Railway walk

Saturday was such a nice sunny day, even though it was bitterly cold, so we wrapped up and took a walk along side the old railway track. There were quite a few families out enjoying the brisk air, some walking and others on bikes, everyone smiles and says hello.

The train is waiting in the station!

love this seat with railway tracks and walkers etched into the backs.

Starting at Brampton Holt the view took us back to the years of steam trains. Conservationists work really hard repairing and buying the old trains and everything that goes with them from signal boxes to telephone boxes.

One of my favourite sights is this beautiful mosaic.

The Car eating money

Having had to have two new tyres when we arrived home from holiday the car obviously thought
"New shoes what else can I cost them!" and the headlight packed up. Hope this is the end of spending money on the car with nothing to show for it. Thank goodness Chris is so handy he seems to be able to fix anything and soon had the headlight repaired.

Mr FixIt sorting out the headlight.

Old Friends

Many years ago we used to caravan and enjoyed the company of many people that we have not seen in a long time. Thursday I met up with one of those couples at a quilting day, and yesterday another couple, Joan and Ian, spent the afternoon with us.
We had not seen each other for twelve years so there was much to catch up on. For a start seven grandchildren had come into our lives, five to Joan and Ian two to us. In fact it was as if the years had melted away and we saw each other last week, I love friends that come back into my life as if there had never been a gap, hope we don't wait another twelve years to see each other again.

As I did not take a photo here is Joan's facebook photo!

After the holiday

What a busy time since we arrived home from our holiday.
Wednesday was spent catching up with the washing, where does it all come from?

I joined a machine embroidery swap a couple of days before going away so the deadline for getting it in the post is fast approaching. I made this a Happy Room priority, any excuse to get away from housework!, and spent time MEing a zippered purse. I still have a little ordinary sewing machine work left to complete it.
The day before the holiday I was on a ME day at BSK and did not complete the work so I managed to get that sewn out too. Just need to get the two cushions I have planned made up now.

Chris bought me a new iPad Air2 64GB for our anniversary [March 25th] so it was exciting looking for a new case, I had no idea there were so many different cases out there. The iPad arrived yesterday and many happy hours of aggravation were spent transferring everything from my old iPad!
It is so light and fast, will I ever keep up with this modern age of technology?   I am still battling finding passwords etc..  Oh and where have all my photos gone?

Yesterday was also my monthly visit to sit-n-sew at Poppy Patch so I grabbed some unfinished items to take and work on and I'm pleased to say I finished sewing the binding on my fairy quilt, cut out ME blocks for a cushion and finished the hand sewing on my sayings and hexagon block panel... photos later when I get all my gadgets working again.

Poppy Patch workshop

This morning has started out with another expense, two new tyres on the front of my car. I hope it appreciates them!!

Day 33 Home Sweet Home

Left the Kyraid Hotel in Calais at 6.30 and arrived home at 10.30am. The traffic was horrendous until we reached the M1.
It is nice to be home and the snowdrops and mini daffs are in full bloom. Just need to catch up with the washing and life will be back to normal!

Here's a summery of our journeys to and from Spain

Northampton - Tunnel - Lyon - Barcelona - Villamartin
on main toll roads with two nights in hotels.
Fuel £128   Tolls £113  Miles 1396 Hours in the car inc brief stops 27 hours

Villamartin - San Sebastian - Poitier - Calais - Northampton
avoiding most toll roads with three nights in hotels.
Fuel £114   Tolls £21  Miles 1328  Hours in the car inc brief stops 30 hours

This was an interesting comparison as taking into consideration the extra hotel night, the costs and mileage were almost the same.

Day 32 Homeward bound

Our last day in France was wet and grey, like driving in a cloud... Yuk

Only took one photo, no I tell a lie, I took a photo of Rouen Cathedral but a car drove past at the same time and you could only see the very tip of the spire.

Here's the one photo that made me smile, concrete cows on the roundabout .

We are now settled into another Kyriad hotel near Calais and plan to eat at a Buffalo Grill again so no need for more photos as they would be the same as yesterday.

 

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Day 31 Travelling North

We left Pension Ametzagana in San Sebastián Spain at 8am. It was a very strange hotel, divided into four villas and lots of slopes and steps to contend with. The lovely Resturant shown on the booking site was closed so it was a burger at the bar. The only good thing were the very nice staff. We will be going back!

Our journey out of Spain took us on a couple of tollroads to avoid the city, we then programmed TomTom for the fastest route without tolls to Poitier. We passed through really pretty villages, especially Urt.

Stopped at a McD for breakfast and arrived at the Kyraid Hotel at 2.45pm only to be told they don't serve food on Sunday.

About a mile down the road we found a Buffalo Grill, a Resturant we really like so went there for dinner.

Mileage since leaving home four weeks ago 2710.

 

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Day 30 The Basque Country

Up early and on our way north by 7am. Chris had packed the car the night before to save time, I think he needed a shoehorn!

We set Tom Tom for the fastest route without Tolls to our hotel for the night in Basque Country northern Spain, about 60 miles from the French border.

The weather stayed fine and we enjoyed the different sights, lots of castles, many tunnels. My photos probably leave much to be desired as they were taken through the window of the moving car.

Mid morning break in a nice picnic spot

St George and the dragon

 

Lunch break

 

Wonder what this stork will bring? Boy or girl !

 

Lots of snow as we reach the mountains

 

Endless tunnels

 

The view from our hotel window.

 

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Day 29 last day in VillaMartin

As it is our last day here in VillaMartin Spain we went for our usual fish and chips with Pauline and Brian at the Quesada Resturant. Our friends have another week before they leave.

 

The weather has turned really chilly today so we went exploring in the car. We have not spent a lot of time at the beach so that was our destination. Most roads to the beaches are dead ends, so it was interesting going up and down them looking at the different architecture, from high rise apartments, to luxury villas.

Can you spot the walkway I the distance?

 

We came across a beach and in the distance saw an interesting walk way clinging to the side of the cliff face, a little detective work and we found it. I'm not too keen on this kind of thing but we walked to the end only to find a beautiful beach just around the corner. On a better day it would be a lovely place to go. Today the wind was blowing so hard. It was hard to stand up!

 

 

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Day 28 Thursday

Four weeks away from home and it as been a great time in lovely weather, hot most of the time. We have really enjoyed the company of Pauline and Brian for either a chat, game of cards or meal.

We also have a nice neighbour, Ann who likes to deliver us a free paper almost every day. In fact I am amazed how many free papers there are. Most seem to have the same news in but many have the TV programmes which is handy, except there is nothing much on TV !

This evening was spent playing cards with Pauline and Brian.

 

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Day 27 ?

ok what happened to day 27? I guess nothing much as I did not take any photos.
The sun was really hot early morning and afternoon so there was a lot of sunbathing.
I made a trip to the pharmacy, charity shop, Lidl's and Mercadona and that was about as exciting as it got!
Having decided to cut our months stay here in VillaMartin by one day to allow three nights to get back to Calais we spent some time sorting out a different route.
The journey here was mostly toll roads which turned out to be rather expensive.
The route Chris has planned to get us home uses a few toll roads to avoid major city's but mostly we will be on main non toll roads.
We booked a hotel for the first night up in the mountains.

Day 26 Pinoso

The weather forecast was not too hot today so we packed a picnic and set off for Pinoso.

As we climbed higher and higher it got colder and colder but the sun was out and everything looked nice. At This time of year the vines are just bare stumps, but the peach trees were in full blossom. The area near Pinoso is very agricultural and we saw lots of workers collecting oranges and lemons, plus those bent double cutting cauliflower and throwing them over their shoulders into large containers strapped to their backs.

At one point we took a wrong turn and drove through tiny narrow village with a water culvert dotted with what looked like sluice gates running the whole length of the village.

As we approached Pinoso the roundabout had a large etched cross in the centre. The town is famous for three things, wine, salt and marble. We missed visiting the museum by two minutes! It was a four hour lunch break before it opened again!

Winery

Marble

The marble is cut in large slabs from the surrounding hills, causing large scars.

The middle of town has the church of St. Peter the Apostle, a large clock tower built in 1889 where the clock chimes every fifteen minutes and has to be wound up every 24 hours. There is also the Hermitage of St Catherine. It was nice just wandering around the centre of town.

On the old market square an enormous mural has been painted in lovely tones of white through grey to black.

Too tired to cook when we arrived back home we visited the local resturant for dinner.

 

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Day 25 Strange Day

What a mixed bag of a day. I started by borrowing a pair of bathroom scales. ( why do they call it a pair when it's only one machine?) After working out the kilos to stones and lbs I've put on three lbs while on holiday so far. We have another weeks holiday so I am going to try and really stick to the diet plan I am on, I had hoped to stay the same weight. It's sometimes difficult to understand labels when I don't speak the language, well that's my excuse, but it could be too much chocolate!

After a trip into town with Pauline, Chris and I went to find the Patchwork shop that was closed on Saturday.

It is quite a small place but a workshop was being held and the ladies were having great fun making all sorts of things. I had a chat with them but did not buy anything.

From here we went to a large shopping centre and I was taken aback by the marked parking place. I am used to marked parking places for people with children and disabled but have never seen one for a pregnant lady before, what a nice shopping centre.

 

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