90F in the shade.

   The above is the temperature as I type this and thinking about it we have never spent July/August on the Algarve but in the UK    where it can be a bit cooler as you have probably noticed. We left Espiche near the end of April to drive back to Scotland as a    very important birthday party was being held and we had received the ‘Royal’ summons, ‘be there or else’ and to be fair it was worth    the effort.  Once over the border twixt England and Scotland we abandoned the motorway and took the old road north hoping to    meet an old friend who was walking from John O’Groats to Lands End in aid of the Children in Need Charity and low behold the    scruffy tramp at the side of the road accompanied by his beautiful Red Setter turned out to be Tony. (You really were not that    scruffy, honest).  A cup of Coffee, a Hot Cross bun, a couple of dog biscuits for Rua, a chat about old times then it was time for us
   to get on our way north and leave Tony and Rua to head on towards Carlisle. Just a couple of miles up the road having just left Tony    we stopped at a Cafe where this super carving from what was a real tree stands.  Click on the small photos to see them enlarged.

   

   

 

End of July, time for an update.

We spent 2 weeks in Scotland on the east side giving us time to visit friends and for a change relatives, before heading south for Settle in North Yorkshire where for the following 3 weeks I did nothing but complain  about the cold not something I used to bother about, but having said that most folks agreed it was more like  October. Our plan to visit a friend in Wales came unstuck when we had a fault on the Camper which put our  schedule all to pot, so we cancelled Wales and headed for a short stay with our other daughter who lives near London.

After London we journeyed to Bexhill on the south coast and called in to see Jim and Gill motorhomer friends, before heading for the Channel Tunnel and the half hour journey to France, our first stop at Neuf Chantel en Bray campsite, a regular stop off for those going to or coming from the Chunnel. Next morning up and off heading south, driving in most European countries is a pleasure whether you use the motorways or the normal roads as unlike the UK, traffic is normally very light other than the approach to Cities. Our arrival at the campsite at Bonneval was marred when we turned a corner on the approach to see in front of us an unmarked or signed large sleeping policeman French style which we hit at about 25 mph resulting in a Shuttle like take off and the resulting crunch as we hit the ground. No damage to the vehicle or contents but our rear carrier rack took the brunt of the landing with it’s load resulting in  the need to carry one of our boxes inside the vehicle. One good result was when I contacted the manufacturer they
immediately offered to replace the rack.

The next day saw us arrive in Chirac to visit Cath and Bill who moved from Silsden a couple of years ago
and whom we have kept in touch with since. Whilst stopping over we had a visit from an old friend Lionel
Fletcher who I worked with on occasions in Keighley brought his wife and a couple of his dogs,

quite a  few remembered incidents and people cropped up, dredged from our past. The next day Bill and Cath took us to a local festival which included exhibitions of farming equipment, displays of wood turning using old methods, one where the wood lathe was turned by a belt from a large wheel which in turn was manually operated. A display of old tractors and cars was enhanced by about 10 masked young ladies dressed in costume riding well turned out horses and of course there were the obligatory stalls where you could make a purchase of an item to mark the day.

Time passed to quickly and we were once more on the road heading for Tarbes again heading to stay a few days with Jill and Greg at their home not to far from the Pyrenees, easily seen on a good day. We are fortunate to enjoy their company when they arrive with Caravan and stay for 3 months on the campsite next door to us though I suspect it’s the WiFi they really come for .
On arrival we found plenty room to park up and even camp but as we got the offer of a soft bed indoors we chickend out and              went for the soft option and found ourselves spoiled for the next few days. Again time flew past and we hit the road heading              west for Bordeaux, Spain and onwards for Portugal arriving in Espiche a few days later.

It always takes time to get back into ‘Portuguese’ ways but we were well settled when our friend Jen from Wales turned up to spend 10 days with us and soak up some of the sunny hot weather that she does not see so often in welsh Wales.

Other than put together the new style Web page and find time to update the Blog life has settled down once more to a relaxed style  for which we are very grateful and we are adapting to the continuous very hot and sunny weather where recently temperatures have been regularly up into the 90’s and even over the 100F on the odd occasion.

Our house is open door if your in the area,  Paul who serviced/repaired our Camper in the UK and his wife stopped in for coffee whilst in Lagos a couple of weeks ago so don’t be shy, an email usually finds us.