Tuesday 28 January - Platja de Puçol

Where's Bertie? He's still exactly where he was yesterday, looking at the Mediterranean Sea at Puçol.
Weather: Blue sky to the east and west of us, but stubbornly cloudy overhead. Temperature low of 13 degrees and high of 17 degrees.

Having walked a short distance north along the coast yesterday, this morning we ambled off southwards. We'd no sooner stepped off the dirt road and onto tarmac at the start of the next resort, when the tarmac disappeared again:

More evidence of winter storm(s).

A few hundred metres of soft sand and we came out on a promenade, which might have been a pleasant place to be if it hadn't been for the mishmash of local architecture being so awful.

I'm not sure this snap conveys how unattractive this place is.

There were no signs that our surroundings were going to get any nicer, so we didn't push on in the hope of finding a bar or cafe. Heading back the way we'd come our conclusion was that after less than a day, it was time to move on.

There ensued a good hour or so of this...

...at the end of which we decided to stay here another night after all, purely because I've a long run on the agenda tomorrow and I'd already plotted a route nearby that looks like it will work well. I didn't want to move elsewhere to find myself either needing to cross lots of side roads or running 15 laps of a small block.

What to do with the rest of our day? Not much! We took ourselves for a walk to the very far end of the beachside promenade in Puçol this afternoon (so much more pleasant a place than its neighbour), finding about half of the restaurants along there to be open, but with very few customers (I'm sure they're all heaving in summer and was surprised, with how few people there are around, to find so many open now).

I also took the opportunity, whilst it was daylight, to create a short video of me knitting. At the end of our last trip Conrad expressed an interest in seeing how fast I knit. At that time I didn't have any knitting on the go as I was crocheting a blanket, which led to a little video snippet of crochet, but I promised a video of knitting in due course. Here it is:

https://youtu.be/gGVcLI2xdpI

<sup>(Due to issues with operating the camera, it took three attempts to record this. As I wanted to capture both plain knitting and cabling, in between each attempt I had to complete two more rounds of the pattern to get me back to a suitable spot to try again. Thanks go to the cameraman for his patience.

Slightly random footnote: One of the many warranty issues we had with Bertie was that the lower catch on his main door wouldn't latch properly, leaving the bottom of the door sticking out a bit. We raised it repeatedly with the dealer, who kept telling us that the door was warped and needed to be modified with a strengthening kit. I felt sure that the real issue was a matter of adjusting the catches, but didn't much care what they did, as long as they fixed it. The problem was that they kept not fixing it. Eventually, after I expressed my displeasure quite rantingly at the end of one visit, they showed me that the door would close properly, as long as you slammed it really hard. After a bit more discussion, they conceded that it wasn't acceptable to have to apply that much force. Bertie was taken back into the workshop, the catches were adjusted and half an hour later he had a door that would shut properly with only a small amount of persuasion. It has remained like that until three days ago when I pulled it to very gently (as I usually do unless we're locking up to go to bed, or going out) and noticed that it had latched properly. When it did the same three times in a row I pointed it out to Mick and hypothesised that it was because we were parked on a side slope. But no: three days later it is still closing every time, without any undue force being required. The dealer had the door apart last week to fit a new blind (another warranty issue) and I'm wondering if they happened to bend the door slightly (in a good way) in so doing. The question now is whether it's fixed for life, or whether we'll be back to 'closing firmly' in due course.)</sup>

Monday 27 January - Platja de Puçol

Where's Bertie? He's in a beachside parking area (more waste ground in appearance than a car park) a few throws of a stone away from the Mediterranean sea at Platja de Puçol, which is not far north of Valencia. Exact location: 39.59653, -0.26943.
Weather: Mainly sunny with just a bit of light cloud. Varying from 3 degrees up high this morning to 17 degrees on the coast.

Our day started with a run along the Camino de Cosuenda, from Cariñena, which on the stretch we covered comprises mainly a stony track running through vineyards. There was just one section, on our way out of town, that was the sort of clay mud that sticks inches of itself to the bottom of your shoes the moment you step on it.

Nice surroundings with slightly snowy hills ahead of us and grape vines all around.

Back at Bertie, one of the two other British vans who had been our neighbours last night had already left and the other wasn't far behind. It was some time later, after breakfast, when we finally got ourselves organised to visit the service point and get on the road.

That road, the A23, turned out to be mainly uphill for most of the morning, taking us up to a large plateau where we gently undulated between 1000 and 1200m. I'm glad we weren't a week ahead of ourselves as it seems that recent storms have dumped a lot of snow up there that hasn't yet thawed. Indeed, we even passed a couple of snow ploughs still clearing up the outside lane.

We've experienced snow when driving through Spain before, but further north.

I didn't get to admire the snowiness for the first half hour of the journey as, whilst Mick drove, I was consulting various internet resources to try to find out whether the Aire to which we were headed still exists (conclusion: no it doesn't, but there's a new one right next door). It was only after we paused for lunch that I realised that my effort had been nugatory: the location of that Aire wasn't a sensible destination considering our plan.

So what is our plan? To head down to Mazarròn, then to perform a u-turn and head north towards Barcelona, with a requirement to be in Paris at Easter. Granted it's not detailed as plans go, but it was sufficient to tell us that there was no point heading to an Aire that was north of the where we were going to hit the coast, when our objective is to head south. We can always go there when we're pass through on our way back north.

Bertie looking seawards. We would have parked on the other side of the parking area, right on the edge of the beach, but Bertie was uncomfortably nose-down when we tried him over there.

The replan brought us here to a large area of shingle next to a beach, in between two resorts. We walked along the promenade in Puçol (a few hundred metres N of where we're parked) this afternoon and found it to be like many other similar places we've visited in Spain in winter: mainly locked up holiday homes with well under 10% of the properties showing signs of being occupied. Once again I find myself wondering what these resorts are like in summer.

A sand-covered promenade (presumably from Storm Gloria - this area got battered, by all accounts) and lots of locked up holiday homes.

We may (or may not; who knows?) take a stroll through the resort to the S of us tomorrow to see if there are any more signs of life there (would it be too optimistic to hope for an open cafe?).

Sunday 26 January - Pamplona and Cariñena

Where's Bertie? He's in a small municipal Aire in the town of Cariñena. Exact location: 41.33805, -1.23008.
Weather: Overnight rain finally abated at around 7am, after which the cloud gradually cleared giving us sunshine until we hit a few clouds again mid-afternoon.

Our day started with me dragging Mick out of bed at a slightly unreasonable hour for a Sunday morning. I could have run down to the river, along it for a short way, then back up to Bertie, but to do so would have required the negotiation of a lot of side roads and not much time spent alongside the water, so instead I opted for us to relocate to a more convenient car park such that my entire outing could be in the riverside park.

The route (3.5 miles each way) had the benefit of being off-road but, perhaps because of the time of year (i.e. bare trees), it wasn't as attractive as I had expected from the map.

The amount of plastic in the trees didn't help the attractiveness. Considering the level of the water today, it was mind-boggling that it had clearly been so high relatively recently as to inundate parts of the path to my height or more.

Back at Bertie and with breakfast eaten, I suggested that we take the middle ground between exploration and taking advantage of the roads being quiet on a Sunday, by taking a whistlestop tour of Pamplona before hitting the road. In the next hour and a half we covered over 3.5 miles as we walked along the river, ascended the funicular into the city and walked its streets passing a couple of main squares and the cathedral...

Yesterday on the edge of Bordeaux we passed a woman wearing a black beret, a knitted dress and patent red boots: an outfit that absolutely screamed 'French woman!'. Today the streets of Pamplona equally screamed 'You're in Spain!'.

The cathedral doesn't really sit at this angle, but nor could I fit it into frame without tilting it.

...before heading back towards Bertie via the Bull Ring and the Citadel.

On the way we paused to watch a bit of a race-walking event that lay in our path. It's always struck me as an odd sport. I'm sure that breaking into a run would be much easier and more efficient!

Some of the women were baring more flesh than others.

A bit of the 'killing zone', between the inner star-shaped wall and the exterior wall, in the Citadel.

A quick lunch back at Bertie and it was gone 1pm when we finally made our way out of town.

Making fast progress along the AP15 (a 'Peaje', toll motorway), I pondered our onwards route. I trust Google Maps more than either of our SatNavs (both of which were in use today in the hope that at any one time one of them would be giving us sensible directions), and Google was advising taking a tiny white road followed by a little yellow road rather than following the two-sides-of-a-triangle formed by the motorways. They're not roads I would have chosen from looking at the road atlas, but with Google telling me the route was both shorter and quicker (and free!), and remembering previous experience on little yellow roads, I decided we should chance it. A good decision as it turned out, even if Mick did doubt that on the initial little white road stretch where going through villages involved some tight roads and, at one point, going under someone's living room, which spanned the very narrow road at a height of 3.3m. I'd have taken a photo of the latter if I hadn't been so busy wondering where the road went.

I'd noted three potential stopping points for the day, each the best of two hours apart, and whilst we could have made it to the second before dark, it wouldn't have left us with much evening to do important things like our daily crossword, writing this blog post, having an evening meal and doing some knitting, so we opted for the first, here in Cariñena.

Looking up the road towards the motorhome parking area. Those piles of white along the road are snow left over from the storm that hit Spain last week - an incongruous sight as it was 12 degrees and sunny when we arrived. We passed some very snowy hills (at 1500m; we're only at 500m) on our way here.

Saturday 25 January - Cubnezais (France) and Pamplona (Spain)

Where's Bertie? He's in a free Aire in Pamplona. Exact location: 42.84015, -1.66468.
Weather: Cool but fine start; warm and sunny as we drove past Bordeaux and down to the Spanish border, then a bit showery since.

This morning was our fourth time attending the parkrun by Cubnezais and I was especially glad that I'd been there more than once before. I've mentioned previously that parkrun is a lax affair in France - who needs run briefings, marshalls or directional signs on the course, eh? Usually directional signs are not important to me, as even in a small field of participants it's pretty likely that I'll be able to see someone in front of me. Today, however, within seconds of the 'Trois, Deux, Un ... Allez!' I found myself in the unprecedented position of leading the pack. I had feared, when Mick stayed with me for the first lap of the 3-and-a-bit-lapper, that we would be engaged in a battle at the end, but I managed to shake him off in the second lap and maintained my position to come home a first finisher. Mick was not very far behind me in second place (although first on age grading, of course). Given this only occurred due to the small field (9) and the lack of men present (just 2), it's a reasonably safe bet that I'll never get handed that 0001 token again, although stranger things have happened*.

With this parkrun being in a remote location, there is no local cafe to which to adjourn, so coffee is served from a flask at a picnic table after everyone has crossed the finish line, and over coffee we chatted to another touristing couple - Mike and Katie from Wythenshawe parkrun. They'd flown into Bordeaux yesterday and had spent €60 on getting an Uber to the run this morning. To save costs, their intention for their return journey was to jog to the nearest station, 4.3km away along little lanes. Being not far out of our way (and knowing that in their situation we'd be very glad of a lift) we decided that showers could wait until later in the day and thus we drove them to a platform just outside of a tiny village with no amenities. There, we found that it was two and a quarter hours until the next train. We clearly couldn't leave two scantily clad runners huddled on a platform for that length of time, particularly when we were driving past Bordeaux anyway. So, we put the kettle on** and over tea and cake we had a little planninng session.

A twenty-minute drive later and we abandoned Mike and Katie in a supermarket car park on the edge of Bordeaux, from where Google suggested they could easily catch either a bus or train into the centre. Hopefully they enjoyed an afternoon full of eating and sightseeing, whilst we tootled our way south.

Employing our tried-and-tested toll avoidance tactics on the A10 south of Bordeaux (involving leaving the toll road at junctions 18 and 12, rejoining one junction later, having driven along the adjacent minor road in between), we forked out for the unavoidable toll fees on the A63 and continued to be frivilous in taking the toll roads in Spain. The whole splashing of cash came in at under €18, which was entirely justified by the time saving and ease.

Somewhere in amongst all that we stopped for lunch at some motorway services. Coincidentally, it was the same services as we used last year, and more coincidentally we pulled in next to the same two motorhomes as were parked next to us at lunchtime yesterday.

I'd spent a chunk of time pre-run this morning in planning our route through Spain, deciding (for reasons I can't now quite remember) to travel via Pamplona, Valencia and the coast down to Mazzaron, rather than going via Madrid. Pamplona seemed like a reasonable place to aim for today, and so it proved as we pulled into the Aire just before 4pm (having paused for diesel at a nearby supermarket, after driving the final 40km with the fuel light on***).

We now find ourselves with the same quandary as we did at the same point in our journey last year (when we stayed in Vittoria Gastiez on our way down to southern Portugal): I'd really like to have a look around Pamplona whilst we're here, but it's Sunday tomorrow, when HGVs won't be on the roads, making it the best day of the week to travel. I think practicality is going to win over exploration.

^{(*Two weeks ago there was a freak coincidence of all the speedsters being occupied elsewhere on the same Saturday morning, allowing me to come first female at a parkrun in a field of 268 participants (106 women). Whilst ridiculously pleased with the result, I did recognise it as an absurdly slow time for the first female finisher - indeed, perusing the stats later, I found that it was the second slowest first female time in 201 runnings of the event!
**As I served drinks I thought "What a shame we don't have any pastries on board" as we knew Mike and Kate hadn't had any breakfast. It took me a few moments to remember the cake mountain. That reduced the quantity of Dundee cake in the cupboard nicely!
***As ordinary diesel was €1.20 a litre and premium was €1.25, Bertie got treated to the latter.)}

Friday 24 January - Cubnezais

Where's Bertie? He's at an Aire in Cubnezais, in the exact spot where he spent a night in March last year.
Weather: Sunny. Frosty start but as we drove south it warmed up considerably, peaking at 14 degrees.

There was frost on the grass as we took a pre-sunrise turn around Villedômer before we hit the road this morning, and the clear sky promised a fine day.

I'm pretty sure this is the same snap as I took the last twice we were in Villedômer, although perhaps on one of those occasions the sun was up when I did so.

Thus we drove south with the sun on Bertie's vast windscreen, warming us nicely. The day passed off almost as I predicted yesterday, except that it turned out there wasn't as much driving as I'd thought. As such, we only had one break (elevenses and lunch combined), at the same rest stop alongside the N10 as we used previously. This seemed like a coincidence, until further driving reminded me that rest stops are very few and far between on the N10. The expectation is that if you want any services or otherwise to stop, you pull off the no-stopping-except-in-emergency dual carriageway into one of the adjacent towns or villages.

Having used two small sections of toll motorway to lop chunks of time off our journey*, we arrived in Cubnezais before 3pm.

These were last year's cake purchases in Cubnezais. Our plans to purchase the same again this year were thwarted.

On our first foray out after arrival, we were too early for the boulangerie to have re-opened for its afternoon session, so we headed back out again later with our minds set on the very same goodies we'd bought there last year. Oh noes! There must have been a rush on this morning; their cake cabinet was bare! Suddenly it became clear that our failure to buy cakes in Villedômer yesterday afternoon was a woeful omission. Let's hope we happen to drive past a boulangerie with convenient parking nearby before we leave France tomorrow afternoon.

^{(*Our road atlas is annotated with many comments about route choices (free roads versus the adjacent Pèages) around towns complete with times, distances and costs gleaned from previous trips; we both followed my own scrawled advice and tried out new options today. The total cost of a few cents over €5 was well worthwhile not just for the time saving but for avoiding the tedium of dozens of roundabouts, traffic lights and speed limit changes.)}

Thursday 23 January - Villedômer

Where's Bertie? He's in the Aire at Villedômer where he's been a couple of times before. When looking up the location of the place this morning I nearly changed our plan when I read that an €8 (plus tourist tax) charge now applies. A bit more digging suggested it only applies from June to September and that was confirmed upon arrival.
Weather: Another misty and murky start, but clearing to sunshine this afternoon. Temperature between 1 and 4 degrees.

Having read last year's blog post about the journey we were to do today, I learnt that we had left Neufchâtel at 11am. I thus set that as our target departure time this morning. The only challenge was that last year I took a 4 mile run along the Avenue Verte (ex-railway line, now a cycle/leisure route) at Neufchâtel and this morning I had a 9-miler on the agenda.

Mick joined me for the first four miles, running out to the SE for 2 miles before turning, then Mick peeled off as we passed the Aire and I continued another 2.5 miles to the NW before turning again. Even though the first hints of light were only just starting to seep into the day when we'd set out, it was the final 2.5 miles that felt the coldest. There wasn't much of a breeze at all, but with it head-on, it quickly numbed my gloved hands.

Along the Avenue Verte

A quick breakfast preceded us packing away in double-quick time (we had electricity to unplug and ramps, chocks and exterior window blinds to remove - a lot of paraphernalia was out last night!). Our efficiency was maintained at the service point, and we even managed to march through a trip to Lidl. It was just after ten to eleven as we pulled out of Lidl's car park.

The rest of the day: drive, drive, lunch, switch drivers, drive, drive, switch drivers, drive, drive drive. I imagine tomorrow will look remarkably similar, but probably with an extra stop.

More murky weather, but it did brighten up this afternoon.

A quick leg-stretch around Villedômer was had on arrival, but after this morning's exercise, and having been here a couple of times before, we didn't feel obliged to go very far. The wares of the Patisserie were eyed up as we passed, but we resisted. We have a ridiculous amount of cake already on board (half a huge Christmas cake, a Dundee cake and a dozen Welsh cakes remain from the haul we came away with), although it would feel slightly wrong to pass all the way through France without buying a single Religieuse or Tarte au Citron ... maybe tomorrow.

Monday to Wednesday 20-22 January

Where's Bertie? He's settled into the very same pitch he's been on a few times before at the commercial Aire at Neufchâtel-en-Bray in France. He spent the last two nights outside of Campirama in Belgium.
Weather: Generally cold and foggy from when we rolled off the Chunnel on Monday until within 20km of Neufchâtel this afternoon, when we suddenly rolled out from the cloudy murk and into sunshine, whereupon the temperature clambered all the way up to 4 degrees.

A stop to see friends in Crawley broke up our journey to the Channel Tunnel, through which we crossed on Monday afternoon. An hour and a half's drive, in the dark, had us pulling into our usual spot outside Bertie's motorhome dealer in Belgium, ready for his appointment on Tuesday.

Apparently I have still not learnt the lesson that when visiting in Campirama it's always wise to take provisions for the entire day. The list of work was so small (two warranty issues, one annual water ingress test - surely two hours at most) I was convinced that they couldn't stretch it out for more than four hours. Thus, I took elevenses and a small lunch in with us. On the plus side, they have improved their hospitality over all of our previous visits: this time we were offered coffee twice and although we declined (we had travel mugs, a large flask and a bottle of water with us) we saw they served others in proper cups and saucers, rather than the tiny plastic cups they used to use. On the downside, their progress updates are still lacking and we have no idea why we sat there until gone 5pm before we were reunited with Bertie, by which time I was ready to eat a scabby dog*.

Spreading ourselves out as we set about keeping ourselves entertained for the day. My first task with the knitting visible in the picture was to rip back the five rounds I'd knitted the night before, having concluded that the pattern was wrong. A quick visit to Ravelry.com confirmed that I'd overlooked the erratum correcting the missing stitch instruction (just one stitch, but a critical one to make the pattern look right.)

There was a slight silver lining at the delay: it justified a second night in the free (electricity included) parking outside of the dealership.

Today it was the turn of Bertie's engine to be fettled and we duly arrived at the Fiat garage twenty minutes before his appointment time for his first major service (the credit card winced in anticipation).

"But your appointment was last week" was not what we wanted to hear from the receptionist. She remembered making the appointment and even went and got last year's diary to show us. Then Mick reminded her that, although that was the original date, he had phoned and moved it by one week. We suspect her memory was jogged as she had no problem fitting us in, provided we didn't mind waiting. Happily, we had a comfortable living room with us and put it to good use until the workshop was ready for Bertie.

By noon we were free and via two petrol stations (one for LPG, another just 100m up the road for diesel cheaper than at the LPG-selling station) we crossed the border into France.

The plan for the next few days is to repeat exactly what we did the last twice we travelled down to Spain, hence tonight we are at Neufchâtel, tomorrow we intend to be at Villedômer, then Cubzenais, then Spain on Saturday afternoon. Then all we need to do is drive far enough south for some warm weather, hoping that the snow that is currently affecting the middle/east of the country has cleared and that the storm that has just battered and flooded the area to which we're heading is not repeated!


^{(*There are shops within a five minute walk, but as my hunger increased it became more likely that Bertie would be returned to us at any moment and we knew that there was a visiting Hymer chap who wanted to talk to us at some point too, so we stayed put. As it went, the Hymer chap never did come to see us. No idea why he didn't nor exactly what the purpose was of the proposed meeting.)}