Villeneuve to Pals - Spain!

27th October

79 miles

We had factored in a day of frustration attempting to find somewhere to re-fill our LPG bottle. So convinced was I that the pictures of cylinders with big red crosses on them to found on LPG pumps would mean real difficulties finding a garage willing to serveus that I had downloaded a list of six suppliers in the Perpignan area, and identified an aire just 12 miles away where we could head in late afternoon following a gargantuan struggle.

Hi,

Here is the translation:

1. To open the gun, press handle B while keeping handle A pressed in, then release B to arrive at position 2.
2. Insert the gun into the cup so that the 3 “claws” fit behind the outer rim of the cup. Press handle B until it locks (if a leak occurs, release the handle and start again). Fill the tank by pressing the button on the pump.
3. To disconnect the gun from the vehicle: Press handle B in while holding lever A, then gradually release handle B. Hook the gun back onto the pump.

Light the blue touch paper, and…. run away!!!!

Hope all goes well,

Jackie x

Envoyé depuis Windows Mail

De : Gill Turpie
Envoyé : ‎vendredi‎ ‎24‎ ‎octobre‎ ‎2014 ‎19‎:‎42
À : Famille Komaromi Eales

Hya
We are going to fill our GPL cylinder... Not allowed we know....
Could you have a look at the photo of the instructions.... And let us know what it's all about.  We have the special attachment for France...
Help!!
G&P

As it happened, armed with the translation of the pump instructions that Jackie had kindly provided after we sent her a photo of the notice, we struck lucky at our first attempt in Perpignan Auchan and had a full gas cylinder by mid-morning.

 "Let's go to Spain," I suggested. We rolled up at another store, bought two more wine boxes, a load of Lavazza coffee, enough to keep us going until we are back in France next March. Sadly we had a Leffe blond failure as nowhere seemed to stock the 25 bottle cases; it's San Miguel at beer o'clock for the next few weeks I fear.

We trundled through the tawdry border towns, skirted Figeures, then turned towards the coast at Gerona, heading for the campsite near Pals which the ASCI book listed as open all year. An odd aspect of the hinterland of the Costa Brava is although you are south of the Pyrenees, the countryside looks more northern than the Midi, especially in autumn as the woodland is more deciduous than in Roussillon. The agriculture is more mixed too, with fewer vineyards and more ploughed fields. The dryer looking landscape in Languedoc probably has as much to do with the underlying limestone rock, and maybe it lies in the rain shadow of the Pyrenees.

The Catalan yellow and red striped flag was draped over the balconies of many of the houses in the towns we passed through. Roundabouts were festooned with big sheets of yellow plastic and the lamposts decorated with bows in the national colours. It is now less than two weeks before the regional government's unofficial referendum on Catalan independence. It seems from the lack of posters that Madrid must have put the kibosh on overt canvassing - no better together message here - just an official cold shoulder for the whole notion. That could backfire, the region seems bathed in pro-independence yellow and red. Certainly the girl in reception was in no doubt, and full of praise for the UK governments willingness for the Scottish referendum to go ahead. All over Europe national governments are under pressure, not just from calls for greater regional and ethnic  autonomy, but from ordinary people in general who feel that politicians are a law unto themselves and liberal democracy as it exists within the EU is far from the American notion of a Government by the people, for the people. Understandable as those concerns are, the genie of ethnically driven nationalism is a dangerous thing to let out of the bottle. I understand how the Catalans feel concerning the suppression of their identity and persecution of their national leaders under Franco, but the dangers of resurgent nationalism must worry older Spaniards: the bloodiest battle of the civil war was fought in the borders of Catalonia; over 100,000 people died in the Ebro valley. No one would want to see a return to inter-racial war in Western Europe. Ukraine reveals just how quickly such conflicts can develop. The future of the 'European Project' appears to be in some jeopardy, and that, I think is a risk to future peace and stability. It will be interesting to be here in Spain in the next couple of weeks.

So there you have it, today's blog... a change of country, a short diversion on the question of liquid petroleum gas, and an extended diatribe as regards the future of Europe. And I haven't even had a drink yet!