Where's Bertie? He's still unmoved, at the Aire in Archena.
Weather: Overcast again, but not as heavily as yesterday and with some hints of blue, so warmer (up to 18, maybe 19 degrees).
Something I forgot to mention: on Monday night at around 8 the sound of a marching band reached our ears. There were some football matches going on at the training ground next door to us, so I initially assumed the two were related. Eventually, at around 9.30 I went out to see what was going on, but didn't find said band; they weren't at the sports ground. It was all reminiscent of our stay in Gibraléon last January. As on that occasion, we listened to (seemingly) the same three bars of a marching tune being played over and over until they finally decided they'd got the hang of it and called an end to the practice just before 10pm.
On to today: it started with runs. Mick joined me for the first 1.5 miles of my 17-miler, then after he turned back, I continued another 3.5 miles down river (i.e. 5 miles from Bertie) before turning back myself. After a super-quick stop at Bertie to shove some cake into my mouth and refill a water bottle, my intention was to head up-river for 3.5 miles. I did notice, only a mile or so into the up-river bit that I'd lost the river, but I assumed that's what the route does at that point and that I would rejoin it in due course. Then an Aldi came into view. "Wonder if that's closer than the one we went to yesterday?" I wondered to myself. Then I spotted the Repsol station across the road and the abandoned half-built house behind it. This *was* the Aldi we'd visited and it was nowhere near the river. After a stop to look at a map to see how best to put myself right I decided an about turn was the only option. The bonus of the accidental detour was that it threw some inclines into my otherwise flat route.
mid-run snap
I got back to Bertie to find that our Austrian neighbours of the last couple of days had left and in their place was the Belgian van we'd been parked behind at Ceutí*. A couple of hours later we arrived back from a stroll up to the nearby spa resort to find the Belgians had already gone. It turned out that we'd missed an altercation between the Belgians and the lone Dutch woman in the next van along. She'd suffered a fault resulting in her grey water being dumped on the car park (a big no-no, but sometimes extenuating circumstances** means it can't be helped). Even though, with the assistance of a German chap, she had managed to effect a temporary fix, the Belgians had complained. She'd explained, but they complained some more. As things became heated she came up with a pragmatic solution: if they didn't like being next to her, they could leave (apparently the language was a little more colourful than that), which is exactly what they did. All a bit bemusing as to why someone would be so offended by someone accidentally spilling a bit of dish/shower water over the car park and a bit of a shame that we missed the whole episode.
Snaps from our walk up to the spa resort.
In other news, I finished my latest yarny make last night:
The back story: for Christmas 2018 my sister gave me some mystery balls of yarn. I think that the one I've used here is pure wool and it feels like it's good quality. By sight I guessed it was aran weight and I had 270g of it. Unfortunately, I had no feasible way to know what yardage that translated to. I figured it would be enough for a sleeveless jumper and picked a pattern that would allow me to experiment with a couple of pattern features I've not tried before. It's a pity it doesn't fit me better (I erred too much on the side of caution with sizing vs yarn availability... and ended up with plenty left over) as I love the colour and the feel of the yarn.
(*All these repeated meetings of the same vans could make one wonder if maybe southern Iberia is not overrun with motorhomes in winter, but there's just 100 of us following each other around!
**Aside from faults, which can happen to anyone, there's also the possibility of innocently forgetting to turn your drain tap off. We had an incident in Norway (where it is illegal to dump waste water in the street) when we stepped out of Bertie to go for a walk and discovered we'd accidentally left his drain open after using a service point earlier in the day. Two showers worth of water led from immediately under his drain point, all the way down the street. Bit embarrassing!)
Weather: Overcast again, but not as heavily as yesterday and with some hints of blue, so warmer (up to 18, maybe 19 degrees).
Something I forgot to mention: on Monday night at around 8 the sound of a marching band reached our ears. There were some football matches going on at the training ground next door to us, so I initially assumed the two were related. Eventually, at around 9.30 I went out to see what was going on, but didn't find said band; they weren't at the sports ground. It was all reminiscent of our stay in Gibraléon last January. As on that occasion, we listened to (seemingly) the same three bars of a marching tune being played over and over until they finally decided they'd got the hang of it and called an end to the practice just before 10pm.
On to today: it started with runs. Mick joined me for the first 1.5 miles of my 17-miler, then after he turned back, I continued another 3.5 miles down river (i.e. 5 miles from Bertie) before turning back myself. After a super-quick stop at Bertie to shove some cake into my mouth and refill a water bottle, my intention was to head up-river for 3.5 miles. I did notice, only a mile or so into the up-river bit that I'd lost the river, but I assumed that's what the route does at that point and that I would rejoin it in due course. Then an Aldi came into view. "Wonder if that's closer than the one we went to yesterday?" I wondered to myself. Then I spotted the Repsol station across the road and the abandoned half-built house behind it. This *was* the Aldi we'd visited and it was nowhere near the river. After a stop to look at a map to see how best to put myself right I decided an about turn was the only option. The bonus of the accidental detour was that it threw some inclines into my otherwise flat route.
I got back to Bertie to find that our Austrian neighbours of the last couple of days had left and in their place was the Belgian van we'd been parked behind at Ceutí*. A couple of hours later we arrived back from a stroll up to the nearby spa resort to find the Belgians had already gone. It turned out that we'd missed an altercation between the Belgians and the lone Dutch woman in the next van along. She'd suffered a fault resulting in her grey water being dumped on the car park (a big no-no, but sometimes extenuating circumstances** means it can't be helped). Even though, with the assistance of a German chap, she had managed to effect a temporary fix, the Belgians had complained. She'd explained, but they complained some more. As things became heated she came up with a pragmatic solution: if they didn't like being next to her, they could leave (apparently the language was a little more colourful than that), which is exactly what they did. All a bit bemusing as to why someone would be so offended by someone accidentally spilling a bit of dish/shower water over the car park and a bit of a shame that we missed the whole episode.
In other news, I finished my latest yarny make last night:
(*All these repeated meetings of the same vans could make one wonder if maybe southern Iberia is not overrun with motorhomes in winter, but there's just 100 of us following each other around!
**Aside from faults, which can happen to anyone, there's also the possibility of innocently forgetting to turn your drain tap off. We had an incident in Norway (where it is illegal to dump waste water in the street) when we stepped out of Bertie to go for a walk and discovered we'd accidentally left his drain open after using a service point earlier in the day. Two showers worth of water led from immediately under his drain point, all the way down the street. Bit embarrassing!)
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