Where's Bertie? He's in a large (some would say huge) beachside car park just outside of the town of Motril, on the south coast of Spain. Exact location: 36.716, -3.5508
Weather: In Motril, 19 degrees with wall-to-wall sunshine, but windy.
There was a building in the Aire at Guardia de Jaén. It didn't look to be in use, but that's common with many Spanish buildings, when the shutters are drawn. Last night, however, at around 7pm, it became a hive of activity, with a level of music that ranged from relatively unintrusive to positively banging. Lots of cars arrived, blocking the motorhomes in (why didn't they allocate the lower car park for motorhomes, given that the 100m distance is too far for people using the community centre to walk?!) and along with the music was a substantial hubbub of voices.
Of course, we couldn't resist nipping out to see what the mask wearing situation was. Or wasn't. The wearing of masks outdoors is already a nonsense in the vast majority of cases (e.g. you can be walking down the street without a person within 500m of you, but you have to wear a mask), and gatherings like this where people are not wearing face coverings make an even bigger nonsense of it. I may not be a scientist (although I have read more scientific papers over the last two years than I have in the rest of my life combined) but I'm pretty sure it's not the outdoor setting that the Spanish government needs to be worried about.
People started leaving the gathering just before we went to bed. I know the music was still going at 11pm, but it didn't keep us awake and I have no idea at what time it stopped.
As for today, and indeed the next few days, I had a plan. I was going to be taking us a not-insignificant distance out of our way, but it seemed worthwhile for the running routes it would afford us over the weekend. First off, we were going to Guadix, where we stopped at a supermarket 6 years ago, but otherwise have not visited, then we were potentially going to travel even further east to another Via Verde over the weekend. We would then head down to the coast early next week.
In all my planning, the one thing I had omitted to check was the weather forecast. It was only as we were approaching Guadix (which by then I'd realised sits at an altitude of 1500m, just on the north side of the Sierra Nevada mountains), with Bertie's thermometer reading 7 degrees, that it occurred to me to do so. Given that Mick's current priority is to acclimatise to running in warmer temperatures, in preparation for the Seville Marathon in 3 weeks' time, Guadix was perhaps not the best choice with daytime highs in the low teens.
We were within 10km of our destination when a sudden decision was made: to turn around at the next junction and go all the way back to Granada, thence to the coast. What a waste of an hour and a couple of gallons of fuel!
It was 1pm by the time we pulled into the car park here in Motril. It's surprisingly empty (relatively speaking)! I haven't counted, but there must be somewhere between 30 and 50 motorhomes here. I'm sure that 2 years ago it would have been heaving. We're currently sitting in a whole row of French vans (between a couple of biggies, to give us a windbreak). In front of us are five Norwegians. There's a curious lack of Brits (or, as Mick pointed out, maybe not so curious given that we weren't allowed to travel through France between late December and mid-January).
The other thing that has probably affected numbers here is that, apparently, the police are strictly enforcing a 48-hour stay limit and a 'no camping' rule (which means you can park, but can't have, for example, tables and chairs, awnings or even your step out). I completely approve of both of these measures (even if I would prefer the 48-hour limit to be 72 hours) - it makes the place a lot tidier and means that there will be a constant turn over of people, meaning new arrivals will be guaranteed a space. A far better situation than a total ban on motorhomes due to those who think it's okay to pitch up and stay here for months at a time.
After that slight digression, back to our arrival: we parked up, felt the wind, saw the palm trees across the road bending over, and Mick started to regret not taking his run in Guadix after all. He's out as I type this (and I've just seen him pass, looking like he's being chased, with what appeared to be a running club just behind him*), and it must be hard going on his east-ward reps.
In between lunch and his run, we took a walk the 2km (each way) to the nearest mini-market. Our first stop in Guadix was to be a Lidl, but in the 'turn around now' decision, I declared that there was no point continuing just to go shopping, as we were bound to pass another shop en-route. It turned out I was wrong, but we didn't need much, so going on foot with a backpack was fine.
Weather: In Motril, 19 degrees with wall-to-wall sunshine, but windy.
There was a building in the Aire at Guardia de Jaén. It didn't look to be in use, but that's common with many Spanish buildings, when the shutters are drawn. Last night, however, at around 7pm, it became a hive of activity, with a level of music that ranged from relatively unintrusive to positively banging. Lots of cars arrived, blocking the motorhomes in (why didn't they allocate the lower car park for motorhomes, given that the 100m distance is too far for people using the community centre to walk?!) and along with the music was a substantial hubbub of voices.
Of course, we couldn't resist nipping out to see what the mask wearing situation was. Or wasn't. The wearing of masks outdoors is already a nonsense in the vast majority of cases (e.g. you can be walking down the street without a person within 500m of you, but you have to wear a mask), and gatherings like this where people are not wearing face coverings make an even bigger nonsense of it. I may not be a scientist (although I have read more scientific papers over the last two years than I have in the rest of my life combined) but I'm pretty sure it's not the outdoor setting that the Spanish government needs to be worried about.
People started leaving the gathering just before we went to bed. I know the music was still going at 11pm, but it didn't keep us awake and I have no idea at what time it stopped.
As for today, and indeed the next few days, I had a plan. I was going to be taking us a not-insignificant distance out of our way, but it seemed worthwhile for the running routes it would afford us over the weekend. First off, we were going to Guadix, where we stopped at a supermarket 6 years ago, but otherwise have not visited, then we were potentially going to travel even further east to another Via Verde over the weekend. We would then head down to the coast early next week.
In all my planning, the one thing I had omitted to check was the weather forecast. It was only as we were approaching Guadix (which by then I'd realised sits at an altitude of 1500m, just on the north side of the Sierra Nevada mountains), with Bertie's thermometer reading 7 degrees, that it occurred to me to do so. Given that Mick's current priority is to acclimatise to running in warmer temperatures, in preparation for the Seville Marathon in 3 weeks' time, Guadix was perhaps not the best choice with daytime highs in the low teens.
We were within 10km of our destination when a sudden decision was made: to turn around at the next junction and go all the way back to Granada, thence to the coast. What a waste of an hour and a couple of gallons of fuel!
It was 1pm by the time we pulled into the car park here in Motril. It's surprisingly empty (relatively speaking)! I haven't counted, but there must be somewhere between 30 and 50 motorhomes here. I'm sure that 2 years ago it would have been heaving. We're currently sitting in a whole row of French vans (between a couple of biggies, to give us a windbreak). In front of us are five Norwegians. There's a curious lack of Brits (or, as Mick pointed out, maybe not so curious given that we weren't allowed to travel through France between late December and mid-January).
The other thing that has probably affected numbers here is that, apparently, the police are strictly enforcing a 48-hour stay limit and a 'no camping' rule (which means you can park, but can't have, for example, tables and chairs, awnings or even your step out). I completely approve of both of these measures (even if I would prefer the 48-hour limit to be 72 hours) - it makes the place a lot tidier and means that there will be a constant turn over of people, meaning new arrivals will be guaranteed a space. A far better situation than a total ban on motorhomes due to those who think it's okay to pitch up and stay here for months at a time.
After that slight digression, back to our arrival: we parked up, felt the wind, saw the palm trees across the road bending over, and Mick started to regret not taking his run in Guadix after all. He's out as I type this (and I've just seen him pass, looking like he's being chased, with what appeared to be a running club just behind him*), and it must be hard going on his east-ward reps.
In between lunch and his run, we took a walk the 2km (each way) to the nearest mini-market. Our first stop in Guadix was to be a Lidl, but in the 'turn around now' decision, I declared that there was no point continuing just to go shopping, as we were bound to pass another shop en-route. It turned out I was wrong, but we didn't need much, so going on foot with a backpack was fine.
We opted to walk there along the beach, rather than the promenade, so that we could take advantage of the mask exemption applicable to beaches. Once we left the beach, happily the wind was strong enough to stop the sunglasses from steaming up today, which is the main problem we're finding with outdoor mask wearing combined with wrap-around sunglasses.
There's a vehicle track of compressed ground along the beach, so the walking was easy.
It may not be golden sand, but it is huge.
Will a Menu del Dia feature in our day tomorrow?
Snap taken as we drove south. I've never yet taken a passable snap from a moving vehicle, but two things are evident in this snap: 1) there's a lot of snow up there; and 2) this motorway is not well frequented.
(*Ha! Turns out that wasn't Mick. That became apparent when Mick was back in Bertie and I saw him run past again. What are the chance of two chaps of the same build both being out at the same time wearing black shorts and a fluorescent orange t-shirt?)
Your last para. Maybe in Holland?
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