There will now be an intermission.

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We are back home! ( including the caravan)

Since our last entry we moved to Moraira a pleasant resort just south of Javea in Valencia.

We would have loved to stay there a bit longer but circumstances forced us to revise our plans drastically, not least of which has been the continuing pain of a troublesome root canal treatment that I had done in January .

At Moraira we had had to decide: Do we turn right and head to Italy or make a quick dash up France and have an unscheduled early time-out at home?

The tooth obviously was a big consideration but we had also hit the wall... Literally!

Yes it had to happen.

I (Donna) reversed the caravan into site entrance wall and partly demolished it. The 'van thankfully suffered very little damage .

When we were preparing for the trip we did lots of research but it sadly failed to reveal the one piece of advice that could have saved us so much hassle and frayed tempers .

"Get a motor mover fitted to your caravan!"


We prided ourselves that we had never yet needed one of these extravagant and very expensive devices in 10 years of UK 'vanning but as we have travelled through Spain we realised they are a necessity for Europe.

In the UK, shade on pitches is not desirable but in southern Europe it is a necessity in the hotter months, so trees and their trunks are in abundance and very close to what are often very small pitches .
Access roads on sites too are very tight for anything longer than small motor home.

The stress of getting a nearly 12 m outfit onto and off site was beginning to accumulate and the mishap with the wall ( which cost us 200 Euro to put right with the owner) was the last straw .

So we decided to go home for Easter instead of continuing to travel 'till June as planned.

A good decision really looking back.

I had my troublesome tooth extracted 3 days ago, my jaw is currently hurting lots but hopefully that will be an end to it now and we can continue our travels without worry.

We got a very posh caravan motor mover fitted last week and it will stand us in good stead when we travel on what we plan to be "Part Two: the Italian Job" . (Italian pitches are supposed to be even more of a nightmare to access than Spanish).

We have been able to replace an increasingly uncomfortable mattress on the 'van with one that will hopefully give us better night's sleep.

We can get the Caravan and car serviced .

We can return through France and into Italy in May when the weather is nicer and more sites are open for the season .

I can see my family on my "big " birthday in April! (It's one of those with a 0 in it!).

We are both happy to be home and it's great to see friends and family again but the feet are still itchy.

The time out will let us plan for a few weeks and be ready to tour again , this time, with growing experience under our belt we will love it even more!


Donna

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