We left Southern Spain and spent 2 days in Zaragoza, a beautiful old Moorish city with a huge cathedral in the city centre. We spent several hours wandering around the town, soaking up the Spanish Sunday atmosphere, a laid back, casual and chilled ambience. The beautiful buildings had a cool look to them in the late afternoon sun despite it being cold and windy.
We drove cross country to the north, passing fields full of snow from the previous week’s heavy storm and snow fall. Outside the temperature dipped to 6c, we didn’t hang around long at the services!
We got up to Bilbao ferry car park the night before our ferry was due to leave, to park “safely” overnight, or so we thought. We were disturbed about 11.30pm by the Guardia (police), checking our truck. A visual inspection seemed fine. David happened to open one of our lockers only to find we had a lodger, who the Guardia very quickly removed by the scruff of the neck and escorted to a “secure location” far away from our lockers ?. We had another inspection at 6am with the Guardia present after we heard our lockers opening again at 4am, luckily no additional lodgers! We then had the trailer scanned before loading onto the ferry for a horrendously rough crossing to Southampton, delayed by 4 hours due to gale force 8 winds!! I have never before been so sick – and no alcohol was involved!!
Being scanned!
Eventually we arrived at a camp site in Bicester, hunkered down and waited for a local repair company to take a look at an electrical issue we had developed. Back in the UK for a few days, it’s cold and windy, raining that horribly miserable light drizzle, and daylight ends at 4.30pm!!! This is not what we are used to….so roll on the warmer climes of India!!!
Whilst in Bicester, David struck a deal with the company that serviced and repaired Samson in the past so suddenly, he has a new home and we are homeless! We frantically packed our contents into the truck and a hire van and put everything into storage. Our son Robin, kindly dropped everything, sprung into action and drove down to Bicester in a hired van, helping us all day to put everything into storage, for which we are very grateful.
Samson has been a fabulous home, he got people talking and looking, looked stunning beside the lakes in Lake Garda and the sea in Croatia and Venice, and would have earned us a fortune if we had charged for every photo that was taken of him ?
However, storage and being unused for months in the UK winter would not have been good for him, and we want a smaller mode of travel for Europe, one that doesn’t require a football pitch sized area to park in to relieve David of the stresses of parking such a beast, so a good move all round.
Sad to see him go, have loved living in him for 5 years, but time for a change ??????
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