Not good, not good at all. We really wanted to stay here so we put another site into Norman and set off. We found the site quite easily but we passed it because it was all closed up and we missed the entrance. The signs had pointed us here so we drove until the road turned to track, and this was over half a mile up the side of a friggin mountains time. Oh well. I'm quite the expert at reversing and Margaret loves the exercise! We'd only hone a lots of yards when M spied a pace that with lots of care and several goes, we could turn. This we did, and let me tell you, by this time I just wanted to be on a site with no driving for a few days.
Because of the worsening low cloud we just decided to forego seeing Millau Viaduct and head for the sun.
Spain wasn't far away, and tomorrow would be better.
We headed south again and after more fabulous scenery, we met a sign decreeing we were now in Spain. No passports, no customs, not even a break in the smooth road.
We'd made the first part of the journey safely. Not without incident, but that was only because of an errant 2014 model of Navman



I'm sitting in the sunny brightness that is Helgas living room typing this, the sun is shining on the Mediteranean no more than three hundred yards away.
What would you do?

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Another day another dollar, or as they say in these parts, another ay oor o. As you can tell we arrived in France, the journey from Lands End over to Cherbourg was fine, no different from the Stranraer crossing, wave wise!
On entering the port, Cherbourgs streets are laid before us like a huge metropolis, I had imagined it would be around the size of Larne or possible Belfast. Anxiety crept in as I pondered my baptism of driving Helga, on the wrong side of the road, through streets with no names, or at least none that we knew. Thankfully Norman Navigator was with us, yes the trusty, sat nav just sitting there and calmly telling us to turn right at the Rue Charles de Gaul, yes!
Just thought, it might have been better to take pictures at this stage, even though the last batch failed. But sure, just imagine it.
We had told ourselves, that upon disembarking our liner, we would turn right and drive. Was this an omen, all the traffic had to turn left, and with the heavily armed gendarmes looking sullenly on, we went with the flow.
The main plot was to get safely out of the city unto open country roads, cruise past vineyards, smell the bread and garlic in the air, smile at the young smiling maidens throwing flowers at Helga.
We got out of the city, and unto open roads, but that's where the dream ended. No vineyards, no buxom maidens, just road, and lots of it.
We had bought books with details of where to park up, camp sites, Aires, even grassy knolls.
Brilliant, I'll just drive and Norman can guide us. Margaret could even go to bed for an hour! It was dark as we neared our first location, it didn't seem right. Strange places indeed, the French choose to have camping spots, I thought. It was really dark as we turned into or last road. Are you sensing dread yet, dear reader? The road turned into a muddy track down the side of a field with a hedge on one side and a bank on the other. The rain that had drenched the countryside for the past few days had certainly left its mark. I stopped, Margaret I said, this isn't good. I got out with the torch and squelched forward for a couple of hundred yards. Oh dear, we're in trouble. I could not get turned in what was a very muddy dead end. Only one option, reverse out. Several hundred yards, up hill and round corners it had to be. Just as I was beginning one of the sharper corners the nearside front wheel got stuck in the cloying mire that was the grass verge. Try as I might, there was no movement. I pictured us staying the night there, which in itself is no hardship. But, to go and find a French farmer in the morning and ask to borrow a tractor! That was a bridge to far I thought.
Then in a flash of inspiration I'd remembered the anti slip thingies I'd bought just before we came away. Never thought I'd use them, but as they took up so little space........
The issue was resolved, slowly we got back onto the road, our coordinates had been put in right maybe Norman was tired. We'd driven about eighty miles more than we planned so we decided to go further down the road to Le Mans. Another set of numbers given to our nifty colleague hiding in the dash board and away we went.
Le Mans is a big city, but quite quiet at eleven at night
Thank goodness we had the sat nav to guide us safely t our home for the night. Far away from lowing cattle, and further from inches of muck.
"You have arrived at destination bla bla bla", Norman cried in the dark.
Destination my arse I cried in the dark, and Margaret just cried in the dark.
Well not really cried, more yelled and put her face in her hands muttering some new language.
The best thing about a motorhome is the fact that you can get out of your seat, make coffee, have a drink, go to bed, whatever.
We did two of those, and around 02:35 a car stopped and somebody got out. Whoever it was walked round Helga and then drove off again.
Oh my god, this is going to be a long night.
When the first fingers of light were streaking the night sky I got up. Looking out the window I could see the outline of houses and a sign that I couldn't understand. After checking it out the sign stated we were in the farming community of some folk and farmers get up early.
We'd driven one hundred and ninety five miles yesterday, and after a cup of coffee we'd be on our way to drive even more. Well that's what we're here for
Today we'd head for Perpignan, or somewhere along the road that takes our fancy.
Let's hope its not a cow clap infested mud packed lane, that leads to nowhere.
As I sit and write this we're in Spain, we've left our initial navigational blunders behind us.
Or, have we....

Monday, March 2, 2015

Try again......


At last. I’m sitting at 08:15 in our cabin, somewhere near The Lizard in England. I can tell you this because last night the Captains welcome aboard address disclosed the fact that the seas would be rough to very rough until we rounded Lands End in Cornwall in the morning.
Nice to see he was telling the truth! But more of that later.
I had been champing at the bit all week, to get our big adventure under way, and on Thursday I could contain myself no longer. “Marg, I said in my gurny voice, could we not just start on Saturday?” When she said ok then, it made my day. Spent Friday loading her up, Helga that is, didn’t have to wash her, she’s always kept clean, and on Friday night all we had to load was stuff from our freezer and fridge. They’d be turned off for eight weeks.
We would spend the first four days mooching down through Ireland to Rosslare, and the ferry.
Being the anorak that I am, my new quest is to sleep in all thirty two counties of Ireland, well you have to start somewhere! We were going to stay in Meath, our twenty third county, and our destination was to be Ashbourne, a small market town.
I have to say, although we had left Bleary at midday, we were having lunch with Kim and her two adorable kids, and Andrea, at Kim’s. Then we were to call in and see Seainine and her two, and Brian next door at Four Winds, then on our way to the motorway, see the Reavy family and of course the dogs. It was five thirty when we got on the road proper which meant darkness was looming. I hate trying to find a spot in the dark.  So it was, when we got to Ashbourne it didn’t really look right, so we decided on a change of location, staying in Meath, but twenty miles back up the road at the Irish War Museum near Slane.

After faffing about we found the road leading to the museum, a narrow twisting road with hardly a light, and it was pitch black. From one end to the other we travelled, saw three signs for the war museum, but no museum, a policeman drove slowly past, but when I stopped to ask him directions he drove off! I never even got his name, the wee sh*t.

In despair we opted for plan C. You always need a plan C. We headed for Howth. There is a pier there and it is used a lot by motorhomers. Got there after ten, much to our relief, and before sorting out our home, went straight over to “Findlater”, a yuppy type pub, not one I would normally use, but needs must. Having said that, it was a lovely spot and only a hundred yards from home.  Back home and a light supper and then bed. Well I went to bed and Margaret stayed up and crippled a bottle!
It rained nonstop all night, in fact the rain woke me several times, and the wind howled, it was racing through the rigging on the various boats like a banshee. Not conducive to a good night’s sleep. We’d driven one hundred and ninety miles to do what was really a ninety mile trp. Ce la vie!
When we woke up the next morning we discovered we were in the wrong place! The best spot was about a hundred and fifty yards away at the end of another pier. Much nicer all together/ Our original plan was to stay here for a couple of days and get the DART into Dublin for a nosey, but as usual we changed plans and drove into Dublin. Must say it was a very enjoyable experience, driving past the landmarks, and squealing with joy as we called out, look, oh look, did ya see that? Brilliant.
Greystones is in County Wicklow, it would be our next conquest. Although we gave up on Meath yesterday, we got Dublin, and now our second county on this trip was to be our home for Sunday.
It’s ok. That’s the best way to describe Greystones. For a motorhomer it’s a transit point, and no more. The Beach Bar beside the pier is nice, full of character and characters with a lot of tourists thrown in. The town a bit like Donaghadee in size has everything you need, it’s bustling and the locals are a friendly lot. It was to be another very windy night and the yachts in the marina with their tall masts and rigging would make a soothing backdrop to a night’s sleep. Not.

We realized that we had two problems here. We would need to get water on board and need to empty the toilet cassette. On our way to our next location, we noticed a sign for a garden of some sort, like a garden centre and formal garden. This was to prove hilarious. I found the bathroom; it was an out building, so off I went back to Helga to relieve her of her odious load. I put the cassette in a black bin bag and strolled casually towards the toilet. Margaret in the meantime had been doing a recce to find water, and came walking briskly towards me waving to stop. The cleaner was in the toilet so our sorte would have to wait. So, there was Margaret and me, we’d walked around the square, looking in the windows of the very busy coffee shop, the craft shops, and skulking about watching for movement from the bathroom area.  A bit like two old Mata haris! In the end I went over and asked if it would be ok to deposit our bodily waste in his toilet and he said I might be better to use another one round the corner well away from the Restaurant! Happy days, one task complete, and I recalled reading on a forum, there was always a tap in a grave yard, so off we went, in search of dead people.
You might well ask how we manage to find the places we visit. There are two main ways. I ask Margaret, mountain, lake, or sea. When it’s her turn to choose, we alternate. Then I look at the map and hey presto, et voila. In this instance it was M’s turn and she chose sea, so we went off looking for a mountain.
These are found by looking at the contours on the map.

Sometimes the roads get a bit narrow, and in places the wing mirrors get harassed by hedgerows. Bunclody is another small town, in the hills of Carlow and Wicklow. The town itself straddles the two counties, and by staying in the north end we could eliminate another county from our hit list.
We found a cemetery in the middle of the town and went in with two of our five litre water bottles. Loads of graves but no tap. What kind of cemetery is this? We thought. Not even a bloody water tap for the grave flowers. The country is going to the dogs. I forgot to mention, this is a bringer of much laughter, the idea of us two sneaking about a cemetery with water bottles. Obviously meaning, nor causing any disrespect, the inhabitants weren’t even aware of our presence.
Our stop for the night, after enquiring in a local hostelry, was to be a large car/ lorry park behind the Texaco garage. We’d had our afternoon tea, in the said hostelry so fancied a siesta. It was still pouring rain so we parked up and had a kip. All was going well until we heard the noise of a refrigerated container right beside us. A lorry driver had come in and parked his truck beside us, and given the hour and the weather we decided to just ensure earplugs were worn in bed.
We have satellite TV and a big Oyster dish to receive it, another of our handy tips is to make sure the line of sight to the south east is clear, if there’s to be any sort of picture. The TV is high deff so we get an even better picture in the back end of nowhere than we do at home on the B&O.
So while Margaret watched her soaps, I trawled the net. Everything in the home was calm. And then the fridge truck kicked in. We got used to it, but it had made our minds up not to use commercial truck stops again.
Bunclody would be a lovely wee place to while away a couple of hours in summer, we’re seeing the worst of the country in its drab winter clothing. I would like to come back here and sit in the grassy square munching on a mars bar.
There’s an Aldi right beside where we were, and naturally a quick visit would be in order, this we did and topped up our supplies, gin and tonic.
After a fitful sleep, woke up to blue skies and no trucks. A short stroll around the village in sunshine and then onwards James.
We were on the road again and still looking for that elusive water tap. We’d bought another two bottle of water in Aldi, so it wasn’t as important now. However, when we spotted a cemetery in a village with a strange name, we had to pullover. The village is called Ballagh. Pronounced ballack. We had heard it on the local radio station and at first I thought it was somebody taking the micky. Imagine getting married, and now Jimmy Ribshite from Ballack! Wow.
Up into the cemetery and joy of joys, there was a tap right beside the gate. Hooray. Went to fill the bottles, which by the way are kept in a perfect fitting back pack,   and on my back when we go out, everywhere! The water came out in a trickle, nay, not as much as a trickle. We left the bottle under the trickle and went to peruse the headstones. One extremely sad fact, is the mortality rate of very young people here, in this whole area. When I asked Catherine about it, she said the reason lay firmly at the feet of the church, and its policies back in those earlier days. So sad.
Another very sad thing, while we were looking at the headstones, and the water was trickling into the bottle, the wind kept blowing the water off target. Divine intervention???
Blackwater was to be our next destination. It’s a mile and a half from the sea with some lovely walks. The first thing we spotted was a cute wee bar with a sizable car park. Bearing in mind it was only 12:20 a bit early even for Margaret, so we dutifully called in, more to ask about using their carpark. No problem, was the friendly reply. We had one and then went in search of the elusive water. On our walk we found an artesian well, with water running merrily from an old fashioned pump. Since I had two empty five litre bottles and it was only for the toilet, we filled up.
Coouldn’t resist this one, look into my eyes, not around my eyes….The whole area is in a nature conservation area, and it seems to be working. We saw a more varied and plentiful bird population than anywhere else. Seems to me the food chain is intact in Blackwater. After our second stroll we had just finished tea when we had visitors. Alfie and Catherine, two lovely Motorhome Craicers were in the neighbourhood house hunting and they spotted Helga in the pub car park. A wee cuppa and buns and back over to the pub. This has to be the prettiest barbershop in the land.


This was our last night before heading down to Rosslare for the ferry.
A gentle meander through little villages, with many a lovely wee thatched cottage, brought us to Rosslare. There is the Strand and the port. Neither have anything in them, but the port part has Café Lily, this is a place to fill your boots before the ferry. We had the Irish Staple, boiled bacon and cabbage. Marvellous. We’d arrived at the ferry and all the food that was in the fridge, meat wise was used up, most of the alcohol was gone. Tonight was going to be about long hot showers and peeing as often as we wanted.


MS Oscar Wilde is a cruise ferry of many tons. It can carryaround 1400 hundreds of passengers; I hope to provide a link, http://www.irishferries.com/uk-en/ships/oscar-wilde/ 
. But tonight, there were thirty passengers, twenty five freight men and twice as many crew. The ship was today, just back from dry dock and it was empty. Being so light, it would bob around like a cork in the expected high winds. And so it brings me right back to the beginning again.
Hope you enjoyed our brief tale, and please either comment or say something nice on Face book.
Next edition will be from northern Spain in a few days time.