We Have To Return To The UK

It actually came as no surprise, to anyone here in Andaluscia, after all, we had been anticipating it, although we just didn’t know how bad the outcome of the ‘Confinement’ review would be. But rumour and speculation, although pretty accurate as it turned out, was no good, we needed to hear it officially, but even then, after reading the official statement, there was still no real clarification, that  definitive statement that everybody was seeking, would the border restrictions be lifted so that families could cross boundaries, Municipal, Provincial and Regional in order to be able to visit and stay with each other and enjoy a ‘Feliz Navidad’ in 2020 ? For now at least, the current restrictions on movement remain in force in the Andalusia Region until the 10th December, no leaving our Municipal boundaries or entering another, without proper justification, and there was a very short list of what those ‘Justifications’ were and, to Shazza’s extreme disappointment, going shopping to our her ‘preferred’ Mercadona supermarket was not one of those justifications, as also was the not travelling the short distance to Estepona just a short twenty minute drive up the coastal road from our bolt hole. The restrictions will be reviewed again at the end of this next period of ‘Confinement’ and then, if, and only if, the number of Covid Infections continues to decrease, as it is now doing throughout the whole of the Andalusia region, would an easing of restrictions come into force, so it didn’t matter that our Municipality of Manilva has had a very low infection rate since the beginning of this Pandemic back in March, if other ‘Municipalities’ and ‘Provinces’ within the Andalusia region, namely the Province of Granada, did not improve then we would all have to suffer the same consequences. There was a slight glimmer of hope though as the Central Government has decided to leave the decision on what measures are to be put in place over the festive period up to the local Regional governments, read that as a ‘cop out’ so that they do not get blamed if some people’s festive period does not turn out to be the sort they were hoping for, but there has been some centralised discussions on what restrictions ‘may’ be lifted, and for how long, however, just to take some of the shine off this small but positive glimmer of hope for a bit of a break for people over Christmas, the Spanish population has already been given advance notice that the wearing of face masks is likely to remain a ‘mandatory’ requirement for the whole of 2021.

For Shazza and I, the lifting of restrictions is definately of less importance for us really, we do not have family out here to share the Christmas festivities with, however we do appreciate that it is a very important period for other’s, especially those with families and friends who they have not seen in the flesh for such a very long time, the same is true I am sure for families all over the world, so we sincerely hope and pray that the strict restrictions that have been in place on peoples liberties, which I have to say, the majority have complied with, will reap the rewards that they deserve. So what about us, well of course we too hope that the restrictions are lifted, but because of the very real and continuing risk from this virus we have already decided that we would not be conducting our normal Christmas Day tradition of booking a table at a local restaurant and sharing the festivities with a large group of unknown people, in a confined environment, as we have done in previous years. However, we are hoping to perhaps spend three or four days away in the van, somewhere discreet and isolated, where we could just enjoy a different type of Christmas, out in the fresh air, walking along a beach, or the banks of a reservoir or even up in the mountains, although even if the restrictions are lifted our festive break would still be very much dependent on the weather, but if we cannot get away in the ‘Little Fokker’ then we can still take a stroll along one of our own beaches before returning to the bolt hole for a different kind of Christmas dinner, a ‘Plant Based’ one this year !! Yes, this will be our very first Christmas without the traditional Turkey, without the ‘Pigs in Blankets’, no Christmas buffet with the more usual Sausage Rolls, Pork Pie, Boiled Ham, or any of the other meat based traditional goodies that I associate with Christmas, so the question will be, never mind surviving Covid, will I survive Christmas or will this be just pushing this ‘Plant Based’ stuff just that one stage too far ?

I certainly did not believe when we started this little ‘experiment’ way back on the 1st January, which supposedly was going to be just for one month, that either of us would actually last through even that first month, but here we are nearly at the end of November, eleven months later !! Although I do have to confess that whilst Shazza has been exceptionally well disciplined and not waivered once, I have succumbed to the temptations on ‘three’ occasions during this period, although in my defence, when I agreed to support Shazza on this, and yes it was her initial brain fart of an idea, I did stipulate that I would still eat Fish on a regular basis, in all its forms and may still, if I felt the need for some variety, that I would perhaps eat Chicken. Well, on those three occasions when I did succumb, and yes of course there were very compelling reasons for me doing so, but on two of those, it was to eat Chicken, a supermarket purchased sandwich whilst on a long road journey from Devon to Yorkshire, and then more recently here in Spain, a quarter portion of fried chicken with some french fries from a beach bar, the first occasion was way back in February when we returning from Spain and I sampled a local delicacy in Salamanca, which I believe I held my hands up to in the appropriate blog post at that time. But, I am certainly not beating myself up over it and I can quite happily report that I did enjoy them, although my digestive system didn’t, and do not worry as I won’t be going into all the gorey details, but as this occurred after each one of those occasions it has made me ask the question, can your bodies chemistry actually get used to not digesting meat in such a way that it rebels when you do ? I have to say though that Shazza works extremely hard to keep finding new plant based recipe’s and then serving up lots of really tasty Plant Based meals, breakfast, lunches and dinners so, for the time being at least, we both remain willingly committed to continuing on our healthy lifestyle dining approach, but let’s see how I cope with Christmas or will it actually be the case that instead of the Turkey, it will be the ‘Plant Based’ diet that gets well and truly stuffed this year ?

Well it is turning out to be another one of those turbulent year’s for us, yes of course the good news being that we have finally retired properly this time around and Amen to that. However, it has not been quite the kind of retirement that we had imagined that it would be when we first took to living fulltime in a van back in 2013. We have known for some time that this will be our last six month extended period in Europe, unless we explore other options, as the Transition Period between the UK and EU comes to an end on 31st December, so we have had time to prepare ourselves for the change in our travelling logistics for future trips, wether that be in the van travelling to other parts of Europe or, for periods when we elect to return to the bolt hole, with or without the van, but to be honest we do still feel some sadness towards the decision that has changed our ‘Freedom of Movement’ within Europe. Then of course we have had, like everbody else I know, had to contend with this Covid Pandemic, which itself has created enforced restrictions upon us and which has certainly impacted on our intended plans for what may be our last extended Winter period in Spain as retirees. But there are other things that are now beginning to happen which may change, not only our future nomadic adventures in this part of Europe, but also all the other vanlifers who choose not to stay on Campsites and who prefer not to be penned up with others in communal open prisons. We have already seen with our own eyes this year in Spain the increase in the number of signs being permanently erected that are banning Vans from parking up on what were previously ‘tolerated’ locations and we read about the same in other parts of the Country. I have recently become aware of a new Law introduced in Portugal, as recently as within this last week, where Vanlifers will be fined if they are discovered parking and sleeping in any areas that are not specifically assigned for such purposes, so read that as only being permitted to use official campsites and Motorhome ‘Aires’ !! So, whilst there have always been Laws in relation to not sleeping in National Parks, wether that be in Cars, Tents, Caravans, or any other type of Vans, in both Spain and Portugal, it appears now that this Law is now being extended to cover anywhere, areas where, generally, a more lenient view was taken provided the basic rules of ‘No Camping’ were observed. The one proviso in all of this that I feel I must stipulate is, there has often, over the years, been many media articles about the clamping down of Motorhomes (interpret that term as all types of Campervan) who ‘Free Camp’, and as we know with the media, including social media, there is a high degree of ‘Fake News’ or ‘Sensationalised’ headlines regularly floating around, so it will be a matter of waiting to see this in official statements from the appropriate ‘Authorities’, however, that said, there is no disputing the increase in the amount of permanent signage that is now in place, so the question now is, if this information is legitimately confirmed, ‘What future for the Nomadic vanlife community ?’ Not just for travelling within Spain and Portugal, but will these restrictions continue to spread to other European Countries ? The other questions of course are, “Have the ‘irresponsible’ behaviours of minority elements of the vanlife community contributed to this demise ?” and of course, “Have the increase in the number of Park Up ‘Apps’ that are now even more widely available been instrumental in increasing the number of those ‘Free Camping’ locations and thus created an over saturation ?”. So, with Brexit, Covid and now this, we have to consider for ourselves wether it will change our thinking about continuing with full timing in the ‘Little Fokker’, the Jury is out on that one for the time being. As I said, it has turned out to be another one of those turbulent years and I believe that it does go to justify that you should not, especially in these uncertain times, plan too far ahead and to give some thought to always having some sort of an escape plan prepared !!

Just by way of adding insult to injury to our already turbulent year, we are now experiencing the worst extended period of bad weather here in Spain than we have probably ever had in the last six years, although being realistic, perhaps our memory just shuts out the previous not so pleasant bits ? It is after all quite normal here in Spain during the Winter months, to see some change in the weather patterns, from the long periods of sunshine and warm days and nights to the odd spell of rain, which can, and has, in previous years lasted for three or four consecutive days and, even during the worst storms in twenty-years, that occurred several years ago and which created some serious flooding, it was all pretty much over and done with in a matter of days, the bad weather bit that is and not the clearing up of the aftermath of those floods. But this Winter period, since we returned to Spain at the beginning of October, has seen the Country in general experiencing several storms with extended days of rain and now, as I write these current ramblings we have just commenced a period of very changeable weather and the ‘Works of Fiction’ are forecasting the next nine days to be pretty much wet and very cool, some of the downpours so far have been exceptionally torrential with a good dose of thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure and we have just encountered our first ever power cut, so what on earth is going on here ? We were, I believe, personally lulled into a false sense of security with the very recent hot and very humid weather, both during the day and at night, so could this Climate Change business we have been hearing about for very many years now, actually be beginning to happen and, more importantly, if it is, is it too late for us to do anything about it ?

Prior to the commencement of this recent period of bad weather we went out and did a big shop so that if it did get too bad to venture out, we would have enough to see us through but we really should have known better. You would think by now that we would have learnt that the ‘Works of Fiction’ should never be relied upon. After the initial storm which lasted two days the weather became more settled and our days have been a combination of warm sunshine, grey and overcast skies, some periods of rain and winds that have varied in strength from virtually nothing right up to 18 mph but nothing like the devastation those bloody ‘Works of Fiction’ had been predicting, so we have actually still managed to get out and about on our walks, the cabin fever that we were anticipating, had we have been confined for days, has not materialised and so all in all, everything is pretty much as it should be and as a subsequent bonus I now have lots of choice of goodies when I go to raid the fridge and food cupboards, healthy Plant Based options obviously !!

We know that somewhat reluctantly, ‘We Have To Return To The UK’, in fact our first period of Ninety-days permitted stay, under the new restrictions, which will commence on the 1st January 2021, will be up on the 31st of March, now we know that that is still just over four months away, plenty of time before we have to start to think about which route we would return by, our initial thoughts were to leave the bolt hole a bit earlier and make our way slowly back up through Spain, cross the border into France and do a short mini-tour up to either the Channel Tunnel or perhaps even one of the Channel Ports. However, we do listen to the news, not just for here in Spain and the UK, but also wider areas of both Europe and the rest of the World. We were hearing how the UK were not expecting life to get back to any sort of ‘normal’ until at least Easter, the Spanish are talking about no new ‘normal’ for the whole of next year and the French are even talking about keeping some restrictions in place for several months into the New Year and it appears to be a pretty similar story for the rest of Europe. So it got us to thinking about whether it would be a better idea to just get out of Europe and get back to the UK by the easiest route, which would mean by ferry from Bilbao, which is our usual route, although now we are retired and on a much reduced budget, our cabin choice this time would have to be less lavish than it has been in former years but the upward side of that is that the bill for now travelling in ‘Steerage’ class is half the price !! Shazza started to look at prices and availability, there was a Sailing on the 30th of March from Bilbao, pretty close to perfect timing for our ninety-day deadline, so we decided to go ahead and book it, at least then it would be out of the way and one less administrative burden that we could then forget about it. But to our horror, we discovered that even now, with still four months before we needed to return, their was no availability, it was fully booked !! Shazza looked at an earlier crossing from Bilbao but again, nothing available, eventually she managed to book us a crossing, but from Santander to Portsmouth on Sunday 28th March, which wasn’t too bad, we could live with leaving just three days before we ‘officially’ had to, but we were just shocked as we do not normally book our return crossing until we are well into the New Year and so we were glad that something had prompted us to start looking much earlier, could it be that that something was once again attributed to our special powers of subconscious ‘intuition’ (Time to play that spooky X-Files music in the background again).

So, with the combination of another couple of weeks of confinement still ahead before the next review, our nightly curfew still in place and some periods of rain still on the cards, we are now doing some forward planning for when we return to England, of course it is still far too early to know what the situation will be in respect of the Covid restrictions when we do return, although we are making an assumption that even in March next year we may still be required to quarantine for fourteen days ? But will their still be Regional ‘Tier’ restrictions in place ? and if so, what Tier would we end up in, which may also restrict where we could travel after our quarantine period is finished ? But our planning is taking on the ‘positive’ outlook and so we intend, as we really will be living in our van as proper fulltimers in the UK, where to spend our ninety days, or perhaps even a few more before we once again cross the Channel. The fuel budget will dictate that our movements are kept to a minimum, although any surplus that we have in our budget from our six months here in Spain may give us a little more flexibility. There are so many areas of the UK that we have never visited, and some that we may have visited previously, but only briefly and in no great depth, so we have a wide variety of options although some of them may be reduced, initially at least, if Wales and Scotland continue to have separate movement restrictions to England.

We are having a crisis of conscience even over here, we have, so far, complied with the travel restrictions because we do have a ‘residence’ here, so we are not in the same position as some other Vanlifers who are still managing to travel freely around the Country. We cannot deny that we are suffering with some envy as we watch their travel ‘Vlogs’ and see all the places they are getting to where we too, with our UK registered vehicle, could also probably be travelling, with no apparent issues. But, our self inflicted morals of ‘doing the right thing’ is overriding such personal impulses, so we can only sit and wait for the Andalusia Junta to ease the restrictions, even if only for a few days…………………….

Wherever you may be in the World at this time, stay strong but more importantly please continue to stay safe.

Edited with BlogPad Pro

‘Is There A Shelf Life To Vanlife ?”

Have you ever been sat watching something, a television programme, a documentary or even an item on one of the news programmes or perhaps even just reading a newspaper or magazine article and the content, or part of it, acts as some sort of catlyst in your brain that sets your mind racing ? Or is that something that just happens to us retired folk as we find ourselves with a bit more time on our hands these days ?

I remember five years ago, which is good for me personally, as it just confirms that dementia has not yet set in fully, well not yet at least, but at that time, we were only into our second year of our new lifestyle adventure, but even so, even at that time we had noticed a substantial increase in the number of Vans that were ‘on the road’ from what we had seen just the previous year.

In these rambles, for ease, I will just refer to everything by the more general term as ‘Vans’ wether they be Large Motorhomes, Small Motorhomes, Self Builds, Production built etc. 

So, you do not need to be a rocket scientist to realise that, if the same principle were true around the rest of Europe as we were seeing at that time in Portugal, then the obvious question was, ‘Where were all of these vehicles going to find to park up ?’ There would not be enough ‘official’ camping pitches available, either on Campsites or Motorhome Aires, to accommodate the rapidly increasing number of vans on the road, so even those who may not have initially intended to park in ‘Free Camping’ locations would more than likely be finding themselves, willingly or otherwise, headed into that particular option. Now of course that had eventually got to result in these ‘free camping’ locations themselves becoming over populated, so then what ?

“Surely though”, I say to myself, their must be enough ‘public’ land in every individual Country on this planet for each of us to be able to find just a small corner somewhere to park up for the night, or perhaps two or three ? I guess, on the face of it, the simple solution would be to just expand the number of pitches available on existing campsites, or open more campsites and likewise, increase the number of ‘Aires’, but my recent experience of managing a Campsite informs me that even that is not as straightforward or as simple as it may sound.

Now, at this point in my current ramblings, I could easily go off at a complete tangent, away from the main subject matter that I started out wanting to ‘ramble’ about, that tangent being the subject of the vast number of Motorhome Parking Apps that are now freely available with the question, are these Apps now a ‘Blight Or A Blessing’ within the wider Vanlife community ? But, that really is a completely separate subject that I shall leave for another one of my rambles as, like a lot of things, there are always pro’s and con’s and it could end up being a very contentious subject depending on which side of the Motorhome community fence you sit on, so perhaps keep your eyes open for that one, when I do find the courage to approach that subject and publish what will purely be my own ‘personal’ thoughts on the matter !!

Now back to the main subject of these particular ramblings and of course, I do not try to fool myself into believing that this nomadic lifestyle is anything new, it has been going on for very many decades all over the globe and, although production camper vans as we refer to them today, were around in those earlier days, the leisure van industry was obviously nowhere near the level that it has grown to today. I am perfectly happy to be corrected on my next statement by any reader who has much more knowledge or experience, but to the best of my memory, the small VW Camper van that we now consider to be classics, were probably at their height of popularity in the Nineteen-Sixties and Seventies era, and probably moreso either as the original ‘Surfer Dudes’ preferred mode of transport, although also attributed to the Hippie movement of the times, their vans often being gawdy hand painted vehicles. But their were others, Ford and Bedfords spring immediately to my mind, although once again the camper van experts out there will probably know of a lot more. But in those days, in addition to the popular but much smaller VW’s, it was more likely to have been the conversions that were on the roads, anything from small trucks, mini-buses, vans and even buses, although I blame Cliff Richard and his chums myself for starting the big craze on the bus conversions, fancy driving to, and around, Europe on a ‘Summer Holiday’ in a converted red double-decker London Bus, surely that was just pure cinematic escapism, it would never catch on, large vehicles like that would never be viable as pleasure leisure vehicles !!

 

 

 

 

 

The popularity of this nomadic lifestyle has grown consistently, all around the world, over the preceding years, with the ‘real’ nomadic explorers taking their adventures much further afield and to the next level, challenging their normal road vehicles to take them to a vast array of Countries taking them on ‘roads’ and ‘dirt tracks’ with questionable surfaces and terrains that in all reality, they were never built to go.

It would, I believe, to be fair to say that it is only since the advances in modern communications technology, and the advent of the numerous Social media platforms, that these adventures have arrived en-mass onto the computer screens of people who, under normal circumstances, lived ‘conventional’ lifestyles and who could only dream of having such adventures themselves. It wasn’t just the financial aspect that prevented most of them from replicating this exciting nomadic lifestyle and following in their footsteps, but more importantly, actually having the courage to go and do it !! I mean, lets be honest, for the majority of people born before the start of the Eighties era, I think it would be fair to say that the normal priorities in life were simple, The Opposite Sex, Education, The Opposite Sex, Career, The Opposite Sex, Mortgage, Family and then Retirement and finally leaving the Kids everything that they, as parents, had just spent the last 4-50 years earning and saving so that they could provide an Inheritance !!  Only the ‘rebellious’ individuals in an otherwise stable society would dare stray from those long held ‘Bare Necessities of Life’ traditions, now why do I want to start singing that song from the ‘Jungle Book’ 🤔

Things like taking a ‘Gap Year’, for travelling to all four corners of the globe are, I would argue, a relatively new and modern concept of life, at least compared to the scale at which it happens nowadays, but other changes in our modern lives has had a dramatic impact on being able to travel whilst still be able to continue with the likes of Education and Careers, and those things are the leaps and bounds in modern Technology, the ability of being able to conduct ‘normal life’ on-line, and from ‘virtually’ anywhere in the world, has certainly enabled these new found freedoms. Children can now be taken out of a normal learning and teaching environment and go on global adventures with parents, on both land and sea, and be ‘Home Schooled’ from the middle of the Pacific Ocean for example, or other remote places on the planet, people from all over the world can continue to work whilst continuing to earn a living from a Van, located high up in the mountains, or perhaps even on a nice sunny beach and, for those who have an ounce of IT know how (which these days certainly rules me out), can even make a living and earn an income from documenting their own personal travels !!

The vehicles that are now in production, to meet the demands of some extreme Countries with their harsh, and often unforgiving terrains, has grown enormously, from the much improved 4×4’s and ATV’s to massive six wheeler expedition vehicles, and everything else in-between, so the possibilities of where you can now go, if you are brave enough, is almost limitless and all of this is aided by the advances in Solar technolgy to meet the increasing power demands from a life spent ‘on the road’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But for Shazza and myself, we consider ourselves only sufficiently brave enough to travel around the civilised areas of Europe and brief excursions into Morocco, and we are quite content for this to be ‘our’ particular ‘brave new world’ of nomadic travel, not needing or feeling a desire to cross deserts, or narrow ledged rocky mountain roads and passes, no, we are not, and I doubt we ever will be, that brave, and why should we be, there are so many wonderful places to explore, to see and do things that we have never been to before, and where our own production built ‘Little Fokker’ will take us.

But that of course does not stop us from watching other, much braver, individuals from having those adventures on our behalf, and we say a very big thank you to all of them for that, for although we may now be fulfilling our own nomadic adventures, it does not prevent us from also enjoying those of other’s.

Now I am not meaning to be ‘ageist’ here, but generally, or should I say previously, with some exceptions of course, unless you fell within what would probably have been classed as the ‘rich’ or ‘priviledged’ category, the type of people who had enough money and time to go on such adventures were referred to as ‘Grey Nomads’, those that had worked for the majority of their lives and had subsequently retired and now had the time, opportunity and freedom to venture away from those Conventional lifestyles. As much as my mind often wants to trick me into believing that I am still only 35 years old, unfortunately, I do have to somewhat reluctantly accept that certainly I, if not Shazza just yet, now too fall into that category, not the rich and privilidged one I hasten to add, but the ‘Grey Nomad’ one, but I make no apologies for telling you that I do fully intend to enjoy every single minute of this new found freedom, albeit on a limited ‘Grey Nomad’ budget !!

So, that leads me nicely into the other major change that we are now seeing in this nomadic lifestyle within today’s modern world, and that is in the age category of the people that are undertaking such adventures. Not discounting us ‘Grey Nomads’, who still continue to enjoy vanlife in great numbers, there are now a regular flow of younger generations who are not just taking up the nomadic lifestyle, but who are buying Commercial Vans, stripping them out to their bare shells and then rebuilding them and turning them into Camper vehicles, each one unique to their own individual specifications and on-board requirements, I cannot help but be mightily impressed with their skills in doing this, and indeed many of the innovative ideas and space saving ideas they come up with so that they can go off and have their own adventures. The distinct advantage to self-builds, over production builds, is that of course, if, or when, they want, or need, to make modifications or repairs, they know how they built the conversion and where vital Electrical cables or Plumbing pipes and joints are located, they can, with much less effort than with a factory built vehicle, change the internal layout and their individual storage requirements. This age group is by no means ‘strictly’ limited to just what we may consider as youngsters but, primarily, I would say that the age range is probably those ranging between the mid-twenties to probably somewhere in their late thirties and, unlike ourselves, who spent six years thinking and planning such a nomadic lifestyle, before getting to the stage of actually doing anything about it, these days the ‘youngsters’ just make the decision to do it and then get on with making it happen, and I take my hat off to them I really do.

Documenting travels is not a new concept either, but thanks to the advances in Technologies, the way in which such travels and adventures are documented have changed tremendously. When I commenced writing this particular series of ‘Lifestyle Blogs’ some seven years ago, they were the popular ‘In thing’ and it appeared that everyone and his dog was publishing one, not just about travel but also many different subjects and activities. However, in what appears to me to be a very short period of time, whilst many people like myself do still continue to write and publish Blogs, these have now been rapidly overtaken by the creation and publication of self made Video logs, hosted on a variety of on-line platforms, these are better known by the shorter term of ‘Vlogs’, and like the ‘Blogs’ they do not just cover Vanlife, or travel in general, but on any subject under the sun that you care to mention. The added advantage to Vlogs, over Blogs, is that, subject to careful editing of course, it actually shows people actively engaging in these activities, showing the scenery, the weather, the activities, whereas, generally speaking, Blogs just provide still images in the form of photographs, the nice view of the solitary van on a clifftop, overlooking the sea, whilst managing to edit the photograph so as not to reveal the other 25 vans parked alongside or behind !! And Yes, of course, the same editing techniques can also be true of the Vlogs.

Now I have to confess, and as you already well know anyway, I do have a fascination for lots of these ‘Vlogs’ and I have a lengthy list that I subscribe to, although they are not all totally dedicated to vanlife and are not all just about travels in Europe. With my love of boats you may also realise that I also enjoy watching Vlogs about people either living fulltime on Narrowboats on the waterways of the United Kingdom, or Mono Hull Sailing Yachts and Catamarans cruising around the Worlds Oceans and, much like today’s vanlifers, there are a growing community within the younger generation that are finding the means to purchase yachts, strip them out and renovate them before setting off to sail away into the sunset to explore numerous far away shores. 

Again, there is a common theme amongst the ‘majority’ of those who I choose to watch on these variety of travel Vlog Channels, from all age groups, on both land and sea, and that common theme is that they are all attempting to make some sort of an income from their ‘Channels’, to help support these lifestyles. But of course, as is good business strategy, you do not put all your eggs into one basket ? So it isn’t just about the revenue from the Channel itself, and from what the majority of these ‘Vlog’ publishers have openly stated themselves, and which can be openly and publically verified on-line, their income streams from hosting platforms such as ‘You Tube’ often is minimal, but it can help to pay ‘some’ of the bills. They supplement this income by also selling a vast array of personalised ‘merchandise’, which of course is associated to their particular channel e.g. Clothing items, mugs, bumper stickers etc. Some have even have set up their own businesses which they can promote through their channels, health products, jewellery, ceramics, web hosting, the ist is extensive but also some are already in employment, and can, through the wonders of modern technology, continue this employment by working ‘from home’, home of course being wherever they choose to park or moor it. A lot do source incomes from what I will refer to simply as, ‘Crowd Funding’ for sake of an easy description (Patrons), or donations into what they may label ‘Coffee’ or ‘Beer’ funds, so all in all, many of these nomadic adventurers have some quite exceptional entrepeneurial skills, and continue to hone their existing skills as they move forward, which may, at some point in their future, after vanlife or boatlife, prove to be extremely beneficial. However, where the older generation do tend to ‘generally’ have a distinct advantage over the younger adventurers, is in this need to earn an income to fund their lifestyle, as, I have previously stated, that is because many ‘Grey Nomads’ tend to have regular incomes from former career related pensions, and/or State Pensions and some, although by no means all, may have ‘Savings’ pots to dip in and out of, if or when required.

For those of you, who like me, are fortunate enough to still have a good memory and can still remember the very first introductory paragraph of these current lengthy ramblings, the one which stated something to the effect about watching or reading something that acts as a catalyst in your brain that sets your mind racing ? You will know, especially if you are a regular follower, that somewhere in my usual lengthy ramblings, I will, eventually, get to the point, so here it is !!

Just recently, and I will blame the Covid situation and the Curfew for this, but only as a somewhat poor attempt to exonerate myself from watching far too many of the Travel related Vlogs that I have subscribed to. I am beginning to note a common recurring theme which is beginning to develop, at a slow pace at the moment, amongst the younger element of the vanlife community. It appears to me that after a relatively short vanlife period, and by short in the vanlife respect I am talking about anything from 1 year up to five or six years of travel, which, compared to many Fulltimers out there is a relativey short period, some are drifting away from vanlife as being their primary ‘Vlog’ lifestyle topic, to move on to other ‘projects’ or ‘adventures’, some do go from a van to a Narrowboat to wander the miles of UK Canal and River waterways, although to be honest, it is usually the other way around when it comes to Narrowboats, some Vanlifers are moving towards Yachts in order to explore new lands across vast Oceans and some more recently are making the move to other land based projects, namely buying plots of land and renovating, or building, properties so that they have………well lets call them ‘bolt holes’ for the sake of a better description. Now there is nothing whatsoever wrong with this, for who am I to even make comment on people who have seen more in one year of travel than I have over the past seven years ?

Now of course, there is nothing wrong with diversification, ‘a change is as good as a rest’ as they say, and I note too that many are now taking also taking breaks ‘within’ their travels to take time out staying in ‘Air BnB’s’, and why not, as I have always said, their is no right or wrong way to conduct this lifestyle, just your ‘own’ way. So, whilst I am certain that we are all familiar with the principle that food on supermarket shelves has a ‘Use By’ and ‘Sell By’ date on them, this current trend within the younger vanlife community to change direction after such a short time, has made me start to wonder and to consider the question, “Is There A Shelf Life to Vanlife ?”.

Could it be simply that vanlifers, after an extended period of time on the road, in their often quite compact homes on wheels, come to the decision that actually, whilst they may not want to stop vanlife entirely, they have realised that it may be a good idea to have some sort of a ‘bolt hole’ to go to when they just need a break from being on the road ? Perhaps, for the ‘British’ element of the vanlife community, it may be more of a concern to do with the upcoming reduced opportunities to travel within Europe that has been thrust upon them as a consequence of Brexit ? Or Perhaps, in light of this recent current Covid Pandemic, and the sometimes nightmare situations that has been created with the numerous short notice Lockdowns and Restrictions on travel, this has been a contributory factor in them wanting to have a more practical and readily available more permanent habitation to run to ?

But I do also have another theory, which I have to stress, is based purely on my own speculation and personal opinion, with nothing substantial or factual to support it, apart from perhaps listening to the Vanlifers own self-confessed pressures, and time constraints, that they have eluded to, from trying to generate an income from producing travel Vlogs on a regular weekly basis. Some have even be honest and open and published their personal issues brought about by the demands of travelling, filming, editing and producing content for their Vlogs, not just the mental stress that these pressures have created but also, the stresses and strains on personal relationships with their partners travelling with them. Why should it be so stressfull one may wonder, well that may, or may not, have something to do with the growth of competion that there now is amongst the vanlife community who produce these Vlogs, all of whom are competing with each other, trying to eek out an income from them and which is based on the number of Views they have on their channel, the number of ‘Patrons’, the number of ‘Donations’, the sales of ‘Merchandise’ and even the opportunities to attract corporate ‘Sponsors’, so whereas for us ‘Grey Nomads’ it is purely about a freedom to travel, for the younger element it is still really about ‘Working’ and generating an income source. If you saturate a market with the same product then the quality of that product will probably be the determining factor on who gets a larger slice of the financial pie.

On that note, many are now moving from producing and publishing just the one weekly Vlog to now publishing two, sometimes more, Vlogs per week. Now of course this could be simply explained by the fact that they film and record so much potential viewing content that they want their subscribers and Patrons to see, but which will not fit into the more usual 20-30 minute weekly episodes ? I can relate to that from my blog simply by the number of photographs that I often take on my cameras during my own travels and adventures, but I can only practically include a small selection of them in my blogs. Or, could it be that they want to try to increase the number of ‘views’ that they get on to their specific channel ? More views of course equates to more revenue, potentially more ‘Patrons, ‘Donations’ etc. etc. But with that increase in weekly publications is the question of ‘quality’ of product, even on my regular favourites I am seeing additional Vlogs that appear to have been pushed out just for the sake of it and unfortunately a severe drop in the standard and quality of the content. But apart from the viewers perspective, the personal stresses and strains on the actual producers of the Vlogs, that I mentioned above, must surely be amplified as well ? It leads me to ask another question, has the motivation towards vanlife for them moved from being, freedom to travel and have adventures and general enjoyment of the lifestyle, or does that focus change, to being primarily about moving from place to place on a regular basis solely for the purpose of filming, editing and producing Vlogs for an income ? I guess the more popular the channel then the greater those pressures become. So perhaps, the travel ‘Vloggers’ who are now beginning to diversify their activities into other areas, but who still continue to ‘Vlog’ using the same channel, have got a ‘jump’ on their competitors and taken the early initiative, perhaps managing to take their viewers and benefactors with them ? Wether that, in the long term proves to be a wise move, only time and their income streams will tell ?

So what about my Blog content ? My often frequent publications ? All I can say in my defence is that I do not write, edit, or publish my ramblings to earn an income. Neither do I publish them on any other social network platforms like Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter as I intended these initially to be just a travel diary, to reflect upon, when we get to that certain age and can travel no more, and of course as a source of reference for our immediate family who could maintain a check on where we were, not that they are overly concerned about their future Inheritance, they are already aware that we are currently spending it 😂

As for Shazza and myself, the one big ‘Disadvantage’ that we may have is that of ‘Age’, it may be that living fulltime ‘on the road’ in our van travelling on a daily, weekly or even a monthly basis, may get too demanding as the years roll by, with the pressures associated to continually searching for facilities to service our on-board requirements, relying on Solar power to provide our energy requirements for our gadgets. So perhaps, even for us newly promoted ‘Grey Nomads’ with no real financial pressures like some of these younger vanlifers, there may still be a ‘Shelf Life to Vanlife’ ?

Edited with BlogPad Pro

Spanish Confinement Is Much Like Being In An Open Prison

As I awoke to commence what would be our second week of ‘Confinement’, it was 07:15am and, as is usual for me these days, I was sat in my comfortable chair on the balcony, next to the large ceiling to floor french windows, although it is still dark outside with only the streets lights, from the quiet one-way road some way below me, providing some illumination. We do of course have lights in the balcony but I prefer to sit in the semi-darkness, both at night after sunset and in the mornings before daybreak. It would be another forty-five minutes or so before the sun started to rise in the sky when I would once again be able to look out, upon the sea, to watch the small and medium sized local fishing boats plying up and down our small stretch of coastline and also a little further away, where the sea meets the sky, I would be able to watch the much larger freight vessels go back and forth, hauling their cargo’s, from and to, various destinations thousands of miles apart. 

Although this photo was taken from the beach, so a bit closer than the views that I look out at from my bolt hole balcony, and although a bit of sun haze on this particular shot, on a clear day the freighters in the distance are much clearer to see

Shazza was of course still in bed, but not so much ‘under’ the duvet, more a case of half in, half out, sort of a position as the nights are still very warm and humid, so, apart from when we are forecast for rain during the night, which is not that often in the grand scheme of things, we sleep with the double french windows in the bedroom open, to allow what little breeze their may be to gently waft in.

It was far too early for me to deliver her mug of coffee and risk awakening her from her slumber, for it does not matter where we are in the world, or what time the sun itself may get up, she will never be a morning person. So, I sat with my own hot cuppa just luxuriating in the calm and tranquility that there always is at this time of the morning. I commence my habitual daily scroll through the International news headlines, not that any of them are likely to be that much different to those of yesterday, or even the days and weeks before them, so I start to scroll my way through the countless articles of doom, gloom and despondency that they relentlessly keep peddling. It does not take me very long before I lose interest, ‘same old crap just a different day’ I say to myself, and at the risk of missing perhaps the one and only article that may have actually reported anything even slightly positive, I place my iPad on the table beside me, pick up my still hot mug of coffee, cup it between my hands, taking occasional sips, whilst I drift away into the silence of my own thoughts, which are generally about much more positive things than those that I have just read. It is a strange, yet comforting feeling, to be able to keep up to date with what is going on around me in the World whilst, somehow, still managing to feel somewhat detached from it all. It isn’t a case of not being interested or not caring, more following a principle, which I have held for many years now which is, whilst taking an interest in what is happening that may impact on us, not worrying unduly about the things for which I have no control or influence upon.

Regular followers of my rambles will be aquainted with the conversations that Shazza and I have in the mornings, once she has managed to crawl out from her hibernation nest that is, the ones that generally always tended to start with her seemingly innocent starting gambit of ‘What do you you want to do today ?’ but which you all know by now, was in reality a ‘loaded question’ and which inevitably led to me being dragged out on some sort of ‘Shazza Adventure’ that had already been pre-planned, with military precision, some days before. So you may be forgiven for thinking that during this Confinement period such conversations, and subsequent ‘Adventures’, are like the rest of our current normal life at the moment and on hold !! But you would only be partially correct in that assumption, of course I am currently fortunate enough to be under a stay of execution in respect of the wider ‘Shazza Adventures’, and not wishing to sound flippant, but there are, it would now appear, to be some positive sides to this Pandemic after all !! However, whilst the ‘activity’ related morning conversations may have stopped, for the moment, they have not been totally cancelled just re-scheduled as they now take place at some point during the early evenings, although with the slightly amended version of, “What do you want to do tomorrow ?”……………. I guess that there are some things that will never change.

One thing that I should just mention at this point, in relation to our Regional restrictions, is the Curfew timings in Andalusia, you may recall that I published a previous post with the list of restrictions that appeared on the Andalusia Covid Information website and was a little shocked to discover that whilst other Regions in Spain commenced their Curfews at either 10pm or 11pm, Andalusia was amending theirs to commence at 8pm from 10th November !! Well I can now tell you that this was a ‘typo’ on their website and it was very promptly changed back to how it should have read which is, the Curfew in the whole of Andalusia is between the hours of 10pm and 7am. Although the closure of non-essential businesses, including Cafe’s, Bars and Restaurants, still remains effective from 6pm, although catering establishments can operate a take-away service up until 10pm. Now this actually changes nothing for us as it stands, during our previous winter breaks we may have occasionally walked down ‘Cardiac Hill’ and had a pre-dinner drink at one of the numerous establishments before eating at one of the many choices of Restaurants that are available, either in Castellon, the Marina or Sabinillas itself, but I have to say that it was not a regular occurrence so it is not something that we now feel deprived of doing, although the early closures will obviously have a major impact on the incomes of those establishments, although I hasten to add, not from the loss of what we spent in them, we were never that lavish, although in hindsight I do think that we were very intuitive to have ensured that we commenced taking our Anti-Covid Vaccine well before the Covid Pandemic had even been heard of !!

I do feel at this point that I should acknowledge that although I may occasionally make ‘tongue in cheek’ comments about our current situation, both Shazza and myself do realise, and recognise that there are readers of these particular rambles, who may be located in many different Countries around the World, who are actually experiencing much more stringent ‘Confinements’ or complete ‘Lockdowns’ than we ourselves are currently experiencing, and some may be struggling personally to cope with the situation. Any comments that I may make, in the paragraphs that follow, are not intended in any way to make light of the seriousness of this Covid Pandemic or the personal effects that it may be having on individuals.

 

With this lack of opportunity to leave our Municipality, our daily routines now have to revolve around ‘where we can actually go’ and ‘what we can do’ in our somewhat limited area. Our days can be varied to prevent boredom setting in and usually consist of four main activities, but before any of you even start to add your own suggestions at what those activities may be, let me just confirm that ‘Bedroom Olympics’ is NOT included on this list, it is far to hot and humid for any of that sort of exertion !! Although, please do not let that deter you from adding it to your own list as an ‘extra curricula activity’ during Lockdown restrictions, if you feel so inclined !! On ‘our’ particular list of activities are; occasionally remaining indoors, going shopping, going out for walks where we may occasionally stop and perhaps take a coffee, a snack or just our daily dose of Anti-Covid Vaccine, or going to the beach, but some of those activities will be very much weather dependent.

We have had some rain but only once during the last eight days and no, before you ask, the ‘Works of Fiction’ had not forecasted it, typical. But I always try and make a positive out of a negative so I am pleased to report that those DIY jobs, that I have kept putting off have now been completed and, I may add, without the need for me to refer to any ‘You Tube’ videos !!

As for the shopping activities, which we thought were going to be a bit of a pain, as parking at Shazza’s preferred Supermarket chain in town is not suitable for vehicles above a normal car height. So this would entail having to find alternative parking in town, down narrow one way streets, often with cars parked adjacent to each other and which are some distance away from the store itself. Combine that with not looking forward to carrying back Shazza’s “just a few items”, which translates back to being four big shopping bags. Fortunately, due to a bit of pre-emptive planning on my part, by doing some advance shopping of the bulkier and heavier items in the van at our usual Supermarket, just prior to the confinement being implemented, we have not, as yet, needed to re-stock with any of these major bulky items. So, we have been able to combine small grocery trips either with some of our daily exercise walks or, when we are using the van to drive to the beach, we call in first at one of the two supermarkets at the bottom of the hill from our bolt hole. So our two main ‘outdoor’ activities are our daily exercise walks, either 8km or 6km, or driving to one of our favourite beaches.

Not sure which is Shazza’s most favourite pastime, Sleeping or Swimming ? But it appears that she can do both at the same time !!

The sea temperature in the middle of November is still warm enough to do a spot of snorkelling without the need to wear a wet suit !!

Although the average daily temperature at the moment is 22 degrees(c), which actually for me is the perfect temperature, that temperature can remain the same, wether it be a blue sky sunny day or, alternatively, when it is partly cloudy, as generally the temperaturess at this particular time of the year do not appear to waiver too much, which is normal down on this part of the Costa del Sol coast. Those daytime temperatures will start to fall slightly between December and January, down to anything between 15-18 degrees(c). However, in this last week we have experienced two consecutive days where the temperatures have been up as high as 26 degrees(c), so those were most definately beach days and you can be assured that our evening conversations prior to them were not ‘What do you want to do tomorrow ?’ but more a case of ‘Shall we go to the beach tomorrow ?’ which again, as you already know from previous similar conversations, was not actually a question, I do not really have any choice in the matter, it was more a statement of Shazza intent !!

When there are Cormorants actually in the water you know that the fish are not far away

The look on this chaps face tells you that it isn’t as easy as it looks !!

It is nice to have a whole stretch of beach to one’s self, we do not have to worry about social distancing here and we are still within our ‘Confinement’ zone !!

Perhaps our mode of transport for our next adventure ?

When the water touches my toes it’s time to leave !! The tide has turned and the rocks in front (the dark patch of water) are now under the water and no longer visible

We do try to go out most days, firstly because we want to keep ourselves to a reasonable standard of fitness (or is it just Shazza making me walk up and down ‘Cardiac Hill’ trying to get me to pop my clogs, just so that she can get hold of the Life Insurance money and take up her much sought after ‘permanent residencia’ ?) and secondly because we just do not know wether more stringent measures may be introduced which could mean going back to strict ‘Home Confinements’. Although the Covid infection rate is still quite low in our particular area, it has been rising gradually, from just 4 new weekly infections several weeks ago but last week it had risen to 33 new cases in a week. However, the Northern parts of Andalusia are struggling much more to reduce their very high infection levels, Granada Province being the worst and which has actually already been closed down for an extended period of time, the ‘Junta of Andalusia’ now appears to have a policy of ‘All for One and One for All’, so we must await the next restrictions review on the 23rd November to discover our fate.

Although we can get plenty of fresh air by just opening both sets of French windows on the balcony, along with three additional opening windows, and with the heat of the sunshine, which we get almost all day as our balcony is South facing, so it makes it an extremely nice area to hang out in, but we do not get much in the way of proper exercise, other than the occasional trip to the bathroom, or into the kitchen to raid the fridge, or into the guest room to look at the somewhat redundant Yoga mat !! But sometimes it is just nice to have a relax day and I have now used such opportunities to re-commence playing my guitar, unfortunately the practice sessions are quite short as the tips of my fingers need to harden up again, I had forgotten how painful holding down guitar strings for extended periods of time can be, but at least I have now made a start again. I will also need to use one of those relax days to get out and give the van a good external wash, it hasn’t had one since we departed the UK almost seven weeks ago and the sand in the air over here gets everywhere, especially on the roof and more importantly the Solar Panel, but I shall leave that for a day when it is a little more overcast and the humidity levels drop, provided we do not get put into ‘Home Confinement’.

So our days are pretty much accounted for, one way or the other, and I have to say that, apart from the wearing of face masks all the time when we are out of the bolt hole, apart from when we are on the beach, and of course we are still subject to social distancing measures when we are out in public areas. So in all seriousness it would be very wrong of me to imply that this current period of ‘Confinement’ is having any real impact on our freedom of movement. I guess if I were asked to to try and describe it, lets say between ‘normal life’, before Covid, and now, then I would simply describe it as, ‘Spanish Confinement Is Much Like Being In An Open Prison’, there are strict limitations as to where we can wander, but within those confines we do have an element of freedom of movement. However by 10pm, at the latest, we have to report back to our prison Cell where we must remain until the following morning. But realistically our respective Prison Grounds are exceptionally large and lets face it, when all is said and done, we do have a rather luxurious prison cell. But of course I will let you know the results of our parole hearing as and when we are informed of them.

Wherever you may be in the World right now, stay strong but more importantly please stay safe !!

Edited with BlogPad Pro

‘Only A Temporary Reprieve !!’

I guess that I should start these current ramblings with an apology, and offer some sort of an explanation as to issues that you, the reader, may be experiencing with the formatting appearance of my blog posts just recently. WordPress, like other website hosts, make changes from time to time to the platforms that they provide. Now since starting these rambles, some seven years ago, I have always used what is known as a ‘Classic Editor’, when drafting, formatting and editing, I find it easy to use and the appearance of my blog posts, once published, were formatted just as I liked them. Some time ago they created a new, ‘Block Editor’, which I just could not get on with, probably because I am beginning to become a bit of an IT Dinosaur, so I stuck with what I was familiar with, the ‘Classic Editor’, working on the principle of ‘If it isn’t broken then dont fix it’. However, what I see when I am drafting, editing and formatting my ramblings is not apparently what ‘some’ of you may be seeing displayed when I ‘Publish’ the posts. I like to leave a space between my paragraphs, I believe it makes it easier to read, but although that is how I format it on my ‘Editor’ and how I see the post when I am drafting, when published and you get to read to them, there is no space between the sentences and paragraphs so they just follow on from each other. I have tried several times to resolve this issue but it only appears to make the finished published posts look even worse, varying within an individual post from no spacing at all to different sized spacings between individual paragraphs, so I do apologise if this has spoilt the ease in which you can read and enjoy them. I may have to bite the bullet and learn how to use the ‘Block Editor’, at some point in the future, because it is irritating the s**t out of me !! Until then, please bear with me.

 

So, come on Eric old chap, (hey ! less of the ‘old’ please I am still not of State Pension Age I’ll have you know !!) time to remain Calm, take Deep Breaths, Chillax and …….. get on with these ‘ramblings’

I thought, that to give some ‘visual’ meaning and understanding and context of the area of ‘our’ Municapility that I am often talking about in these, and in previous, ‘Rambles’, that I would include a Google Map overview of our stretch of coastline that shows the area that falls within our Municipal boundary that we can use. At the top of the map, just above where it says ‘Urb La Noria’, you may be able to make out the Rio de Manilva (Manilva River), (If not then just zoom in on the photo), which marks our Northern Boundary and, at the bottom of the map, just to the right of where it says ‘San Diego’, is the Southern Boundary, which is approximetly, a stretch, as the crow flies, of around 8km of coastline between those two points. Although in reality this is just one long Coastline that runs the whole length of the Costa del Sol and each stretch of beach is given a particular name. Within our municipal area there are seven such individual beaches, although we tend to just stick to using three of them.

When we first read the new Restrictions we were a little shocked, especially with the new Curfew times being extended, from what had been between the hours of 11pm to 6am, but now changed to 8pm until 7am. However, as ‘Brits’, that now fall within a certain age bracket, and so not up to late night pub crawl sessions any longer, or, unlike the Spanish, just starting to eat an evening meal at 10pm, when at that time of night we are usually in our PJ’s with a mug of cocoa and getting ready for dreamland, so we rarely go out between these times anyway, only on the odd occasion when we may elect to go out for an evening meal and perhaps a John Travolta session at the local Cocktail Bar !! However, it will impact on the local Spanish population much more, probably moreso at weekends when they do not usually start to go out until at least 10pm for pre-dinner drinks before going to a restaurant and then remaining out until the early hours. I know that some Northern Europeans like ourselves can sometimes find it difficult to comprehend this Spanish lifestyle, because of the much cooler climate in Northern parts of Europe where, ‘generally’ at least, most people eat much earlier in the evenings, but here in Spain, and some other Mediterranean countries, nightlife is simply the normal culture. So they now will have a similar difficulty to us, only in reverse, if they want to dine out they will have to get used to eating dinner very much earlier or going out for pre-dinner drinks prior to 6pm, then returning home to cook at a later time, personally, I can see the drinking earlier not being an issue but returning home to prepare and cook a meal later ? There may be a lot of Spaniards going hungry me thinks !!

The new restriction of ‘non-essential’ businesses having to close at 6pm (Shops, Cafe’s, Bars and Restaurants) again, I have to say, will not have that much of an impact on us personally. However, we do feel for the owners of these businesses and hospitality establishments, who have already suffered a great deal of financial loss due to the previous big lockdown which lasted for three months during the first wave, especially as it hit all of the Summer trade. We have had general conversations with some of the owners of these small businesses that we have come to know over the last few years, which are generally family run and staffed businesses, which to be honest can also have its advantages financially as well, as family here can go back generations and they all maintain a stake in the business, so they all help each other out in a crisis. But, withoubt any doubt, they have all suffered quite dramatically this year, of course we know it is very much the story the same all around the World at the moment and unfortunately, due to the ongoing and increasing infection rates, and the introduction of more and more restrictions, many more of these small businesses will probably not survive. In Spain, there is not the same level of financial assistance available to people, and businesses, as there is in many other European Countries who have schemes like ‘Furlough’ payments or Business Grants and Loans. So it has probably been much more essential for these small businesses to try and recoup at least some of these losses from the casual Winter trade, both from the local community and tourists. Normally, after the Spanish ‘Siesta’ periods, businesses usually re-open at 5pm until 8pm and can continue to bring in some income, however, with a new stricter mandated closure time of 6pm, on top of the existing restrictions, reduced capacity within establishments, this is going to hit them extremely hard again, so let us hope that these new restrictions and earlier closing times do not continue for too long.

The restrictions do not effect some of those that do still have employment during what we would consider normal working hours, but many work in the hospitality industry, Cafe’s, Bars, Restaurants etc. so whilst they can still enter and exit the different Municipalities, the new closure times may still have an impact on their employment status. Even though the people who remain in employment can enter and exit the different Municipalities, they all have to be in possession of documented evidence, just in case they come across a police check-point. Although this means more administration having to be produced by the Employer’s for every employee who lives outside the Municipality in which they work. But again, from a personal perspective, this restriction will not have too much impact on ourselves as we really do not need to go beyond our confinement area for anything, as we have everything that we need within our small Municipality Boundaries, we have at least seven different Supermarkets that we can use, that includes a ‘Mercadona’ and a ‘Lidl’ and their are two supermarkets quite literally within a couple of minutes walk from our bolt hole. Additionally there are numerous independent retailers located between our bolt hole and the town, Fruit, Vegetables, Bread etc. Their are several ATM’s located in the Marina complex where we can withdraw cash using our Caxton Euro Cash Card and our local Bank branch office is located in the town. Basically our local area, and the main town, has everything that we could possibly need.

Having returned to our bolt hole by mid-afternoon on the Monday and getting ourselves sorted again, van unloaded etc. we now had to get used to a period where we would be ‘confined’ to remaining in our Municipality, for at least the next couple of weeks, no visiting Estepona or doing the weekly shop at the large Mercadona, until the restrictions are reviewed again. So we just dropped back into our usual ‘bolt hole’ routines. Although whilst we were away in the ‘Little Fokker’ we had not missed not watching our large screen TV, but it was nice to be able to watch it again, without having to think about how much of our mobile data allowance we were using, like we would have done in the van if we were streaming programmes on our iPads, we had not missed standing underneath a red hot and much more powerful shower without thinking about the water usage, but it was nice to have that luxury again and we had not missed being able to just use a normal domestic toilet, but it was nice to not have to think about keeping a check on the waste tank level and, where we could empty the cassette when we needed to, I had not missed sitting on our enclosed balcony and looking out over the sea, come rain or shine, at all the different boats going to and fro, but it was nice to be back there sitting with a cup of tea or coffee, late at night and first thing in the morning, in my dressing gown. So, I know I have said it before, but having the van with us here in Spain instead of driving down in the car, as we sometimes do, and being able to go out and explore new places further afield and stay out for as long as we want (well, under normal circumstances that is !!) but then also having the bolt hole to return to and relax and enjoy with all it’s luxuries and local amenities on the doorstep, is really, for us at least, having the best of both worlds. Those areas that we have had to depart a bit sooner than we would have otherwise have liked will still be there to re-visit at some point in the future.

Our personal movements within our Municipality are not restricted during a normal day, between the hours of 7am and 8pm that is, we just need to ensure, as is now common practice anyway these days, that we wear a mask when we are out, and to be honest their is even a bit of permitted flexibility even within those particular rules. We keep spares in the van and also in the bolt hole so we have no excuses. We can, and still continue to do, our usual routine daily exercise walks, one in the direction of our Northern boundary and one in the direction of our Southern boundary, so no changes for us there either. So to be perfectly honest, once we had digested and fully considered the impact that this new ‘Confinement’ period may have on us, we asked ourselves the question, and yes, we did actually sit down and ask each other, “What is it that we now CANNOT do, that we could do before that is likely to cause us grave hardship or even major inconvenience ?”, now, other than the obvious of course, which was not having the freedom to unrestricted travel in the van, we both came to the same conclusion, absolutely nothing.

The ‘Works of Fiction’ was predicting a change in our local weather, according to them, we had just one more day of absolutely gorgeous hot, sunny weather with clear blue skies and very little wind, before then having to face five days of variable overcast and grey skies. The daytime and night temperatures would still remain pretty good during those coming days though, 19 degrees(c) and 17 degrees(c) respectively, but the winds, that for days had been relatively light at only 2-3mph were forecast to increase to 16mph and beyond over the coming days, although thankfully their was no rain anticipated. It is just not the same ambience, even if the air temperature is warm, to be sitting on a beach under grey cloudy skies, looking at grey or black sea with a wind whipping sand everywhere, so we knew that we had one more opportunity this week to get some more beach solar basting done, after that, we would be back to doing the daily exercise walking routes for a few days and oh yes ! I still had those minor little DIY tasks in the bolt hole to complete ?

We have three local beaches that we ‘prefer’ to use, within our immediate area, so it was just a simple matter of deciding which ? Well I am sure by now that you know what Shazza and I are like for making decisions ? The farthest away is only a ten minute drive and the closest is about two minutes, in fact we could actually walk to the closest one within ten minutes, but carting all the beach paraphanalia back up ‘Cardiac Hill’ would not be something that I would particulary relish. However, it did not really matter to me which one I had to drive to, a sea view with boats and I am happy, and they all provided that, so I am pretty easy to please, however, that didn’t appear to assist Shazza with her decision making !! Now she sometimes just prefers a quiet location, away from the more populated places, where there is no possibility of other people constantly walking in front of us along the beach, but I had to remind her that unfortunately, at this moment in time, and anytime in the near future coming to that, based on our annual budget, we do not own our own private Island so a ‘Public Beach’ is exactly that. But you know me, if my beloved wanted relatively quiet, then relatively quiet I shall provide, although I couldn’t guarantee ‘total’ isolation, but out of our selection of three, I knew the very place and of course, that meant it would be the one that was the furthest away, the ten-minute drive, but no expense spared for my Shazza, I could afford the Diesel out of this months budget as we had a small surplus from the previous month 😂

One of several beaches that we can use within our Municipality, a bit more Shingle than I would have preferred but as I for one would be spending most of my time in horizontal mode, it wouldn’t matter and at least we had views of the places that we were restricted from going !!

This is one of our favourite little spots on this particular beach

Do these have to remain within their Municipalities I wonder ? The fishing boat not the seagulls !!

Okay, so we were not completely alone, on the other side of the big rock their were a group of four, two couples, the men folk were stood fishing from the beach but they didn’t bother us. Behind us, further up on the beach was a Chiringuito, we have used it numerous times as it marks the half way point on one of our ‘Exercise’ walking routes, convenient for taking a well earned hydration break, and it also has an all important toilet !! Apart from that, we had the vast stretch of beach all to ourselves, although we only required a very small part of it. Shazza spent the day shared between solar basting, swimming and reading her book on the Kindle, whereas I spent my time listening to music on my iPod, taking a few photo’s, although there was not a lot to take, paddling in the waves and looking at the shoals of fish that were swimming in the clear pristine water just metres from the shoreline and clearly visible, but managing to avoid the bated hooks of the fishermen, and of course, as always, a proportion of my time being spent in deep and meaningful personal contemplation !!

The only problem with being in such an idyllic environment is that everytime we are here, here being either in the ‘bolt hole’ or on one of our three local beaches, is that Shazza will always get the conversation around to the subject of living here permanently, taking up ‘Residencia’, and as nice a thought as that is, my immediate future thoughts are still towards travelling in the van and being parked up on a Beach, Lake, River or, in a forest, or up on a mountain and hiking, kayaking or general sightseeing in Portugal, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Norway…………… So generally, I manage to change the subject, but I know that as sure as eggs are eggs, this is ‘Only A Temporary Reprieve !!’

The one ‘disadvantage’ of this particular beach location being that we have to leave the van parked up on a hill some distnce away, okay not that far but you have to put it into perspective with the one big ‘advantage’ this particular beach location has, and that is the close proximity of the Chiringuito to our solar basting position !! As well as being exceptionally good value, local prices not ‘Tourist’ prices and having an exceptionally good list of tasty menu items, more importantly it provides the necessary daily Anti-Covid Vaccine, purely for medicinal purposes you understand ?

By mid-afternoon, having been at our beach location for close to six hours, it was time to take the not so long trek back to the van, but uphill with all the beach paraphanalia and wearing face masks !! But once in the van we could remove them and within ten minutes we were parked up outside the bolt hole once again, in plenty of time to get our hot showers to get rid of the sand and small bits of gravel that stick inside your toes and around your ankles, and then settle down with a nice hot cuppa and wait for the sun to set once more, marking yet the end of another day in Confinement.

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Why Can We Not Continue To Travel In Our Van As Tourists ?

So, when we got back to the ‘Little Fokker’, after our meal at the Chiringuito, on checking our local news we discovered that further restrictions were being implemented within the whole of the region of Andalusia with effect from midnight on Monday 9th November.

(As I have already recently published a short post with extracts from the official information website (www.andalusia.com) in respect of the new restrictions, I am not going to repeat them again in this particular post, other than, where appropriate, in relation to how that information and restrictions may now impact on us personally)

 

So our hastily made plans from earlier that afternoon had to now be hastily un-made. Now of course, we have asked ourselves the question, that perhaps some of you may already have been thinking yourselves, which is, Technically, we are ‘Tourists’, as we do not hold permanent residencia here in Spain, and we are driving a UK registered Motorhome, so, from reading other travel ‘Blogs’ and from watching a large number of vanlife ‘Vlogs’ on You Tube, of people currently in Europe, including Spain, it appears that some of the current movement restrictions here in Spain are not being applied to those from the motorhome travelling community, so ‘Why Can We Not Continue To Travel In Our Van As Tourists ?’.

The simple answer is that actually we probably could if we chose to do so, but we do feel that, unlike the majority of vanlifers whose travel diaries we subscribe to, we do actually own a property here, a ‘Home Residence’, so we cannot legitimately, and in all good conscience, claim to have no permanent residence to return to. The other thing is that we have lived here for between four and six months of the year, every year for the last five and a half years, so we have got to know our neighbours in our small mixed International community which also has a large proportion of Spanish residents, as well as quite a few other local people in our area, within the village of Castellon, the Marina area and within our local town of Sabinillas. They have come to know that we travel here on a regular basis, either in our car, or in the van, and so how would it look, and how would they react towards us, if they are being confined by these restrictions yet we are seen to be able to come and go as we please ? So their is an element of our own conscience involved, but also a great degree of respect for our fellow neigbours and the wider local community. Had we not have owned this bolt hole, then perhaps it would be a different story but then, perhaps, we would not have travelled here at all, given the circumstances ? But, at the end of the day, these are purely individual choices and I for one am not going to stand in judgement of anyone else or the choices that they make. If tourists were not welcome then the National Spanish Government would have most certainly have said so officially and the Police, whether that be the ‘Local Police’, the ‘Nacionale Police’ or the ‘Guardia Civil’ would have been instructed to turn people away at the border checkpoints which they often spontaneously set up at roundabouts and road junctions, but again it appears that provided the Vanlifers follow the three main basic principles, social distancing, wearing of face masks and compliance with the Curfew, relevant to the area they are travelling in or through, then they are happy to allow them to travel freely throughout Regions, Provinces and Municipalities.

So just by way of providing a level of understanding about how the new restrictions actually impact on ‘our’ future movements in the short term, until they are reviewed again on the 23rd November. As I have mentioned before, our bolt hole lay within the ‘Province’ of Malaga, which is one of the eight Provinces that make up the ‘Region’ of Andalusia. Each province is made up of a number of separate ‘Municipalities’, which can vary in size of area covered, the number of Cities/Towns/Villages within the municipality and of course the size of population. The Malaga Province alone consists of 103 separate ‘Municipalities’ and to give that some proportion of scale, Andalusia, as a ‘Region’, has over 1,760 separate Municipalites within it.

So by now you will know that we live in the Malaga Province, within the Municipality of ‘Manilva’, which unfortunately, under these new restrictions, is quite a relatively small Municipality with a total land mass boundary area of just 35km square. So, our Northern boundary is just on the outskirts of our  local town of Sabinillas, the natural boundary with the next Municipality being at the ‘Rio de Manilva’ (Manilva River), and the Southern Boundary being at the ‘Punta Chullera’, a historical landmark, with a distance of only 8km between these two points. The boundary goes inland up to the small town of Manilva which is literally just a few kilometres away, so our particular Municipality is not a massive area. For those of you who have followed my ramblings for some years it may give this confinement more emphasis if I tell you that we can no longer shop at our usual large ‘Mercadona’ supermarket or drive the short distance to Estepona, as these our both outside of our Northern Boundary and we cannot go to the Beach, at the area just fifteen minutes drive away, that we had given the nickname of ‘Motorhome Cove’ due to usually high number of vans that park up there over the Winter period, as this too falls outside of our Southern boundary.

We decided, that as we had until midnight the following day to get back to our bolt hole, we would remain at our current location overnight, as we had originally planned. We would also stay the following morning, as originally planned, but then, instead of re-locating to the alternative beach nightstop, where we had planned to stay the night and the majority of the following day, we would now leave our current location after lunch and then just head once again for our bolt hole, however, as the large Mercadona supermarket is on our route, the one that we will soon be prohibited to travel to, we will be calling in so that Shazza can re-stock with a few items.

So now back to where these current ramblings started…………

After the day visitors had all departed we got some other nocturnal visitors, not boy racers, but youngsters in cars who came and parked up, windows open, music blaring, but thank goodness for the 11:00pm Curfew, a hefty fine would be forthcoming if they were to be caught outside after that hour. There late night antics are certainly going to be curtailed after the new Curfew comes into force, commencing three hours earlier at 8pm !! It fell as silent as the grave and we slept well. Now I may have mentioned this before, once or twice, but why is that when we were both working we would give anything for a morning lay in, but now I am retired I am awake at 07:15am every single morning without fail ? Unlike Shazza who can sleep all day if I let her, once I am awake I have to get up, in the van the routine is turn on the water heater, put the gas kettle on, whilst tip-toing around so as not to awake one’s beloved, quite difficult in a van that is only six metres long and a little over one metre of that is taken up by the rear transverse bed with a ‘Don’t you dare wake me up” monster in it !! Back at the bolt hole with more rooms and my precious balcony, I do not have to be so careful about how much noise I make, within reason of course, early morning guitar playing is definately a no no !!

Because it is now Winter here in Spain too, sunrise is not until nearer 08:15am and the sun does not get up to any great height until nearer 9:00am these mornings, it has a longer lay in than me !! It is warm though and the ‘Works of Fiction’ had forecast another hot and sunny day, however, the original beach day plan has been shelved, it doesn’t really get that hot until midday and we would be departing at or around that time. The plan now, once the sleeping beauty had awoken, drunk her coffee, read all the morning news headlines on her iPad then got up, washed, dressed and had breakfast, was to explore more stretches of the sand dunes, via the wooden boardwalks and then we would take a final walk along the lovely sandy beach.

A spacious Park Up before the day visitor’s arrive

Lovely morning views with the fishing boats already out

We were not the only one’s enjoying the peaceful morning surroundings

There is something quite relaxing about the sound of waves gently lapping up onto the shoreline

Other’s making an early start to the day

We returned to the van, we briefly saw our neighbours, who had overnighted with us, and we exchanged the usual courtesy wave, they were a couple with a teenage daughter, we could see from their beachware that they were just heading down to the beach for another session of solar basting, and I observed that their van had a Portuguese registration.

A handful of cars had started to arrive, dog walkers and joggers in the main and then a Council van arrived and two men got out and proceeded to empty the handful of rubbish bins that were located in the car park area, then they moved into the Pine tree and boardwalk areas, picking up rubbish that previous day visitors had just irresponsibly discarded onto the ground. It really irritates me when I see this, especially when bins have been provided, but there are also clear signs asking people not to drop litter and to place it in the bins provided.

After a coffee, we got washed up and then proceeded to turn the van back into ‘Transport’ mode. We pulled away from this lovely location and we both felt a sense of disappointment that we were having to go home again and I have to confess at being slightly envious of all the fulltimers that did not have a bolt hole to run to, but we felt that because of our situation that we were, morally at least, doing the right thing.

So, another mini-adventure that has come to a premature end for us, we now have fourteen days before the next review of these current Covid measures, perhaps then, if everybody adheres to the social distancing, the wearing of face masks and the Curfews that are in place, we will ‘all’ begin to defeat the spread of this virus and life may start to get back to some sort of normality, although we are not sure what ‘Normal’ will actually look like in the future ? So, wherever you may be in the World, just continue to keep staying safe.

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Trapped Between Borders !!

I thought that I would just push this out for any readers who are currently travelling in Spain and have not seen or heard about the below changes that are immediately effective and who may be outside of the Andalusia Region but were planning on travelling here:

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What A Nob !!

We departed early on the Sunday morning, even before breakfast, I had set the co-ordinates into Snoopy and we drove away from the bolt hole, our cunning plan had been to arrive, get the ‘Little Fokker’ turned back into ‘home mode’ and then have our breakfast on the beach, our destination was only a short thirty-minute drive away. As we had anticipated, the roads were exceptionally quiet, moreso than usual, but it was Sunday, and so it was not long before we exited the main coastal road. Very shortly after taking the exit, we should have been driving down a side road to the beach, ‘Should Have’ being the appropriate phrase, but we discovered that ‘Google Maps’ is not as good in it’s imagery of access roads to places as it could be, what looked on the mapping as a road was in fact a very narrow track, and I do mean narrow, no way, even at only 2.2 metres wide, was I going to attempt to take the van down there, I think you would have had trouble even getting a narrow VW campervan down it !!

Shazza looked at me, “So what do you want to do now ?” She said. I could sense the slight hint of frustration in her voice, after all it was me that had found the location and built the nice picture in her mind of just a short drive then having a morning, sat on a beach eating our breakfast in the glorious early morning sunshine. “It’s okay, I will just have to look at the Park4Night App on my phone, it will have some other alternatives in the area”, although I was not sure that I had convinced myself, let alone her. I found another location, which was literally just a few minutes further North along the road, one of the reviews had mentioned that there was something that stated that you cannot go beyond a certain point, obviously signage of some sort, but that we should keep going past it and we will come to a parking area on the beach. Once again the co-ordinates were programmed into Snoopy and away we went, still plenty of time to have our breakfast on the beach. We went down a long single track road, past some very plush houses, but then, just as we were literally seconds away from the identified park up, we could see some obstacles in the middle of the road, which we couldn’t have removed or driven past even if we had wanted to, because, just beyond the road obstacles was a six foot high chain link fence stretching right acoss the road, a bicycle would not even have got past let alone any type of motorised vehicle !! Was it going to be one of those days I said, silently to myself ? Now just to add insult to injury, there was nowhere to actually turn the van around, the road was too narrow, so we would have to reverse all the way back and it was quite some distance. Shazza got out to see me safely back, she hasn’t had to do that for a very long time when it was a common occurrence when we had ‘Big Momma’, however, after just several metres, luckily, she saw a house that had a gated entrance, and the gate was set back just enough for me to reverse into and with a four or five point manouevre, I manage to get turned around. Our mini-trip had not got off to the best possible start. We pulled in to the side of the road at the next available opportunity and whilst I searched through the P4N App on my phone, Shazza did the same on her’s and we both came up with another couple of different locations, although neither of us were now very confident with what we may find when we actually arrived at them, if we actually managed to get to them at all, based on our current immediate morning experience !!

We arrived at the third location without any issues, hoorah for that I thought, although it was just a normal car park it had lots of parking bays available. We reversed into one and we could see the sea to one side of us, and the beach, and what looked like a Chiringuito, it was only a short walk to the beachfront and although it was not what I had initially visualised, you know, van parked on beachfront, habitation door open so that we could step right out on to the sandy shoreline, chairs on beach, although far enough away from the van so that it couldn’t be considered as ‘Camping of course, but all in all it did not look that bad a location. Shazza took the short walk down to the beach to investigate whilst I put the co-ordinates to our fourth location into ‘Snoopy’, just to pre-empt yet another negative decision, for whatever reason. She came back and stated that the Chiringuito looked as if it was closed for the season but that the beach looked nice. We were not bothered that the beach bar was closed, for that meant that there would be less people coming down here, but I cannot put my finger on what it was, something was nagging at us, something that made us think twice about parking here for a night or two, it may have been that we were a bit apprehensive about being so close to lots of really expensive looking houses, and I am talking mega bucks type residences, the area was pristine, very well groomed shall we say, so I think that in our subconcious minds we were thinking that this area would very likely be patrolled quite regularly by the Guardia Civil and there would be a much higher chance of us getting a knock on the door and being told to move on, ‘Persona Non Grata’ sort of attitude, although the reviews had all stated they had no issues. I think we certainly have a long way to go before we become ‘seasoned’ vanlifers when we probably would not be so particular, or concerned, or look such a gift horse in the mouth, and not worry too much about where we parked up for the night, as long as it felt safe. Perhaps after our fantastic beach front location on our last trip out on the Cadiz coast, we had got this image in our heads that we were trying to replicate.

So, we irrationally decided to go with our gut instincts and probably, because such a lovely location didn’t already have anyone else there, it made us feel a little uncomfortable about remaining parked there, so location number four it was then, a further twenty-miles North, if that didn’t work out I could already feel that the decision would be to give it up as a bad job and return to our bolt hole although I knew that there were lots of other locations further up along the Coast, but we were getting further and further away from our municipality and we were apprehensive about what the ‘Junta of Andalusia’ was going to announce about further restrictions and travelling, as we discovered on our last trip, restrictions can be implemented within just hours of being announced.

We pulled in to what was in effect just a large open gravelled area located behind a sand dune and wooded Pine tree area that was being used as a car park, which although not as salubrious as the location we had just departed, it looked pretty scenic although it was a much longer walk to the beach than we would have liked. This was obviously quite a popular location as there were already a full row of cars parked under an area of the pine trees, to protect them from the heat of the sun, we did not mind the sun it was good for the solar energy, although with the driving we had now done all our batteries levels were showing full. Breakfast now became ‘Brunch’ and we ate it in the van and not on the beach, which at this point, we hadn’t even looked at. As we were having our ‘Brunch’, more and more cars kept arriving and soon there were three rows of vehicles, this was certainly not going to be the quiet location that we had hoped for, but realisticly it was still the weekend and with such a lovely sunny day, where else would people be, other than the beach.

We locked the van and followed a wooden boardwalk pavement in the direction that we had seen everybody else heading. The first thing we noticed was the extent of the sand dunes and the vast amount of lovely fenced wooden boardwalks that weaved like a maze, in all directions, through them. It was a downhill walk to the beach and when we got down there we instantly made our minds up that we would stay for at least the day and night. On one area of the beach were a number of Chiringuito’s, they were all open, there was one large expanse of beach separated off by a large stone breakwater that jutted well out into the sea, on it were lots of people fishing, on the other side of the breakwater was the the rest of the beach that stretched as far as the eye could see, the sand dunes rising behind them and in the background the mountains, it was certainly a beautiful location, and the vast coastline provided so many choices for people to select their own area of plentiful space so that it did not look in the least bit crowded.

We of course had not come down prepared, well we didn’t know before we got down to the beach whether we would be staying !! So we had to walk all the way back to the van, uphill, and wearing our facemasks on what was already a searingly hot day, so that we could change into more appropriate beachware, grab our reclining sun chairs out of the ‘Little Fokkers’ garage, and collect all the other paraphanalia we generally cart along with us, Books, iPads, mobile phones, binoculars, camera, drinks and beach towels. But when we returned we still managed to pick ourselves a spot, almost right at the edge of the shoreline and with nobody else within at least fifteen metres of us, so we felt very Covid safe.

This will do very nicely, although not as quiet as we had first imagined it would be !!

 

Shazza settled down with her Kindle and adopted her solar basting position whilst I put in my earphones, turned on my ipod, lay back in my sun chair and elected to indulge in a spot of personal contemplation, however, that didn’t last too long as I had to keep shuffling around as I could feel the sun burning me. So, it was time to implement my second strategy, ‘People Watching’ and I was  gifted with more than enough to keep me entertained for hours, my camera started working overtime almost immediately.

 

May need to get rid of some of the rear ballast if push comes to shove !! 

It didn’t take long for Shazza to adopt the solar basting position !!

“I am retired I will have you know, this is my kinda new normal life now”

Fishing off the rocks isn’t just an activity for the men !!

They even make it a family activity !!

Although the sea was really pretty calm, some of the waves near the shoreline were sufficient to act as ‘Nursery Surf’ for the young, and not so young, beginners to learn their skills. I was quite impressed at the perseverance of these surfers, repeatedly dragging their boards into the waves, paddling them out, sitting and waiting then catching a wave, falling off their boards, then repeating the same routine over and over and over again until eventually they managed to stand on the board and cruise in on the small and pretty insignificant breaking wave, but enough to give them confidence on their boards.

Now the hard bit, from the kneeling position to standing up !!

The easier bit, dismounting !! But if at first you don’t succeed ?

By Jove I think she’s got it !!

They start young, these are the next generation of ‘Vanlife Surfer Dudes’

The activity on the water increased as the time went on and soon enough it got to where I didn’t know in which direction to point my camera lens. Although I definately had to make sure that I kept the lens facing seawards as there were some on the beach who preferred to go topless, and I am not talking just about the men !! I had expected to see Seagulls and Cormorants but not ‘Bronze Chested Boobies’ !!

The sea was so calm that there were numerous SUP boarders too

“Oh no, I think my board has a leak !!”

And a token water skier, although I did not see him doing very much actual ski-ing ? “Hey Guys, very funny, come back, guys ! Guys !!”

“So how does this remote gizmo actually work ?”

“Oh yes, turn the power switch ‘On’, now that’s more like it”

Now as you have probably gathered, from my previous posts over the years, I love the sea, in fact I love any sort of water, Lake, Reservoir, River, Waterfalls, Canals, but mainly viewing them from the safety of dry land, unless of course I am in the kayak or having a paddle or at some height above the water line on say a Ferry, it isn’t even as though I cannot swim. Whereas, Shazza loves the water and enjoys swimming, but their are occasions when even I will venture further into the wet stuff, just a bit further than my ankles or shins, usually because it is the fastest way to cool down, and this was certainly one of those days.

Too hot to just sit around !! Shazza come on in the water is lovely ?

Okay, so maybe not quite as warm as I may have made it out to be, an honest mistake my love 😂

Oh dear, I got ‘The’ look !!

“See, I told you it wasn’t that bad”

After a while the ‘Big Boys’ came out to play, some were bigger than other’s though, and just in case you are unclear as to my meaning here, I am referring to marine associated vessels !! I could see much larger vessels out on the horizon but even with my usually quite good zoom lens the heat haze did not enable very clear shots, but there was enough going on closer to shore that held my attention for most of the remainder of the afternoon, and not just the ‘Bronze Chested Boobies’ ?

At around 2pm, the beach activity started to go a little quieter, although people had left their beach towels or sun chairs where they were, whilst they retreated to the Chiringuitos for lunch, it was the Spanish ‘Siesta’ period. We had not brought a picnic with us, the original intention had been to return to the van and have lunch, but neither of us were keen on walking all the way back to the car park where we had left it, and to be honest, we had already eaten before coming down. The Chiringuito’s soon became packed full of people, although all the staff wear wearing masks and the tables were well spaced and out in the open air, some protected from the heat of the sunshine, we could hear the gaggle of chatter and the music started, which sounded like a guitarist with a sound box to provide the additional musical support, but it was not intrusive, in fact my toes were wiggling in time to the rather good medley of Rock ‘n’ Roll tunes. As the people wandered off and left their beach gear behind, out came a troop of, no not the usual opportunist flock of seagulls searching for a few snacks that may have been left unsecured, but Pigeons, and they were not shy either, coming right up close to even our occupied seats.

Some beach dwellers got a little too close for comfort, “Hey Beakey, where is your face mask ? never mind Covid I heard you sneeze and you may have Bird Flu !!”

Although we had not commenced our mini-trip in the perfect way, that had long been forgotten as we enjoyed the sunshine, the gentle sound of the waves breaking just in front of us and the multitude of activities going on around us. We discussed our options and had voted unanimously that as the beach would probably be much less populated the following day, with it being a Monday, kids back at school, adults back at work etc. and with the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasting another hot one, that we would stay here for an extra day, although those votes may take some time to be confirmed, just so that nobody could declare a fraudulent count and so be subject to a re-count, or even subject to a threat of legal action !! We would then re-locate, drive back the twenty-miles or so to the third location that we had previously discounted, we had given ourselves a bit of a talking to and decided that if we are to considered as true vanlifers then we have to be prepared, at some point, to take some calculated risks on where we stay, and after all it was a lovely location.

 

We were all sunbathed out by mid afternoon and decided to return to the van, get some shade and enjoy a nice hot cuppa, so British eh ? Whilst Shazza had prepared, and brought along enough extra provisions to feed an army for several weeks, even though we had only planned to be out for two or three days, but we made the decision to enjoy an evening meal at one of the Chiringuito’s, they all served food, we could sit looking out over the beach and sea as the sun started to set. We had not been spending very much of our allocated  ‘Personal Allowance’ budget on anything really, last month we had not even spent half of our allowance and here we were just over a week into a new budget month. We are not big spenders as it is, we do not deliberately set out to not spend money but neither do we feel the need to spend money just for the sake of it.

 

By the time we had finished our cuppa’s and got changed it was still very warm, although not unbearably hot, so we decided to go for a walk along part of the boardwalk and build up an apetite, not that we needed to as we were both ravenous, but it was just a little too early and the Spanish tend to draw out their Siesta periods and lunches so the beach bars would still be pretty busy from the lunchtime diners.

Fantastic boardwalks that went off in all directions through the sand dunes, some led to the beach whilst other routes meandered through the dunes and pine trees, absolutely beautiful

Even a ‘Dune Rabbit’, strange though as it is now November ?

We were just casually walking back, enjoying the scenery, when all of a sudden, from an area up in the dunes overlooking the beach, a naked man stood up, he looked around, turning slowly 360 degrees as he did so, everything out on display !! He saw us, and other people, both on the boardwalk and on the beach not far away from where he was, he appeared unperturbed and was seemed happy to give everyone who cared to look a good view of his manhood, even Shazza, who, whether it was just for my benefit stated that she considered him to be somewhat of an exhibitionist and exclaimed, “What A Nob” !! Now I didn’t seek any further clarification on what this comment was referring to, a show of distain or perhaps just some kind of an impressed observation !!

Dressed up, smart casual, and ready for dinner at a nearby Chiringuito on the beach

Crikey, do we go left, right or straight on ? Never mind dinner, my Anti-Covid Vaccine will be getting warm !!

It was the typical bar food meal selection choices, but Shazza settled for a ‘Funghi Pizza’ whilst I went for the ‘Calamari’, although not the battered rings variety, this was a whole squid, pan fried and served with a garlic and olive oil marinade. It was not A La’Carte, we didn’t expect it to be, it was just basic plain pub grub, for want of a better description, but it served it’s purpose. The Covid safe measures were adhered to, all staff wearing face masks, cleaning tables as soon as they were vacated, although it could have been plain old tap water in the spray bottles as far as we knew, but at least they were going through the motions, the tables were well spaced out and although under cover, we were sat outside in the fresh air, so we felt safe enough.

 

We walked back to the van, we wouldn’t actually see the sun set as it had dropped behind the mountain, but the air was still, warm and very humid. The car park had started to empty and soon enough we would be in darkness although not quite alone, as another van had arrived and had parked up across the other side, some distance away from us. We left the blinds on the windows open, not because we were uneasy, more a case of just being nosey and watching everyone else as they eventually departed. With the Curfew starting at 11pm we should not be disturbed by the boy racers and their loud music.

It was time to check all the latest News on our iPads, International and Local and it was a good job that we had !! You may recall that the information that I had was that news, on any changes to the Andalusian restrictions, were going to be announced on the Tuesday, Miguel, my Spanish neighbour had thought it was going to be on the Monday, we were both proved to be wrong, the ‘Junta of Andalusia’ had unexpectedly announced them today, and it was not good news………….

To be continued…….

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“No Habla Espanol Amigo”

Now for the first part of these ramblings you may need to recall the explanation that I provided in a recent blog post ‘Restrictions !! Do You Know Where You Are ?’ But in case you didn’t read it, and there is no law stating that you should, let me just give you a quick reminder. Spain is divided into Region, Province, Municipality, then Village or Town or City so, in our particular situation, as it relates to where our ‘Bolt Hole’ is located it equates as, Andalusia > Malaga > Manilva > San Luis de Sabinillas, simple really ? There may be questions at the end so I hope you are paying attention 😂

It will probably come as no surprise to people that there is a lot of confusion around the Covid restrictions, what, where, when, how long etc and it is much the same in our local area of Spain at the moment. Whilst Andalucia has ‘purportedly’ closed it’s Northern borders to the rest of Spain in the Provinces of, Huelva, Seville, Cordoba, Jaen, Granada and Murcia, it appears that this only applies to those who drive in Spanish registered vehicles ? It seems that any other Nationality appears to be permitted to travel freely ? Do not ask me what is the ‘Covid’ logic of that as I just do not understand it myself, but there you go.

As for the remaining two ‘Provinces’ that make up the Andalusian ‘Region’, namely ‘Cadiz’ and ‘Malaga’, some ‘Municipalities’ in the Cadiz Province have restrictions, but only in the North of the Province around the Jerez area (which is the location that we were in on our last trip, before we made the mad dash back to the Bolt Hole’). Now of course, as usual, we have been following the Spanish News both National and Local, and checking the local on-line ‘official’ community website, however, it is conflicting and about as clear as mud really, so it is not really that good when we are looking to establish a simple answer to our simple question, “Can we now travel outside of our particular Municipality, in order for us to enter the Southern and Western areas of the Cadiz Region”, the official line from reading all the different official sources appears to be, “Yes, No, or perhaps even Maybe ?”, dependant on which one you  read. Now whilst, as it suits our requirements, we may opt to select the version that says ‘Yes’ we can, if we get stopped by the Police, it will be the particular Beaurocracy that they are adhering to that could be the difference between getting a hefty fine, or not, as the case may be, and even pleading ignorance “No Habla Espanol Amigo” or even, “Lost in Translation”, well all I can say is good luck with that then, as the information provided is in both Spanish and English !!

As is so often the case, sometimes it is better just to speak with someone who lives here permanently, preferably someone who is a Spanish Citizen and who knows, through experience, how to interpret the confusing beaurocratic mis-communications, someone for example like our very friendly Spanish neighbour ‘Miguel’, who not only works in Gibraltar and travels there daily, crossing the Malaga and Cadiz Provincial borders, without any stops or checkpoints, and who goes out in his VW California most weekends to the South Western side of the Cadiz Province coastline. Now according to our more reliable source, currently, there are no travel restrictions down the whole length of the Costa del Sol area (Malaga Province) from Malaga City, and there are no restrictions with crossing into the Southern area of the Cadiz region (and in to Gibraltar) or down along the Southern Coastline and all the way to Tarifa and then up the West Coast, where the restrictions only then come into force as it meets the Northern Cadiz, Jerez Municipality. However, we have read that on Tuesday (10th November) there will be an announcement by the Government of Andalusia on what, if any, further restrictions, or lifting of restrictions, may be implemented, although Miguel seemed to think that the announcement was the day before ?

I do not think that anyone actually believes that any of the current restrictions that are in force will be lifted or even eased, Curfew, Social gatherings, or wearing of face masks, but there have been rumours about the potential closure of some ‘non-essential’ businesses altogether, or at best, further restrictions on their operating hours, and this will apply to bars, restaurants and even hotels. The general concensus is that both the Central Government and the majority of Regional Governments do not want to re-implement ‘Home Confinements’, although their is disagreement from a handful of Northern Regional leaders in higher Covid infected areas who do want to implement much stricter measures, including Home Confinements. So it will be interesting to see what happens when the announcement is made. With that said, we are still a little bit anxious about straying too far, for too long, from the sanctuary of our ‘Bolt Hole’.

After a period of some nine days living back in our bolt hole, which of course I have to stress, has in no way been any sort of hardship as we are not in a lockdown scenario and so have been free to go out to the beach as and when we want, and to go out walking,  go to our usual ‘Mercadona’ supermarket to do our shopping, although there is actually one a bit closer in our local town, but parking the ‘Little Fokker’ in their underground car park is a non-starter, we have also been free to visit our local towns, Sabinillas which is within an easy walking distance, and Estepona, just a twenty-minute drive away, and, had we have wanted to, we could have gone further afield within our ‘home’ territory of Malaga ‘Province’. So undoubtedly, we have been fairly lucky so far, unlike other’s, our daily life has been somewhat normal, other than the wearing of facemasks all the time and of course the night Curfew. But, with the confusing information, we had decided to err on the side of safety, to abide by what we ‘believed’ to be the current rules, so we had only been using the ‘Little Fokker’ to go out on short day trips and had remained moreorless within our local ‘Municipality’ (Manilva). However, it appears that we are the only one’s to be doing this, as we are seeing Vanlifers on the road, and parked up at the beach locations, and the vehicle registrations reflect that these vanlifers are from several different Countries, they are not, it would appear, to be encountering any problems crossing Regional and Provincial Borders throughout Spain and are freely travelling about, whereas prior to this, on our travels down here, the majority of Motorhomes on the road were Spanish. Following several of the vanlife Vogs on ‘You Tube’ as we regularly do, we have also noted that many had departed the UK, before the lockdown restrictions in the UK came into force, and they have travelled down the full length of France and crossed the border into Spain, and then South crossing several Regions and Provinces, without being stopped or questioned, or tested for the infection, which does seem strange when you consider the high Covid infection rates in both the UK and France.

We have recently had a couple of days of Lightning, Thunder and Rain, in that order !! Which I do just have to say, was correctly forecasted by the ‘Works of Fiction’. The lightning came first and I had a wonderful view of it from the balcony windows as it lit up the sky almost every few seconds, the thunder followed some time afterwards, it was almost like an orchestra that was being conducted, first one section would start, then the second and then both together before ending in a massive tumultous finale when they were both joined by the rain, almost gentle raindrops to start with but which then, very rapidly, built up to such a creshendo of noise that it was as if the rain striking the glass windows, the metal shutters, and the roads and pavements underneath my balcony, were created by a powerful machine that was spraying gravel at a great rate of knots. The air was thick, sticky and very humid and the storm did nothing to eliviate the stifling temperatures, unfortunately, we would not be sleeping with any windows open during the next couple of nights.

The storm cleared within a couple of days, as it always inevitably does in these parts of Spain, and normal service was soon resumed and the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecast almost wall to wall sunshine, with daily temperatures between 21-23 degrees(c) and not falling below 15-17 degrees(c) at night, for the next ten days or so. We certainly hoped that their forecast was as accurate as it had been for the storms !! With  our feet getting ‘itchy’ to be back out again in the van, for a lot longer than just a few hours a day, we made the decision to re-pack the ‘Little Fokker’ for another mini-break, although it will be no more than just 2-3 days this time around. We are just loving having the flexibility at the moment to just decide at short notice between time at the ‘Bolt Hole’ or ‘Vanlife’ and we are hoping that this freedom of choice remains this way for the remaining five months that we are here in Spain, subject to what the Andalusian Government announcement is on Monday, or perhaps Tuesday ?

Some reading this may believe that we are being irresponsible, perhaps even selfish, planning on going out in our van when Covid is still very much out in the community and, to a degree, I can understand, or at least respect people having the freedom to voice that opinion. However, and as has already been stated numerous times on numerous forums by numerous other vanlifers. We are probably safer, to the community and ourselves, from preventing the spread of the infection purely by the insular lifestyle that the fulltiming vanlife provides. We, Shazza and I, do not generally stay on Campsites when we are ‘on the road’ travelling and so we are not using Communal facilities just our own on-board one’s. Of course there are occasions when we are ‘on the road’ when we choose, or need, to utilise the services provided by the vast Aires network around Europe, but when we do we have an anti-viral spray which we use before touching anything, we also wear surgical style gloves and then hand gel our hands afterwards, talk about over kill or what, but that is how serious we take the possibility of being infected, or indeed spreading, this virus ouselves. Fortunately, we do not have any symptoms and we firmly believe that we are Covid free, but of course we do realise that we could quite possibly be in the group of people that are considered to be ‘Asymptomatic’, so of course we cannot say with one hundred per cent certainty that we do not have the virus, unless we get tested to confirm it one way or the other, but we cannot get a test unless we are suffering with symptoms, bit of a catch 22 situation me thinks ? We do not ‘generally’ mix with others, but if we do, we maintain a safe distance and we definately steer clear of large groups, we are always washing our hands and/or using copious amounts of hand gel, we wear our face masks in public places etc so that we can help protect other’s around us, not that we allow that many to get that close to us. So for anybody reading my rambles who thinks that our actions are irresponsible all I would say is this, think the vanlife lifestyle through first, before you pass judgement, and remember, here in Spain, unlike England or France, we are not in a National Lockdown situation, at the moment that is. And, from our own perspective, we have spent so much time protecting ourselves from potentially getting infected from other’s, so we certainly do not want to risk catching it now and therefore we will continue, wherever practicable, to distance ourselves and remain safe.

Sermon over, now let’s get back to the main subject of these ramblings…………..

So I sat down with good old Google Maps (in Satelite View) and started scanning potential discreet beachfront locations, with this weather it certainly had to be back to the beach, as it will become much less suitable or beach freindly as the Winter months roll in. Although this part of Spain does not get what us Brits would call cold, in comparison to a UK Winter, it can become, let me describe it as, less full sunshine and more sunny-intervals, there can be some wet days, grey and overcast days and the daytime temperatures, in January and February, can fall to as little as 15 degrees(c) with quite strong winds, these are the sort of days that are much better for finding inland hiking locations or coastal walks. We had decided, for this trip at least, and with the impending Government announcement, to remain within our own home ‘Province’ of Malaga, although we would be venturing outside of our own particular local Municipality. We could have headed South, but to be honest we live so far South in the Malaga Province of Andalusia, that there is only thirty-minutes driving time between us and the frontier at Gibraltar, so our options are somewhat limited, but heading North towards Malaga City, which is approximatey Ninety-minutes drive up along the Costa del Sol Coastline, gives us a lot more opportunities, although that is where all the popular holiday locations are, which means lots of Towns, Residential areas, Beachfront hotels and Resorts, Golf Courses, Aqua Parks and so on and so forth. But, apart from now being outside of the main Summer period, and the fact that since March, Covid has decamated the Tourism sector, in-between these popular holiday locations are ‘green’ areas that line the coast, which are what the locals tend to use, but not outside of the main Summer holiday periods when the families with children are back at school and the parents are back at work, so hopefully we will find somewhere quiet with perhaps only the occasional beach fisherman or two.

We had done the essential and necessary on-board services on the van at the Aire in Rota, prior to hot tailing it back to our bolt hole after our last trips sudden termination, so we were at least all ready to go on that score. We had done the weekly shop just a couple of days previously, we had re-fuelled the van at the same time, so everything in those respects were also good to go. Shazza got herself thinking about what she could pre-prepare, on the provisions front, in the much larger kitchen of the bolt hole, making Pasta Sauces, Hummus and such like, which would mean much less faff for her when we are actually living in the van at our selected location. She got up to date with the washing and ironing so then we had to decide what clothing we would need to take with us in the van before carrying it all down and putting it away in the appropriate cupboards, drawers, lockers and fridge. I have to confess that it is so much easier when you are not dividing your time between two living accommodations, at least when we are in the van fulltime, everything just stays where it belongs and where we know where everything is. However, I am not complaining, we are currently enjoying being able to just switch between the two locations when it suits us, so a little bit of inconvenience is well worth the effort of carting things back and forth everytime we choose to go out, for longer than just a day trip.

We had selected our destination, just a mere thirty minute drive away, all we had to do now was lock the door of the ‘bolt hole’, open up the ‘Little Fokker’ and get back on the road……………….

To be continued…………..

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Even With Travel Restrictions ! Vanlife Can Still Be A Beach

It feels as though we have been over here in Spain for absolutely ages but in reality, as I am sitting and drafting these latest ramblings, it has been just a few days short of a month, in that time we have done some travelling in the van, then we had a short period back at the ‘Bolt hole’, then we went back out in the van and did a bit more travelling, although the last outing was not for quite as long as we had hoped it would be, but that’s the story of this Covid pandemic for everyone I guess, be prepared for changes to plans at short notice. So now we find ourselves somewhat unexpectedly back at the ‘bolt hole’ once again and whilst I know that some of this has been due to Covid but actually, this is basically like what the ‘original plan’ had been anyway, but without the complexities and unknowns that we have now. And when I say the original plan, I do not mean just the plan for this year, but the original plan when we first purchased the bolt hole nearly six years ago. We know that we will not always drive down to Spain from the UK, when, after the Brexit Transition Period we will be restricted to our two ninety day periods, but there will be periods when we will choose to visit, or re-visit, other parts of Europe and during those periods our bolt hole will remain stood empty, and before the suggestions come in, we had already decided right at the very beginning that this place was not going to be used as a ‘rental’ property. But when we are in this part of Europe, meaning basically France, Portugal and Spain, we can drift backwards and forwards to our bolt hole as and when we want to and even use it as a stopover between future trips to and from Morocco. We already know that those ‘other’ parts of Europe will not be visited by us until 2022, and that, as I may have mentioned in previous ramblings, is because, due to our working commitments for the last six years back in the UK, between March and October, we have never actually had the opportunity to use our bolt hole during the much hotter Summer months over here in Spain, so we are going to rectify that in the Summer of 2021.

So, back to the here and now, and we are now settling back in to life back at our ‘bolt hole’ for the time being, we do not know how long it may be before we can get back out in the ‘Little Fokker’ and do more touring, either inside or outside of our home Province of ‘Malaga’, but, to be honest, whether we be in the ‘Little Fokker’ and out exploring, being parked up somewhere near a beach, or in a village or a town, or whether we are here at our bolt hole, literally within a short walking distance of a number of beaches and within walking distance to a beautiful Marina and our own local town, or within a short driving distance to a number of other local towns, beaches and not forgetting the white-washed Andalusian villages and towns up in the surrounding mountains, so we actually consider that we really do have the best of both worlds wherever we may be.

If our movements do get more restricted, should they impose a ‘Home Confinement’ policy again, which will actually be our first in Spain, then we will have no choice but we shall just have to deal with it, at least we can still sit on our balcony and look at the sea and watch the freighters as they pass on the horizon, we have two Supermarkets within a five minute walk if we are restricted to using the closest to us, we have all the home comforts we could possibly need, including unrestricted WiFi without having to utilise our UK mobile data packages, so we can still keep in contact with everyone back at home via social media, on our Smart TV we have access to normal Spanish TV channels and a good selection of English speaking one’s, as well as things like NETFLIX so that we have access to SKY News (UK) and lots of Films and Box Set Series to watch, and of course we can get ‘You Tube’ on the TV so we can keep up to date with our favourite Vlog channels, not just Vanlife related topics, and then of course we have the sunshine and nice warm temperatures, with of course, the possibility of the odd day of rain here and there, just to freshen things up a bit as, contrary to what the travel and property shows on TV may imply, we do get some days without sunshine.

Now I am under no illusion that a prolonged ‘Home Confinement’ is not going to be a barrel of laughs. It appears, talking recently to a number of our neighbours who reside here permanently, British, German, Belgian and Spanish, that most struggled with the long confinement during the first lockdown, as they were not even allowed to go out and exercise, they were not allowed to use the communal pool or gardens and so living in an apartment, with no, or very limited, access to outside space became very oppressive after a while. So if any new confinement measures, that may be introduced again, are that restrictive, and prevent us from getting our daily exercise walks, then we shall just have to see how we cope, but fate may once again have intervened, I knew purchasing those Yoga mats from Amazon during our lockdown period in UK would come in handy, rather than just using being used as beach mats !! Although my blog ramblings may be somewhat curtailed (And no, you cannot request the Spanish Government to urgently implement an extended period of home confinement for the Malaga Province !!), I still have lots of things to plan and research, more places to go in the ‘Little Fokker’, both within the UK and Europe, when this Pandemic stuff is all over and done with that is, did I happen to mention that we are now retired ? I can also now re-start learning to play my guitar once again, which I have not picked up since re-commencing work in June, that should entertain the neighbours during an extended home confinement don’t you think ? or drive them even more stir crazy !! Perhaps too, I should try and discipline myself and get back into my language course, German or Spanish ? So there are lots of things to keep me occupied and the only question will be, not how long the confinement may last, more a case of how much time do I need it to last 😂

You may recall the young German couple we met recently on our travels, Mirko and Anya, well we have maintained contact via Email and, even with everything that is going on around them, border lockdowns etc, they feel safe and secure and have access to essentials so they are remaining where they are, for the time being at least. I did threaten them with publishing a photograph that I took of them in bed in their van, if they did not send me, as they promised they would, a photograph of their van setup, the threat worked, see below……….

Mirko and Anya’s Van Setup. What more do you need ? When we were there with them we were parked on the other side of those trees in the foreground.

 

When we returned to the UK in February, for our mandatory three day refresher training, we were staying on a Campsite and we met Ian, Sue and Florence (the dog) who were on the site as guests, not part of the training. They had just sold their house (or rented it out, I cannot remember which ?) and had moved in to their Motorhome to commence fulltiming. We have remained in contact with them ever since. As new fulltimers their travel lifestyle was halted before it had really begun, when they found themselves locked down on a campsite in Wales just a few short weeks later. I have recently had contact with them again and they informed me that they had decided to dip their toes into the fulltiming lifestyle in Europe, but it was not to be their year, as they once again found themselves in France, which was just about to go into another National lockdown !! They made a mad dash and managed to get themselves onto a campsite in Northern Spain, just as the Regions and Provinces closed their borders !! However, they are safe and well and have access to all the facilities they require, and like the rest of us, must just sit and wait for the next chapter in this Covid experience.

We ourselves have not been sat idle though since rushing back to escape the border lockdown, because at the moment there are no restrictions on movement within our Province, apart from the night curfew of course, so we can still get out and about. I have a couple of very ‘minor’ DIY tasks to be undertaken, and being very minor is good as it means that I can probably just about manage to do those jobs myself, I like ‘Minor’ as ‘Major’ would mean paying for someone much more proficient to come in and do them !! But I am saving those little jobs as the ‘Works of Fiction’ are forecasting a couple of ‘Wet Days’ in the very near future, when we will be forced to remain inside anyway. Then there are the usual household chores of course, the bits of time spent on cleaning, washing and ironing, shopping etc. etc. etc. Which still leaves us enough time to do other stuff like our daily exercise walks.

During our walks we noted something quite unusual, and that something was quite obvious by their absence, yes I am referring to the usual number of Vans and Motorhomes that are normally parked up on several of our seafront locations. In the few years that we have been here, these areas have always appeared to have been accepted as ‘Tolerated’ parkings and, although ‘Camping Activities’ were not permitted, it was generally accepted that people would sleep in their vans and were able to stay for one or two days, but on the odd occasion being moved on by the police. Now normally there were, in just a very limited stretch of coastline parking in our area, five seperate ‘Tolerated’ locations, but now it would appear that there is only one, as the other four now contain brand new, and permanently affixed, official signage, that prohibits Caravans & Motorhomes. The one area that is still accessible is quite some distance away from any facilities, shops or residential communties, but, it is in a beachfront location, or within about 100metres from the actual beach, and because it is set on a slight hill it does have some lovely views, although there are no Motorhome Services available in the immediate vicinity. I cannot say that this is totally unexpected, these areas are not official Aires, they are car parks, either proper ones with tarmac surfaces and proper line marked bays or sand ones located near Chiringuitos on the beach areas, but all, except the one that is still being used, were very close to private residences, children’s play areas, Cafe/Bars and Restaurants. Now a minority of these Vans were ignoring the ‘No Camping’ principles, hanging washing out over fencing, chairs out, tables out, awnings out and on one occasion green carpet with plant pots and flowers !! The larger vans, some towing trailers, were parking horizontally and taking up four or five bays, and so it really was only a matter of time before the locals complaints finally must have got to such a level whereby the Municipality Authority (local Council) had to be seen to act. So once again I am afraid, it is the minority that have now spoilt it for the majority and, I believe, the same is happening elsewhere all over Spain and also in Portugal. From what I have read in the UK press just recently, even Scotland are clamping down on the ‘Wildcamping’ due to the mess that is being left, although I believe this is more down to those that have been camping in Tents, but it does not matter which group of individuals are involved, it appears that the demise of the once ‘Tolerated’ park up’s is rapidly gaining pace.

We have been out in the ‘Little Fokker’ for day visits to a couple of our favourite beaches, it is so nice to be able to take the chairs down to the beach but have your own bathroom facilities at hand, many of the public ones on beaches are now closed, which is normal during the Winter months, but also to be able to just come back to the van for lunch and a hot cuppa then go back down to the beach again. Now other than the odd spot of Kayaking, watching boats, of all shapes and sizes and paddling in the sea, I am not much of an ‘active’ water sports enthusiast, however, I do enjoy watching other’s engaging in these activities. So perhaps one of my followers, who may be better informed than I, can confirm what I saw recently on the water……………..

A Power Surf Board ?

Powered SUP Board ?

Whatever these things were, it was the first time I had seen things like Surf or SUP Boards operating under power, it got me to thinking that whatever was actually powering them must have been pretty small ? Perhaps something that small could also be adapted for say…….. a Kayak ?  I know we are on a buget but it will soon be Christmas ?

Now I know that I often occasionally have a bit of a moan about the ‘Works of Fiction’, and to be fair, I think that most of the time it is with good justification. For example, we had checked the aforementioned forecasts the evening before another planned beach day out, the forecast showed that it would be bright sunshine all day, so when we got up in the morning and looked out from the balcony,  yes, the sun was up and it had all the hallmarks of another good day, we had breakfast and then set off to one of our favourite beaches just about a ten minute drive away. However, as we got closer to our destination the mist got thicker and thicker, by the time we got down to our spot we couldn’t see the beach, let alone the sea. We could see the hazy sunshine trying to break through and burn off what was now a fog, so we decided to remain in the van, have a coffee and see if the weather improved, we double checked the forecast and it still showed bright sunshine, all day !! We must have waited for forty-five minutes but there were no signs of the fog lifting so we decided to head for another one of our favourite beaches, back in the opposite direction, straight past the road leading to our bolt hole, and once again we were back in sunshine, just like it was when we departed over an hour earlier. We got to our second destination and what did we discover……….the fog was there as well !! I think the ‘Dark Forces’ are back because if we had just parked up at the bottom of our hill, the beach there was in gorgeous sunshine ? Now I know that weather can change from one place to another and within only a couple of miles, but this did not make sense, our first location was just ten minutes away on one side of our local beach, this second location is twenty-minutes away from our local beach but on the other side, so how did both these locations have fog but our beach, virtually in the middle of the two, didn’t ? Anyway, it was now getting close to lunch time so we decided to eat our snack lunch and have another coffee and sit it out. What is that saying, something about Patience being a virtue ? Well on this occasion it was correct………..

Whilst waiting for the fog to dissipate we may as well pass the time with a picnic style snack !! Cut up chunks of Baguette, Fresh tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and topped with Bocherones (little fish) and a few crisps and Note the Coffee and no sign of any Anti-Covid Vaccine….. Yet !!

Before………

And After

Before……….

And After

So, all in all, although the Borders between Provinces and Regions are ‘technically’ closed, and I say technically because I know that some people are managing to cross the borders without any issues. But even within our Province, apart from having to wear face masks in all public places (except when you are sunbathing on a beach with someone from the same household, or swimming) and of course adhering to the Curfew times, life is pretty much normal here. Although I am not sure how long that is going to last ? In my last post I commented that the Spanish Prime Minister did not want to implement ‘Home Confinements’, however, as I am writing this Shazza has just informed me that the daily infection figures for Spain for today (Wednesday 4th November) have just been announced, they do not make good reading, again, 25,000 new daily infections over the last 24 hour period but critically, over 1,600 deaths in the last twenty-four hours, so I think his hand may be forced sooner rather than later as the reports are that most of the hospitals are now at a critical level of capacity. I have to just put some perspective to these figures, whilst Covid is present all over the Country, the much higher infection rates appear to be in the Northern and Central Regions and in the larger Cities. Andalusia, like other regions, are of course not virus free, but our particular Municipality (Manilva) in the southern part of the Province of Malaga has had no deaths since the start of this Pandemic and infection rates on a ‘weekly’ basis remain less than 20, however, we are still not complacent and we continue to be as cautious here, as we were when we were back in the UK, we limit our social interaction with other’s and ensure that we maintain social distancing when we are out in the public domain. We are quite lucky really because we do have areas that we can walk where there are very few other people, the Environmental area where we often walk is so large and open that we can keep plenty of distance between ourselves and any other’s that may be walking or jogging at the same time.

I do not know when I will have anything more of interest to write about, although I may bore you at some point with an update on how we are getting on with our ‘Plant Based Diet’, I bet you cannot wait for that one to come hot of the press 😄 so this may be my last ramble for some time, so I would just like to finish by wishing you all well, and wherever you may be in the world reading this, please ensure that you and your families continue to stay safe, this virus really can be a silent assassin !

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COVID Restrictions ! Do You Know Where You Are ?

For visitor’s to mainland Spain from the United Kingdom, the remarks that follow at the start of these my current ramblings are generally directed to those from the nomadic vanlife community, although they may also be as equally relevant to those other’s who may be on say a Caravan or general driving holiday.

Whilst under normal conditions whilst touring in Spain e.g. a Non-Covid period, what Region or Province that we may be driving in may not be of any primary significance or importance. However, with the current Covid restrictions here in Spain, it can be easy for visitors to the Country to sometimes get a little confused over the geographical term ‘Region’ and ‘Province’, especially now with the majority of Regions and Provinces closing their borders. So I will attempt to provide a simple explanation, if I can, on how the Spanish Mainland is geographically partitioned.

The Spanish mainland is basically divided into 15 independant ‘Regions’, within these 15 Regions there are a total of ‘50’ Provinces. Now some of these regions are larger than other’s, therefore some smaller Regions may have no individual Provinces within them (Asturias, Cantabria, La Rioja, Navarra, Madrid and Murcia), the larger Regions though are sub-divided into different Provinces (See map below).

Although Spain has a Central Government, each of these 15 ‘Autonomous’ Regions also have their own Governing Body (Parliament for use of a better word), which means that they can also amend the National Laws, Rules and Procedures and implement their own, subject of course to approval from the Central Government. By way of an example of this, Central Government recently issued a Nationwide Curfew, set as being between the hours of 11:00pm to 06:00am, however, it has given the leaders of the ‘Autonomous’ Regions the discretion to vary these curfew times in order to manage and control the infection rates within their own individual local areas. Now this ‘independance’ also goes as far as permitting Local leaders to close their Regional Borders, and indeed Borders within individual Provinces within their Regions, but in practice they can keep their Regional Borders open, but close borders to some of their individual internal Provinces. So it can get pretty confusing for the local population to understand, never mind temporary visitor’s to the Country !!

So why, you may ask, is it necessary to know this. Well basically because many people confuse the Province they are in with the Region, for example, I have heard people state that they are travelling in the ‘Almeria’ region, when in fact Almeria is a Province within the Andalusia Region. Now under normal every day conditions, for temporary visitors to Spain, the terminology used doesn’t really matter, or it didn’t, but now, with Covid restrictions varying immensely, not just between individual ‘Regions’ but also varying within individual ‘Provinces’ within Regions, it becomes more important that we understand how it may impact on our movements, not just within the Country as a whole, but also within the individual Regions or particular Province that we may be in. You may be permitted to have a wider level of freedom of movement in one Region, or Province, but may not have that level of freedom in another.

So why is Spain suddenly closing down, not only its Regional Borders but also its internal borders between Provinces ? Well I guess it is not the worlds best kept secret that Spain is currently suffering high Covid infection rates, although this is still predominantly in the North and Central Regions of the Country, but the rise in infection rates is happening all over mainland Spain, which to be honest is like a lot of other Countries in Europe at this time. But Spain has quite a lot of National, and Regional Holidays, and the Spanish will, and do, ‘under normal periods’, travel en-mass all over the Country to visit family members, or they have holiday homes, in other Regions and Provinces. So, in order to prevent Covid infections potentially being spread from one area to another, the Government and the Autonomous Authorities have agreed to initiate a Nationwide Movement Restriction, as during the next month in particular, there are several National and Regional Public Holidays. These Border closures may well be lifted after a period of 10-15 days, although the Central Government have had a proposal approved by the Justice Ministry, whereby the night Curfews may legally remain in force right up until May 2021 !! Of course, and subject to the increasing, or decreasing, rates of infection, the rules may be relaxed or enhanced accordingly. However, the media reported, on the 3rd November, that within the next fortnight a period of ‘Home Confinement’ may once again be implemented, so although they are avoiding the use of the word ‘Lockdown’, if this is introduced it will, in all reality, basically be going back to the severe restrictions that were implemented during the first wave, if the media reporting is accurate that is, and we all know, no matter what Country we live in, that as far as the media are concerned, they never let the facts get in the way of a good headline !! It should be noted that the Prime Minister of Spain has publically stated that going back to ‘Home Confinement’, as it was in the first wave of the Pandemic, is not on his Agenda, and he has very recently not approved the Region of Asturias in the North implementing such measures.

So, for vanlifers who are currently in Spain, ensure you know what Province and Region you are currently in, and check out the local Restrictions in force in your immediate area. For those readers of my rambles who are not in Spain at this current time, all of the above may be totally ‘useless’ or even pointless information, however, for those around the world who may be ‘home schooling’, just consider it as some basic additional European Geography lesson on internal Spanish Borders 😄 For anyone reading this who is currently in Spain as a van lifer, or who is considering coming to Spain in the very near future, subject to your Government Travel ‘Advice’ of course, and who were not aware of how the Spanish Regions and Provinces work, I hope the information I have provided will have been of some use (If only to use the map to select the areas where you want to visit next).

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