The Journey Here 🚌

Tuesday 6th July after a 5 week delay on the arrival of our new motorhome ‘Molly’ or (The Winnie Mobile to the boys) our alarm went off at 4am to mark the start of a new chapter in our lives. Our summers in France to be replaced by tours in Molly. Meg now onto adventures of her own, we are heading off with Jack to do a tour of Spain (and maybe Portugal as well depending on the CoVid restrictions) for the next 4 weeks. After only a week to familiarise ourselves with Molly we were definitely heading off into the unknown. Our practice run weekend booked in Devon for the second May bank holiday had come and gone with just the news of delays in fiat chassis’s and no delivery date, but now for the real thing.

We had a smooth run to Portsmouth and were surprised by how briefly all our paperwork was looked at. They spent more time looking at Winnies health certificate than our CoVid vaccine certificates or Jack’s Test paperwork.

Our crossing was to take from 9am Tuesday to 1.30pm on Wednesday, so we had booked a pet cabin to allow Winnie to come in the cabin with us, unlike the Caen crossing where the dogs stay in the car. A new experience for Winnie, but she adapted well. We had a fairly smooth crossing although Jack did end up with a little seasickness on the first evening in the Bay of Biscay having refused to take a travel tablet -he’ll learn 😂🤢

On Wednesday we sat at the front of the boat and were treated to seeing 2 separate pods of dolphins swimming in front of the bow.

On disembarking we were pulled over for a spot check of CoVid documents as it seemed not all vehicles where being checked, but again the checking of pets and their health certificates took longer than CoVid checks and passport control.

Our first stop in Santander was the Carrefour, and whilst Chris and I shopped for some fresh ingredients, Jack took Winnie for a short walk, both relieved to be back on firm ground.

We then had a 20km drive out of Santander to stay in a free Aire on the edge of a lake by the Nature Park Cabarceno. After a lovely FaceTime call with Meg, I served up trusty pesto pasta for our first supper and we toasted our arrival with a glass of Spanish Rioja 🥂 before settling down to watch England v Denmark ⚽️