Lingering Down the Lane(Paul Weston Orchestra)A day of local sightseeing in Langre,near Santander,Spain

---

Today, the BBA V3 has been on the road for three weeks. Peggy has taken us in our travels including local sightseeing just over 3000 kilometres already.

With a cloudy day predicted and perhaps some showers around midday we decided to have an admin day, catching up on washing and other chores one does most days when at home.

There is another walk in the other direction around the beach cliff top to explore and we need to do some more grocery shopping so we will explore the seaside town of Soma, some 6km away.

Soma was just a bit far to walk with a bag of shopping and so we drove.

With the washing and the other admin chores done we drove the short distance to Soma where we found a Dia store to do our shopping.

We can imagine the Soma over the summer months would be a busy seaside town but right now in the low season it was mainly older people in the streets doing their shopping.

Communication with the checkout operators in the supermarkets has been good despite the language barriers and today was no different in one of those funny little incidents that probably happen every day but you don’t really notice them.

I had put a couple of apples in a bag and because there were no baskets to carry our purchases as we walked around the shop I had put the handle of the bag over my wrist.

With our arms full of products we went to the checkout and the young woman ran them past the scanner.

As I moved around the end of the counter to where they locate the EFTPOS machine, to insert my card, she made a gesture towards me that I didn’t pick up on straightaway. Continuing to point at me Gretchen suddenly realised that I still had the bag of two apples around my wrist and that they needed also to be paid for too.

Assuring her in English that I wasn’t a shoplifter and with all three of us laughing about the incident the apples were weighed and paid for and we were on our way.

Even though it was one of the warmest days we have had so far we had chosen a box of soup for lunch which with the fresh baguette type bread turned out to be a tasty difference to our car boot lunches when we are on the road.

After lunch it was time to stretch the legs and take on the cliff top walk but this time in the other direction.

The sea was much calmer today and with the temperature in the low 20’s it was down to shirt and trousers only.

The campervan that was at the steps down to the beach was still there today so guess it parked over. The campervan looked very well equipped and self contained. The shutters were up so the owners were either away or asleep.

There was no one trying their luck at surfing as we started our walk as the sea was a lot flatter than yesterday.

We had a goal in mind to get to where a plantation of pine trees came down to the cliff top edge a fair way off in the distance but we were thwarted by a number of houses that clung to the cliff top which meant access along the cliff top itself was closed off to us.

Then we realised that we had already walked a reasonable distance and we were out of sight of our apartment so decided to abandon the goal and instead head home along a maze of country lanes back from the cliff top past a couple of dairy farms where the herd of cows had been given the opportunity to get out into the lush green meadow and have something fresh to eat.

There was no apparent milking shed and we wondered whether the farmer uses some type of mobile device to milk the cows.

The cows were rather dirty so it was apparent that they don’t get washed down too often when they are indoors unless they had only just been released to come outside. We can’t say we have ever seen cows are dirty as these ones were in NZ.

The local inhabitants all seem to have one or more dogs guarding their homes and we were thankful that the residential sections, which were all of a good size, were all fully fenced enough to keep the dogs on their side as some of them may have liked to give us a run for our money had they been let loose.

It had been a cruisy day and we were well rested after putting some kilometres behind us yesterday.

Relaxing with a beer we watched our local neighbour across the road complete the scything of the backyard grass that his wife was busy at this morning and thought how lucky we are to be on the BBA V3 and our son in law is mowing the grass back home!

With the prospect of an even sunnier and warmer day tomorrow we will head off as soon as breakfast is done with, for a day of sightseeing in Santander.

---