I’m all bonjoured out, why are the French so bloomin’ polite? I’m so looking forward to going home and growling and scowling  at people instead! It reminds me of being a child and practising ‘French table manners’ at table, making sure everyone else had enough to eat or drink before helping oneself. In a family of seven, this could be quite trying, when all you wanted to do was stuff your face with roast potatoes or have a glass of water. Back to the here and now, since many French seem to think we Brits are spawn of the devil post Brexit, it pays to be polite: so at the washing up sink, going to the loo, in the bread shop, first thing in the morning ‘Bonjour bonjour bonjour…..’
We’re finishing our  trip at a small, pleasant campsite by the sea near St Jean de Luz before sailing home. The showers are hot but the controls need pressing a lot, otherwise you end up with a head full of shampoo or a soapy body but I manage to trample out the underwear to keep me going till I get home…..back to where I was when I last left you…..
I went home for a few days in early March and caught a filthy bug, which made landing at Castellon airport an interesting experience. I felt as if I was at the bottom of a large indoor swimming pool, unable to hear but just seeing people’s mouths move at me….until I held my nose and blew et voilà!
Alan picked me up from the airport: he’d trundled across to Castellon from Seville, where I’d left him and driven through snow and rain and basked in a heatwave. Where is Castellon? To the north of Valencia, it has an airport to which Ryanair and one other airline flies, so about 2 flights a day in and out. A very relaxing experience! The following day, we collected the newly cut spare car keys (remember they were lost in the Douro valley? It took this long to replace them!) we discovered a large food and handicraft market (hooray!) and found out it was the town’s Maddalena festival. This commemorates Castellon’s origins and seems to be centred largely on fireworks. Everyone was heading in the same general direction, so we tagged along, it was mid afternoon, midweek, mid March and all the town was in party mood. After a short display by Czech marching girls who varied between embarrassed, haughty and bored, the fireworks began. Forget health and safety, you could be permanently deafened if you listened to this lot for too long! And that was the competition: to make as much noise as possible by competing teams, every day of the week. This was copied with gusto by small boys in the street who let off bangers at every opportunity, reminding me once again of my childhood but fortunately there were no Jumping Jacks….remember those?!
Then on to the tapas and beer where we jostled for our ticket at a central booth, paying 5 euros for  two tapas and a beer. Back to the sunny campsite, where the Germans were still wandering around in dressing gowns ( I really am going to have to introduce them to the concept of leisure wear and stop them looking like unglamorous Noel Cowards…) but all very friendly. It’s only some French who appear to have a problem with us….
Next stop Barcelona, where we stayed out of town and caught the bus, all very convenient. A beautiful, vibrant city with funny little squares and something to look at round every corner. I loved it but who doesn’t? I was afraid it wasn’t going to live up to everyone’s promises but it did. As for the Sagrada Familia, how beautiful is that?  And very touching to see how people respond to the beauty of it, quite reassuring that we haven’t all been dumbed down…..

Then we decided to turn north, homewards. ‘Let’s go through the Pyrenees!’ I said and so we did. The only problem was, the first night by a lake at around 1500 metres, our heating blew out huge amounts of smoke and stopped working. Despite our best efforts and frantic texts to Darren and Clare, we were left in the cold…..Of course that particular night, it decided to get REALLY cold ! It was also the first night in all our travels that I was really spooked: footsteps crunching along our empty lakeside road in the middle of the night and stopping next to us…..aaargh! Alan leapt out of bed and turned a light on…..and the footsteps continued on their way…….
We woke to frost on Lottie and all over the grass, brrr! No hot water either, so we continued on our smelly way. The weather was beautiful and we drove through some spectacular scenery to Quillan and Kate and Keith’s house, where we reported on (lack of) progress by the builders. And so to Limoux and a lovely stop by the river Aude in a pretty town, famed for its Cremant or sparkling white wine. Fortified by two glasses of this in a local hostelry, we tried the heating again and of course it worked, in the sunshine….dodgy diesel and altitude had made it stop working in the mountains, now it had got itself warmed up, it was happy to warm us up too! Gee thanks, could have done with that last night!
On to Carcassonne by train, for the princely sum of 2 euros return each (sorry can’t find the euro sign on this keyboard), where we oohed and aaahed at the beautiful towers and turrets. We’ve decided we need an ‘ooh aaah’ button on the back of Bertie which flashes up when we are driving around pretty scenery, to warn following motorists that we are only going at 30 mph…….no wonder we always take longer than the sat nav says!
And so we continued along the Pyrenees, heading towards Bilbao and the ferry. Each day’s drive was more spectacular than the previous day, except when it rained….I promise I will never complain about rain in the UK after the rain of biblical proportions over here (well I’ll try not to). When it starts it lashes down. We stopped in a tiny hamlet, L’Hopital St Blaise, with a beautiful church where pilgrims on their way to Santiago used to stop and maybe still do but there were none loitering around when we were there! It was raining and the river was roaring along, just beside the camperstop. We kept a wary eye on it overnight but all was well and next morning, the sun was shining again! Hooray!

So to Espelette and proper Basque Country, home of the red pepper with white houses with reddish brown shutters and strings of peppers hanging down the walls. Being Basque Country, the beret started to appear and I tried some stealthy photos but haven’t yet succeeded. I have got one of my own though, in a rather fetching pale pink…..well, if you can’t beat ’em…….

Which brings us to this campsite here near St Jean de Luz and the wonderful Atlantic coast. There was a cold wind when we arrived but that has stopped and the weather is glorious. We’ve explored St Jean de Luz, Biarritz and San Sebastián and if I have advice for anyone visiting, it’s find somewhere to park well out of town….it can be quite trying and we even witnessed a woman scraping another car in her anxiety to park! Oops! We had demounted Bertie so we were only driving around in a naked Lottie but it was still pretty trying as pedestrian zones and narrow zones loomed up….We decided to park and ride at San Sebastián, did our research, located sites and there was nothing there! After driving around in desperation, we eventually hit upon a parking area near the hospital where buses stop: this is the Park and Ride San Sebastián style….. Beautiful cities and towns all three of them, based as you would expect upon the sea and their wonderful bays. It’s warm enough for the brave to swim and surfers to surf (no I haven’t before you ask…..) It strikes me that the Atlantic coast is far more active than the Mediterranean and far more family orientated: I suppose it’s hardly surprising, given the tide and the surf but here you get families with buckets and spades, beach balls and games, grannies cuddling little ones under rugs in the shade, it’s not just people turning themselves over and over again in the sun or strutting their stuff, as you tend to get on the Med……
And so, I’ll be home in a few days, just Bilbao and the delights of the Guggenheim await. So I’ll bid you farewell and catch up with you all later in the year…….there’s a promise!