I last left you
in Portugal about 3 weeks ago. From Beja we drove to Milfontes to visit friends
Caroline and Nigel. We spent a wonderful boozy night with them catching up and making
a fuss of the dogs Indie & Dixie. We were spoilt with roast lamb for dinner
and a bacon and egg breakfast.
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| Lawrence, Caroline, Nigel, Indie and Dixie in foreground |
Next stop was
the most south-westerly corner of Portugal, Sagres. Stunning coastline, but not
much else to keep us any longer in Portugal. We drove straight past the Algarve
as it has been largely ruined by development.
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| Sagres Coastline - western Algarve |
Call us
predictable, but, we headed straight to our favourite wild west town, El Rocio
for Christmas. The weather was wonderful, the horses entertaining and the beach
still beautiful. Christmas lunch was roast goose for me, and venison for
Lawrence with a view of the lagoon, of course.
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| Sunning ourselves at the beach near El Rocio |
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| Fabulous El Rocio |
We flew to Bonn
for New Year celebrations with family. Unfortunately the weather was quite
dreary and the lovely walkway along the Rhine was flooded, but it was lovely to
catch up with the Johnstones.
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| Lawrence and sister Helen by the Rhine |
From there we
flew to Seville, my favourite city in Spain. It’s such a treat with its wide
avenues, cobbled alleyways, streets lined with orange trees and lots of
sunshine. We were blessed with blue skies each day and spent our time walking,
eating and drinking in the sun.
We celebrated
my birthday early (like Australia does for the Queen) as I had a hankering to do a repeat of last year and eat in
the Moorish bathhouse, now restaurant and have carpaccio of ostrich again – so
that’s what we did. Talk about dull!!
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| Seville by night |
And now? Yes
you guessed it, we are back in El Puerto de Santa Maria (sherry country). It’s
a real sense of déjà vu as we did this exact itinerary for
Christmas and New Year last year. Coming back to this campsite was a bit like
coming home and we will stay for as long as the weather is good, perhaps 6
weeks. So far it’s about 18 degrees during the day, blue skies, chilly nights
and crisp mornings. If we can have lunch in the sun everyday, we are happy.
Doesn’t take much.
There are a few
familiar faces around from last year and a few familiar dogs. We have now moved
to our old pitch as it has the best sunlight until around 5.30 – these things
become important when the weather rules your life.
We are now on
the wagon until my actual birthday as we have overindulged again over the festive season. 5 days of vegetables and water with
lots of excercise!!!
You may not
hear from me for a while as we simply will spend our days cycling, walking on
the beach and eating lunch in the sun – someone’s got to do it!
