18th January 2017. Cartagena, Spain.

It was raining when we woke up.  Our plan was to move on to the aire at Cartagena this morning.  Darren had read the weather forecast and it said there would be some snow in the area, we were rather sceptical about this but when Jane and Steve turned up Jane told us she’d been outside for a walk and there had been a light sprinkling of snow.  I was REALLY disappointed to have missed that but as it was raining again we thought that was probably the extent of the snow.  We all had coffee together and while we were chatting it started sleeting.

After lots of chatting Jane suggested we make a move to the aire as it was supposed to be torrential rain tomorrow and we had visions of being washed down the road and into the sea.  We did say to them that we weren’t too concerned  as we were parked behind them because in an emergency we could use their van as an anchor!  Just kidding, or are we, let’s hope we never have to find out!

We followed them which was just as well because as we came to the junction that led to the  visited motorhome dealer we’d visited a couple of weeks before our SAT NAV tried to send us off there, whereas Steve’s was directing him to stay on the motorway.

As we got nearer to Cartagena snow started falling heavily and the landscape was transformed into a winter wonderland, it was FANTASTIC, it was so exciting because it was the last thing we were expecting to witness in lowland Spain.  We saw cars passing us with about an inch of snow on their roofs.

We eventually came to the aire (which was in an enclosure attached to a petrol station) only to see Steve sail past it, we declined to follow him and turned into the aire where Darren chose to park up near the entrance, his reasoning was that the drainage was situated up near the back of the aire and it would be smelly there, so I bowed to his greater judgement (unfortunately it was to transpire).  Luckily there were two roundabouts on the road we’d pulled off from which supplied us with our afternoon’s entertainment as we watched Steve and Jane go past on the other side of the road and then a little while later pull into the aire while we waved smugly at them.  Steve parked next to us,  Jane saw him onto the pitch, unfortunately they were parked right behind a shelving unit filled with refillable gas canisters.

Around 8 p.m. there was a lot of clanging and clanking as the men in the petrol station moved the canisters around, replacing those that had been returned, what a racket!

We had a lovely evening.  We had a meal together, we laid the table up with bowls of olives, piquante peppers and sundried tomatoes, bowls of allioli and tomato, onion and feta salad made with tasty green/red Spanish tomatoes, (why don’t the tomatoes in the UK taste that good?) which we had with bread that Darren toasted.  For our main course I made a green salad and toasted seeds and Darren cooked padron peppers, which were gorgeous, and reheated a Spanish tortilla which we topped with fried onions.  One of the reasons we’ve enjoyed being in Spain is that we’ve learned a whole new way of cooking, Darren is particularly good at doing tapa.

Jane popped back to their van after dinner and came back with some card games and her little vacuum cleaner.  She brought it over so I could use it to clean the van because it was driving me mad that I could see dirt in the runners for the table but couldn’t get it out with the brush.  She did offer to do it for me and did have a quick go but I felt that it was a bit off inviting your friends over and then getting them to do the cleaning!

We had a great evening playing Uno, Jane thrashed us, we’re sure she had some cards up her sleeve!  We made a plan to go into Cartagena tomorrow if the weather was a bit better.