Monday 30 January - Puebla de Farnals

Where's Bertie? He's at a free Aire at Puebla de Farnals. Exact location: 39.56549, -0.29222
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine, but still not overly warm, although I think we hit 12 degrees today, and it's been hot inside Bertie.

Finally rolling off the wasteland at Canet d'en Berenguer just before 9 this morning, off to Lidl we went. Having relieved our bank account of a chunk of money in return for a full fridge, freezer and cupboards (plus a couple of things on the sofa that we couldn't immediately find homes for elsewhere), we relocated a whole 100m up the road to give Bertie a treat. You remember that a week ago I posted a photo of his filthy back end? Today we took him to a jet wash and brought him back to a respectable state of cleanliness.

I said I was going to take more photos, and this is what I have to offer?!*

Onwards then to this Aire, only a quarter of an hour away. "How do you rate our chances of there being a space free?" asked Mick on the way. I was moderately hopeful, as we couldn't have hit a better time or day to maximise our chances. So it was - we took the one space available, and whilst there may have been other movements during the day, we haven't seen any other spaces come free. There has, however, been a constant stream of motorhomes coming and going. How many of them wanted to stay here we don't know; the big attraction is that there's a free service point here, and being parked right next to it, we've been aware of how popular it is**.

We've just had one walk today, to and along the beachside promenade, during which I failed to take any photos, so you can have these taken on Playa de Berenguer at 0730 this morning.

It was on our way back to Bertie at the end of that stroll that Mick asked what the name of this settlement is and I realised that I had no idea. It's only as I've come to type this blog post that I've looked up to see where we are. What I did know was that we're only one beach further along from Playa de Puçol where we spent a couple of nights in January 2020.

With the day being so sunny, the rest of it was spent staring at laptops, with Bertie's battery not caring one jot that we were sucking power from his solar panel.

^{(*I didn't pack a spare kitchen roll. This was a mistake, as: 1) it's a vital piece of equipment in the art of washing a full day's worth of dishes in less than a litre of water; and 2) Lidl in Spain only sells either four packs, or single giant rolls. We don't get through it that quickly and if we buy four rolls, then we need to find somewhere to store the other three, so we opted for the giant roll. The photo doesn't give the true sense of how huge it is. It's rather a blot on Bertie's good looks.
**Visually this Aire isn't anywhere near as nice as the wasteland upon which we've spent the last several nights, and its location isn't nearly as good either. We'll still stay here for the full 72hrs allowed and will enjoy the convenience of having a tap and a drain to hand whilst we're here.)}

Saturday & Sunday - Canet d'en Berenguer

Where was Bertie? He broke our usual rules about how long it's reasonable to stay in one informal spot by spending another two nights at Canet d'en Berenguer.
Weather: Saturday: Sunny but cool. Sunday: overcast, some rain and not very warm.

Saturday 
My schedule had me doing a 35k run this weekend, and on Friday night I'd got my stuff together to do that on Saturday morning. By Saturday I'd thought better of it. The balancing act between doing enough, but not over-exerting myself when I've got a virus (Shingles) such that I make myself so poorly that I can't run the marathon.

A lazy start to the day was had instead until mid-morning when we headed out in search of a supermarket. Our drinking water supply was almost exhausted, and whilst public taps are common in Spain, Canet d'en Berenguer doesn't seem to have any. An 8l bottle for 85c, carried by Mick the 1km back to Bertie, plus a basketful of other groceries, would see us through.

We both went out for 15k-worth of exercise in the afternoon, but at different paces, with Mick still working out what run:walk ratio his Achilles can take. The promenades weren't quite as busy in the afternoon as they'd been in the morning, but eateries were heaving and there'd clearly been an influx of visitors for the weekend.

Sunday
An overcast day and cool enough that I went out for a jogette wearing a long sleeved base layer and a wind shirt. Not the weather we came to Spain for - moreover when it started to rain about 40 minutes in. Fortunately for me, I was passing Bertie at the time, so I called it a day. Mick was rather further away and got a bit wetter.

The rain didn't last long, but the temperature alone was enough to make us take a rain-check on our intended lunch out (we didn't want to eat inside a busy restaurant, nor to shiver on an outside table).

The perfect day, one might think, as we were going to be indoors, to do lots of work on the laptops, except the very weather condition that made it so also meant we didn't have enough solar power to do that. We still got a reasonable amount done, but at the expense of keeping Bertie's battery topped up.

Really must make more of an effort to take some photos. Looking at my camera reel, the only snaps I have are of my shingles rash and Bertie's LPG tank gauges (we're going through LPG faster than ever, running the heating morning and night), and I don't think anyone needs to see either of them.

Friday 27 January - Canet d'en Berenguer

Where's Bertie? He's still on the wasteland at Canet d'en Berenguer.
Weather: wall-to-wall sunshine and warm enough for a t-shirt and light fleece.

The BBC weather forecast for this area is currently predicting nights of between -1 and 1 degree, which is colder than at home. The YR forecast (Norwegian, but like the BBC it offers forecasts for anywhere in the world) is giving overnight lows of 6 degrees. Based on my walk around the block just before sunrise this morning, YR is currently the forecast to trust.

After breakfast was a spell of looking at places we could stay over the next couple of weeks (found a really good looking place, before noticing that it wasn't on our route; hate it when that happens, which is far too frequently!), then we took ourselves off for a walk over to Puerto de Berenguer. In view of the nearest two fords being under water, as witnessed by both of us yesterday, we took the long way around by road.

Compared with Canet d'en Berenguer, the neighbouring settlement is positively bustling, with many eateries and other businesses open. It seems that people live on that side of the river, whereas on this side it's almost entirely holiday homes, which are closed up at this time of year.

With our memories suitably refreshed as to what the coast to the south of here looks like (I could picture a number of resorts I'd run through last year, but couldn't quite decide which was the one I was trying to remember), we were too lazy to return via the road bridge. Resigned to getting wet feet, to the ford we headed - and it was completely dry. I'd like to cite a silver lining to having walked the long way around on the outward leg, but I'm struggling to find one.

There's nowt else to report. The afternoon has been spent staring at laptops and now I find that teatime is upon us so I shall go and rummage in the fridge.

(A bit negligent not to have taken a single photo today. I'll try harder tomorrow.)

Wednesday & Thursday 25-26 January - Canet d'en Berenguer

Where's Bertie? He's sitting on a piece of waste ground next to the car park in Canet d'en Berenguer where he spent the night of 5 March last year.
Weather: Yesterday mainly sunny, topping out at 15 degrees, today wall-to-wall sunshine, but a bit cooler.

Current kipping spot

To set expectations: we're not planning on doing anything interesting for the first three weeks of this 9-week trip. Our main aim for these weeks is just to be living somewhere warm and, aside from the usual daily chores, our time will largely be spent lounging, running and vetting routes for the TGO Challenge. During that time we're going to be repeating a section of coast that we've travelled along twice before (it was a close run thing as to whether we just based ourselves in one place for the entire period), so it's likely that few places that we go will be new to us. I will continue to witter away on blog posts for my own future benefit, but for any other readers, you may want to check back after 15 Feb!

Having said that, we nearly started yesterday with a visit to a castle! We were within 2 hours of reaching Sagunto on Tuesday when it suddenly occurred to me that we may have been there before. Thanks to the blog, within seconds I confirmed that we had, but only to visit Lidl, before coming out here to Canet d'en Berenguer. On first sight of the town, I immediately recognised it, thanks to the huge, sprawling castle remains atop a hill.

So, after a very quiet Tuesday night at the roadside in the abandoned development, we gave thought to visiting the castle, which is something I very much wanted to do. However, I also wanted to get out for a run late morning, and not knowing how busy the coast is with motorhomes this year, we wanted to arrive at our nightstop between 10 and 11am (the window for the maximum chance of finding a space).

A big shop at Lidl, and a 10-minute drive brought us here to find only a few motorhomes in the not-overly-large car park. However, the wasteground next door held quite a few more, and it was that gathering we decided to join, for the benefits of being flat and out in the open (solar gain for interior heat, plus solar power to charge the battery), versus a bit slopey and completely shaded in the car park.

We can't see the beach due to the sand dunes between us and it, but a one-minute walk gives this view.

There's still a sign at the entrance of the car park asking motorhomers not to use the local litter bins, but to use the big communal bins on the nearby roads, which we take to be permission for, or at least acceptance of, our presence here.

Other than a run along the seafront promenade, the rest of our day was occupied indoors.

Last year we ran to the adjacent town to the S. This year we can't do that without getting wet feet as the river currently has water in it and a ford is involved.

A gloriously peaceful night was had, with just the sound of waves hitting the beach, before today was largely spent staring at a laptop. We did both get out for a significant bit of exercise in the middle of the day, and another little strollette on the beach just before tea. (In the interests of heat acclimatisation, I'm breaking my habit of running first thing in the morning, instead waiting until the day has warmed up, but it just wasn't that warm out today, particularly with the cool breeze; by contrast we had it over 27 degrees in Bertie, thanks to the wall-to-wall sunshine).

The neighbour on our right is a Finnish ski instructor who has taken this winter off to enjoy warmer weather. His dog enjoyed Mick's attention.

Taken at Tuesday's roadside kipping spot, to show that the roads south weren't kind to Bertie's extierior. He is, by quite a margin, the filthiest motorhome we've seen (maybe ever!).

Tuesday 24 January - Sagunto (Spain)

Where's Bertie? He's sitting on the roadside in an abandoned development in Sagunto (not far N of Valencia) on the E coast of Spain. Exact location: 39.68444, -0.26936.
Weather: Sometimes sunny, sometimes overcast (we drove a long way today!), cold until we hit the coast.

On Saturday morning, we woke up at home and here we are, 3.5 days later, on the coast of Spain. We knew we could do the journey that quickly, as we've used almost identical staging as we did when we fled home in March 2020, but, my goodness, it's a lot of driving.

We got a slightly earlier start this morning, before 9am, which was too early for the money collector, who had also failed to call last night. Having used not just a parking space (of which there must have been over a hundred free), but also the electricity and wifi, we couldn't abscond without making reasonable efforts to pay, and on this occasion we were successful. Or at least, we fashioned an envelope out of a sheet of paper, put the correct money into it, and put it through a letter box on the booth at the entrance, so hopefully it reaches the right people.

Toll roads saw us out of France and through the first few miles of Spain. There we found ourselves at a manned booth where, we realised as we pulled away, we got short changed. Hopefully it was an honest mistake, but you have to wonder. It's not a situation where you can just nip back to make a complaint, and it's unlikely that most people check their change, particularly when handed a fistful of coins.

Spain; we came here for the warmth and sunshine...

The toll roads west and south of Pamplona we avoided. The free road, running almost adjacent to the motorhway, is no further and only a tiny bit slower.

Just before Zaragoza a pause was had parked parallel to a service road, in between lorries, and next to a towering concrete wall. It wasn't the nicest lunch spot, but on the plus side, the service station had a convenience store where we were able to buy some still-warm bread, having not passed a supermarket or bakery all morning.

The next stop, only about 20 minutes later, would have made a slightly nicer lunch stop, but there we only paused for fuel* (160.6c/litre).

The kilometres duly passed by as we continued on, trying to stay entertained with a variety of podcasts, BBC Sounds downloads, and bits of a couple of audiobooks. I also spent a few minutes deciding where we were going to spend the night.

With 100km to go the temperature outside was still fluctuating between 0 and 3 degrees, but we were still up high, so we had faith that it would warm up as we approached the coast. Sure enough, as we pulled into Lidl's car park in Sagunto at 1715, it was 10 degrees. Not as warm as we'd like, but probably not unreasonable for the times of day and year.

Whilst I bought the three ingredients needed to cook tea (we'll do a big shop tomorrow), Mick checked out the most local options of where we could spend the night.

Both behind and opposite Lidl are the sorts of abandoned developments that one finds all over Spain: the roadways and pavements have been installed, together with streetlighting, with building plots lying between the grid-system roadway. Then the whole thing has been abandoned. They're not the most attractive places to stay, but tend to be quiet (and, as I've said many a time before, once the curtains are closed, the view outside is irrelevant). So, that's where we are. Given the time of day, I saw little point in going the last 5k to the coast-proper tonight; the chances of finding a good place to park there will be much higher in the morning.

^{(*Yes, we're buying fuel frequently. One day we may do something about the fact that Bertie's diesel tank leaks if we fill it more than three-quarters full, but having lived with it that way for three years, there's a good chance it won't be any time soon.)}

Monday 23 January - Capbreton

Where's Bertie? After another day of hard work, he's sitting in the Aire at Capbreton, where he's been a few times before. I think it costs €8.50 to stay here at this time of year (inc. Electricity and wifi), but the money collector hasn't been around yet.
Weather: Overcast and cold.

It must have been warmer last night, as the heating didn't kick in until 0545 this morning. Unfortunately, I thought it was firing up because it was 0715 - the start time I'd set last night, so I didn't roll over and go back to sleep. By the time I looked at my watch, wondering why my alarm hadn't gone off, I was wide awake. With Mick still slumbering, I opted to listen to my audiobook, rather than springing into action. When I did get up, it was to a cold room, but I've now set not just the timer, but also adjusted the clock to local time...

On the road just before 9, our first stop was nearly 3.5 hours away, in the village of Reignac. Over breakfast I'd identified another Voie Verte that I could use for today's run (an easy task as they're all on a map on a Voie Verte website), and found a car park we could use to access that Voie Verte (rather more time consuming, involving a lot of StreetViewing).

The stop/run/lunch/go worked as well today as it did yesterday, particularly with the car park being less than 1km away from our route south. The only two slight marring elements were:
1) the lack of a boulangerie nearby, combined with our lack of bread;
2) the realisation, having spotted a rash on my abdomen whilst getting changed for my run, that the appearance of the rash, combined with the odd discomfort I'd been feeling in my back on this morning's drive meant that I most likely have shingles. I went ahead with my run as I feel fine (save for the discomfort on my back, but even that was fine whilst I was running), but I fear this may scupper my marathon, in less than a month's time. Annoying, as I so seldom enter races, and having got 90% of the way through training for this one, I only finally entered it last week.

Today's Voie Verte wasn't the most inspiring location, but it was traffic free and required no navigation.

Next stop after lunch was for fuel, which didn't go entirely well. Thwarted by a height barrier, a wrong turn then sent us the wrong way along the motorway. We got ourselves back right and the next fuelling attempt was successful (189c/litre).

Earlier in the day we'd forked out €20.30 in tolls to use the motorway for 115-ish kilometres past Tours and Poitiers, then later, past Bordeaus we employed our usual leave at J18/rejoin at J17, same again at 12/11 to avoid tolls on the A63. At the end of the day, however, with the light fading, we adjudged it worth another toll to save 15 minutes (€3, as it turned out). Thus we pulled into the Aire here at Capbreton just in the last dregs of daylight, and wasted no time in applying Bertie's insulated face mask and plugging him into the mains (in fact, within a minute of arriving, I had rice cooking before Mick had even got the face mask out of the boot).

Still no decision as to where we're going tomorrow. There just aren't enough hours in the day for all this driving AND for considering such issues. Maybe we'll toss a coin (not having any darts to throw at the map).

Sunday 22 January - Villedômer

Where's Bertie? He's at the Aire at Villedômer, where he's been at least four times before.
Weather: Cold and feeling even colder than reported, but dry and mainly bright.

It was a good decision, I think, not to travel further last night. As appealing as it was to get miles under our belt, we acknowledged today that the reality of a later stop would have been a later start this morning. As it was, we were on the road at just gone 9am*, having been bad tourists and failed to have set foot outside of the Aire in Wissant (it was a close thing; I really wanted to nip down to the beach, but my desire to get to the coast in Spain came out as greater).

Our first stop was in Neufchâtel-en-Bray, just over two hours south. There we detoured two minutes from the main road to park next to the Voie Verte ex-railway leisure route that extends all the way to Dieppe. I didn't go that far, but did run for a hour whilst Mick did the same duration but at a slower pace (his Achilles is just recovering from objecting to him tripping over a bramble on New Year's Day). Bertie had told us it was +1 degree as we set out, but it didn't feel that warm, and I ran the first 4k with blocks of ice for feet.

Lunch came hot on the heels of us returning to Bertie, travel mugs were refilled, as was Bertie's fuel tank (191c/litre; exchange rate 1.14:1) and southwards we headed once again.

By the last hour of the journey I was more than ready to stop, and the spectacular pre-sunset light display only marginally distracted me from the fact that I'd been sitting down for too long. The end did eventually come and earlier than yesterday at just gone 6pm. That gave us time to nip out for a quick walk after tea (very quick; I had a couple of blog posts to write...).

It's our last day of knowing where we're going tomorrow, which means we need to make a decision as to where we're heading on Tuesday. Since last October, and until yesterday, I thought we were heading to the S coast of Spain, somewhere between the border with Portugal and Tarifa, then whilst Mick was driving yesterday I interrogated Google Maps and realised that if we travel to Seville (where I have an appointment in late February) via Valencia, it's almost the same distance. So as I type this, we have no idea which coast we're hoping to hit this week. Nowt like having a reputation for being overly organised, is there?!

Two snaps taken out of Bertie's window, completely failing to represent the light spectacle we saw in person. No one would ever accuse me of being early in baking our Christmas cake (usually a day or two before Christmas), but I outdid myself this year, baking them (I made two loaves rather than one traditionally shaped cake) two weeks into the New Year. 

^{(*later-remembered detail that I couldn't retrospectively shoehorn into the narrative: the heating, set to 7 degrees so as to prevent Bertie's frost protection from dumping our water, woke me as it sprang into action at 3am. During the brief period of being awake, I realised we'd forgotten to: 1) prepare our breakfast (a process we refer to as 'plumptiating'); 2) get the smoke and CO alarms out; and 3) set the heating timer so it would warm Bertie up before I needed to get out of bed. None of those three realisations kept me awake for more than a few minutes.)}

Saturday 21 January - Wissant

Where was Bertie? For the first time in a while, he spent a night at the Aire at Wissant.
Weather: Foggy and cold start (-3), sunny afternoon, then cold again after dark.

During the cold spell in December, Erica spent two weeks without functioning windscreen washers*. When I shut the stable door by pouring neat freeze-resistant windscreen wash into her reservoir (of no use until the pump and pipes had thawed such that it could be circulated into those places), it didn't occur to me that it would be wise to give Bertie the same treatment. Then, on Thursday, during a flurry of jobs that should have been done months ago (like fixing his SatNav mount that has been sitting in the living room since November waiting to be glued), we thoughtlessly filled his reservoir with an ordinary mix of washer fluid.

The whole of last week had been rather frantic (mainly self-inflicted; how can I leave so many known jobs so late?), but by 0830 yesterday morning, off we headed into the fog. It didn't take too long to find out that Bertie's windscreen wash tubes were frozen, and unlike with Erica, it's not a feasible workaround to pop an arm out of the window and squirt water from a bottle across the screen. So, it was a slow journey south, stopping at various Services to pour hot water over the offending frozen bits that kept refreezing; we had neat screenwash with us, but having completely filled his reservoir two days prior, he had no capacity for it.

Even with all the stops, we were smack on time arriving at Vic & Juan's house for a cup of tea and a  catch-up (the error I'd made in calculating our timings the day before played in our favour), before we continued on to Folkestone.

I don't think we've ever seen the Eurotunnel terminal so quiet, not even when we've travelled back silly-early on a Sunday morning. We were the only vehicle at check-in booths, the only vehicle in the large vehicles car park, and we even drove straight up to both passport control booths.

Arriving in France slightly delayed, but still an hour before our booked time, Lidl was our first port of call. Arriving there at gone 1910, with their closing time being 1930, it was a quick dash around, but I still managed to get both the essentials (i.e. something to eat for tea) and a good smattering of 'things we like to buy in France'. A little eye-watering at the till; France is not a cheap country for groceries (particularly when you buy a steak and half a side of salmon...).

We'd contemplated a few options as to where to spend the night and thought Montreuil was going to come out as favourite, but with time marching on, and not having yet had tea, we opted for the nearest: Wissant. It wasn't busy on a cold night in January.

Within fifteen minutes of having his handbrake applied, Bertie had his insulated face mask on, and I had tea on the table. A cup of tea chaser, a few necessary chores and bedtime was upon us.

^{(*Overnight lows down to -8 and daytime highs only climbing a degree or two above freezing meant it took that long for her frozen pump and pipes to thaw.)}