Where's Bertie? He's back in the municipal Aire at Santader, where he spent a couple of nights in early November (exact location: 43.47218, -3.80276).
Weather: Awful start, with rain, hail and high winds. Some sunny spells between violent showers (rain, hail, sleet) later.
We were rudely awoken early this morning by hail battering Bertie's roof. Along with rocking as if he was at sea, it was enough to have me declare "I'm not going for a run in that!".
It was tempting to ask the Aire owner if we could stay another night (the max stay is officially 3 days), but the lack of certain groceries was the push we needed to move on.
Grocery shopping and LPG filling proved trying. I'd wanted to nip into the Carrefour in Santander, but found its (and all of the nearby) car parks guarded by height barriers. So, we proceeded to a Lidl, where the car park was full and so tight that we would have struggled to squeeze Bertie into a spot anyway.
Temporarily abandoning our supermarket needs, a diversion was made for LPG, to the same petrol station we used previously. The decision to go back there was slightly against our better judgement, but the experience was even worse today. I'll gloss over a detailed description of the shenanigans, but just mention that this is a manned station, where an attendant fills your vehicle for you. That's not an unusual scenario in Spain, but it's incredibly inefficient as everyone is waiting around for one man to do all of the filling, then to write out a chit, to be taken into the kiosk for payment. The whole inefficient scenario is not helped by all of vehicle manoeuvring that needs to go on due to the poor design of this particular filling station.
Groceries were finally procured from another Lidl (bizarre, inefficient parking barrier system there), then it was just a stop for diesel before our errands were run. Yes, we could have got diesel at the same place as the LPG, but that would have required us to turn around and queue for another pump, and we had almost lost the will to live just in getting LPG.
On the bright side, that's the first time we've put any fuel in Bertie's tank since San Sebastian on 16 October.
Settled into the Aire here, we were just finishing up a late lunch when a patch of blue sky was spotted. Making the most of it, we dived into our waterproofs and went out for a leg-stretch, making one full circuit and one mini-circuit of the park opposite before the sky started looking too ominous to continue. Good call: I hadn't had Bertie's door closed behind me for more than five seconds before the rain came down.
Eeeh, that's another lot of wittering on a day when we have essentially done nothing!
Weather: Awful start, with rain, hail and high winds. Some sunny spells between violent showers (rain, hail, sleet) later.
We were rudely awoken early this morning by hail battering Bertie's roof. Along with rocking as if he was at sea, it was enough to have me declare "I'm not going for a run in that!".
It was tempting to ask the Aire owner if we could stay another night (the max stay is officially 3 days), but the lack of certain groceries was the push we needed to move on.
Grocery shopping and LPG filling proved trying. I'd wanted to nip into the Carrefour in Santander, but found its (and all of the nearby) car parks guarded by height barriers. So, we proceeded to a Lidl, where the car park was full and so tight that we would have struggled to squeeze Bertie into a spot anyway.
Temporarily abandoning our supermarket needs, a diversion was made for LPG, to the same petrol station we used previously. The decision to go back there was slightly against our better judgement, but the experience was even worse today. I'll gloss over a detailed description of the shenanigans, but just mention that this is a manned station, where an attendant fills your vehicle for you. That's not an unusual scenario in Spain, but it's incredibly inefficient as everyone is waiting around for one man to do all of the filling, then to write out a chit, to be taken into the kiosk for payment. The whole inefficient scenario is not helped by all of vehicle manoeuvring that needs to go on due to the poor design of this particular filling station.
Groceries were finally procured from another Lidl (bizarre, inefficient parking barrier system there), then it was just a stop for diesel before our errands were run. Yes, we could have got diesel at the same place as the LPG, but that would have required us to turn around and queue for another pump, and we had almost lost the will to live just in getting LPG.
On the bright side, that's the first time we've put any fuel in Bertie's tank since San Sebastian on 16 October.
Settled into the Aire here, we were just finishing up a late lunch when a patch of blue sky was spotted. Making the most of it, we dived into our waterproofs and went out for a leg-stretch, making one full circuit and one mini-circuit of the park opposite before the sky started looking too ominous to continue. Good call: I hadn't had Bertie's door closed behind me for more than five seconds before the rain came down.
Eeeh, that's another lot of wittering on a day when we have essentially done nothing!
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