Monday 20th October 2014. Week 174. Spain

    Those wacky Germans

    Okay well an early posting today as we're leaving this morning. The camp site is nice but too full for us. I like it quieter. Comically, ever morning the tannoy strikes up with ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG! First time I heard it I thought the commandant was making his rounds. The announcer then lists the days events. Water aerobics in the swimming pool, bingo in the café and later Adolf Muller and his saxophone in the bar. It feels like I'm in a Carry-on film.

Yesterday a group of about ten Germans gathered on the next pitch to celebrate some ones birthday. I know this because one played Happy Birthday on his harmonica but oddly they didn't sing along.

    We took off shopping. When we returned the party was in full swing. We had lunch and went for a cycle ride to see the Roman towers of which there are several in the area, built as look-outs for the frequent pirate raids here. I went along not so much for the towers, I'm maxed out with Roman history, but because the route took us between tangerine and pomegranate groves. I was hoping for some windfall fruit, no such luck, so it called for some creative scrumping to get my bounty.

    We arrived back late afternoon. The party was getting louder as they were getting drunker. Around five our neighbour, having seen me step out the van, walked over. Well, he didn't so much walk over, as ricochet off various bits of camping equipment.

    “You comen for der schapps ya!, he offered.”.

    Being all Germans, all pissed, and all loud, I really couldn’t see how two sober Britishers were going to slot into the group dynamics, so I said: “Danker, but we are having our dinner”. He shuffled off and returned to his friends. I told Hazel who was about to pour us our evening gin and tonics, we like to sit outside and drink a toast to the setting sun. We now couldn't do that, not after turning down our neignbours drunken offer. He might feel offended. Hazel wanted a cigarette, so she fought her way around, and over, the crap we keep in the cab while parked up and climbed out the drivers door so as not to be seen by Heinz, while I made derisory chicken clucking noises.

    When we retired to bed they were still at it. They'd been drinking for ten hours!

 The campsite recycle bins, all full. This is serious drinking, not for the faint hearted. 

  We are heading across country. The next site is out in the sticks in the Castilla la Mancha region. There’s a slim chance it might not have wifi or Internet, so if you don't hear from me in the next couple of days it's not because I've driven off a mountain, although that’s always a possibility. (Well that's not temping fate!. Ed). It's because I can't get a connection.

    Lastly: I don't want to be accused of adding to the wealth of confusion, so let me correct something I said last week. I questioned the wisdom of sitting next to a sneezing Ebola sufferer on a bus. I should point out the consensus of medical opinion is that it is possible to get infected that way, but, according to those that should know, it's also most unlikely. 






 Wednesday 22nd October 2014. Week 174. Spain.

    From the sublime to the ridiculous.

    Well I was right, this camp site doesn’t have wifi. I also can't get a data phone signal. Camp here and you really are cut off from humanity. However an internet connection isn't the only thing this camp-site lacks.

    We pulled off the motorway into a one horse town called Villagorda. What anyone does here to earn a living or have fun is anyone guess. This is the back of the beyond. The collection of thirty odd streets or Calles were abandoned and had it not been for a couple of old chaps standing in the sun reminiscing -like old folk do the world over- you'd think the town was deserted. They watched us drive by, probably the high point of their day. We skirted the village and then dropped dramatically down into a rock strewn grim looking valley.

    “Looks, ermm interesting” Haze said as I steadily negotiated the steep decent. Being no stranger to sarcasm I spotted the thinly veiled barb in that comment.

    “The sites got a swimming pool I said defensively. Having chosen the site I felt obliged to big it up in some way.

   Could just as easy be the bad lands of Arazona

     On arrival I parked and made my way to reception. Hazel went off for a nose. Inside, behind a counter, a chap was busy finishing off a task. I waited, so did the air around me. Nothing moved. It was hot, low thirties. The heat made worse by the absence of even a faint breeze. Outside our radiator fan, cooling our silent engine, was the only sound to be heard.

    Hazel came back from her recky, 'the sites empty' she reported. Which immediately had me wondering what, in a completely empty camp-site, the manager had found to do? Being empty I would've expected him to be a tad more excited at seeing two new faces. Make a fuss. Welcome us. Offer me his wife. He seemed quite unimpressed he had guest.

After the processing formalities he informed us we were on pitch 20, but I then think even he saw the ludicrousness of assigning us a pitch number in a completely empty camp-site, so he suggested we could move if we didn’t like it.

    We camped and then went out to stretch our legs. We walked the mile to the bottom of the valley to see the lake we'd caught sight of on our way in. Embalse De Contreras is a fresh water lake covering some twenty square miles. It was like a sheet of glass, motionless, crystal clear and a turquoise blue. Quite stunning and very inviting.

    The earth and rocks around us were multicoloured. Reds, golds, browns and yellows. A petrified tree lay half buried in rock. The whole area had a primeval feel to it. Apart from the half made track down here, it's remained unchanged for perhaps thousands of years. We'd stepped back in time. Around us, had we been able to tell from the clues, lay a history of the area in geological terms.

    “Did I know this was here when I chose the site? Hazel asked.

    “What?. ..Oh yeah sure, it's why I chose it.” I do fib quite convincingly. It was a gem. An oasis of solitary beauty and ours while we stood admiring it.

    We'll move on tomorrow. I can do loneness and seclusion for about three days tops, after that I find myself talking to imaginary people in the next loo cubical.

Doh! She caught me mid movement.   Now I just look silly!

The next site advertises free wifi, so back to civilisation.

    Back on Friday.





Thursday 2rd October 2014. Week 174. Spain

    In Brief.

    Last night we left the van and, aided by my smart phone which makes for an excellent, if not hugely expensive torch, walked away from the camp light pollution and into the darkness. Perhaps stumbling around in the dark when you're perched 400 hundred meters above a valley floor, when one wrong footstep could send you crashing to the bottom, is not the brightest thing to do but I wanted a particular photo.

    I set my camera down, selected a 15 second exposure and took a photo of the night sky. It's easy to forget all this is above our heads and that’s a shame because I find the night sky pretty amazing. I could never tire of looking up, chiefly because I always revert to a child like state of wonderment.

  You just dont see this at home.

  Imagine, some of the starlight I captured in the photograph left those stars tens of millions of years ago, before mankind even existed! After an epic journey across our solar system I took a snap of it, just last night. That's mind boggling, right? Looking up, you only see history.

    The moment was somewhat lost to me when Hazel said, without putting her brain in gear: “Because we're like, seven hundred meters above sea level, d'you think that’s why we can see them so well? (duh! Sorry everyone. Ed) I pointed out they're all billions of miles away, so I seriously doubted being 700 metres closer made a scrap of difference but if she thought it did I'd be happy to find her a ladder to stand on. (Smart arse. Ed)

    A long drive today, almost two hundred miles.

    On the move we generally aim to bunny hop about a hundred and twenty miles between camp-sites. Drive much more than that and I think you're in danger of sailing past stuff you later wished you'd stopped and seen. It's only very occasionally this hasn't worked out and we've ended up in some less than salubrious place. Oddly, practically all the camp sites I thought looked woeful and miles from anything interesting, -I view most of them via Google earth first- have generally turned out to be the most surprising, like this one. On paper it's not worth a visit and yet there's always something, you just need to look.

 Such as this.      

 During the drive we passed by no major cities and only a couple of big towns. The land was gently undulating, burnt sepia red and contained almost exclusively vineyards in all directions. Spain is big and empty. I like that. It means you have space. I'm convinced it's why the Spanish appear such an affable bunch. They're not all crammed together living in each others pockets. It's proven this has a positive psychological effect on people.

    Eight out of ten Spaniards live on the coast. This leaves a country, which is over twice the size of Britain pretty empty in the middle. And that leaves them plenty of room to do what they do best and that’s make some of the best wines in the world.






 Friday 24th October 2014. Week 174. Spain.

    What's on my mind today?

    Well this isn't going to go anywhere but let's give it a try. It started when Hazel paid £4 for eye shadow. She then questioned my eye sight when, no matter how hard I tried, I could see it on her. I suggested she lathered on some more but she than asked if I wanted her to look like a drag queen?. Point taken. Still, four quid. And that had me thinking......

    Amongst my many roles on this trip, repairman, chief engineer, head driver, I'm also finance officer. Roles, with which my meagre skill-set dovetails nicely with, we all play to our strengths. Hazel is the chief petty officer: -Question: do petty officers moan about the little things in life?- she's also chief medical officer and head nutritionist (He means I cook the meals. Ed).

    Generally speaking, in the male-female bonding pair, husbands tend to manage the fiscal side of things. This is not out of some sexiest power thing as is sometimes suggested but because long long ago, nature genetically engineered us men to be hunters. We're often stronger and more aggressive than women, although I've had a couple of mother-in-laws which would dispute that, so it suited women to stay around the cave while us menfolk hunted and brought home the bacon and in the process tried to avoid being turned into lunch ourselves. Times have not really changed. Although we don’t have to catch our food the programming is still with us. In today’s modern world money has replaced the bow, trap, rod or club.

    Generally men have welcomed this adapted roll because A; its safer and B; wives who hold the purse strings tend to make blokes feel uneasy. Blokes still don't understand women's spending habits. For a start it worries us that on the one hand they need so many shoes and yet seem quite happy with a clam phone.

    While women and men view money in exactly the same way our attitudes to spending it is based on an entirely differently set of priorities. We have differing agendas. It's for this reason I've always strongly advocated having a female chancellor of the exchequer. And that’s perversely the reason there’s never likely to be one. I think a female chancellor would slash our vast military budget and splash out on say, soft furnishings for the Houses of Parliament. I agree, some rugs and throws wouldn't go amiss.

    On a personal level there are many examples of the differing attitudes to spending between us. One that springs Hazel's rarely looks at the cost of a beauty product. She has two small jars of 'moisturiser cream' which she refuses to tell me the price of. Judging by the youthful claims on the jar I'm guessing a shed load.

    Even with something as mundane as shower gel, I tend to go for the 99p all you can carry six litre family size while Hazel favours a small bottle of something that promises to leave her with the skin texture of a water nymph. I think the differences between the sexes are highlighted most when carrying out the weekly shop. Most men are very budget conscious here. Trust me it's a good place to save a few bob. This is because that while we know nature made us the hunters, it's one thing throwing a spear at a chicken but quite another throwing money at a free range, corn fed, happy chicken: I much prefer the: ate what it could find slightly depressed variety.

    They taste just as good and are a damn site cheaper.

    You have a good weekend.




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