How time flies… I can’t believe that it was two and a half weeks ago when I last updated the blog, not only have the clocks gone back and the evenings drawing in, but it will surprise you to learn that we are still awaiting the door handle parts.

Mika is now two years old, so officially out of warrantee but as we have been in contact with Burstner we are hopeful that it will get fixed this side of Christmas, just in good old Spanish style… ‘manana’ (tomorrow), or possibly ‘el mes que viene’ (next month)!

With the weather in Portugal and southern Spain not looking too great and having started to increase our network of friends and activities over here, we have decided to relax into it and settle in for the winter…… if you can call it that as it rose to 25 degrees today.

The sea is hovering around 21 degrees at the moment, so although you can swim without a wetsuit – and we both happily did so today – I did take mine for a test run last Monday. The process of getting it on probably took more energy and time than I spent swimming, although I obviously have one arm stronger than the other as I found myself going round in circles. Each time I tried to get back into the shore I found myself heading out to sea again…. thankfully I finally made it back in, although I was good 100m further down the beach, possibly something to do with the strong currents rather than the strength in my right arm!

Needless to say I haven’t been back out in it again yet as it has been pretty choppy, but I am sure it will get an outing next week…. if you don’t hear from me within a couple of weeks start looking for me in Africa…

We ventured up the coast to a pretty little town called Altea which is just north of Benidorm, the old town providing a beautiful example of a historic Spanish hill village

We have also been stretching the legs and ventured up into the hills again with the bikes, a nice 45km round trip with 450m ascent all to have lunch in a bit of tranquility….

Unfortunately the new running shoes have as always made their mark on my ridiculously soft feet … after 5 runs (to be fair I didn’t make any allowances for them being natural running trainers) I had to take a week off to let the blisters heal, so will just have to see how I get on this time round… second run in the morning 🙂

Just in case you wondered, we are still here in Alicante where despite a few storms the weather is still in the early to mid 20’s during the day, going down to mid to upper teens overnight….. unfortunately there is still no sign of the door handle, so it looks like we are here for another few days at least.

Last weekend was a long weekend for the locals, with a regional holiday on the Friday and a National holiday on the Monday and one of the small towns near where we are staying celebrated their Christian and Moors festival, kicking it off in style with a dis-embarkement and fight before dawn.

Despite a heavy day on the Sunday we managed to drag ourselves out of bed before the crack of dawn, encouraged by the huge quantity of gunfire in the distance. Tradition has it that the Moors arrive on boats to fight the Christians for the town. Whether it was in tradition or not, most of the Moors (and definitely some of the Christians) were slightly worse for wear when they finally got close to the shore, fortunately jumping into the water helped sober them up 🙂

It is quite an event and worth getting up early for despite the fact that the Churros con Chocolate weren’t quite up to scratch on the way home 🙂

Everyone has their vices and apparently mine is sports clothing.  Having spent the last few weeks swimming in the sea we have been contemplating buying a wetsuit so we can continue into the winter, so today we ventured out to a triathlon store and succumbed to the pressure… we are now both proud owners of Zoot wetsuits ….. mine appears to be a little tighter than Keith’s, but I have been assured that it needs to be like that and it isn’t just so that everyone can laugh at me trying to get it on and off – I best ensure that the Churros and Chocolate keep a low profile from now on 😦

Having switched to forefoot running last year, but continuing with normal running shoes, I noticed that I have worn through to the softer layer more quickly than normal so took advantage of being in the store to talk to them about options …… I have now welcomed a new pair of purple Newtons into my sport shoe family, not sure where we are going to put them, or what I am going to use the other pairs for now….. dilemma….

Naivity ….. or perhaps just lack of exposure and knowledge forms our expectations in life and growing up in a country where there are four very clear seasons we, (or possibly just I) make assumptions which it is only when you delve a bit deeper, you learn more. I always assumed that Oranges and Lemons, like apples and pears are seasonal, and that you only get fruit at a certain time of year…. however, if you read our blog back in January/February, you will know that Spain and Portugal were overflowing with Oranges and Lemons and somehow, just like magic, the trees seem to be full again…. you would never lack in vitamin C if you were homeless or short of a penny here 🙂

We have also now come into Date and Fig season – we found plenty of figs in France, Northern Spain and Portugal last year but didn’t realise that there were more than one variety – having now tried another, we would stick to the darker skinned ones we are used back home 🙂

My dad has always been a big fan of dates and although we have seen them on the trees, this is the first time that we have come across fresh dates in the markets…. just be careful as when they fall from the trees they can cause damage!

So, on leaving Palamos we drove down to Benicassim having assumed that we would be able to stay in an area where there were lots of motorhomes back in March, however the local council has obviously decided to put a stop to it over the summer and there were big signs warning us away, so we went back to the Bonterra Campsite (18 euros a night with ACSI), where we stayed earlier in the year.

After a lovely run along the promenade in the morning we set off down to Alicante, winding our way up into the hills and then back down again through Jijona, the home of Turon (Nougat) before arriving at San Juan Playa (Area Campello Beach n38.39444 w0.41042)

The weather is still very warm here – during the last couple of weeks it has sat in the upper 20’s / low 30’s – even the sea is 23 degrees….. can’t complain. The end of September is officially the end of the ‘Summer’ in Alicante, so much so that on the 1st October there wasn’t a lifeguard in site and the diggers were taking away the beach cafe’s to store in a warm place until the end of May next year….. needless to say as the weather has been so good we have both been going swimming anyway 🙂

Whilst in Alicante, we have been trying to find some nice restaurants and new places to explore for when we are back in January, even venturing up the coast to Benidorm for the day as Elisa was dancing in a ‘Christians and Moor’s’ parade which took place on Saturday evening. A good opportunity to see whether Benidorm actually does live up to its name …. from what we saw, I can confirm that it does – although we found a great place to eat thanks to Miguel’s sister, and the parade was worth seeing.

Despite planning to leave Alicante on Monday, somehow Keith managed to break the door handle to the back area of the motorhome on Sunday…. obviously stronger than he thinks 🙂 so, although it is secure and we can get in via the front cab doors, we took Mika to a Buerstner dealer in Elche today and they have had to order a new door handle as the mechanism has seared in two….. looks like we will be here for another couple of weeks……

Just so you can see where we are, I have added a second map which you can see by clicking here, or you can go to ‘Our route so far‘ in the menu bar at the top of the blog . It was going to get too messy to just extend the first one …. so hopefully this one will have slightly fewer loops 🙂

We are also starting to rack up the miles walking, cycling, running and driving…. so if you are interested in having a go this year bearing in mind where we are going we are taking guesses on a) How many miles driven and b) How many miles walked and cycled …. you never know you may even win a reindeer (if we can smuggle one out of the country that is….. or it may just end up being some kind of slightly less interesting gift that we find on the way round) 🙂

So, back to the travels …..  having slowed down, we have now slipped back into snails pace and have spent the last 5 days in Palamos which is one of our favourite little coastal towns that amazingly is still mostly Catalan rather than German/English. We are back at our little Aire (EmpordArea 12 euros inc. electricity – n41,85740 e3,11467) which is roughly 1km from the seafront on the edge of the hills.  And this time we took the time to explore a bit further both inland and along the coast.

The walk to the north is beautiful, passing between villages built around the coves and then the route goes into the forrest and up to one of the highest points along this part of the coast giving some lovely views …

and then to the south where the route takes you up and down into every cove in between Palamos and Platya d’Aro, each cove as beautiful as the next…

As the sun has been shining and the walking was plentiful we decided to stay a little longer enabling us to stock up at the weekly market on yesterday before moving on again this morning.

To wean us out of a bit of a dry spell of trying new recipes Keith had his first attempt at making peanut butter a few weeks ago, but this week he took it to the next level and has made both a creamy smooth peanut butter as well as a bit of a random ‘mixed’ nutty butter which contains cashews, brazils, hazelnuts…. and a few others.  The latter is a bit more ‘nutty’ if that is possible, but still quite tasty.

I, on the other hand have been inspired by the ‘Hairy Bikers’ who have recently finished a series called ‘Bakeation’ in different countries across Europe and decided to give the Foccacia a go…… and it turned out pretty good if I don’t say so myself and pretty easy to make in a motorhome 🙂

With a long drive ahead today I will leave you with some more useful facts.  As it is ‘that’ time of the year when there are grapes everywhere we look, Keith wondered which country has the most vinyards/wine producers, so just in case you were curious…..

– Portugal, there are 58,000 winemakers. However only 45% of the total area makes certified wine
– France: 115,000 winemakers of which 27,000 are certified
– Spain: 280,000 winemakers with 60% of total area allocated to certified wine
– Italy: This is the craziest number but confirmed by more than one source. Roughly 1M (MILLION) winemakers. However only 22% of these are certified (still a lot of producers if you ask me……)
– Germany: 69,000 winemakers of which 28,000 are certified
– Greece: 185,000 winemakers of which less than 20% are certified

Whilst searching around for more information I came across the following website which has some really interesting facts and figures if like me, you are a bit of a wine fan…. and not only interested in drinking it 🙂 http://www.bkwine.com/features/more/state-world-wine-production-grape-growing-2014-france-back/

Knowing that we were going to embark on a second year in the motorhome made us think about what we would do differently and I can happily say that we actually didn’t change that much….
– New spice tubs, which are actually now phase 2 baby food containers for the freezer… thanks to Claire H for the inspiration… saves on weight and they are so much easier to get to!
– Second leisure battery …. we decided against additional solar panels, but we did have an extra battery fitted to help on those short dark days…. dull, dull, dull
– A few less items of clothing …. if that is actually possible, although somehow I appear to have increased the number of pairs of trainers that I have from 2 to 3 on top of the tennis shoes…
– oh and I do now have an iPad…… I blame my brother for encouraging me down the slippery Apple slope even further, and I am incredibly grateful to my parents and brother for the present as it makes my photos look even better 🙂

Apart from that, we had either already managed to change our approach whilst we were away last year…. or it is all pretty much the same – can’t be bad 🙂

My last blog was a little short and missed some of the detail of the last week or so in the UK as we were on the ferry and the crossing between Dover and Calais loses UK phone coverage pretty quickly. I am pleased to say however, after the last trip where I lacked in border crossings I have set the bar and already taken France/England and it looks like I am going to get France/Spain as well ….little things are so important!

I am sure many of you are wondering what Calais was like and whether we saw any problems. It did feel like we were driving through a prison camp as we left the port, with two barbed wire fences surrounding the Port and a camp about 500m outside of it, but we didn’t see any trouble at all, it was in fact quite peaceful.

After getting out of Calais we drove for a couple of hours arriving at St Valery Sur Somme which was the place I went to on my French exchange week twenty eight years ago. We stopped for two nights at our first Aire (Rue de la Croix l’Abbe -GPS n50.18220 e1.62881 – 10 euros for 24 hours) and had a lovely wander around the town and also a cycle along the canal all the way to Abbeville.

The weather was on the turn and we were forecasted a few days of heavy rain and wind, so we have decided to get some miles in and try and push through to find some sunshine. So, after a lovely run along the canal, we moved on from St Valery Sur Somme and headed to Orleans (La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, Chemin de Fourneaux – GPS n47.88550 e1.83990 – 5 euros for 24 hours with electricity).

Continuing our journey further south, we stopped for the night at Donzenac, a pretty little medieval village and we managed to park on the Aire which is just outside a campsite on the edge of the village (Rue de la Riviere – GPS n45.21897, e1.51829 – FOC for 24 hours)

Making a slight detour – possibly more than most people would have done due to our Sat Nav wanting to take us cross country – we stopped for a night with Anton and Rosette – Anton being my second cousin – who live about 4km from Laveur (North East of Toulouse). It is a very pretty part of the world with lots of vineyards and soft rolling hills around the river Tarn. Despite our lack of advanced warning, Anton very kindly gave us the abridged tour of the area and we even had some delicious Apple, Almond and honey cake left over from Rosh Hashana….. we will be back for more 🙂

After leaving Anton and Rosette to go and buy a motorhome (only joking….) we took the scenic route to spend a few nights just outside Carcassonne, a place we have looked over at from the motorway many a time but never actually visited. We opted for a campsite (A l’ombre des micocouliers – 12 euros a night with ACSI) which is about 13km outside Carcassonne on the Midi Canal, as there isn’t an Aire with services and we planned to stay a few days to take in the local area and get out on the bikes a bit.

Our strategy worked and we have left the storms and torrential rain behind us, only arriving into a bit of a heatwave although after a meander through town to find a nice local butcher we settled in for the night and were lulled to sleep with the tap tap tap of rain on the roof.
We woke to strong winds on Thursday morning, but despite the grey skies it didn’t actually rain and the rest of the day provided blue skies and sunshine, albeit being a little on the windy side, leaving us to do a 64km cycle ride along the midi canal which is very peaceful and scenic, if not a little bumpy in places.

With the grey clouds closing in on us again (although as the wind is so strong they were blown away by the time we woke this morning), we decided to cross the border into Spain this morning, leaving France behind us until 2016, having stocked up on plenty of Brie, Goats cheese, Taramaslata and Barley ….. we watched the grapes being harvested for yet another years wine and headed to the coast.

Having spent another couple of lovely weeks cathing up with friends and family we are finally sitting on the ferry about to head to Calais.

During just under three months in the UK we have managed to get in a fair quantity of curries, fish and chips, Jacket potatoes, roast dinners and we even managed to squeeze in some mince pies ….. how good is that?

We are now fully prepared to delve back into the wonders of Europe, although no cheese is going to be able to compete with the Camembert that we have just finished ….. I think it may have been brought over from France 3 months ago 😦

So, year two starts today and the current plan is to stay in Spain and Portugal until the weather starts warming up and then head to Eastern Europe and up into Scandanavia…… watch this space for updates and a new map to follow us around and see how far we actually make it this time!

Leaving Cambridge we chugged our way along the A14 to Melton Mowbray known as the ‘Rural Capital of Food’ …. not quite sure where the capital of food is but that’ll be another trip and we may need to plan slightly longer to make the most of it 🙂

Being a good jewish girl (ahem) I hadn’t ever heard Melton Mowbray or its infamous Pork Pie reputation before, however Keith had, and when we decided to visit this part of the country, he ensured that we scheduled a stop here to try and check out some of its Pork Pies.

We had booked ourselves in at ‘The Grange Nursery and Farm shop’ (£15 per night without electricity) which is roughly 2 miles outside Melton Mowbray situated on top of a hill looking out onto the beautiful Leicestershire countryside.

On a quest to find something for dinner and with the farm shop closed on Mondays, our quick trip into town found us at a sausage shop situated alongside ‘Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe’ which provided ample produce for our bar b q 🙂 Returning to the motorhome we were surprised to see a brown paper bag hanging from the door …. inside were two huge fruit scones from the cafe – we are starting to understand why it is called the rural capital of food!

We have been pretty lucky over the last week with market day and again appear to have fallen on our feet as Tuesday was not only the normal market day, but also the animal auctions…. something you don’t get to see every day.

The two areas of market are separated and both were thriving. I was a little concerned about the proximity of the sausage and bacon butties, pork pies and stilton stalls to the pigs, cows, sheep, goats and chickens…. seemed a bit cruel to me, perhaps they just wanted to highlight the ‘freshness of the produce’. Needless to say it all looked and smelt fantastic – well worth a visit if you are in the area on a Tuesday.

Lacking in local knowledge (this really is making me sound a bit dim….), I also hadn’t appreciated that Stilton originates from here (although before you say it, something in the name of ‘Red Leicester’ gave it away) …. both of which provided interesting (and rather tasty) combinations on top of a pork pie.

With so much choice on the pork pie front, we gave in and decided to try two different types, one pure and simple packed with meat, and as we had bought quite a lot of stilton, we opted for the ‘Ploughmans’ which was with Red Leicester and Chutney on top …. a kilo between them…

Not something that I was brought up with, and having tried the odd ‘poor relative’ to the pork pie I was a little apprehensive, but I admit to having been very pleasantly surprised and would go back for seconds. Needless to say, the ‘purist’ pork pie definitely had the edge over the ‘Ploughmans’ ….. keep it simple and it will always end in happiness 🙂

Despite the rain falling most of the night we woke to beautiful sunshine, so after a rather hilly run, we set off on a walk through some of the Leicestershire countryside guided by the very large yellow topped signposts….. it really would have been quite difficult to get lost.

Melton Mowbrey’d out – although there would definitely have been space for some more scones – we meandered our way the 25 miles over to Thornton to our next CL which was at Thornton Nurseries (£15 per night). Thornton Nurseries pretty much sits on Thornton Reservoir, on the edge of Thornton which for its tiny population still manages to support three pubs and is a bit of a hub for walking and cycling.

This part of Leicestershire used to be full of coal mines dating back to 1274.  Unfortunately, all bar one are now closed apparently, with the last three closing in the 1990’s, however they have invested in the area by creating the National Forest (planting a lot of trees), creating cycle routes, bridleways and walking routes to bring people to the area. We did a couple of circular walks near to Thornton which were really nice as they had very varied scenary, and then headed out on the bikes for a couple of hours doing a 25 mile round trip taking in a bit more of the ex-mining countryside.

With the sunshine on our side, the friends we stayed with near Lutterworth (James, Gail, Jack and Amy) came over and took us out to Bradgate Park on Saturday to see one of Leicestershires’ treasures.

We parked up near to the highest point (Old John Folly) and walked over to the village to get a late morning coffee and snack (the cakes were incredible). We then headed to the river to do some paddling (Jack and Amy at least) stopping to admire some of the beautiful deer which were taking in a few a rays,

before a walk to Lady Jane Greys’ (the nine day queen) birthplace and residence before heading back to the car, pub and home…. what a great place and a lovely day.

The last stop before home was just outside Buckingham (Rectory Farm £12 per night) The forecast was set for rain and it started as we arrived although ended up being more gentle on us than we had expected.  The farm was set on a hill in a very peaceful location, however as we were planning on heading back to Lane End on Tuesday and it was forecasted to rain all day Monday, we decided to cut our losses and only stay one night instead of two.  We did however manage to have a lovely pub dinner with Keith’s mum, Aunt Pat, Keith and cousin Christine who live close by before moving on 🙂

We left the house in Bagnoles de l’Orne, France on the 16th August 2014 which means I am due an update on distances we have travelled and it slipped my mind yesterday….. apologies.

The totals up to (and including) the 15th August are as follows:

Driving 11,810 miles

Walking and cycling 5285 km

Running…. not sure we were counting this, but I thought I would add it in anyway 1290km

The guesses that we had were

So, I am afraid to say that the closest guess was actually me with 5200km….and I can assure you that I wouldn’t have planned an early trip home

My prize however, is apparently another year in the motorhome with Keith …… don’t worry, I feel a bit short changed too, perhaps we can try again for next year!

You probably already know this but as I always like to get a little bit of ‘knowledge’ into my blog …..the ‘Fens’ – or ‘Fenland’ – is a term for marshland (or former marshland), which is a little harsh when it takes in most of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and a bit of Suffolk – but it is pretty flat (and low.. which I think is more to the point) up here in comparison to some of the areas of the UK,  it is however still very pretty.

Having spent quite a bit of time with friends and family over the last few weeks, we planned in a bit of exploring on our own and have headed to Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to see a bit more of our beautiful countryside.

First stop was Bury St Edmunds, where oddly my dad has held his Bank Account for longer than I can remember, so we did come here occasionally when I was younger, but apart from it being a market town, I remember very little about it. The CL (Lark Valley £14 per night) is just over 5 miles outside Bury St Edmunds in a little village called Flempton which has a church, a pub, several farms and is very tranquil.

After a good nights sleep we set off on foot into Bury for a look around the market, the Abbey (ruins), the Cathedral and the Abbey gardens….all rather pleasant, although as several people pointed out we do appear to have missed britains’ smallest pub which is a little careless of us 😦

Thursday was forecast to be a bit grim, so rather than venturing out on the bikes (I still don’t have any mudguards and a wet bum is not very pleasant), we set off on foot again and headed towards the Saxon village and nature park whilst also trying to find somewhere with wifi as the coverage is appalling round here…. who would have thought that we would struggle more in the UK to get decent coverage than we did abroad?

With ducks in tow (or maybe that should be toe…. as they seemed to quite fancy one of mine for breakfast on Friday) we moved on to Cambridge, stopping at Birds Farm (£10 per night) which is about 4 miles out of Cambridge on a cycle path.

Keith hadn’t ever been to Cambridge and my last visit was when I was 17, so we were looking forward to exploring and managed to arrange for my parents and brother and family to come and join us which worked out really well.

Despite the weather forecast we actually only had drizzle on Friday with the rest of the weekend being dry and mostly sunny enabling us to enjoy the college gardens and parks

as well as managing to get some shopping done, taking in several coffee shops and a couple of good restaurants…. all in all a lovely weekend.

Thanks to Farah, we even managed to get into Kings College to have a look round the chapel and gardens which were pretty incredible……

I am sure that we will be back to explore a bit further a field on the bikes at some point.

After a run along the Bristol Bath cycle track (me) and a bit of Tabata exercise (Keith) we quickly demolished our breakfast, packed up and set off cross country to the M5 on a surprisingly good journey down to Helston, Cornwall.

The sun was shining (it has been very on/off this week) and thankfully the cars were moving as the journey took just under 5 hours with a quick lunch stop. The only slow part was the last 10 miles where we drove past the air base and they were kindly putting on an Airshow to celebrate our arrival (ahem… ok perhaps not).

The CL site (Skewes Farm, £12.50 per night) is about 5 miles outside Helston and apart from the planes (and the odd Cow moo-ing – it is a cattle farm) it was pretty quiet and suited the purpose for a couple of nights. Unfortunately it had a very large apple tree leaning over the driveway and I have now scarred Mika for life…. and am not being allowed to forget it 😦

On Friday morning, as the sun was shining we decided to go for a walk which took us onto the south west coastal path and whatever anyone says you really can’t beat the Cornish coast for beauty….

We have travelled 10,000 miles through France, Spain, Portugal and Italy and I still don’t think we have come across better views …. although we were lucky with the weather and found a rather lovely spot to eat lunch looking out over Mullion Cove….

Tranquility over, Saturday was ‘moving day’ as the Anderson / Parker family were descending on Cornwall to get settled ahead of the forthcoming wedding. So, after a quick run, a necessary stop at Sainsbury’s we wiggled our way down a very narrow road (so glad we didn’t meet anyone coming the other way) to get to Polpidnick Farm where Angie and David had very kindly offered to let us park up the motorhome as Paul & Carly (the couple to be….) and some of the wedding party were staying in the cottages there.

With the normal changeover traffic, Cornwall enforced some slightly horrific travel times on a few, but the early birds (those who really did leave at ridiculous hours) made record time arriving just before 9:30am, and others (who also left at ridiculous hours of the morning – albeit coming slightly further from Hull) took 12+ hours not getting to us until late afternoon….. thankfully a bit of good food and a few glasses of something strong soon lowered stress levels 🙂

In between the eating, drinking and catching up with family, Keith and I managed to get a couple of walks in, one over to Helford Passage (stopping off briefly at the pub which was pretty nice) and another over to meet some friends (Sarah, Rich Wesley and kids) who just so happened to be staying in Coverack (also to the pub oddly…. it was raining – a lot)

The wedding was on Tuesday and someone up above managed to influence the weather as it was beautiful. Despite the forecast predicting gale force winds and torrential rain, it actually managed to clear and provide us with some blue skies and sunshine so the ceremony could be held outside….

The hotel sat just above St Ives and had the most beautiful grounds… so I think the photos the photographer took will be beautiful, but here are a few of mine to set the scene 🙂

After the hangover and tiredness subsided it was time for us to move on and head out of Cornwall in an attempt to beat the rush and get back towards London to catch up with the Becker family and a few friends in London.

After arriving back at my parents on Thursday we then spent the weekend catching up with some really good old friends – Friday in North London with Jonah, Karen and the kids, Saturday lunch with Gary and Aimee and kids (Chloe’s 2nd birthday …. what a great swing), Saturday late afternoon and evening with Keith’s school friends in Windsor and then back over to Richmond on Sunday to see Richard (Gonzo).

Needless to say, having weighed ourselves and confirmed how we feel is reflected in reality we are now ready for a bit of a detox after the last seven weeks in the UK….. perhaps we can get a few days in before we meet up with parents and brother on Friday 🙂