Day Four. The end of the road. 

Squeezed out from between two articulated lorries and hit the road by seven thirty.  Beautiful weather, beautiful scenery. 

The idea is that we drive to a village just south of Òbidos, called Olho Marinho, and when we get there we phone a chap called Pierre, who we've never met but is friends with a woman called Steph, who we've also never met. Pierre's father has a farm and on his farm he has some... PIGS eee iy eee iy ohh haha, sorry. On his farm he has some cottages, two to be precise, both of which are empty and would be suitable for animals and have somewhere to park a caravan. We've kind of arranged, through texting Steph, to arrive at about mid-day.

Turns out we've done better than expected and we find ourselves driving into the sleepy little village at about 10am. We pull over and I'm just dialling Pierre's number when a car pulls up along side us and toots. 

'I see ze Ingeesh caravan I seenk maybe thees ees ze one. Follow me,' he says. 

The cottage is perfect for what we need until we buy our own place - two bedrooms, fully enclosed and gated little garden, private yard for the caravan and little patio facing the setting sun. 

Pierre's mother was there when we arrived, cleaning. She can't speak English but she loves dogs, and fell in love with little Gwilym, our playful Jack Russell.

I'm trying to learn Portuguese, but the pronunciation is difficult. 

'Se chama 'Gwilym'' I said. 

'Ah... Bulla' she said, patting Gwilym on the head. 

'Gwilym'

'Bulla'

'GWI-LYM'

'BULL-AHH'

'Gwii-lumm' I over-articulated. 

'Boooo-laaahhh' she over-articulated back.

She walked off laughing, Bulla skipping about at her heals. I guess Welsh pronunciation is tricky too. 

Walked the dogs on the beach at Gronho, on the south side of the lagoon - so lovely to see them charging about, having been cooped up for 3 days - before stocking up on essentials (wine and beer). 

Had a minor heart attack when we got back to discover Titty and Fat Babs were missing - eventually discovered them sleeping in a drawer that they'd managed to climb into through the back. 

Sat on our little patio listening to Gwilym setting off the village doggy telegraph and got tipsy on Vinho Verde. 

Well, pissed actually. But we felt like we deserved it. 

Day Three. The Rain in Spain.

Straight across Spain, from France to Portugal. Bayonne-San Sebastian-Vitoria-Burgos-Valladolid-Salamanca-Guarda-Castelo Branco.

The first bit, through the foothills of the Atlantic Pyrreanees Pyreenes Pyreeneas mountains, was spectacular, but unfortunately we were driving through wind, rain and fog, which spoilt the view a bit. I thought the rain in Spain fell mainly on the plains, but not so because the sun came out and the drive across the vast and largely featureless expanses of Central Spain was long, hot and dry. 

We stopped halfway across at a two-pump petrol station to fill up with diesel. I had just been thinking how swimmingly well everything was going when I heard Richard exclaim 'OH MY GOD!' (drama queen) from behind the Landrover. Turns out that the lockable screw-off petrol tank cap was still balanced on a pump in a random garage 400 miles behind us in the middle of France. 

Before I could start panicking about the possible consequences of travelling across Europe in all sorts of extreme weather conditions with a full tank of diesel with no lid on it, Rich had gone into the tiny petrol station booth, tumbleweed rolling by, to look for a solution. Turns out they sold petrol caps and the first one he picked up fit perfectly. It was a short-lived disaster. 

By 5pm we crossed the border into Portugal, and almost instantly the scenery changed from huge flat expanses of agricultural land, to green forested rolling hills and valleys. Was tempting to carry on to our destination near Òbidos but couldn't because of (a) the dodgy caravan electrics making driving in the dark inadvisable, and (b) the rental property we kind of organised won't be available until tomorrow, so we stopped at a services in Abrantes and kind of slept, sandwiched between two articulated lorries. 

Last (short) leg of the journey tomorrow. Other than being a bit tired and smelly, it's been a bit of doddle really. Can't imagine WHAT all the fuss was about. 

Miles driven: 558

Craps in Landrover: 2

Craps in Caravan: 1

Wees: can't even bear to think about it.

Day Two

Things that have gone wrong so far: 

(1) Caravan tail lights on near side have stopped working. (This doesn't include the indicators and brake lights, but means we now daren't travel after dark.) 

(2) The inside lights in the caravan stopped working. (We have torches.)

(3) The Weather. (Getting progressively worse the further south we travel.) 

Pretty chuffed with that lot. Was expecting far worse. 

We were on the road at 7 and travelled, uneventfully, from north of Le Mans to Tours to Poitiers to Bordeaux and almost to Bayonne, near the Spanish border. Boring motorway driving all the way, but the animals are being brilliant, despite the drugs having worn off, and Titty, usually so flighty and neurotic, is taking it all in her stride as if she was BORRRRN to travel, dahlink. Leia is making funny noises and demanding huge amounts of food, but she's exactly like that at home. 

Slept better, but beginning to understand why New Age Travellers have acquired the nickname 'Crusties'.

PS Excuse the typos in last paragraph of yesterday's blog. Darted=farted and Weed=wees. 

Miles driven: 450

Craps in Landrover: 1

Craps in caravan: 0

Wees in both vehicles: 14 (all in correct places except that one Richard did)

The Road to Rouen

After a false start as the result of a hesitant first time buyer at the bottom of the chain, and nine days of hand-wringing and hair-pulling, we finally exchanged contracts on Thursday and completed on Friday, which was a shock and a relief because the entire contents of our home had already been deconstructed and labelled and packed away in a warehouse in Cardiff. 

At eight-thirty on Saturday morning, Rich and I and our menagerie of seven piled into our Landrover, hitched what has turned out to be a teeny weeny caravan on the back, and waved goodbye to our faithful friend and (extremely) handy man, Skinny, as we tooted and honked our way out of the village we have loved and lived in for fourteen years. 

Any sadness we may have felt was overshadowed by (1) shock (the realisation that between us we had no job, no house, no commitments, no ties and complete FREEDOM) and (2) fear (four day trek across Europe in a nine year old Landrover, having never towed a caravan before, with seven animals on board - what could possibly go wrong?).

It all sounds much worse than it is. There is a very large dog crate on the floor in the very back of the Landrover, with cushions, water and a litter tray. We've put two of our cats - Fat Babs and Leia the Dud Bengal - in it together because they get on OK. Fat Babs is mean and detests our other cat Titty the Maine Coon, who she persecutes mercilessly in the same way and for the same reasons that I imagine Nessa from Gavin and Stacey might persecute Claudia Schiffer. Leia the Dud Bengal is just weird, and definitely 'not quite right'. I suspect her father may also be her brother. Her yowl is random and unearthly and she makes a noise that I can only describe as a cackle whenever someone sneezes or picks up a roll of Sellotape. She also has bald breasts which hang down like a cow's udder. 

Titty the Maine Coon is beautiful, highly strung and thinks she's a dog. She's in a smaller 'boutique' crate on the back seat.  Wooly and Woofta, our two ageing Bichon Frisés, are next to her. Misty the Collie and self-appointed guardian of this family, is on the bench seat next to the big crate, where she can keep a close eye on Fat Babs (who she loathes and mistrusts)lest she should try any funny business like hijack or mass murder. And Gwilym is curled up on a cushion between Rich and I in the front, like the spoilt and demanding little boy dog that he is. 

The journey from home (ex- home) to the channel tunnel at Folkestone took five hours and was encouragingly uneventful. This was mainly due to the fact that, thanks to our friendly vet, the cats had all had a pre-breakfast slug of the feline equivalent of midazolam. This renders them spaced out and trippy, man, as they squint over the top of their nictitating membranes with catty little grins on their faces. The only thing they object to is anyone speaking, at all, at which they all started yowling at us for 'harshing their mellow', so it looks like we're going to have to spend the entire journey in silence. 

The Channel Tunnel is pretty bloody fantastic. Drive on, have a snooze, drive off. My only advice would be (1) book in advance (we didn't because we couldn't), (2) don't take a caravan (we did), and (3) don't take seven animals at seventeen quid each (we did), otherwise the 30 minute train ride may cost you something like FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY POUNDS. 

En France. Headed south west on the wrong side of the road to Rouen, with stops for weed and ball-throwing, them after a confusing detour along the banks of the Seine in Rouen, managed to get as far as Alençon before calling it a day. Found a quite spot at a service station, piled into the caravan and sort of slept, on and off and fully clothed amidst a heaving pile of snoring and darting mammals, for six hours or so. I hate camping. And I hate caravans. 

Miles driven: 440

Craps in Landrover: 0

Craps in caravan: 0