Day 3 – 22nd Feb
Zero degrees, but minus through the night, so we’re telling each other it is getting warmer. I quickly look at the BBC weather and see how cold it is at home in Crowthorne but warming up at Benidorm. Spending the night in a forest we heard bird sounds new to us but didn’t have a book or an app to distinguish what they were. Nor, could we be bothered to get out of bed and look out of a window. Beginning to pack down with Stella close by, the campsite owner Hans comes over with his two dogs to greet us. No idea what breed they are but looked a bit like setters. He lives at the entrance to the site with his wife in a very picturesque cottage. They are Dutch, I expect in their fifties (I’ve lost the ability to judge ages) and he wears the widest and warmest of smiles. As we shake hands good morning as you would expect his hands are rough. We tell him how much we like his sprawling forest and how well we slept. With the dogs moving without leads (incredibly unusual in a camp site) in ‘s’ shapes and sniffing away through shrubs Hans points out where the small deer and wild boar rest at night whose scent has attracted the dogs. As he points here and there we follow the directions and nod appreciatively. He then laughingly tells us, his dogs are so old, if there was an animal to chase they wouldn’t stand a chance. Hearing wild boar I ask cheekily if he has wild boar sausage or pate I could have. He smiles back and tells me that he has a gun and yes he hunts the animals, recently bagging two weighing around 70kg and 68kg.
- I prepare my check list for the day.
- Get up early – both
- Shower – both
- Feed and walk Stella – Steve
- Daily Guitar chord – Steve
- Daily Solitaire challenge – both, I usually aim for two minutes, two and a half max
- Drive closer to Benidorm – work in progress
- Call Sienna to wish her a happy 7th birthday – me
We set off to warmer climates and I’ve added another map to my lap. A Spanish one. It’s bad enough map reading when the place you’re aiming for is always on a fold, but two maps at a time beats that, especially when the destinations are both on folds. Unusually we turn on the radio and the Latin tunes, together with a blue sky, very much put us in holiday mode. I swear it really happened. As we left France behind us and entered Spain the weather got warmer and the sky was a clear beautiful blue. Benidorm here we come.
As we make progress I ask Steve what temperature is showing outside the car. It was a bit like Play Your Cards Right. It went up, it went down, higher and lower and finally higher.
We checked into our first Spanish site just outside of Terragona called Relax Sol in Torredembarra . http://www.campingrelaxsol.com. At first I thought it was an English immigrants camp but then I realised the site had only been open for a week and all of the caravans, cabins, tents and awnings were covered in sand waiting for their owners to dust them down. So many dwellings looked like permanent homes or home from home. We knew we were close to the sea front but not that the camp was on top of a railway line. We left our coats in the car to set up. It was warmer. As soon as we were set up I called my beautiful granddaughter to wish her a happy birthday. It was great to hear her voice and chat. She told me how she had received loads of presents and was going out for dinner. The pitch could not have been more compact, as we juggled to get the caravan in position between trees and power posts to slot in, but it was only for an overnight so that was fine. Fridge and freezer still working, although not as packed as when we left, meant we could have slivers of liver with pasta in mushroom and cream sauce accompanied by a bottle of Spanish red. It’s the only thing we went out to buy. Yum. Being tired after a day’s driving and co-piloting sleeping was not an issue.
We had the best start to the day. I prepared oven crispy croissants, choice of cereal and Steve did the fresh coffee and tea. We had Vodka and Blackberry jam made from the Lost Kitchen on a visit to Nottingham for our croissants. I actually prefer the Rum and Plum but we finished that a while ago. The Lost Kitchen’s Bar is a story for another time.
Written, edited and posted by Blanche