27th January 2017. Vera, Spain.

I caught up on emails this morning and made a complete fool of myself!

I had been replying to my Spanish friend Eva and because I wanted the email to be rather longer than it would have been if I’d written it with my current knowledge of the Spanish language I wrote it on Google which then translated it into Spanish for me, I then cut and pasted the result into my email on Facebook.  I wrote one paragraph and then erased that in the translation box and repeated the process as I went to my email to add the current paragraph I was suddenly very excited to discover that after all the lessons I’d been doing on Duo Lingo I could now read every word of the first paragraph I’d pasted.  That excitement lasted for a full 5 seconds before I realised I’d been a COMPLETE idiot and cut and pasted the English side of the translation box!  D’oh! Not content with cutting and pasting the wrong box once I went on to do it three more times, GIVE ME STRENGTH!

Later on in the afternoon we went for walk into Vera with Jane and Steve, it was a long old trek up along a dusty road but it was very peaceful (except for the sounds of Jane and I gas bagging) and we passed a huge herd of goats grazing beside the road.

We weren’t sure where the heart of the town was so Jane came to the rescue again with her Pokemon app, what would we do without it)  We wandered round a pretty little square, saw what would have been sparkly ornate fountains if the water hadn’t been turned off.  Then we found a cafe where we had coffee, we were rather disconcerted when a waterfall of water came shooting off the balcony of an apartment a few feet away from us, we were concerned the flat behind us might do the same and we’d get soaked, however our worries came to nothing and we decided to walk back as we felt a spot of rain.

Jane’s app took us down to another paved area with murals painted on the walls, and we noticed the park that we’d driven beside on the way to the aire.  We crossed the dried bed of the rambla and walked back to the edge of town via through the park with its sculptures, children’s playground and boating lake.

On the way back down the lane we noticed a house which looked brand new on the outside, it had a beautifully laid block paving driveway but inside all the walls were smashed and there was no glass in the windows and no front door, what a terrible waste of a new building.  It was a nice sunny walk until we turned the corner to the lane back to the aire where we were knocked back by the howling wind, where was THAT hiding.

We got back to the aire and Jane and I went to explore the grounds and look at the art work that someone had made throughout the aire.  When we got back up the hill to the vans I discovered that ours was still locked and had visions of having to walk all the way back down to the bar however I found Darren sitting in Jane and Steve’s van with a glass of beer so Steve and Jane ended up stuck with us for another hour until we left to get ready for our evening over at theirs where we were having dinner.  Steve cooked a very nice chilli and we had another lovely evening.