Week 3

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Geo: 42.0534, 3.19767

16/4/11 A bright and sunny day but with a cold wind when it blows 19oC

Off on the bike this morning and after my usual circuit of the town and seafront, call in for my regular treat of croissants and a baguette on the way home. Whilst cycling around the harbour I discovered a carboot sale., so after a leisurely breakfast off we went for a nosey and ended up buying 5 English hardbacks for €1 I'd already brought 15 books with me but you can't turn down a bargain can you girls!

Finally Travelfone emailed me an apology and an explanation which only served to make matters worse so although the service appears to be back to normal they've now received a stinging and searching email from me

17/4/11 Another bright and sunny day but with a cold wind when it blows 19oC

By the time I got back from my bike ride my toes were numb, if this cold wind keeps up I'll have to seriously consider putting some proper clothes on for my morning run.

A pleasant day spent examining the merits of the latest smartphones in readiness for upgrading mine when I get home, erm the latest Nokia and the new Symbian OS, or Samsung/HTC and the Android OS a little more research need me thinks . Don't worry it's all in the planning; I can't go without my usual injection of techno info! the latest bunch of tech mags are due to land with my son at Easter and another bunch to arrive with my daughter mid May, anyone fancy coming down mid June and bring my mags with them?

18/4/11 First cloudy start to the day but it soon got burnt off leaving a sunny day 19oC

An early start so we could get to the market for 09:00 in the morning and get the best fish from the fish shop, as good as the fish is the prices have rocketed since our last visit, having said that nearly everything has increased dramatically in price. Whereas in previous years the cost of living here was significantly cheaper than at home now it's on a par and in some cases even dearer, some of the prices on the non food market are laughable.

This afternoon we had some Germans arrive in a camper and take up a vacant pitch on the opposite side to us but a little bit further up. A strange couple, he arrived in trousers and shirt and immediately stripped down to shorts and sandals complete with white socks, anyway eventually after getting everything out they settled.

I was just into my second glass of wine when all of sudden the Germans (now aka Fritz & Heidi) stowed everything back in the camper and moved down the site towards us and unpacked again (no they weren't being friendly their chosen pitch had suddenly gone into shade so they moved down to our sunny end)

19/4/11 A bright start to the day hot & Sunny 20oC

We decide to take walk to the nature reserve opposite us as there was a boardwalk leading out across the marshes where there was a hide you could watch the bird life from. Just as we were getting ready to go out we noticed Fritz & Heidi packing up so we assumed as you do they were only staying the one night.

On our return around lunch time we were amazed to see Fritz & Heidi had moved two avenues down presumably because it's a sunnier pitch as there are no trees or hedges there. As we were preparing lunch they rolled out their canopy, moved the chairs and recliner into the shade and disappeared into the camper, strange I thought. But that wasn't the half of it 30 mins later they materialised in jeans, jumpers, and one of those desert caps with the flap covering the neck, they then wrapped themselves in blankets from head to foot and sat in the chairs in the shade. If you can remember the news pictures of colonel Qaddafi where he's always wrapped in his brown sheet and matching head gear well that's what they looked like. There I am in my budgie smugglers and it's a hot windless 21oC + and that's how they stayed for pretty much the rest of the afternoon, oh well each to their own.

20/4/11 Cool and overcast to start but turned out to be a hot and sunny day 20 oC

21/4/11 Cool and overcast with a slight shower!! 19 oC am hot & sunny pm 23 oC

We were surprised how much the market had grown it's at least 4 times the size it was when we first arrived and is certainly bigger than the last time we were here. After lunch I settled down to some reading when the peace was shattered by a low flying helicopter, and I mean low flying, after a low circuit of the site it was obvious he was looking for a landing site (either there was a medical emergency or they had finally tracked me down for an unpaid speeding offence) he eventually decided to land in the 2nd avenue down from us, a distance of 100m bloody hell I thought good job the storm straps are still fitted or the awning would be all over the site.

Being an inquisitive sort of a bloke I went to the end of our avenue to watch what was clearly going to be a very tight landing as there's only approx 20-25m between the trees separating the avenues, with only 5m to go the landing was rapidly aborted. It circled round the site again and attempted another landing further down the site but once again the landing had to be abandoned presumably because of the close proximity of the trees bordering the avenues, after circling the site again it finally managed to land in the last avenue, Paco the site manager shot down in his car; As you can imagine it drew a large crowd of people both from the site, beach, and local houses. When I finally got down there I was surprised to see not just how close the chopped blades were relative to the trees but there were also two smaller immature trees in the centre of the avenue and he'd just managed to squeeze in between them all.

From the bottom of the site we could see the flashing lights of a fire engine and ambulance at a nearby block of apartments, later on the ambulance ferried a patient onto the site and having transferred her to the chopper it promptly took off again, which just left me wondering did Paco manage to negotiate a suitable landing fee before they took off, oh well back to the van for a drink I can't cope with too much excitement.

Just after dinner a British camper turned up and for some reason decided to pitch up a couple of pitches up on the opposite side, it turned out that unusually there were just two women in the camper, they ditched the camper and went off into town and still hadn't returned by the time I called it a day at 23:30. I can't explain why but there's something funny about this setup, it's not the fact that the camper is dilapidated or that's its two women travelling alone but something doesn't seem right.

22/4/11 cool and overcast 17 oC am with intermittent showers pm

When I went to get the bike out for my morning ride I was surprised to see the camper that arrived last night had at sometime in the night/ early morning relocated itself directly opposite us, curious?

A short ride this morning as it's too cool for fun, I obviously slept well last night because there must have been a storm or something, apart from the crashing waves on the beach this morning when I got to the harbour the road was partially flooded and the adjacent beach area used for car parking was partially under water; with two cars marooned on what was now a sand bar in a lagoon some 20x100m long. I hope they had a good night cos they're not going to be happy this morning.

As I cycled up the pier it became apparent that the waves must have been crashing over the end of the harbour wall as the roadway was covered in all sorts of detritus, and the harbour and moorings were full of all sorts of flotsam and jetsam as well, with that I cycled off to get my baguettes and made my way back to the site.

When I got back to the van Linda wasn't a happy bunny as whilst she was preparing breakfast she had a feeling of being watched and discovered that one of the women from the camper was looking through the rear caravan window, she promptly shot back to the camper with nothing said.

Whilst having breakfast in the awning (it's too cool for outside) the younger of the two women exited the camper and did nothing more that go to the front of the vehicle crouch down and urinate, she was clearly in our view and she'd already seen us but just went back to the camper, I should explain the toilet block is 2 avenues away a distance of less that 100m, we were flabbergasted.

I have a sneaky suspicion of what maybe but I'll hold fire for the moment suffice to say if their antics continue we'll have no alternative but to speak to them directly and if that fails then to report their behaviour to the manager, not a nice position to be placed in.

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