Sarah cursed the dogs this morning for waking her up even earlier than usual. Mabel is now 12 years old and I don’t think her bladder is as strong as it used to be. There was a side benefit to the dogs’ insomnia and that was Sarah managed to see and photograph a spectacular pre-sunrise sky.

Sarah was one of the first and last people in this part of Spain to see the sun today, because it almost immediately turned overcast and although we could always see blue sky out to sea it never returned to us.

We probably should have taken the opportunity of a cloudy day to move on but I ummed and erred and finally it was too late. So it has been a leisurely and uneventful day. A stroll to the supermarket for some exercise; a bit of chatting to neighbours; some reading; and some more planning.

I have a rough idea of what the next few weeks will consist of and the first thing is we are going to avoid the whole of the south coast up to Gibraltar. From what I’ve seen from past non motorhome trips and read in my guidebooks, it is, more or less, all a concrete jungle. So we will explore inland a bit in our current area and spend some time on the coast a little to the south, which is a national park, then cross Spain East to West avoiding the coast. We’ll explore some towns on the way and try the coast near the Portuguese border, which is apparently also relatively unspoilt. Then it will be time for some more planning.