27th November 2016. Javea, Spain.

We left Beki and Ronnie today but it was a close run thing as to whether they would be stuck with us forever.  It had been quite a tight squeeze getting the van in through the gates without going down the storm drain but to get out Darren had to reverse up the curved driveway which was on a hill and covered with gravel.  ‘Reverse’ on our van is a bit strange, as soon as the clutch bites it wants to race backwards at warp factor 10 so it’s REALLY difficult to reverse at a sensible speed.  After a lot of tooing and froing Beki suggested Darren reverse all the way down the hill and turn at the bottom rather than at the top as he’d been trying to do.  It was still a challenge but he managed it perfectly.

We were very sad to say goodbye to Beki, Ronnie, Matt and Lily (especially as I failed in my mission to whisk Lily away with us!) We had had such a wonderful time with them and it was so nice to see a friend from home.

We drove to Javea where we arrived too early to get into the site (our friends Kathryn and Alex had recommended the site) so we turned around and parked in the road.

Our idea was that we’d make lunch and then go back at 4.00 p.m. when it re-opened however when I opened the freezer it was swimming in smelly defrosted food liquid!  Apparently while we were staying with Beki and Ronnie the gas had gone off in the van which in turn cut the fridge off!  We couldn’t face dealing with that whilst parked in the street so our first job after we’d settled into our pitch was to clear the freezer (or to be truthful it was Darren’s first job, mine was to cook up all the food that was salvageable).

The gas kept cutting out while I was trying to cook but we assumed it was something to do with the gas bottle which eventually read as empty on the gauge.  Unfortunately that turned out not to be that case.

The rest of the day felt VERY strange not being with our friends and we only lost that feeling when we Skyped our family the following day.

It was a horrible rainy night so we snuggled down in the van instead of exploring and listened to the live music coming from the little bar nearby.  It sounded really good but we couldn’t muster up the energy to walk over so we just enjoyed it from our van instead, perfect!