Worst news of all I have yet to find either an ALDI or a LIDL! (may God bless and keep it) An Euroski just doesn't cut it I'm afraid, don't like the beer and the milk comes in bags.
Did a tour of Mendigorria (see pics) and found the grocery store, bought a packet of fags and they were €3.80 instead of €3.15, only to find it had 24 in the packet? Must admit there are some great views from here and when the weather picks up, 9° C today although sunny, it will be a lot better.
I have included a picture of a neighbour we had for a couple of nights, looked like a pair of teachers, don't know why. The van turned up with what we thought was a standard Thule roof rack, no, it was actually their bedroom, talk about budget camping.
Went on the “river walk” which lasted about half a mile and then back on to a road on the way to Andelos where there is some Roman ruins, basically a pile of rocks, that are reputedly the oldest Roman remains in the World/Europe or Spain, depending what you read.
Skyped Derek L. the other day and filled him in wrt the weather, lack of a local on site bar, things like that. “Oh well, should we be better off in southern Spain, then?” Growl, growl.
We are also back to the regime of washing up as we do not have easy access to either a waste drain or fresh water, fountain off until July (shocker) and there is hot water in the toilet block. Because there is hardly anyone on site, there is no PWC running and anyway we now tend to share. (only seasoned blog readers will understand the last bit)
I'm sitting here writing this stuff at 8:30 am, electric fire on level two with SWMBO gently snoring in the background and it's getting so dark out there I may have to put a light on! The grass cutting man has just passed, hope we haven't got to move today, and will soon begin his incessant cutting. The large site means he is like the man painting the Forth road bridge, when gets to the end he has to start again. I know I need a shower but I just don't want to freeze to death this morning and judging by the leaden sky we will not be walking or cycling, any time soon, today.
Just been to the loo and it's so cold out there that I didn't even bother to take my book. I almost feel sorry for the poor mossie we obviously transported up here because he bit me the first night. Next morning flying out of the MS to rest up on a hot beach with a belly full of my blood, out the door and his last thought “WTF!” and promptly froze to death, teach the bastid.
Well the light is now on as I can't see the keyboard and no shower for me today, I think we will just poodle around in the car and find a Lidl (may God bless and keep it).
SWMBO leaves tomorrow for her short trip to Dudley, West Midlands for her brother's 50th birthday, flying from Biarritz, just over the border in France 70 miles away, to Stansted airport where she picks up a hire car for the week end. Back on the 17th May, our anniversary. I will be able to check out a couple of other camp sites on the way to see if they are an improvement on this one, i.e. they have a bar that opens. So I'm on my Jack Jones for a few days, might just stay in bed.
Well there's a surprise! It's 9:47 am and SWMBO is still in bed knocking out the Zs, I go and put some corn flakes in a bowl and she's up like a shot, sleep and food are very close cousins as far as she is concerned, food usually wins out. Sleep, however is important and if it must be interrupted by the need for a pee it can really piss her off, no pun intended, in fact her idea of heaven is having a colostomy bag fitted and being feed intravenously.
Just went on a quick but brutal, up hill and down dale, bike ride to Andelos, a Roman ruin and of course it was shut, the museum that is, the piles of rubble were all too open, rivetting I don't think. About 7 miles all in and I was, can't feel my legs anymore.
Tonight it's liver and fried potato along with the usual vino and the odd beer or three, then The Sopranos and beddy byes. We are watching series 6 after watching series 5 of The Sopranos and everything has changed and it seems to have moved on years, can't figure it out?
Sunday 16th May.
Dropped SWMBO of at Biarritz airport yesterday, after an 80 mile drive via Pamplona and the A121A and then the twisty A121B into France. She arrived OK in Dudley where she was in a tea shirt at 8.00 in the evening! On my way back finally found the Pamplona branch of Lidl (may God bless and keep it) at last and of course went in for the ritual look round and beer buying. Then found Aldi!
Raining when I arrived back at El Molino and today is a bit better but not by much. Was invited to watch Mark Webber win the Grand Prix in Monaco in a guys caravan which passed away a few hours and now making another batch of my famed “Cook House Chilli”, which turned out to be a corker. I wouldn't say it's hot but the wooden spoon I stir it with has gone missing and some of the paint on the ceiling, above the cooker, has peeled off. I'm putting the toilet paper in the fridge as a precaution.
Although Adam didn't make it to Dudley Heather did and presented Uncle Gerald with their present, an HP, all in one, printer, he was very pleased with it.
Due to the volcanic dust cloud RyanAir have been cancelling flights and SWMBO may be stuck in Dudley until Tuesday. The plan is to drive the 140 miles back to Stansted and if the flight is a no no, drop the hire car and get Derek L., whose is 25 miles away, to pick her up. He then can generate the new boarding pass, as it can only be done on line, not at the airport, so she can get the next available flight. I will have to wait and see what transpires, another trip to the beer factory may be needed.
Not allowed to watch The Sopranos so watched “Fallen” with Denzel Washington, no silly, not with him, with him in it! Tonight it's going to be Christian Bale's rendition of “The Dark Knight”, the Batman film which was Heath Ledger's (the Joker) last before he died.
Tuesday 18th May and SWMBO is back, I think I actually missed her this time. After a barrage of phone calls and showing wonderful project management skills, Derek L. took great care that SWMBO and I were kept up to date on the RyanAir situation and she got her flight OK.
So up to Biarritz again, by a slightly different route via Saint Jean de Luz on the coast and when I got to the airport there's this French girl in a tiny car, 25'ish, parked in front of the barrier for the car park. Hazards flashing and she's having a chat on the phone to her boyfriend! Asked her to move so I could get in and all I get is a lot of French thrown back at me. However as I started to manoeuvre the much larger Navara around her and she thought I was simply going to drive over her, she got the message and moved. You have 30 minutes free parking at Biarritz airport, better than most, so you have to time everything right, Parked and in and her plane had landed and 15 minutes later there she was.
Now on 17th May, 35 years ago a curse was placed on me and when I asked a local witch, which is basically any widowed woman over 50 years old and bearing a grudge, to remove it she said she could only do it if I remembered the exact words. I told her, “You are now man and wife”.
So it's a special day for SWMBO and I had not got her either a card or flowers and no way was I going to take out a small mortgage to pay for an evening meal in Biarritz. So when we got in the car I told her that her present was in the glove box. “Can I eat it?” Well, actually she could. “It” was two meat pies that I had picked up from Euroski supermarket that morning. They lived a very short life and I was being asked to drop in the the Euroski on the way back.
Finally sorted the Soprano saga, there are TWO series 6's a FINAL one and an ordinary one, guess which one we were watching?
So it's 9:20 am and all is back to normal, I've been up for a couple of hours and she is pushing out the Zs and sleeping like a corpse, nothing really changes, I'll just reach for the corn flakes.
Pics at end, for some reason when I place them in the text they manage to overlap each other, go figure. Note the pic of the woman who saved the Gurkhas.
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