Andalusia Day, Zagan Moves, Motorhome Fridge Woes and Much More
I have nabbed the laptop from Jay after realising that the only blog posts I have written this year were a 2020 round up and our book giveaway last weekend, and it’s now March. How did that happen? They do say time flies when you are having fun, so here’s what we have been up to in the last week including Andalusia Day, running, Zagan actually moving (such a rare event these days) and more fridge woes – I’ll leave you to decide if you class it all as fun.
Andalusia Day
The 28th of February is Dia de Andalucia, which celebrates the referendum in 1980 when the people voted to for Andalucia to become an autonomous community of Spain (I’m not sure the UK is ready for anything similar for its last referendum!). We were here in Nerja for Andalucia day last year and watched loads of families take to their bikes for a cycle ride around the town, followed by a free prize draw giving away loads of bikes.
This year, as we’d already experienced with carnival and other annual fiestas, the organised events were cancelled. We walked into the town on the day and despite the weather not being great, we were pleasantly surprised to see a lot more people out and about. The beach was lined with people fishing, surfers bobbed in the waves created by the wind and finally the Balcon de Europa, the main focal point of the town, sprung back into life. Sadly it didn’t seem to last long, and normal quiet Nerja has resumed, albeit a tiny bit busier than the same time last month.
Our eBook Giveaway
Last weekend we ran a promotion through Amazon to give away one of our eBooks. We thought about twenty copies of ‘A Monkey Ate My Breakfast‘ might get downloaded over the weekend, how wrong were we? We ended up giving away over £4,000 worth of books, as over two thousand copies were downloaded. It is just a fantastic feeling that so many people want to read our ramblings, and for me the best part is all the lovely feedback we’ve had as folks read all about our first motorhome adventure in Morocco.
Keep On Running
Back in December I signed up for a 20 mile run which takes place at the end of March. The Ashby20 is a very popular race near our home in the UK, but like so many other races over the last year it has gone virtual, which means I can run it here in Spain. I’ve been following a training plan since early December, and despite a fall a few weeks back, I am back on track. This week was my final, furthest training run of 18 miles. Anyone who knows me will know I am not the best at maths, and maths while running – don’t even go there! I’m always getting my miles and kilometres mixed up, so I did the maths before I set off. 18 miles is 29 kilometres, and as I had chosen a route along the coast, the flattest land around where even I would struggle to get lost (sea on the left on the way out, on the right on the way back), I needed to turn around at 14.5 kilometres.
You could say I was surprised when my watch buzzed to say I had covered 15 kilometres, thinking back I realised I must have been negotiating a tricky junction when it announced 14 kilometres, I was feeling good and knew that 20 miles is 32 kilometres, so instead of turning around I carried on and ran to 16 kilometres. Of course on the way back it was nowhere near as easy as my speed gradually decreased and I stopped more frequently to admire the scenery around me. But I did it, I ran 20 miles. It took me 3 hours and 51 minutes (or 4 hours 38 minutes if you include all the stops – one of which was 10 minutes in a queue at a shop to buy an orange!). I can’t really believe I did it, but I am glad I did because now I know that on the weekend of the race there will be no doubt in my mind that I can do it!
Zagan Moves and Fridge Woes
Something strange happened on Tuesday, Zagan moved. We felt that after a couple of months stationary, we should take him for a spin, so we rolled him off his levelling ramps and out of the campsite. We didn’t go far, just to Lidl in the next town (the one in Nerja is still closed for refurbishment) to buy all the heavy stuff we don’t like lugging back from the shops on our bikes. I tell you what though, it felt good to be back on the road and moving, even if it was only for a couple of hours.
Arriving in Lidl car park Jay switched the fridge over to gas and it lit straight away, then it went straight out. Several attempts later and we figured it wasn’t going to stay lit, so we did the shop anyway knowing it would be back on electric hook-up before anything could get warm. Cupboards brimmed we got back to the campsite, ramped up again, hooked up and set about finding what was wrong with the fridge. Something similar had happened last summer when we were staying in Yorkshire, and we ordered replacement parts, only to discover that it started working again after we’d given the back of the fridge a good clean. In order to access the important gas bits of the fridge on our Hymer B544, we need to take the rear bumper off, and fortunately for us having removed it just last summer the worst of the rusted in screws had already been dealt with.
Despite replacing the gas burner and jet with lovely new ones, the fridge doesn’t seem to always want to stay on. Jay had done some investigation and it looks like we might need to replace the thermocouple, or just give the current one a good clean. So that’s our plan for some point in the next few days. Get the bumper off again and clean the thermocouple, if that doesn’t work, then we’ll try and get a new one and replace it (or find a motorhome dealer to replace it for us as we can only see one end of it, so have no idea where the other end goes!).
Nerja Covid Update
Covid cases in Andalusia continue to drop, and here in Nerja (a town of 21,144 people) there has only been one confirmed case of Covid in the last 7 days. The Junta of Andalusia met this week and reviewed the covid restrictions currently in place. Most of them are staying, the overnight curfew from 10pm until 6am; a travel ban between the eight provinces of Andalusia and the border for the whole of Andalusia is still closed. Municipalities that have a rate above 500 cases per 100,000 people in the last 14 days (orange on the maps) still have to close their borders, and any with a rate over 1000 per 100,000 (brown on the map) have to close non-essential shops and their border, but a revised map was also provided this week and it is showing a lot of blue.
Blue is Level 2, and yesterday Nerja moved to Level 2. This means restaurants and bars can now stay open until 9.30pm (they had to close 6pm before) and we can sit in groups of six outdoors (previously four, which is still the case for indoors). It is a step in the right direction, but the Junta are being cautious as Easter is rapidly approaching and they don’t want another wave like the one caused by Christmas.
Our Plans
Following the announcement of the UK’s roadmap out of lockdown and the falling cases here in Spain, our moods have lifted. It looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that tunnel doesn’t seem very long now. We’ve discussed our plans to return home several times. We were originally booked on the ferry from Santander to Portsmouth on the 28th March but this was cancelled by the ferry company. They offered to let us swap to a sailing on a different date at no extra cost, but as we considered it the Daily Mail published an article stating that Spain might be added to the ‘Red List’ and we would have to quarantine in a hotel – they also said it would happen by the end of that week and as always, it implied it was a fact. The same article appeared in the Telegraph (we expected it from the Mail after the article they wrote about us, but seriously I’d have expected better from The Telegraph). This all set our nerves jangling and anxiety levels about being able to get home were already high, so we took a refund for the ferry to leave our options open.
The calendar clicking over to March, seriously focusses your mind. When we arrived here back in October the end of March was so very far away, now we have to be out of the Schengen area by the end of this month (our 90 in a rolling 180 days will be over). Talking to other Brits on the campsite, it sounds like there may be a bit of an exodus, but from looking at the ferry booking website (there are still places available on most crossings), it might not be quite as bad as the exodus last March when Spain and France started to lock down due to the Covid-19.
The first of the Brits to depart from the campsite were Cath and Mark. They left a big gap on the site and not just because of the size of their rig. They were great neighbours and because we walked past their pitch every time we went anywhere from our pitch we have spoken to them the most on the campsite. Mark also kindly drove all the way to Malaga airport to collect us when we flew back after Jay’s Mum’s funeral. They are travelling in a fifth wheeler, something we don’t see a lot of on the road, and as the campsite can be a bit tight in places, there was quite an audience for when they set off.
It’s a bit of a strange feeling for us, normally we’re the ones who move on, not the ones left behind. Slowly over the next couple of weeks more and more of our neighbours are going to disappear. So we’ve decided to make a plan. We’re now thinking more calmly and have agreed that the lovely ‘Daily Wail’ was not letting facts get in the way of a good story when they wrote their piece. We’ve decided Spain probably isn’t going to go onto the red list any time soon, so we’ve booked a ferry from Santander to Portsmouth for the 31st March. We’ve paid up at the campsite until the 25th March which gives us a few days to drive across the country before Easter week starts (and any possible travel restrictions that may bring) as well as plenty of time to get our Covid test done and the results back before we sail.
We have a plan, we’re feeling more positive and hopefully in a couple of days the sun will return. In the meantime, we’re safe, dry and warm and so pleased we decided to come to Spain for the winter.
Ju x
Great news about the book, that’s a huge amount, hope that spurns them on to read your other titles. Great to see you moving, miss the watching you guys travel… take care glen & co.
Wow well done Ju, 20 miles is amazing! How long has it took you to build up to that distance?
Hi Kate. I have been OK doing half marathon distance for a while, so it’s taken a 12 week training plan (minus a couple of weeks after I fell over) to get there. Could probably be done quicker, but I just started the plan when I booked the race and will follow it to race day (it’s one of Hal Higdon’s marathon plans – I like it because it is about doing the distance each session even if you walk some of it) Ju x
That’s much quicker than I expected! It just shows what can be achieved in a few months with LOTS of hard work and determination. All the best for race day.
Hi guy’s. Sorry to hear about your fridge woes. Ours stopped working after being parked up for a period of time. In desperation we disconnected it, placed it upside down for 24 hours and presto it worked and continues to do so. Just a thought before embarking on the expense of a née one. We’re down in Cabopino at the moment, there are two guy’s working out of La Cala de Mijas doing MH repairs and we know a few people that have had been satisfied with their work.
Cheers Roy. Thankfully ours works fine on hook-up so the refrigerant is OK. We’ve since retested the fridge on gas a few times and it’s consistently staying lit now. Who knows why, but we’ll do a few more tests before we go and probably source a replacement thermocouple while we’re in quarantine at home (and work out how to fit it). Glad your fridge fix worked, thanks for writing, Jay 👍
Hi J&J
Enjoy reading your blog. Thanks for enabling us to vicariously travel on with you. Curious and pleased to see that the rates of infection are declining in the region. Is there a vaccination programme down there enabling this as per the U.K.? So many anti EU stories circulating in the press at the moment it’s hard to glean any accuracy. Safe travels with care!
Paul
Hi Paul
Yep, Spain is vaccinating as fast as it can. According to the NY Times, the country has vaccinated only about 1/3rd as many people as the UK, so whether that’s driving down rates, I can’t say.
It does seem strange being where we are, with practically no positive tests now and yet bars, restaurants, gyms and schools are all open? Masks might be helping – everyone has them on when anywhere near others. I guess the climate down here could be helpful – it’s comfortable to sit outside most days. Also, industry around us is mainly tourism and agriculture. The former is almost dead at the moment and the latter requires you to work outside, so there might be very few catching the disease at work. A night curfew is in place, making a few sneaky/illegal late night drinks at a mate’s house hard to get home from. Also, a network of border closures has stopped people moving around, or at least reduced movement, which I guess has reduced family/friend gatherings.
There are lots of restrictions here, but Spain’s regions seem to have all sidestepped the need for a stay-at-home order this winter (some wanted this power but Madrid refused it). Fingers crossed the country is on the route to freedom again.
Cheers, Jay
Ah. Of course! Being able to safely co-exist mostly outside without in-door socialising will be the catalyst for the virus decline. That plus respectful mask wearing. Thanks for your reply. Safe travelling
Paul
Love hearing about your travels, we normally spend part of the winter in Spain. We are duel residents of UK and South Africa and were in SA when COVID hit and we decided to stay. The rules here are much the same as Spain, masks hand sanitizer and social distance. Our seven day average for cases is down to 1400, with similar population to UK. The country could not afford a second lockdown. Enjoy the rest of your trip and a pleasant journey home.
Thanks Moira. ❤️👍 Jay
Safe journey home. It’s been nice to read about what we are missing. That is the weather, etc, not the running, I’m a bit too old for that. We are planning to do the journey, that 2020 COVID put on hold, through France and Spain, just as soon as we can.
Cheers Brian. ✊👍
Hi guys. Just thinking about your 90/180 schengen days. Is it not cumulative? So the time you were back in the uk wouldn’t count, meaning you could technically stay longer? I honestly don’t know much about it, but that seems logical to me.
Hi Kathleen
Yep, if we’d returned to the UK in the past 90 days that would enable us to stay in the Schengen Area longer, but we went home in and returned here in 2020.
Cheers, Jay