Heading for Winter

 Back home, we're heading for our first winter in our (much) smaller Leigh-on-Sea house....

...but how sensible we were  to move here.

How will the latest Covid variant affect our travel plans which are, to be honest, pretty vague again... and what about our planned time back in our Spanish home?

In England* face masks are now compulsory for shops and public transport as from yesterday but there seems to be a patchy response in London; there were around 30% masked on the DLR trains we used yesterday which, of course, isn't really going to help contain the Omicron variant. On the other hand, the rule doesn't apply to pubs which must be because No 10 has discovered alcohol does the job instead. Ant-vaxxers, ant-maskers - England has lost the plot. How difficult is it to put on a mask which scientific studies show has a pretty dramatic effect on transmission in enclosed places? People are fed up and confused: we have a PM who doesn't follow his own guidance and 'experts' who aren't experts pontificating on the guidance. A GP who should know better  went unchallenged on BBC Newsnight after stating that masks make little difference. Leadership's sadly missing. That's you, Boris Johnson. 

* Of course, Wales and Scotland have this sorted

España at Last

Back in our Spanish home at last.

Part of both our hearts reside here and we've sorely missed this lovely place. This is pure therapy after all that's happened since we left in March 2020.

After clearing the Sahara dust, getting the car through the ITV (Spanish MoT) and general sorting the house out after eighteen months, we're intent on relaxing - which means tapas, beach restaurants, meeting up with friends and the like; think we need it, to be honest.

We haven't really sorted our Spanish stay periods really (to comply with our 90 day Schengen Zone limit) but we're here only for just over two weeks so that leaves some time for a reasonable stay in January onwards. 

The new reality. Got it.

(Not) Travelling Nightmare!

Did I say that we were heading 'up north' to explore the coast...

1. Well, a major leak from a split panoramic window in the 'van has grounded us for a while.... That's a major expense that Swift say is not covered by their 10 year body warranty.
2. The Touareg has been off the road for two weeks with an electrical fault that Southend VW can't fix. They've put in around £1000 worth of bits so far to no avail... The software won't let the key out or  allow the car to be locked because it doesn't recognise that the gear selector is in Park. Obviously we can't leave it on the drive unlocked with the key in. Thankfully, at the second attempt, VW Southend were really helpful and locked it in their compound while they attempted to fix it; pity they can't, really.
3. On the day the Touareg malfunctioned the sidewall of our little DS3's rear tyre was destroyed by a screw and it proved impossible to locate another Michelin Sport 3... That meant TWO Pilot Sport 4 tyres for the rear and three days off the road over the weekend.

That's three vehicles effectively off the road at once. 

I heard someone say that these things come in threes. Let's hope so.

Update#1

I've completed a temporary repair on the 'van with sealer and gaffa tape, ready for coastal adventures. The 'van is booked into WKD Caravan Services in October for replacement panoramic window.

Update#2

Looks like the earliest VW can get the required selector unit from VW Germany is at the end of the first week in September. That's 2 months off the road... No caravanning, then. Still doing some limited coastal adventures though.

Update#3

An early return of the Touareg enables us to spend a week or so heading north to add a little more to our coastal adventure from Scarborough up to Whitby. 

Travelling - but not as we know it

 We are, of course, still in the UK. It's been a salutary experience spending the winter here and now it's the second hay fever season that I'm living through. It's good for the soul. 

There's quite a lot to do in our new home as we're extending it so the lack of living in Spain and travelling hasn't been the major issue for us it might of been but we're missing planning adventures and, of course, our Spanish life. New normal. Leigh on Sea's great, though, as are the opportunities for family BBQ's in our new small garden and walks with friends. 

Lunching in nearby Maldon, this chap wanted to share my chips: cheeky young starling! Are the 'lockdown generation' of birds getting more tame?!

Anyway, this is the usual update post in the main blog, logging what we're up to and the adventures that we're planning. Not a lot, you might say,..... but we are filling in gaps in our coastal tour coverage and, this week, we set off  'up North' to spend time exploring the coast north of Scarborough and Whitby. It's proving to be quite difficult because so many people are trying out motorhoming or caravanning for the first time as well as the usual crew..... and they're all in the UK campsites so we can't find places to stay. We've managed to book a couple of weeks and we'll spend longer if we can find more pitches for our faithful outfit. Oh, we're spending a few days in York, too. 

It's all in our coastal tour tab for 2021.

In addition to our coastal mini adventures we hopped on the train from Leigh station to meet up with our daughters in London for Fathers Day. Brilliant time. We ended up eating Spanish tapas with some nice Spanish wine which was a bit of a bonus. The whole thing felt like another mini adventure as such trips do these days. It was interesting to see the scale of building in the city given the economic uncertainty. Someone knows more than I do, that's for sure.

No other plans...yet.

Stay Safe.

Travelling 2021 (Sort of)

 Well, It's coming up to one year since the UK locked down for the first Covid wave and here we are in our second lockdown - at least with a plan to relax restrictions a little. 😷 The UK might have been late in locking down but they've certainly got vaccination supply and delivery right. It's extremely impressive and we each have an armfull of good old Astra Zeneca.

As mentioned earlier in the blog our life living between two countries and travelling in the EU has come to an end - in the short term through COVID and in the long term because of BREXIT. We can now only spend 90 days in any 180 days in the Schengen Zone so, if we want to spend only half of our usual winter time in our Spanish home, we can't travel in Schengen countries until the summer. Then if we do that, we can't spend long in our home. So basically, the life that we have worked so hard for for is screwed; I appreciate that we've been fortunate, perhaps privileged, to make it all happen in the first place but we haven't got that much active life remaining and it's a bitter pill indeed... it's really no consolation that there thousands of others in the same boat. At least we've had the tremendous benefit of living and travelling with our fellow Europeans for over ten years and we should be very thankful for that. OK let's be positive from now on and readjust our horizon to the new reality.

............................................

So Updates so far for 2021:

Permanent travelling event: we move house to buzzy Leigh on Sea next Monday. It's a major downsize, leaving our family home of 20 years on Fenn Creek; this, we think, will replace the buzz of tapas bars and Nerja society to some extent. Excitement and sadness and a new life.

Goodbye, Fenn Creek:

We have our caravan back from the Swift Group factory in Hull - and a great job it is too: new back, properly fixed and a number of other changes and fixes. Well done guys, it's good for another few thousand miles. We'll likely be staying in the UK this year for reasons explained above and I'll log the trips in the coastal tour tab (HERE). We've wrapped it up in a nice cover as it won't fit on our new drive to clean it so all that happens in storage from now on.

We plan to head to Nerja in late summer/early autumn for a visit. We've had one Astra Zeneca Vaccination so far and hope that flying out then will be possible, new Covid variants here and in Spain permitting. We're, of course, missing friends and the life out there.

So there we are; vague plans and nothing particularly adventurous but, there again, just popping out to the supermarket is an adventure these days is it not?.. and, anyway, we are planning to extend our little hundred year old house in Leigh...