Sunday brunch...

... sitting on the balcony in the sun and drinking fresh orange juice straight from our tree. The only way to get it any fresher would be to stick a straw directly into the orange on the tree :-)

Some of the oranges are already the size of grapefruit and they're not ripe yet. On the other side of the garden is a large lemon tree absolutely FULL of ripening fruit. I'm going to have to buy a lot more gin to get through all the lemons :-)

i got an airfix kit for my birthday.....

The original plan was to have built the frame for Campalot in the spring before we got the house back, and got the panels made and fitted before we came to Spain, However delays in getting the truck paperwork through, then the amount of work we needed to do on the house followed by our move south a month earlier than really expected all kind of put paid to that plan, But having found a UK company who I was confident in and got so far with the planning I was loath to ditch them to try and find another manufacturer down here.

The Halloween brexit date also factored as we couldn't find anyone in the UK to put it together in time to avoid the expected chaos at the ports and we would have had to go in with the trucks and oversize vehicles and possible show paperwork for the materials, so we made the dubious decision to buy a trailer and bring the panels back here and build it ourselves. Ultimately this is my project and i was kind of unhappy with the ideal of paying someone else to build it for me when it would be so much more fun to do it myself - at least that is my idea of fun, compared to Maria's.

So, we headed home 2 weeks ago: 2 days driving just the truck through France, got to the UK on saturday and picked up what turned out to be a bit of a wreck of  a trailer that I had bough off ebay, and spent 3 days tidying our garden and fixing up the trailer with some new wheels and other bits from overnight deliveries, then set off up the M1 last wednesday to pick up various bits and pieces for the camper that were hard to find or a lot more expensive here. Went as far north as Middlesbrough on errands, then stayed with Pip & Paul Thursday night before collecting the panels in the rain on Friday and starting southbound again. We were supposed to see Alex, Maria's godson for his 18th on Saturday but events (including a blown trailer tyre) conspired against us and we had to miss that, so headed for the channel tunnel on sunday and another 2 days back through France, all with a huge trailer and bits overhanging it in all directions. Fun getting it parked in hotel car parks, but we managed.

This morning we unpacked and unloaded the trailer and were hugely relieved to find that everything had survived the journey intact - I've been having sleepless nights for weeks worrying about this journey so glad its over. It will be a few more weeks before i am ready to mount the panels onto the frame - maybe if Johnmill comes to visit for xmas - but now i have all the parts I need so no excuses except my own laziness

Fiesta Major - Cubelles 2019

The ten day festival in our local town of Cubelles started last week so we thought we would go along on Wednesday evening and see what it was all about. One of the small squares is beautifully painted with murals which include the world famous clown, Charlie Rivel who was born here.

The evening festivities started with a number of dance groups including the 'splicing' (similar to our May pole) and the Spanish equivalent of Morris dancers, although the girls were really smashing their poles together and I bet there have been a number of bruises and broken bones during practice.

I don't know what the dragon or the hippo relate to and their significance here, but they were fun to watch, especially with all the firecrackers going off (and the fire truck that was following closely behind as the parade started)

As we followed the parade down to the sea front, we enjoyed the troupes of drummers largely  consisting of teenage girls, beating the crap out of their drums and it sounded fantastic when we got stuck with them under a bridge.

Who said you shouldn't give fireworks to kids? There were a number in the parade (probably 8 - 10 year olds) who were totally enjoying causing mayhem with their firecrackers. The adults with them would put a new one on their sticks, light it, and off they would go again, swinging it around their heads and sending sparks flying.

Here is the dragon again

A fantastic fireworks display ended the evening (for us anyway). There were even fireworks that exploded out of the sea - that was a first for us. Reminded me of Crocodile Dundee fishing using dynamite :-)

Our Spanish house

We finally got the keys late Wednesday evening as both the estate agent and owner insisted on showing us where everything was, including all the fruit trees (orange, lime, plums, pear, apple, persimmon, nectarine, olives and a couple of grape vines).

After a quick trip to the supermarket for essentials, including a fan, we collapsed into bed, exhausted but glad to be here. On Thursday we had a run to IKEA for the basics such as plates, glasses, cutlery, pans and a load of other household stuff, and a bigger fan. It has been so hot here that the fans weren't enough, so Friday saw us purchasing a small air conditioner for the master bedroom upstairs where it's a lot warmer. We also had to buy a sofa as the owner took their's with them, and it got delivered today. We haven't missed it as we've been living outside on the terrace and enjoying the cooler evenings, so I guess the sofa won't see much use until the autumn

It will probably take another few days to finish unpacking and finding homes for everything. There is also a growing list of items that we need to buy here as we didn't want to remove them from London. Luckily for us there are a number of Chinese 'tat' shops within walking distance (although the first visit will be in the truck as initially, we need more stuff than we can carry) that have everything, and more, all at half the price of the bigger stores.

Mark has dismantled the pikey box and Tigger II is now back to normal and camouflaged under the orange tree. Mark has also started working on the camper - so much for having a rest for the month of August. I wondered how long it was going to take before he started to 'play' with his new toys :-)

Bienvenido a España

After 4 days on the road we, Tigger II and the pikey box made it to Spain in one piece. Hooray and much relief.

I had been concerned about the box getting wet and the plywood falling apart ('coz I is cheap and only bought lightweight non-marine ply), it blowing apart on the road at speed, wind getting in the holes in the front where some long stuff was sticking out and blowing the doors off the back, it going sideways at a roundabout as there was quite a bit of weight up high as it was completely full, or it otherwise failing and leaving a trail of debris through France and the Pyrenees, or getting pulled over by the rozzers to be told in foreign that I am not allowed to do such things on vehicles on their roads. As it turned out the journey was quite uneventful.

We did stick to the back roads mostly and tried to cruise control at 90kph which everything seemed happy at, although France does seem to have grown a huge amount of roundabouts at every imaginable junction on the non-toll roads which are interesting in a vehicle with weight up high. I guess in many ways its good practise for building Campalot - it will be larger and heavier still, but probably the centre of gravity will be a little lower.

We tried to follow parts of the route we used to take when i was a kid and the family drove down every 2 years, initially in a VW camper that was the same 1965 vintage as me, and later in a Renault 16 and caravan. Most of those trips went to the Bilbao region initially and then back from Barcelona to the channel, but at least one trip when I was navigating we came to Barcelona directly. Much of that route is now motorway grade toll roads so we tried to avoid them, but we did cross the Dordogne river just north of  Cahors over an old stone bridge that rang bells, and there was a municipal campground on the banks that could have been where we stayed one night and hung bottles of drinks in a shopping bag in the river to cool them off as we had no fridge. Or it could have been somewhere completely different - every thing i thought I knew about family and childhood has been corrected by other family members lately, so why should this one be any different?

Need to run around and buy some bits of furniture tomorrow so will keep the box for a couple more days, then it will be time to strip it down and get back to a normal vehicle, at least for a few weeks....

Pikey-mobile

In preparation for our relocation I've added a bit of luggage space to Tigger II in proper traveller fashion, although I think they tend to favour transit vans...

3 weeks and counting

We still have some work to do on our house and garden but it was at the stage where we could put it back on the rental market. The photographer came on Wednesday last week, the estate agent put it in the window and on the Internet on Thursday and they had two calls that evening and another one on Friday for viewing on Saturday afternoon. I also had a text from a friend saying their friends were interested in our house and if they could come and see it on Saturday too. So, four viewings later, two offers on Sunday, a deposit paid on Monday and it looks like we will be leaving on July 15th.  

It all got very real quite quickly. After a couple of days trawling through properties on the internet, I had whittled it down to six possibilities. Time to bring in a relocation specialist to help me set up viewings and then get my bum on a plane to Barcelona.  I flew out Wednesday afternoon and saw 5 of the 6 houses on Thursday. I ended up cancelling the last one as having looked more closely at the photos, there was no way Tigger was going to get through the gate never mind onto the driveway. I amused a number of the estate agents and owners by measuring the width of the gates, driveway and height of the garages before even looking at the house. After a very long day, we decided on one of the houses. It's a little further out than I had hoped for but it's  within walking distance of shops and the beach (sorry JohnMill, no pool at this one). 

Here is our new home

Yesterday morning and early afternoon was spent dealing with estate agents/relocation specialist, agreeing contracts and paying the deposit, all of which turned out to be more stressful than anticipated. This called for a late lunch with wine to calm my frazzled nerves - might as well learn to live like a local as all shops close from 2 until 5pm there. 

I'm now back home for a rest  (read - carry on tidying the garden) and to sort out what we're going to take to Spain. Meanwhile as well as finishing all the other jobs on the house, Mark needs to build a large wooden box on the back of Tigger (no time to get the camper shell built) to take all our stuff.

The countdown has begun...

Back home - one month in

We moved back into our house on April 25th and were shocked with the poor state the last tenants had left it in. We hadn't expected to have to redecorate every room and replace carpets that had been damaged by the cats they weren't supposed to have. 

I spent most of the first week cleaning and got some professionals in to help. After 14 hours of Eastern Europe's finest just in the bathroom and kitchen, those rooms looked more habitable. We started bringing stuff up to the house from the shed and as crockery, cutlery, kettle and microwave were near the door we had the basics but by day 5, still no sight of my pans. If I couldn't grill it, oven bake it or microwave it, then we weren't eating it. I was so happy that our local M&S was doing meal deals so by adding packets of microwaveable veges we had tasty meals in the evenings without having to rely on takeaways. Later that week Mark had some help from a young chap in bringing the furniture up to the house so at least we had our comfy sofas to sink into at the end of the day, rather than just the two stools at the breakfast bar. I've just about found a home for everything but need to be quite brutal over the next month with the clothing and send bags full to the charity shops as we have far too much and we probably will never wear again. We had kept a lot of clothing just in case we had to resume the life we had before if travelling hadn't worked out for us, but I think we're past that stage now :-) We have no intention of going back to work EVER.

Mark spent most of the first week trying to get the main bathroom back in working order by removing all the tiles in the shower and installing showerwall boards instead. He needed to make sure there were no more leaks coming down through the remaining ceiling into the hall. He then spent the next few weeks treating the joists and repairing the ceiling,  stripping wallpaper from the hall, stairs and landing, and three bedrooms, re-plastering holes in the walls that had come to light with removal of the paper, sanding and painting woodwork, thirteen door frames, painting ceilings, replacing lights and light fittings in the bathroom and kitchen and a myriad of other small jobs that all take time and energy. 

I filled 3 wheelie bins just from the front garden and now I'm onto the back garden. We got a gardener in with all the power tools to at least make a start on it and get it looking tidy and now I need to cut it back even more.

Having cancelled the post redirection 3 times, we finally got the truck paperwork through to our friends Yvonne and Tony, so finally got to bring Tigger 2 home. Mark has had a couple of hours with spanners to take the bling off the load bed and he's now starting to work towards Camperlot.

Carpets and lino are due to be fitted on Wednesday and hopefully another decorator will also be in to help us this week so the house will be fit for photos to advertise and view to get new tenants in . Whilst we like being back home, we can't afford to live here without one of us going out to work (and that's not going to happen in the near future).

Maybe next month we can fit in a social life without falling asleep in our wine.

Happy Easter from Shropshire

The last month has been great catching up with friends and family. A couple of weeks with John in the Netherlands, a week in London (thanks again John for your hospitality), a few days up north seeing family and doing repairs at the bungalow and we are now with Knees and Clive at their lovely house in Shropshire. Here is the fabulous view from their place

With Mark and Clive enjoying a bit of downtime in the garden.

In a few days we head back to London, reclaim our house and then the fun begins.

Copacabana it isn't

Somehow we seem to have traded down from Carnaval in Copacabana to Clacton on Sea. It's a bit different to say the least.

Its been an eventful couple of weeks and we have achieved everything we hoped to:

• Picked up the new truck, brought it back to the UK and started the import paperwork
• Been out to Spain and got our residency cards
• Visited the house and dropped off some beachwear that we won't need for a while, especially here
• Caught up with a few friends and relatives around the North Essex coast

We get the ferry back to the Netherlands on Thursday to visit the campervan show on Friday to look for some ideas and inspiration for Campalot, then we are going to spend a couple of weeks at Johnmill's place near Eindhoven to wait out brexit and chill before we come back to the UK and visit other friends and family and then get the house back

Rio de Janeiro

I'm 2 weeks weeks late in publishing our final 9 days in Rio.

At the end of February we caught the overnight bus from Brasilia that was supposed to take 17 hours but instead it was more like 20. The roads weren't the best which meant we didn't get as much sleep as we had hoped but it all added to the experience. We met up with friends Yvonne and Tony who had flown out to join us and it was great to see them.

We visited Sugarloaf Mountain which is at the mouth of Guanabara Bay. It's name refers to the shape of a concentrated refined loaf of sugar. It rises 396m above the harbour and the views from the top of the cable car are amazing.

Copacabana beach (our beach) is to the left of the hill

We celebrated Yvonne's birthday (over many days) with a number of Caipirinha's :-)

Then there was the carnival parade in the Sambadromo, a purpose built venue designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1983. The parade ground consists of a 700m (2,300ft) street with grandstands and seating for 90,000 spectators. There are 12 - 14 samba schools that participate each year and they are highly competitive (equivalent to the various divisions in European football) with each school presenting thousands of dancers in exotic costumes, its drummers and many floats. Each school has a preset amount of time, supposedly 75 minutes, but it took longer as the night progressed.
I had originally booked grandstand seats for us as tickets were quite expensive, however, there was a problem with the ticket agency as they ran out of the assigned seating, so they upgraded us to a box, only 10 feet away from the runway - result!

The parade started at 9,30pm and we watched 6 schools and all of them were fantastic. We didn't have the energy to stay for the last one and left at 6.30am, just as the sun was coming up. It's been a while since we had such a late night but it was totally worth it. Here are just a few of the 300 photos I took that night:

One day we all went on the Corcovado Train, a rack railway, to the summit of the mountain to see Christ the Redeemer and views over the city and beaches of Rio. The statue is Art Deco and was constructed between 1922 and 1931, is 30m high and the arms stretch 28m wide and is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone. 

The views of Rio below are a sight to see

We had a lovely time in Rio but in the end we had to say goodbye to Copacabana beach and head back to Europe.

Mark has already mentioned our hectic schedule of events since leaving Rio and amazingly, everything has gone to plan.

Land of my fathers.....

and of my father's fathers
and of my father's father's fathers.....oh wait - that was Wales.

and now mine - we have our Spanish residents cards :-)

We used to come to Spain every other year when I was a kid and stay at a campsite about 10km up the road towards Barcelona. The campsite has now been developed on and it has grown and expanded all along this coast, but its still a nice area to be in.

So now we are brexit-proof. We will spend a few weeks in the UK getting Mycenae Road tidied up and back on the rental market by the summer, then relocate here and rent somewhere else for a year while we chill out, build the camper and plan our next worldly adventures - 3-4 months at a time backpacking in India, Asia and taking the camper to Africa, alternating with at least 6 months every year somewhere in Spain until we can get permanent residency status.

Tigger II - Panzer division

Tigger II

Another heavy German tank

So we have bought a new truck - well, ex-demo truck - from Germany. As his main job will be to carry the camper (currently referred to as Campalot - "its only a model") we were going to name him Brian that is called Brian (for the foreigner and young, its Magic Roundabout by way of Monty Python). But as he's orange and black, and German, and armoured underneath with all wheel drive and locking rear differential and weighs two tonnes and is, well, a bit of a tank, we decided on Tigger II

And as my small companion quoted Piglit from the good book:

"I thought Tiggers were smaller than that."

"Not the big ones,"

Now, where do I mount the BFG?

It's been emotional...

To quote Vinne Jones in Lock, Stock....

After 6+ years on the road, and 14 months in Latin America, crime has finally happened - Maria got her chain snatched from her neck while walking back to the apartment this afternoon.

We've been sensible - she left her watches, engagement ring and other big jewelery items at home last visit, but she has worn a small pendant that my mother gave her on a fine chain for the past 30+ years. It's not particularly heavy or valuable, but it was the first gift my mother ever gave her, brought back from Singapore in the late 1980s when mum went back to where she had been stationed in the RAF in the '50s.

Open road literally in sight of our apartment windows, no crowds, daylight, and so small we never thought that someone would even bother.....

Guy snatched it from her neck from behind, Maria felt it and yelled " my chain" and I instinctively took off after the little bastard. Down the road, across the road, back up the road and around the corner. I kept on him for about 250-300m, shouting "thief" at the top of my burning lungs,  and a couple of other passers by joined the chase but we couldn't keep up. But at least he dropped the 2 cellphones and Havaianas that he had also grabbed by that stage. I've not run that far or that fast since I was covering a winger in the teachers/old boys Vs current students rugby match at school in 1982. And no, I never played wing - prop forward was much more my speed. Maria says she has never seen me move that fast, even with the trots.......

Scoured the route to see if he had dropped it or thrown it but no joy, so went back to the apartment. I then went down for a swim at the beach, and just got back to the beach bar when Maria showed up grinning like a Cheshire cat - she had found the pendant :-) She looked again on her way from the apartment and it was sitting on a metal grate about 15 feet the other way from where he grabbed it and started running - must have flicked off the chain when it broke and gone the other way. No sign of the chain, but that doesn't matter.

Couple of drinks, wait for the adrenaline to subside and a few tearful minutes thinking about my mum. I don't believe she is watching us or helped or anything metaphysical, but I hope she would have approved, that she would have thought I did the right thing and chased, that I would protect my own and fight back, the way she brought me up.

Greetings from Rio

Hope everyone is enjoying their pancakes.....

Manaus and Brasilia

From the jungle we headed back to Manaus, the capital city of the state of Amazonas. The city, founded in 1669, is in the middle of the Amazon rainforest and the only way to access the city is mainly by boat or plane.

During the late 1800s, rubber export made Manaus the richest city in South America, earning it the nickname, the "Paris of the Tropics". Many wealthy European families settled here and brought with them their love of  European art, architecture and culture.

From Manaus we flew to the capital, Brasilia. The city is a planned capital, like Canberra, and was founded in April 1960, moving the capital from Rio de Janeiro. The city's design divides it into a number of sectors, i.e. the Hotel sector, the Banking sector and the Embassy sector. Due to its modernist architecture and artistic urban planning, Brasilia was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was built in 41 months.  Oscar Niemeyer was the chief architect of most of the public buildings

 The view from the balcony of our hotel room

The JK Bridge, named after former president Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, crosses Lake Paranoa and was constructed in 2002.  It consists of three 20m (200ft) tall asymmetrical steel arches. It is 1.2km (0.75 miles) long and cost US$56.8m

On Sunday we walked to the huge city park and found there was a drumming festival taking place. It could be heard for miles around, including the other side of the lake.

Tonight we take the overnight bus to Rio (only 17 hours). Let's get this party started...