Saturday 30th October, 2010 PSJ, Spanish invasion and it's bloody raining!

That is correct, well a tiny smattering but we are expecting half an inch tonight, SWMBO just muttered something there but I did not quite catch it. And the temperature has plummeted down to 21°C, it’ll be double duvets and hot water bottles tonight.

BTW I apologise for the format of the pictures in the last post, when I complete it it's OK, then when I post TSHTF, don't know why, will try and work with it.

For the first time in living history I lost at draughts to the present Mrs Swinhoe, played like a tosser I did, mainly because it's usually so easy that I must not have been concentrating. I even pointed out to her a move where she could win two of my pieces to her one. Then a little later she took four of mine at one shot, bloody game over. Having also been trashed at Ludo two games running, we're playing cribbage tonight and if..................Oh God the thought is just too much to think about! I'll just have to play with my self. ; )

Glory of glories, 20 bloody 4 is finished! Well unfortunately series seven is finished but the way it ended there will be a series eight. JESUUUUUUUUUUS! Just checked the internet and not only is there a series 8, there's a 9 aswell! My son Adam will of course buy them and SWMBO will to bring them with us next time out, I'm staying in Sussex.

Now going to start on the first series of “House”, never seen it so let's just see if it's OK.



No sand here Pet?



"Petrified" Natural Forest?



Today, SWMBO explained how we should go for a little walk, into the Natural Forest for a couple of hours. Now quite honestly I don't mind walking providing it's circular, does not have steep hills, no soft sandy tracks, free of biting insects, not too long, not along dangerous roads, does not involve an expensive lunch and if possible a pub half way round, or at a push a Lidl.





More Forest

Quiet beach?



Warm though





Same beach






Not a Lidl!



Well she managed to tick every bloody box but the pub, how surprised am I? So now I am knackered, my socks are full of sand, bit to bits and dying for a drink.



Traflgar Tobola



To start with, the forest was full of insects and was hilly and we ended up trudging along a mile or so of beach to get back to the road (with no pavements) near Cape Trafalgar. We stopped for some coffee in this place full of hippies, surfers and general deadbeats, it was certainly away for civilisation and the sign that said, “Don't smoke your drugs inside the premises”, kinda summed the place up. Next to it they were holding a fair or boot sale, it made the “tat” market at Conil, on Friday, look quite upmarket.

We get back on to the site and “Doctor S”, AKA Tony is chuckling away as we walk past his pitch whilst informing us we might have a few neighbours next to us, A FEW! Hells teeth!

There are now two Spanish families, next to us and gazillions of kids, Spain is Catholic I know but for heavens sake get a pair of braces and a belt mate, and keep them on. So as usual we will eat about 8'ish, they will wait until 11 and, with the ghetto blasters turned to full ghetto will keep us “entertained” until the small hours. It's a Spanish bank holiday aswell, (Again? So soon after the last one six hours ago?) could they be here all week?

Tomorrow the clocks go back so it'll start getting lighter before 8am, 'er indoors gets an extra hours kip, followed by the usual “chuckie eggs and soldiers” and the rest of the day promises more rain, but warmish.

Have an idea if the weather is going to be bad and the site busy, I might start drinking my wine and beer now and keep on until the early hours, fade into an alcoholic coma, wake Tuesday morning, weather good, Spanish gone, job done. Just got to get SWMBO to agree to my plan, I'm not giving odds though.

I'm still getting bit to hell and I'm sure I've seen some of the little bastids in the toilet block, looks like I'm just going to have to read my book somewhere else. I have often been asked in the past why my book marker is a piece of toilet paper, there you go. (not used BTW)

SWMBO has been on the internet for hours now trying to get prices for the Tarifa / Tangier’s ferry. It appears that you can get a package which includes, a guided tour and lunch for €65. Or you can book just a return ferry for €133, er....no brainer to me there. Apparently the lunch is kinda basic so I guess they make their money when you “upgrade” to a decent lunch.

Sunday 31^st October 2010



Where are all the people?



Woke up to a bleeping noise, usually associated with the power going off and the fridge telling us that if we don't do something quick it will switch over to 12v and suck our batteries dry, switched it off. The storm turned up during the night and about 5:25 am (new local time, clocks just gone back) I'm awake and listening to the rain and watching the lightening flashes and waiting until the power comes back on. Tricia got up, made a quick visit to the little room, looked at the clock I had just turned back, looked at me as though I was loony and promptly went back to bed,

So I'm now sitting at this keyboard drinking my gas made tea and wondering how wet I'm going to get if I nip outside for a quick fag?

I'm guessing but, as it is Sunday early hours and this is Spain, we won't be seeing electricity any time soon. SWMBO is a little shaken as she's just enquired if this situation may, in any possible way, effect her “chuckie” eggs and soldiers later on? Reassured she slips quietly back to the land of nod.

Heavens to Betsy, “Heavens to Betsy”! Did I just type that? Normally it's “Hells teeth”, or “Good Grief”. No this is more a Heavens to Betsy moment because it's 6:32 am and the power has come back an and I'm now drinking electric tea. Blowing a bit of a gale outside and returning from my regular morning SSS, noticed that at least one Motorhome / caravan awning had blown down in the middle of the night. Don't think I'll be bothering with those ladders today, one less thing.



As it's the last day before 1^st November when those bastids at Nationwide begin charging for ATM / any use of your debit card in Europe, I'm going to nip up and get the maximum €300 out today. They have decided to charge 2.5% plus £1 for every transaction, it's my bloody money for God's sake that they are lending out while it sits there in my current account getting 0.00000000001% interest. They however are charging 5%+ to small businesses and us, Jonny taxpayer, if you want to borrow some.

Lawyers, B(W)ankers and that kid who knocked one of my teeth out when I was seven, will be the first ones up against the wall come the revolution. Oh and Dentists who ask you a question just after filling your mouth with bits of metal and Novocaine.



Feel kinda sorry for the bunch of Brits, members of MHFun, who are turning up today with the weather the way it is. Still it's not cold and the prediction is for warm and dry for the next week or so.

I must arise and go now to the Isle of Innisfree, no, no, I meant get her breakfast on as I've just had “Where's my bloody eggs then!” and a pillow throw out the bedroom. Yet I must explain, Sunday mornings IS two lightly boiled eggs and toasted soldiers to Tricia, next to finding the chocolate I have hidden, it's the highlight of her week.

But this morning she was torn between the dilemma of breakfast or lying in bed. Thing is, with the clock change, the bedroom clock is saying it's 8:45am, 15 minutes to go, while her little tum tum is saying “I WANT MY BLOODY BREAFAST NOW!”

I just do what I'm told, easier that way.



BTW for those clever bastids who know the “I must arise and............etc.” was from W.B. Yeats, stop showing off. I only know it because it was drummed into me every Tuesday, when I got double English lit. from Mrs Whiting at Thorney Close Sec. Modern. That and “Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir”, Cargoes by John Masefield and the unforgettable, “Tim an Irish Terrier”, By W.M. Letts. The sad thing is I can still quote them all, along with quite a lot of Benny Hill's stuff, which kinda evens it all out.

10:00 am stopping raining, still blowing and I think we are keeping our heads down for the rest of the day and reading.



No drugs in here, Mate



Rock pools at Trafalgar





Thursday 28th October, Pinar San Jose, tranquil and very quiet.

I guess that's how you would sum this place up but it can be easy to doze off in the warm afternoons. Yesterday we were both still recovering from the previous days Conil cycle trip, we did push it a bit and could not get out of bed in the morning. The decision was taken after much discussion, about 3 seconds, that we would do basically bugger all and other than tidying out the holds, that is what we did, absolutely nowt! Which of coarse is what you can do when you're retired.

So today got back into the frenzy of the normal life we lead, went for a slow drive to the two markets in Barbate. One is permanent and sells fish, fruit & veg, and that's about it. Something fishy was being offered for €9/kilo, which is cheap for fish over here, but as we didn’t know what it was, didn't go for it. The other market is clothes and shoes, mostly Women’s stuff which is probably why I was practically the only bloke there but it kept SWMBO happy for a while and I don't think we bought anything! Managed to drop into Lidl and nearly got a wet suit (?) mainly 'cos it was very cheap or should I say, modestly priced, but could not see a reason why I needed one, being able to drink beer in a hurricane perhaps?

The town, Barbate, is kinda OK but a little poky in places but there some very nice buildings in some very nice areas but we will not be returning to next Fridays market any time soon.

Still haven’t borrowed any ladders so that's a job still to be done, got the extendible brushes out of the hold but that's as far as I've got.

Don't normally name people directly who are also on the site but must make an exception in this case. Tony and his partner Debbie, she's OK but there must be a spare bed in the Hastings area Nutters Institution or the Society Home of Saint Unlucky.

They have bought a Wildcat 5^th wheel, a big bugger with a garage nailed on the back where they carry two of these little quad bikes. He had got to the site with one of the twin axles on the 5er less one wheel, the “Sealed for Life” wheel bearing had seized and the wheel had come off. Luckily (?) only half a mile from the camp site. He managed to get it onto a pitch, thankfully having a big Yank pickup helped. He's only had the 5er from May this year! A new axle will be with him in a few weeks.

Then a while back he bought a generator, a 6 KVA, AKA a big bugger, after Debbie had told him to get a Honda which was the more reliable generator, but the saving of over £600 persuaded him otherwise. Tried it out and then put it into storage, a “year” later got it out and it blew up. “Sorry, out of warranty mate”. It goes on ebay next week, “pick up only as it weighs 90 kilos”.

T&D's Rig

The "genny" for sale

Next after bartering for a larger 1.8 m satellite dish from “Yorkshire, Mick”, next to us, he “finds” a pallet near the supermarket and after placing the dish on it promptly bashes a large tent peg through the pallet, the ground and into a underground water pipe. “All we knew was that there was a big hole with water in it the next morning!” Debbie contested as the site fixit man was making good.

3 wheel 5th wheel



Tony a few years back with more hair



As I passed their pitch the other day he is sitting there blowing up, by hand, a couple of 7 foot long rubber kayaks which he and Debs planned to use in the sea in the next few days, well with his luck we'll never see him again this side of Christmas.

Every time I see him he reminds me of someone and at last I got it, we will call him Doctor after this.

More ant&debs later.

We were going to have a BBQ tonight but for the first time after leaving the steaks and chicken on the kitchen counter all day, they were still half frozen at 5pm! So eggs and chips then.

Now reading a real book, Ben Elton's “Meltdown”, nearly 500 pages so will keep me going for a day or so.

Friday 29^th October 2010.

Watched another kids movie last night, Zathura, after watching Hook the night before and they both are exactly that, kids movies, and both made before CGI was king so the “monsters” were men in scaly suits, Tricia enjoyed them though.

Today it was off to Vejer De La Frontera, about 8 miles away in the hills. (from the local blurb)

“Vejer is a Moorish looking hilltop town (190 metres above sea level) a place of white-washed houses, narrow winding streets, excellent food and wine and the unspoilt beaches of the Costa de la Luz are only a 10-15 minute drive away.

Today Vejer is a picturesque town still retaining much of the wall around the old part of town which blends in well with the newer part. Many of the streets are too narrow for cars and if you look through an open doorway you are likely to see beautiful inner patios with lots of flowers and plants. The main square is Plaza de Espana pictured below with its beautiful fountain.

Many parts of the town have views to the sea and you can even see the Moroccan coast on a clear day.

Vejer is a town steeped in history, having been used as a fortress town by the Phoenicians, later by the Romans and then underwent five centuries of Moorish rule until it was captured by King Ferdinand of Castille in 1248. Vejer then became a border town against the Moors and hence "de la Frontera" was added to it's name. The king gave control of Vejer to Don Alonso Perez de Guzman, founder of the ducal house of Medina Sidonia. The famous battle of Trafalgar took place just off the coast near the town in 1805, near where we are at Cape Trafalgar.”

 

I will let the pictures give you a truer understanding what a beautiful place this is.

Then back via a beach restaurant in Conil, €11 each for two superb courses and a drink, the view of the beach was spoilt because the Conil “tat” market had just finished and as the traders were just chucking all the refuse into the four winds. Then a bit of shopping in the Mercadona to top up the liquids, milk silly, then back to the MS for a nice cup of tea. Bit of a rush really but that's what it is all about, so much to do and so much time to do it in.

Back to “24” tonight and there is only three more episodes left, thank God!

Monday 25th October 2010, it's 8:45 am, 18°C and SWMBO is cold.

Yep, she's still tucked in bed complaining about the cold and demanding I put the electric fire on! Looking at the weather back in Forest Row, it's actually at 0°C at the moment so God alone knows how she'll survive back there. The picture shows the thermometer and if you look closely at the bottom of the screen, the time and date (click on picture to expand).

I've been up since 5:50 am, completed SSS and caught up on my forums and blogs and she will not budge until it “warms up”.



Last night's instalment of “24” managed to sink to a new low where the good guys become the bad guys and vice versa and no one ever smiles and are all still constipated. I would give up on it now but SWMBO likes the violence, mayhem, blood and guts, she says it keeps her sane?



El Palmar beach



Today will be a cycle ride to the beach at El Palmar for some exercise.

I have a few jobs to do, clean the outside of the MS, repair a slow puncture on the Navara and throw away the charge controller for the solar panels, as it's duff, bloody Maplins. Don't really need the panels after all, as we very rarely are not on hookup and with 440 AH on tap from the 4 batteries, could go for a few days anyway, depending how often SWMBO uses her 10 megawatt hair dryer. But they do come in handy when the unit is in storage for 2-3 months, back in the UK, keeps the batteries topped up as there is a small current drain, which I just cannot isolate, so they are on a constant tickle charge and don't go flat

I'm pressing on with the steep learning curve that's associated with using Adobe Photoshop Elements which is an unbelievably complicated piece of software but what it can do to photographs is staggering, so I'm doing an hour or so a day. It's taken me three weeks and I can now re-size a photo.

The Kindle now and again drives me nutty. When you are reading an exciting book and you think it must be reaching the end, a mere feel on the 50 pages left tells you right up that it's not the case. With the Kindle you have a thin black line running along the bottom and no page numbers so you don't have a real feel for what's left.

It's now approaching 10 o'clock and she's complaining of being poorly, “Shivering to my bones I am”. “Not feeling right at all”. Now anyone with a history of SWMBO will know this is really a code for she wants something to eat i.e. “her medicine”, accompanied with a nice cup of tea. So I cycle to the supermarket on site and get a few fresh baguettes, one of which I fill with bacon and fried mushrooms, mine, hers is with bacon and then more bacon and a quick wipe round the frying pan.

I may have mentioned this before but Spanish bacon is like the bacon you got as a kid, slightly streaky and no bloody pan full of water when you fry it in it's own juices. Ten slices in a pack costing 95 cents and four slices into each baguette. “What are you doing with the other two?” “Putting them back in the fridge”. “Don't be silly, that's like putting the cork in a bottle of wine that's still a quarter full, just not done, not done at all!” “Putt them back were they belong, in that pan and then into half of a baguette, but with a little less tomato sauce 'cos I'm looking after my figure, then I'm going back to bed.”

She's now happy and the world moves on.

Been to El Parma, ride of about 12 miles, so getting there, increasing our mileage and fitness I hope.

El Palmar beach

The place is basically a surfers paradise, when the waves are big that is, fortunately not today as the wind was light. It must be absolutely packed in season, all that is there is parking space and bar/ restaurants. Got back and decided to clean the MS of insects at last, still some more work with the use of ladders.

El Palmar beach

Next was mending the slow puncture on the rear nearside, or offside, depending on which country you're driving in. Anyroadup my semi professional gun type puncture repair device did not do the job this time and so took it round to the local Kwik Fit equivalent place. They did it straight away, €17 including wheel balancing, which I thought was OK.

I'm been bit to buggery by mosquitoes and I'm sick of it. My legs look like a battlefield from World War I. One actually got me through my sock, how's that happen then?

Tricia is now fully cured from her earlier “illness” and is making sure she makes a full recovery as she is banging as much chicken into the oven as she can manage. These are chicken breast filled with blue cheese and wrapped in Parma Ham, should have been a soft garlic cheese but she picked up the wrong one, guess we try it tonight?

Not looking forward to bloody “24”.

Talked to brother Alan last night, most of the conversation revolved around how Sunderland were doing in the Premier league, as we usually do and our surprise that we (Sunderland) are lying 8^th!

Windows Bastid 7 is still playing up and I'm now getting “Windows 7, Build 7600, This copy of Windows is not genuine”. Yes it bloody well is or Amazon owes me £75! Turns out that the Dell 1737 laptop has a problem with W7, bloody great that is. Already done a complete re-install and it still thinks I running a cross between Vista and W7. Going to try with a brand new disk drive, re-install Vista and then upgrade to W7, as I only bought the upgrade version so it needs an existing OS, after upgrading my BIOS to version 1737_A08 and Roberts your Dad's brother. If anyone understands that, you are, like me, a very sad bastid indeed.

Ate the chicken, er.....not going to try that again I hope, it was so strong even English mustard couldn't tone it down and I didn't know if I was drinking wine or Bat's piss, mind you it was from Lidl so it could well have been the later.

“24” is getting worse if that's possible, last night we were treated to them running from terminal to terminal in an operations centre screaming “We haven’t got time”, all the time, have they never heard of a network or intranet?

On a very important recent birthday, more much later, I got a set of plastic, good quality thoughbut, cups, plates and bowls, from the Leadbetters, for the MS. I was absolutely thrilled because Jeanne L. had the very same set when we were camping in Mendigorria a few months back and I must have mentioned how I liked them. Now remember I said “thrilled” and the tragic part is I really was, it was as if I was seven and got a set of Scalextric!

Downside to the cups is that if you drink a lot of tea and coffee, as I do, they get stained. Although I knew the remedy I did not know that SWMBO had put it into action, you pour Domestos in them. You should then rinse them VERY thoroughly. So I comes up “That cup looks bloody clean must have not used it much, think I'll have a cup of coffee”. I would not recommend Columbian coffee with a hint of bleach, no sir.

Tuesday 26^th October 2010, still at PSJ, work to do.

Fit the original wheel back on, get ladders (not done for three days running), cycle to Conil to top up the mobile 'cos I still can't do it either from ATM or Internet, don't know why just never have been able to. Do some Adobe stuff and learn some more Spanish words.

We are OK on numbers, days of the week, amounts, the time, Lidl and Aldi speak, buying food etc. So SWMBO decided we were now doing parts of the body. So it's Cabeza for Head, (sounds almost like beer?), Pelo for hair, Ojo for eye, Clara for face, Nariz for nose and today it's oído for ear, oídos for ears, pop really.



El Palmar beach



The other big job is putting names/caption to the hundreds of pictures 'er indoors has been taking with her new camera, after looking a stacks of pictures of cows? “Because they're sweet, look at the babies!” Makes me weep, it really does, filling up my computer with gazillions of megabytes because this new camera is 14MP.

Stop press! Just been to the loo, talk about cutting the cheese, this was cutting the blue cheese and I had the place to myself in five minutes!

Been to Conil and back into the teeth of what seemed a gale but was quite honestly a brisk wind, so we are now lying out in the sun for a good long rest until dinner time. We went to get the Spanish mobile topped up and finally succeeded at last and now have €30 on it.

Tomorrow is market day in Barbate so I guess that's to look forward to.

Saturday 23rd October 2010, Pinar San Jose (PSJ) and it's still warm.

Decided to get up early, 7'ish, this morning, for no particular reason other than the fact that I was dying for a cuppa. This time we have brought out about a years worth of our favourite red label tea bags because last time we ran out and the Spanish tea is, in a word, pretty crap. OK that's two words but you know what I mean, if you can't get a decent cuppa in the morning, or any time you want it, the day is a write off. (or right off? I'll look it up) OK according to Wikipedia it's a write off as in crashed cars etc. Who says reading this doesn’t help your knowledge base?

Also most mornings are accompanied by some tosser, or tossers, firing shotguns, at rabbits I assume because the Spanish quite like them and as we are near a very large private farm, understandable perhaps. But it's 7/8 ish, this morning it's cold (19°C) and at 7 o'clock, very dark, and some daft bugger is giving it what for with a shotgun? What are they looking for, luminous rabbits?

Yesterday, returned to Mercadona Conil, and finally got the lettuce costing 80 cents and the rest of €10 on some cream that SWMBO must have. Then it was “Well as long as we are parked, let's look round the shops”. These words, to me are the equivalent and have the same meaning of, “dust to dust, ashes to ashes”, and “do you take this woman”, i.e. basically a curse and can only end in me handing over some money for a over inflated item in the most expensive part of town. And guess what, so it came to pass, a brown T shirt with “Espana” on it (how original is that), and four post cards that will arrive at their destinations about a week after we do.

Apparently it's going to rain a bit today so I think we will just laze around and read. There's not much to do on Mothership maintenance although if I manage to get hold of some light ladders I will attempt to remove the last of the insects that welded themselves to the front of the MS. Also we may look for the lost “pepper” spray stuff I imported from America, had three of them, gave one to Heather and the other two have gone walkies.

They are now shooting the luminous rabbits in the evenings after dark!

A game of dominoes occurred after a lapse of 4 months, I won best of 5, 3 to 1 and she claimed she had forgotten how to play. We are also into the 7^th series of “24” and it hasn't changed at all. It's still Jack Bauer saving the world at the last moment and using all the same expressions both physical and verbal. “Send the schematics to my cell”, “We haven’t got time” and the immortal, “It's a duodecimal 132 bit encrypted algorithm but it's got a back door that only I know about, it'll take 2 seconds, there done”.

As it's shot for a TV audience there are breaks for the commercials but as we are watching it on DVD all it shows is a time, i.e. 11:23:55pm and the the new time of 11:29:16 a few seconds later, so the commercial break takes approximately 5 minutes, but of cause this varies. I can imagine the producer trying to fit a “Miller light”, “Cheerios” and a few others in so that it fills the time exactly as the show is supposed to be in real time and last exactly 1 hour. So we have invented a game where we guess the exact period of time elapsed for the commercials, which is instant as far as we are concerned, that's how bad it's getting. Stopped now as she is 10 to 6 up in the series and I've ruled that it has become too easy.

BTW, none of the characters ever sleeps or goes to the loo. It's fast paced though but and lots of people get shot so it's just the ticket for SWMBO. Unlike “Prison Break”, which became so predictable that we gave up during the 3^rd series, we will last this one out and then call it a day if an 8^th series heaves over the horizon.

Sunday 24^th and not quite a full nights sleep, SWMBO decided to have the hot and cold flushes and I'm not talking about using the loo, so most of the night was spent wrestling the duvet back and forth and her clinging to me like a haversack trying to get warm. Then around 7'ish the shooting, I really thought there was a full scale battle going on in the field opposite, and cock crows began so might aswell just get up. As it's Sunday SWMBO gets her soft boiled eggs and soldiers in bed so as it's now 9:30am I better get a move on.



Los Canos De Meca beach



Meant to mention earlier, they have all sorts of different bins for the recycling stuff, you know glass, cardboard, stuff etc. So everyone is following the rules and have various plastic bags in their respective Motorhomes and then when full carry them out and put them in the relevant coloured bin. Just watched the “bin man” collect it all this morning, he just empties out each bin into a BIG bin in his trailer on the back of the golf cart he uses to get around, so it all gets mixed up again but saves him replacing every large plastic bag in the bins! So I guess I will save him more time and pre-mix ours for him and shove it into one bag.

Joy of joys, all four of our hobs on the oven ignite and stay on! Now I can understand some people may not find this very exciting and the fact that we only have three pans may not stand up to hard questioning, but the thing is that more or less from the moment we got the Mothership we've never had all four working. Sometimes three, sometimes only two, oh and on occasion the oven went out for no apparent reason. But because I am just a God of an engineer, (BTW I did not put that capital G in there, Open Office did and will not let me change it ('cos it's probably true)) I got new thermocouples and other bits, and during our 4 month stay in the UK, took the oven to bits and fixed it all! I think I will buy another frying pan.

Today we are planning a cycle ride to Los Canos De Meca, a little village down the coast just past Cape Trafalgar with the present Mrs Swinhoe planning a picnic. (didn't happen, just went back to the MS for lunch, see below) We were on the coast the other night and the sunsets were quite stunning and this bit of coast looks even better so may pop down this evening for some pictures.

Just got back from the 10 mile ride including some off roading in the hills and now tucking into a pile of large prawns in garlic butter with loads of dipping bread, so that weight watching diet of mine is right out the window for today.

Egrets in trees

There are lots of Egrets (type of Heron) wandering round in the fields along with the cattle. I've only seen Egrets, over here, in shallow river beds and assumed they were wading birds, so what were they doing in dry fields? They also roost, 200 at a time, in large trees. Turns out they are, wait for it..............Cattle Egrets and basically follow the Cattle around as they disturb the ground and kick up insects, there you go.

Tonight, probably cribbage followed by Chicken and chips? Then a few episodes of the dreaded “24”.

Wednesday 20th October 2010, Pinar San Jose (PSJ) and it's warm.



Left a week ago and now settled down here at PSJ, the sun is shinning, no clouds just blue sky and managing to put up with the 24ºC in the shade.

Cycled into Conil, a small town about 8 miles away on Monday and my legs are not quite in the shape they should be and although a few hills still a bit cream crackered. Also had a drive into Barbate, another small town in the other direction, about the same distance but you basically have to go up and down a small mountain (according to SWMBO) so we won't be cycling there any day soon. Pity because that's where the Aldi is but all is OK as there is a Lidl and Mercadona in Conil and now I'm drinking my favourite Spanish beer and wine at €4.95 a gallon, I think it's gone up?



Our modest plot



SWMBO is doing her first wash with the twin tub and I'm trudging my sorry arse back and forward to the grey water dump, can you believe that? Arse isn't in the standard Open Office dictionary, just had to add it, also with a capital A, had to add that aswell. What the hell is going on “aswell” should be one word shouldn’t it? OO will only accept it as two words, damn.

Went for a walk through the "Natural Park", which usually means scrub land in Spain, being in the middle of a pine foest made a big difference, saw a wierd house.

Good things so far:-

Weather, yes I'm rubbing it in, is great and no wind which is a bonus.

Lidl, Aldi and Mercadona in reachable distances.

My Kindle is better than I could wish for, thanks Al, but I sometimes forget it's an e-book and try to turn it over to read the next page, another story about Jack Reacher “61 hours”, good.

The 5er is all systems go, no problems.

Started to watch 7^th series of “24”, OK.

€10/night inc. free Wi-Fi (slowish), free sat TV, (not working), great showers and toilets.

Very quiet.

Nice neighbours, nearest, Mick the Yorkshireman, 50 m away. Opps just spotted a German, sandals and socks, you can always tell, giving the site next door a look over, time to switch on the genny and loud music.

BBQ

Nice big pitch which will be very easy to exit from.

Secure site, barrier etc.

Small, well stocked, supermarket and bar/restaurant on site.

In small village 10 minute walk from the beach, sandy beach not gravel as is sometimes the norm.



The house boat



Did I say the weather was good?

Bad things so far:- nowt.

Just cycled a few miles to Cape Trafalgar, what a glorious beach and hardly anyone there, see pictures. It's the battle's anniversary tomorrow, took place 21^st October 1805, 33 Spanish and French ships against Nelson's 27, but we whipped their asses.

21^st October



Trafalga

I see it's -4ºC back in southern England and I'm reaching for the A/C in the car, I guess that's why we are here.

Shopped at Mercadona the other day and the only thing we did not get was a lettuce for our regular salad lunches, so we go again today with the lettuce at the top of a new list. Remember SWMBO is in charge of all things shopping, unless it has alcohol in it then it's down to me. So we get back, unload and guess what SHE has forgotten, yep so it's sardines on toast for lunch today.



Trafalgar



Had a few people stopping by to take a decko (“dekho”, an Indian word meaning to peep, BTW) because they had never seen a 5er before and as we are next to the rear gates we are kind of unmissable. Unfortunately as it was a “washing day” things were not quite up to the present Mrs JK's standards internally and the look I got could have melted lead. Ho Hum.



Trafalgar



Unfortunately have been reading the news via internet and those three so called  lords should be in jail not just “suspended”, what the hell is the world coming to.



Trafalga



We now have a young Dutch couple staying across from our site who had moved down from further up the campsite and when I asked why, mainly because they was eyeing up my beer storage under the 5er, and it transpired that the German guy previously next to them snored uncontrollably during the night, they haven’t heard SWMBO after a couple of sherbets.

Tomorrow? Back to Mercadona.