Home Thoughts from Abroad......from Bookworm Abroad
(with apologies for borrowing the title of a favourite old album of mine, by Clifford T Ward)
12 Hours a day in the driving seat is a long time to think.
On Thursday I left the UK around 1.45pm, for my next stint in Spain, with the prospect on arriving on Sunday late afternoon. During this time, I can expect to have conversations which cover negotiating a different time crossing at the tunnel, the niceties of booking in to a hotel, buying diesel or coffee, and a chat with the English B&B owner where I stayed on the second night. This means that despite the consistent stream of cds being played in the van (testing second hand stock and not always for pleasure at that!), my mind is given free rein to roam for long periods.
I leave with the usual emotional conflict - I've got used to England and over the summer I've been privileged to see Violet growing and developing. How different she will be when I next see her! My Mum is 87, I'm always conscious that 8.5 months is a long time. I love spending time with Ellie, and this year with my brother and sister in law, and seeing "old" friends. We're all getting older...…..I feel torn in two and quite emotional and reminded annually of other previous years of the same feelings...….
On the plus and minus sides for England, I got my fillings replaced at the dentist at last, had antibiotics to treat a chest infection I suspect had been festering for months and took a good while to shift regardless, finally did my bowel cancer poo test (it's a routine thing I kept putting off) and got the all-clear, registered to book online at the doctors but failed miserably to get an appointment to further discuss why I am short of breath (apart from being old an fat, that is). I didn't have time to discuss my phone contract which was up for renewal. I registered for Housing Options - it's not really council housing now. I discovered that you can't register for somewhere you'd like to move to perhaps unless you have a local connection of a minimum of 5 years, but either way it beats the price of private renting (and it's almost impossible to find anything affordable and suitable which allows pets).
Festival wise, it was a mixture - new festivals are always stressful and there were 4 of those this year as well as one which was new last year. Seems to have been more on a slope than not with the resulting difficulties of getting the stall up, keeping stock on tables and shelves, and rolling off the mattress at night in the van, not to mention walking around even the stall takes extra effort (as does uneven ground and the occasional pot hole within the stall). It was rather windy at times (more than enough) to say the least and heavy rain made hard work as well as mud and cost takings at least once. I wasn't well for a good few weeks and struggled to cope. The usual joy and excitement was lacking, though whether that was to do with Brexit overshadowing everything, health or the festivals themselves, hard to say. Takings were good or better in June and July, and I knew it was too good to last, which was true because August was pretty crap by comparison for various reasons. Before I digress again, I should bookmark that this comes into something I thought about yesterday, Saturday, which was list of "Things I realised this summer" and has to do with bailing out of a festival I had done for several years and finally admitted I don't want to do any more for reasons which should be in that list.
England is a beautiful country; I've seen plenty of that driving to and from festivals, in the few opportunities to glance out of the window and not have both eyes fixed firmly on the road. It's familiar. But it's also frustrating and at times exhausting. Motorways are like dodgems these days and traffic is never ending. They are littered with sad corpses of furry things and stripped lorry tyres, people seem more care-worn, scruffy at times, and towns and cities seem grubby and overcrowded. The weather is unpredictable and early reminders of what winter is like sneaked in at times. All that compares badly with Spain, don't their lorries have tyres which strip? and roadkill on the motorways? Or do they just clear up more often...…..and everyone looks a bit better under blue skies and sunshine, I know...but I digress - a bit - but then my mind has wandered a good deal in 3 days so far...….
France always seems big, It is, of course, and resplendent with massive open fields and off the motorways, long clear roads across the country with some envy-inspiring houses full of character and the sort of villages with which retirement dreams might be populated. But it never looks friendly, just mostly closed unless you pass the bakers when it is open. Where are all the French, and why are their bars and restaurants mostly closed as you drive through?? How do I not manage to speak even the simplest French now after being fluent for years, find it virtually unpronounceable nowadays and unquestioningly turn to Spanish instead, doubtless causing the recipients of this idiocy to consider "why eez zis mad eenglish woman speaking to me in Spanish??" The motorways are busy and even faster than in the UK making them extra stressful, and Bordeaux is a perennial pain to get round. It starts to feel like an endurance test to cross the country, although it had started so well...…..and it's not really digressing but I ought to explain......
The week before I leave is generally fraught with chaos, sweat, tears and a lot of swearing as I try to shoehorn everything back into one storage unit and the van. This year I'd done a lot of preparation and got all the new stock to the unit already, and stashed in advance everything which was staying and didn't need to be used in the last few weeks. 8 hours solid on Monday cracked it and on Tuesday night I leaned on and managed to bolt the door of the unit. On Wednesday I got rid of the rubbish and the last few bits from the overflow unit I have over the summer, and shoved everything in the van but my personal stuff for the journey, so on Thursday for the first time ever, I was more or less ready........
The first leg of the journey is from "home" in the UK to Folkestone, across the tunnel and just as far (or near) as St Martin de Boulogne for the night in the rather spartan and noisy but convenient and cheap(ish) Premiere Classe hotel. In previous years, despite allowing at least an extra 1.5 hours leeway in the journey time, I've been held up on both the M1 an M25, arrived too late for the booked crossi. ng and been bumped onto a much later crossing. This time, despite delays on the M20, I arrived EARLY by almost 2 hours (shock-horror!) but was informed that they couldn't get me on any earlier as they were all full (lots of those smug gits with enough money to own a camper van and then go prance around Europe in them, apparently) but I could try one crossing before the one I'd booked. Which succeeded, I'm happy to say and I arrived at the hotel in good time and to find the night duty man was Spanish and keen to have a chat over a cup of fruit tea. How did he know I could speak Spanish? well the clue was in my unfailing ability to answer a French person in Spanish...….
Day 2. Leaving out the sat=nav and intending to beat the bloody toll routes started badly when, I know not how, at a roundabout I use every time, I ended up on the wrong road without even noticing. Politely ask the sat=nav to get me to a town on the route I wanted, and got sent on a tiny rural road. Nice countryside. I should perhaps explain that in previous attempts, the sat nav is incapable of anything but "yes" or "no" when replying to "do you want to avoid tolls" and what I really want to say is "yes, when possible, but not if you are going to a) ignore that answer, or b) send me half way across France to avoid them". Both of which have precedents. My reveries on rural France were rudely interrupted by being pulled over by a roadside police task force who sent me off to the weighbridge under escort which I tried to decide whether to feign surprise and ignorance, plead for mercy on the grounds of half the van being full of freebies for the homeless charity in Malaga - it was -, or burst into tears. I dismissed the notion of putting my foot down and running away. A whole line of cars and a lorry or two and they pulled me, the English van. This also has a precedent or two which reminds me how vulnerable you can feel in another country, unless of course you are in your own but picked on for other reasons like being the wrong colour. Before I digress, I must tell you that after some to-ing anf fro-ing with front and then back wheels on the plate, I had drawn to my attention the numbers inscribed inside the doorway of the passenger side of the van, and the discrepancy between them and the reality. Finger wagging concluded with "you can go, it's ok for today" and a massive sigh of relief. But the rural idyll was now ruined and instead I looked with envious eyes at picturesque houses and characterful cottages as the hours ticked by before I eventually gave in and got on the motorway. Janet- 1, tolls -0 to that point but at what cost in time. Meanwhile out came the sat=nav but mine refused to accept that I wasn't still the wrong side of Tours when in fact I was almost at Poitiers and needed help to get to the village where I would be staying. My new one kindly donated by friends was an unknown quantity and I resorted to google maps on my phone which to my utmost surprise and I know not how, actually kept the screen on, provided me with a running commentary and a moving map although it did mess about a bit on the country roads.
Day 3. A short night as it took way longer than intended on day 2, and I have to cling to the moral victory of havig all but beaten the toll system the entire journey to date instead of the potential 50 odd euros I avoided. Why I am starting from a good 2 hours short of where I normally stay on the second night of the return journey is worth mentioning - this is where I stay on the way TO the UK, and the lady concerned had some interesting books she was keen for me to buy but I couldn't fit in on the journey to the UK. Got round that by staying there on the way back but forgot about the books until the van was full and only the front seat available, so just as well there was only one small box I wanted as I am ever mindful that the Spanish traffic cops once pulled me and fined me for having too much stuff on the front seat. Whatever they pull me for, they want the back doors open and every time there is a sharp intake of breath and a disapproving look, and I really want to explain that if there had been anywhere else to put it, that stuff would not have all been in the bloody van but I think I already mentioned having to lean on the door of the storage unit in order to close it.....
Anyway, onwards if not upwards, Day 3 has many miles and a couple of extra hours to go. And unavoidable tolls much of the way past Bordeaux, which is a it's chaotic and traffic jammed best due to a land closed on the motorway exit one before the one I want, which causes a massive tailback of a good half hour, and me to reflect on how every time I go this way in either direction there is a hold up and once the slip road was closed which takes me to where I normally stay, another time I got lost looking for it, not to mention the time the sat-nav turned itself off just as I got onto the network of motorways there.....and here started the idea of "things I have realised this summer" list, as that would be on it -that Bordeaux is a pain in the driving seat, and that my old sat nav was an unreliable worry and I was happy to drive almost a whole day without on Day 2 and didn't miss it chattering away let alone the endless temptation to see how long it will still take and get depressed by that, but I'm digressing again.
I crossed the border into Spain seamlessly as ever, it's just a sign by the side of the motorway and a toll either side, and that's just a reminded how things are and will be - the only place anyone bothers is leaving the UK at Folkestone and after that you can go anywhere. Why do we even have to sign out from the UK, is it just we think we are special even while we're still in the EU? or do the government just like exerting control over us to remind us that big brother knows where we are....., spent the next bit wondering if that was a new toll section or if I just forgot, and then managed to avoid the next and last toll section. Another small victory for someone who stands in a big queue for a checkout with an operator in the supermarket rather than self-checkout, but we have to make our stands where we see fit.....
And so I plodded on, conscious that it was a long day even without the minimal stops, but having given the new sat-nav a chance to prove itself, it confounded me completely let alone earned undying respect by taking me ROUND Madrid, not through it in all it's nerve-wracking intensity, and delivering me back to the motorway I need to be on to take the slip road to the hotel I regularly use on return journeys, with a view of pale golden fields and big silver sky as the sun goes down, although I missed that due to the length of the journey, but hey this is my last stop and here I sit this morning, tapping away at the keys and torn between getting up and on with it and reluctant to face that last stage of the journey which ends with having to deconstruct the totally rammed in contents of the van ready to work again on Tuesday. Two days each of over 12 hours on the road has left me with severe motion sickness in the sense of feeling that I am swaying and still in motion, with arthritic fingers almost bent in position after gripping the steering wheel for so long, and knees which are struggling to function. Google maps says it's more or less a little over 4.5 hours home now but as I may have already observed, that generally means add on at least an hour and then time for stops. How do you make a journey they say is 6.5 hours last 10? put me behind the wheel. I will avoid the shortest way home over the Zaffaraya pass because I nearly burnt out the brakes last time I tried that, it's a very long descent consisting on dozens of hairpin bends and not good for heavily loaded vans. Last year I tried something else and ended on rural roads I hadn't intended, maybe I'll get lucky this year and manage to find the A356.
All that thinking during those solitary hours, it can make you melancholy. I t certainly gives me time to remember lots of things, about previous journeys, including the first one down to the unknown in Spain, the years since, the changes both welcome and otherwise, the continuing indecision and indeed impossibility of determining the future. It used to be that people would ask why I am in Spain at all, (kind of by accident), where do I see my future (ask me something to which I know the answer), where do I want to be (see previous answer) but now it's down to what might be possible given the intended actions of a government I don't support in any way and bitterly resent their intentions. I've made it work being split between two countries against the odds, and I don't take kindly to having it buggered up, if you'll pardon my language and I don't like change anyway. I prepare meticulously for the summers but for this, I can't prepare at all as it's a total catch 22 for me, to stay or to go as I lack the means to implement either and any personal preference would be tainted by need and expediency rather than genuine choice now.
But that thinking time was not all wasted. I got some way down a mental list of "things I realised this summer" including that my nose must be more prominent that even I thought as it has resolutely got burnt more times than reasonable this summer, that Nic Cave and the Bad Seeds are not as bad as I thought, what a totally beautiful and relaxing voice has Kate Rusby - I played it twice it was so lovely, and that one's a keeper too, -that I really hate this journey and would even consider the ferry if it was affordable, that I wonder if I would cope with the pace of life in the UK now if I am forced to return, that I am possibly getting too old for at least some of this (subject of a previous ramble if I recall correctly), that I don't want to do festivals which stress me whether or not I take good money whether the stress is the site or the organisers being useless, that home is a movable concept and a whole pile more which naturally I forgot as soon as I tried to write them down now.
And finally, before I leave my safe haven and hit the road again, after 2 days of forgetfulness when contemplating who may be there when I get home, worrying about blank spots in my memory, and thinking I would have to ask someone who does know - I remembered the name of the 4th kitten from the litter born last spring. Welly. Watch this space to see if she, and the others, are all present and correct when I get back,and if day 4 went well or not...…...