We have a lighthouse!

February 22, 2018February 22, 2018 | Mairead

2018 3

(Ortiguera. To the right… a little cove…)

I hope my photographs can do some justice to the beauty of the place we have found ourselves in today because I am struggling to find words to describe it… Oh and the rain has stopped.

2018 6

(…to the left… a village)

We passed this way two years ago when we first travelled in the camper van to Portugal. We stayed very near here in a supermarket car park, our first. It was grand, great for getting groceries but their 3am delivery truck was very noisy. We had no idea, just 30 minutes down the road there was somewhere as beautiful as this spot.

2018 9

(Steps to bring you down into the cove)

I suppose we could have done some research. We could have joined some internet forums. We could have at least bought a guide-book. We didn’t. So we missed it. But we got to experience it this time.

2018 8

(And behind us… a church. Does something about this remind you of old westerns on the telly?)

Mind you, getting here was a little fraught…. there was fog…

2018 1

(That’s a 130km/h motorway with a very steep drop over those guard rails…)

And a humpbacked bridge with trolls…. (can’t be completely sure about the trolls).

2018 2

(There was literally inches on either side of the van…)

Experience is funny, you never know what it’s going to teach you. We are travelling a little differently this year, we have had different experiences since the last time we were on this road and they taught us things we never knew we didn’t know.

2018 10

(View from the dining room…(!))

Like slowing down sometimes gets you there faster… when there is somewhere like here, Mairead.

Can I check your oil and water?

February 21, 2018February 21, 2018 | Mairead

2018 2

(That’s a ginormous sign)

We now have a petrol station to add to our locations. I think this is the first time we’ve ever stayed the night at a petrol station, but I know petrol stations… My Dad ran a petrol station in Cashel for over thirty years and as young children it was one of the favourite places to visit for my brother and I. The other favourite place was the Rock of Cashel. (In case you didn’t know that’s a famous and beautiful historic site.) When we got a bit older and started working in the business it wasn’t as much fun but we did enjoy meeting people and earning money. The smell of petrol still brings back memories so I feel quite at home here. If not for the lack of language skills I could probably offer my oil checking skills.

2018 3

(Our view today)

We hadn’t intended staying here tonight. I had picked a different stop just half an hour to the east. It looked like a lovely town and we found the aire without too much trouble but we needed water again and their black water drains were blocked, so we didn’t want to chance their water. We searched the Parkings app and headed here instead. On the way we passed a supermarket with petrol station and I had a bit of a realisation…

2018 4

(Cute Spanish church in the distance)

When my siblings and I were younger and going for a drive with our Dad, he constantly had to drop into the petrol stations we passed. Either to chat with the owners or to slowly drive past the pumps and check the prices. He got great craic out of comparing their prices to his own. A favourable comparison meant his business would do better but I don’t know if favourable meant a higher price at his competitors or a lower price.

2018 5

(There’s a grove of trees beside us)

Well anyway the supermarket with petrol station (that we were passing only because the previous aire drains were blocked (I know, it’s a confusing story)) had the lowest diesel prices of the whole time we’ve been on the road! How do I know? Well, Denis has been constantly checking the prices. On Monday the fuel low alarm bell came on and do you know what he said? He said, “don’t worry I’ve been keeping an eye on that for a while, the prices are too high around here we’ll wait until we’re nearly empty.” And he drove on… So when he saw the lowest prices, he was thrilled and couldn’t pass it up, despite our half full tank. My realisation? Denis might be channelling my Dad…

From a Repsol petrol station on the north coast of Spain, Mairead.

Free Parking with the Elephants

February 20, 2018February 20, 2018 | Mairead

2018 1

(Our view from the kitchen)

We crossed the border into Spain this morning. It rained the entire time and the spray from the other traffic was a bit miserable. We had forgotten that this part of the journey past San Sebastian and Bilbao is always a little messy as city by-passes can be confusing and chaotic and it was all that this morning.

2018 3

(Nearby village)

As some of you will know I’m a very helpful passenger. Some people say too helpful… My self-appointed duties include continuously reminding the driver of the speed limits, especially when they are lower in the rain. Suggesting the optimum wiper speeds as windshield conditions change. Making squealing noises when (in my opinion) other vehicles approach too close to the van. Insisting that the driver must never check a beautiful view. Making wavy movements with my hands when our vehicle is proceeding too close to the vehicle in front.

2018 6

(Gondola at the safari park)

My assistance is not always appreciated though… so lately I have been considering a kind of toning down of my helpful tendencies. This proves to be easier said than done as it has turned out my main motivation for helping is self-preservation… it turns out I am attempting to prevent a terrible accident where I go up in a ball of flames and career down a 100 meter ravine. The constant vigil is exhausting as I am on high alert and I don’t even have a brake pedal. I did suggest to Denis that we could invest in an extra pedal but he wasn’t keen so I had to come up with another option.

2018 4

(Fence around the elephant enclosure)

It turns out when I’m a passenger I run the ball-of-flames-and-100-meter-ravine accident on a kind of continuous YouTube loop in my mind. I do that so that I don’t lose focus of my main concern: self-preservation. My new plan is to preserve my sanity and turn off the video loop. Every time it starts into it’s ball of flames, I stop it and have a look at the nice view. Then it starts again and I stop it and take a nice deep breath. Every time it starts I stop it again. It definitely makes the driving (or is it passenger-ing?) more enjoyable. I had been doing grand until this morning with the trucks and the rain but never mind I am a work in progress.

2018 5

(Our elephants)

So tonight we are at a safari park… with free parking. We took a walk earlier, to see the elephants…. yes now we have elephants! We got drenched on our walk but it’s so lovely to be surrounded by nature that we didn’t mind and now we’re snug in the van looking out on a lake with some ducks.

It’s a long way from the motorway. Mairead.

Crossing the Threshold

February 16, 2018 | Mairead

The ferry crossing from Rosslare in Ireland to Cherbourg in France takes about 17 hours. We sailed at 8.25pm yesterday and I was in bed by 9pm! I had a plan.

(That’s the sun…)

At the weekend I had noticed my weather forecasting app on the phone predicted windy weather for our sea crossing. On Monday I bought drugs (sea sickness ones) and then promptly went into denial about the weather, while hourly checking my app… On Wednesday my friend rang, the one who is a true believer in the secret of manifesting. If you don’t know about manifesting you’ll have to google it because it’s a long story. Suffice to say if you really want something to happen then first start imagining it is happening really clearly and feeling it really intensely. You might think this is naturally what people do when they want something but you’d be surprised how many people imagine really clearly and feel really intensely what they don’t want!

(I love the lines and angles)

I for instance was imagining gale force winds and feeling intensely sea sick green! And, I was standing on dry land… But here was my friend imagining calm seas and feeling intensely joyful to be starting a new journey… my new journey! I was oddly resistant to letting go of my gale force winds but she sounded like she was enjoying my journey waaay more than I was so it would be rude not to join her. What harm could it do, I had the drugs. And maybe I could have 24 hours of calm seas before I got on the boat! So each time I started imagining gale force winds I stopped myself and began imagining calm seas.

(Beautiful weathering…)

As we drove to Rosslare yesterday the wind buffeted the van but I had been stopping myself from imagining what I didn’t want for a good while by then and I wasn’t tempted to stop. When we arrived in Rosslare the wind had died down and when the time came to take the drugs (2 hours before sailing) I decided not to take them. I also didn’t eat anything and I didn’t drink the traditional glass of red wine. I listened as the captain told us it might be a little bumpy but he would be using the stabilisers (wonderful invention) and then I went to bed to the sound of car alarms going off in the car deck (top tip:disengage your car alarm when travelling by ferry).

(That’s a calm sea…)

I woke a few times during the night and it was bumpy, but not too bumpy and I was uncomfortable, but not too uncomfortable. I started remembering how wonderful it is to stand on dry land! And I remembered how I had been making myself sea sick on dry land! Oh dry land I will never treat you so badly, I will appreciate you and whisper kind thoughts to you as I walk on you! The thing is, dry land isn’t affected by how I think… I am! I need to be whispering kind thoughts to myself! And when I imagine, I need to imagine something I’d love!

In the meantime I am enjoying the calm seas. Yes, the sea is calm! Not bumpy, not uncomfortable, Mairead.

Trip to Portugal 2018

February 15, 2018 | Mairead

2018 1

(Car park near Rosslare)

Tonight we are leaving Ireland for three months. There is one week in March when we have to be in Lisbon but other than that we don’t know where we’re going or when we’ll arrive. What we do know is we are driving via France and northern Spain (although not the exact route) to beautiful Portugal. We will be travelling more slowly than in the past, weather permitting. Previously, we drove like the clappers until we got to Portugal and then slowed right down, but we have come to realise that every bit of the journey (from our front door to the southmost tip of western Europe) is part of the experience and there’s no need to rush any of it. Of course, if the temperature is below zero in France we might feel even amazing French coffee and croissants can’t justify driving slowly through the cold. Although to be honest the van isn’t ever cold. It’s a small space and doesn’t take much energy to make it toasty.

2018 2

(I love bunting!)

We travelled to Cork and Cashel last weekend and got a gas cylinder that we can fill up as we travel, the bottle connections we use in Ireland don’t work in the other countries of Europe. We use the gas for cooking and heating so we don’t want to run out. It was also an opportunity to take the camper out on a test run to see what we’d forgotten… It’s really easy to forget what we need when we are in our house. It’s also hard to pack for warmer weather when there’s snow on the ground. In the past I’ve ended up with too many fleeces and too few t-shirts.

2018 3

(Happy as a pig in… a messy van)

This will be our third year travelling away from winter in Ireland. We read the same news as you. We stay in contact with our family and friends via mobile phones and computers. We cook dinner (well, Denis does, I wash up!) We watch YouTube videos instead of television. We shop in supermarkets, including Aldi and Lidl! It’s very like living at home except for the view. Some days we wake up in a car park and some days we wake up in a forest. Some days the birds are singing outside, some days waves are crashing, some days there’s rain falling on our roof which always makes us smile. Because the one constant of this way of living is that nothing is the same as it is at home. Surely this rain isn’t the same as the stuff we complain about all the time in Ireland…?

But it is and the thing that makes all the difference is your point of view, Mairead.

What if life was just about being?

April 6, 2017July 6, 2017 | Mairead

(On the road to Nantes)

Today, Thursday, we are in Nantes, France with just three days left of this journey. We have been travelling back since Sunday morning from Lagos in the Algarve, Portugal. We spent Sunday night in a lovely car park in Estremoz, Portugal, near the Spanish border. Monday night we were in the beautiful city of Burgos, Spain (thank you to Angela for this suggestion, two years ago!) Tuesday night we were next to a huge lake near the town of Mimizan south of Bordeaux, France. Wednesday night we stayed in the town of Surgeres, France. For both Friday and Saturday night we will be at Mont St. Michel and on Sunday night we will be sailing home to arrive in Greystones on Monday. At this moment I am very, very tired and very, very grateful.

(Like two old friends by the lake)

I often think about the messages life brings us… not necessarily the hard messages, the illnesses or the problems. But the small warm and gentle encouraging messages. Messages that in a normal day, we can miss. When we started this journey I didn’t think I would be blogging but it turned out I couldn’t stop myself. I missed the extra something writing brought to the experience of travel. Now, I think I know what the extra something is… writing makes those messages visible. When I started with the first blog it had a step, Step 1. Write. I didn’t expect there would be more steps but a step turned up each day when I sat down to blog. Now that I see them all together I can see the gentle encouraging message life has been sending me.

(Write…)

Step 1. Write.
Step 2. Stop Talking to Fear.
Step 3. Repeat Step 2.
Step 4. Take it easy and find a way to enjoy the journey, whatever it brings.
Step 5. Take more tram rides.
Step 6. Do the work.
Step 7. Stay awake to the beauty.
Step 8. Acceptance, it’s not always possible to fit in.
Step 9. Gratitude… for the old, slow computer that is working.
Step 10. Live in the present.
Step 11. Make time for rest.
Step 12. Believe it, you are so, so beautiful.
Step 13. Always wait until Monday.
Step 14. Say thank you to your washing machine.
Step 15. Less junk, less storage.
Step 16. Listen, you are alive, isn’t that amazing?

(Beautiful Burgos)

I am human so I like to think that I’m not wasting my time flitting around in a camper van. I’d like to think I was accomplishing something… or at least bringing something useful into being… Now I think that the only thing I can be bringing into being is myself. Wouldn’t it be great if that was enough? Yes. Maybe it is.

Step 17. Be, Mairead.

Stop Talking to Fear

February 20, 2017 | Mairead

(Very nicely located car park at Entrago)

We left Cangas de Onis this morning and set off for our next home. It’s a small village called Entrago, with a car park in the Picos mountain range that allows camper vans to stay overnight. I am sitting outside in the sun as I write which is very pleasant. There is a breeze but as the sun is a little warmer than I’m used to. All is well.

(A strange convoy of caterpillars… asking a question?)

When we picked this spot I had no idea we would be travelling through the Picos on route. Probably just as well. Before we set off Denis put the gps location into his sat nav and there was a choice of a shorter route or a longer route… Hmm, something shouted in my head “Take the longer route!” and I think it was Fear… I was more than willing to listen to Fear, but Denis wasn’t…. so we took the shorter route…

(Some of the Picos)

It was narrow and windy and steep (23% gradient) and I fervently promised to spend more time listening to Fear in the future if he would only make this scary bit better, NOW… he didn’t. I hate Fear.

(Beautiful Picos)

And then there was a break in the trees and we spotted the most amazing sight. Hundreds of mountains stretching off towards the horizon, the furthest covered in snow. There was no place to stop the van, there was no opportunity to take a picture I just had to enjoy the moment before it passed and try to remember how beautiful it was and how amazing it made me feel. And I was able to stop making promises to Fear and start paying attention to what was passing so quickly all around me. Beauty. It generates a very different feeling. Kinda mushy and kinda strong all at the same time.

Picos

(More Picos)

I had completely made peace with getting no photographic reminders when just ahead we saw a bus (a bus came up that road?!) parked… in a grand big car park! We would be able to stop after all and we did and I got some pictures for you… and for me and for Beauty and there’s none for Fear.

Step 2. Stop talking to Fear… Mairead.

The first step…

February 19, 2017February 19, 2017 | Mairead

(Cangas de Onis. Old Roman Bridge)

Home today (Wednesday) is a car park in Cangas de Onis, a very attractive town on the edge of the Picos mountain range in northern Spain. The sun is shining and it’s warm. On Tuesday home was the car park of a hostel in Bilbao, it was sunny and warm there too. On Monday it was a camper van park beside a lake in the south-west corner of France, it was grey and raining there. The day before, a different camper van park in Fontenay-le-Comte, which is about 50 km north of La Rochelle, it was cold and dark there. On Sunday we were sleeping on the Rosslare to Cherbourg ferry where it was wet, windy and surprisingly pleasant due to an amazing invention – the stabiliser. (From Wikipedia, stabiliser: gyroscopically controlled system used to reduce the rolling of a ship. It works.)

(View from the bridge)

I decided before leaving not to blog… because I didn’t know how to write about the other kind of journey, the one last year where lots of things happened… but they didn’t happen to me so they weren’t my story to tell.

(Lac d’Azur south west France)

Now I find myself on this other journey through France and Spain and eventually Portugal and I realise I miss the writing. Without it I feel like I’m ignoring some important extra sense of what’s going on. Of course I could just write in a notebook. Yes, I could just write in a notebook. Why don’t I just write in a notebook?

(Close up to the bridge)

I think I don’t write in a notebook because of a character flaw – I am a procrastinator. I put stuff off until tomorrow. I put things into the tomorrow tray… and the tomorrow tray is just an imaginary tray where no writing (or anything else) ever gets done. Stuff only gets done in the today tray, if you get my drift? Blogging, for me, has a deadline and although I don’t like deadlines I do respect them and they make me put stuff into the today tray… so blogging gets done.

Step 1. Write, Mairead.

A day in the life…

March 18, 2016March 17, 2016 | Mairead

(A little bit choppy)

It’s St. Patrick’s Day as I write and as luck would have it, there’s rain so we feel quite at home! I promised my friend, Julie, ages ago to include the normal day-to-day stuff of life in a camper van and I never did… So for Julie, here’s a typical day on the journey! (Well, a typical travelling day.)

The alarm went off at seven am and I got up, opened the roof vent blinds to make staying awake easier. The blinds in the van are really good, complete darkness guaranteed but when it’s dark it’s tempting to fall back to sleep. Then I drank my health drink, got dressed and sat down to meditate.

(Can you see the spray?)

Afterwards I went off to take some sunrise pictures as we were by the sea, waking Denis before I left. As we are by the sea the site is sandy so I don’t wear shoes inside the van so that’s a bit fiddly taking off and putting on shoes or slippers. It was very cloudy this morning and I think I was too late for the moment of sunrise. I’ll look at the pictures later. When I got back Denis was up un-hooking the electricity and turning off the gas. He’d taken down the cab blinds and turned the driver and passenger seats to the front (they can turn around to face the table when we are stopped).

(I like the reflection of the sunlight on the water)

We used to have a list of things to do before we left a pitch but we lost it… Usually we remember everything and if we don’t I can do them as we move… slowly. Like pushing the buttons to secure all the presses and locking the fridge door. Putting away the kettle, the dishes and any food. Opening the window blinds and turning off the 12V battery and the water pump. Putting away the laptops. Plugging in the phones and turning off the wifi. Securing everything that might fall off the table.

We were driving out of the campsite at 8.10am following the instructions of Molly (we named our sat nav Molly, Molly!). We love Molly, even when we take the wrong road she never fusses, she doesn’t even say recalculating she just goes quiet for a moment or two and then finds a way to make our mistake go away. She takes very good care of us (except when she was taking us on the very scary roads in Portugal but that’s in the past, we’ll say no more about that…)

(Stripes of colour)

Molly takes us on the toll road and I am very happy. Denis is not as happy but we have reached a compromise – the one who sits closest to the oncoming traffic gets to choose, so we take the toll road today. Our two and a half hour journey cost €20 in tolls, I feel it was worth it. In Spain you stop and get a ticket as you enter the toll road and then as you leave the toll section of the road you put the ticket and your credit card (or cash) into a machine. In Portugal the number plates are scanned as you drive under cameras (like the M50 in Dublin). We may be getting a big fine because although we connected our number plate to our credit card, the system is really difficult to understand.

(What is that?)

We arrived at today’s campsite at noon and I brought our passports and camping card (there are reductions off-season) to reception which was at the bar. It’s slightly different at each campsite, but at this one you pay first, get a choice of pitches, the location of the toilets and showers, the wifi code and then you’re on your own. Sometimes we walk around looking at each one, to find the very best…. today we took the closest and reversed what we had done to leave the last campsite. Within half an hour we were sitting down to lunch.

Denis makes dinner each day and usually lunch too and I wash up. Today because of the rain I turned on the water heater to wash the dishes in the van, usually I wash up in the campsite sinks. It saves gas (we need to save gas because the gas bottle connectors are different here, so we must bring all the gas we will need from Ireland). It also saves the water in our clean water tank and it means we don’t have to empty our grey water tank as often.

(Foamy waves)

While the water was heating I went to investigate the toilets. Toilets are different everywhere we go and bear no relation to the cost of the overnight stay. We are paying €20 per night at this campsite, the most we have paid so far on this journey. My friend Magda was asking me what I was looking forward to most on this journey and I said the toilets! She thought she had misheard but no it’s the toilets! Everything else is so new and interesting and fun but…. toilets are essential.

We have been very lucky, the toilets have always been clean. After that, toilet paper, soap and a drier make everything perfect. My investigation showed there’s no toilet paper, soap or dryer here… oh well time to take the toilet bag out of the wardrobe…. The toilet bag contains a toilet roll, a bar of soap and a hand towel. (Note to self: Remember to bring the toilet bag…)

(This is my favourite one)

Now both of us are at our computers, Denis is at the table, I’m on the bed with my feet tucked under my favourite patchwork quilt. He’s talking to a client and I’m writing… this. Next I will look at the pictures from this morning and add them (or older ones) here before posting. Then I will have a shower – no queues in the afternoon. And back to working on my book. We will eat dinner around 7.30pm. Then read or play a game or if the wifi is fast we will watch the latest video from our favourite YouTube camper van geek. I will be in bed by 10pm. Denis might be working until midnight.

Too Much Information? Mairead.

PS Forgot to mention breakfast! I cannot survive unless I have breakfast within an hour of waking. Normally, I have it before we leave but today with the picture-taking there was no time so we stopped at a service area before I got too grumpy where I cooked my Irish Paddy’s Day Flahavan’s porridge.