Once More With Feeling!

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.

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.

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.

Sunning ourselves at the beach near El Rocio

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.

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!!

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!