Top 10

---

Alan’s top ten lists - (this is what you do at night when you get bored)

List one - things that have kept us awake at night in our Motorhome. Bear in mind it is hot (sorry to rub it in again) so we usually have all the windows open at night.

1) The church bells in Vers which rang every hour, with a half hourly chime for good measure, all through the night. Two sets which were about two minutes out of synch to each other. When we arrived and first heard them we looked at each other and said ”they will mute those after dark”. They did not!

2) A poor demented bear which was sadly part of a zoo contained within the campsite in Villanova in Spain. It gave a pained roar about every 15 minutes all day and all night. Bad enough on its own, however each roar set off ½ the dogs in the campsite for 10 minutes.

3) Speaking off dogs which we normally are very fond of, no other culprit has kept us awake nearly as much. People leaving dogs in caravans and going out all night and the poor animals howling until they return. Shooting is too good for them, the owners that is.

4) Lorries, mopeds etc. on the road next to our overnight spot in Sarlat. We were parked 6’ from the roadside and after the motorbikes and police chases between 1-3 am, there was a huge market that stallholders began turning up for from about 5am. We don’t park up anywhere near main roads now.

5) Very loud Spanish man sat outside next door to us, in the still night air talking non-stop until 1.57am.

6) A huge thunderstorm in Perpignan with amazing lightning and crashing thunder which was fun for the first hour or two, but come 4am the enjoyment had long ceased.

7) Frenchmen who go shooting just prior to dawn and continue to blast away at anything for the next 3-4 hours, thus destroying any hope of a lie-in.

8) The campsite at the end of the runway in Barcelona, bad enough with the planes, but the birdscarer going off all night every 47 seconds just finished us off.

9) French teenagers in the skateboard park next to us in L’Auguillon sur Mer, they kept it going until 2am.

10) Strong to gale force winds that keep us awake for two nights in Andalucia. The van was a rockin’ specially as the first night we were perched on a promontory over looking the Med.


Top ten things that have overtaken Liz whilst cycling

1) 3 Cambodian children on one bike. (In Cambodia, not part of our current trip)
2) Very large elderly German woman on a bike in Ireland.
3) A motorised lawnmower in St. Foy le Grande.
4) A disability scooter in the Costa Brava.
5) Various people of pensionable age.
6) A dog in Narbonne. It was jogging on the cyclepath.
7) A teenager with rollerblades on the towpath at Canal du Midi
8)

……and counting, although in her defence after 3 months of cycling every other day she is getting harder to outpace.

---