(Our destination. Look M(o)ira, it’s your town!)

Happy International Women’s Day! Well I know doing laundry is probably not the perfect celebration for the day that’s in it… but I’m excited. We were supposed to find a laundry yesterday… we’re a day late. As I write our clothing is going round and round in the dryer. We are at an Intermarche supermarket in the town of Mira and they have services for motorhomes plus a laundry self-service in the car park.

(Electronic toll road.. we think we’re class 2, so 85 cent…)

There’s a machine for 18kg worth of clothes and one for 8kg and there’s a dryer. I weighed ours, it came to 6kg… The cost? €4 for the wash and €4 for the dry (2x 20 minutes) and the washing powder is included. At this rate it’s probably cheaper than washing at home. Every time I use a washing machine on the road I am grateful for my washing machine at home but today I am also grateful that washing machines exist and that the people of Intermarche supermarkets in Portugal put them in (some of) their car parks – thank you!

(…plus €1.65)

So far there’s no end of adventure today because we also managed to drive on one of the electronic toll roads. Each time we pass under the cameras it takes the posted amount from the total we prepaid at the post office in Porto (plus what was left over from last year). It’s just as well they will text us when we run out because it’s proving difficult to remember to keep a running total, each posted amount is different.

(Lovely laundry. There was a moment of worry when I spotted the men at work… Can you see our clothes in number 3?)

We will be moving along somewhere new after lunch because this car park doesn’t allow overnighting. We have full electricity, water and now clean clothes, our grey water tank and toilet cassette are empty, what more do we need?

(…And in case you were wondering about the fuel prices. Also, we had not noticed how similar the Portuguese words for petrol and diesel are… hmmm)

From the laundry in the car park, Mira, Mairead.