Episode VII, in which not a lot happens... apart from Spain

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Greetings reader! Have you still not had that baby? / Don’t you usually have a gin around this time? / Here’s your beef tea Derrick! (please delete as appropriate).

So when we last spoke we’d just arrived in Biarritz, one of France’s many style capitals - cue photo of us looking stylish on the beach in Biarritz...

This was just four days ago and the main thing that’s happened since then is about 1000 kilometres. Oh and Spain! We passed through it so quickly, we barely had time to find a wicker donkey for Dan! (maybe later Dan, sorry!)

On Tuesday (or was it Monday? – it’s amazing how quickly you lose track) we passed into Spain and on Thursday, into Portugal. The first thing that struck us on both occasions was the lack of, well a border really.

Now we’ve not done this sort of European trip before. We suspected we probably wouldn’t have to flash our passports as we were waved across the border. But we at least expected something vaguely resembling a border, with a little hut and barrier manned by a couple of armed policemen perhaps. And to drive passed with that ever so slight feeling of guilt, like you get when going through the ‘nothing to declare’ channel at the airport, even when you genuinely have nothing to declare – half expecting/dreading/hoping to be pulled from the queue and strip searched!

Not a sausage! Not even a sign reading ‘Welcome to Spain’ and telling us that it’s twinned with Wales, or was awarded the Country in Bloom award in 1987. Disappointing.

The second thing that struck us was the language. The only clue to us having changed countries was the shopfronts being in a different language. Now we’re obviously aware that different languages are spoken in different parts of the world, but we felt we were quite well prepared, what with David being an MFL teacher and all (that’s Modern Foreign Languages for those who don’t parlay the teaching lingo!). Sadly David’s MFL’s don’t extend to Portugese, which is quite, quite different to Spanish... we’ve discovered.

This only really presented a problem when the third thing struck us. Unfortunately, this was a stone kicked up by the car in front which shattered our windscreen when we were in the middle of nowhere! We can laugh about it now... nearly. International Rescue was very good. We were soon directed to the nearest autoglass that had the right screen in stock by the lovely Anna who was ‘somewhere in Portugal’. And with David’s other MFLs, we (or rather, he) managed to get it all sorted quite quickly.

So we arrived rather later than planned at our first stopover point in Portugal, a Baragem or reservoir near Nisa. It was dark when we stopped, but we woke the next day to temperatures of 15 degrees and a crackin’ view!!



We’d had snow the day before in Spain, so we decided to stay another night and spent Thursday relaxing (apart from Charlie who spent most of it swimming).



On Friday we drove on to Lisbon, and it’s there that we leave you again dear reader. Our plan is to hit the town tonight (Saturday), apart from Charlie who’s having an early night with a Dick Francis. We’ll then go further south at a more leisurely pace and (hopefully) enjoy some of the warmer weather.

Do keep your messages and comments coming. We love hearing your news and gossip. What news from Corrie? Has the Apprentice started again yet? Who will replace Margaret we wonder!

A couple of quick responses. Juliet wins a prize for knowing that Corsica is France’s largest island. I’m afraid your only prize is the knowledge that the sewing kit you gave us has saved us from certain drafts – in other words, a couple of the safety pins are holding together a troublesome zip on our sleeping bag! Thank you!

Adeus