Ordinarily beautiful.

L' Ametila del Mar is an ordinary sort of place. A small scale tuna fishing port with an old town on the hill behind the harbour surrounded by bland newer developments. No aspirational attempts to pedestrianise the main street or remove the graffiti from the seafront promenade. Of course this is Mediterranean Spain, so tourism is an important local industry, but it does not predominate. We like it. It's yet another example of a place we have returned to (fourth visit) despite our aim to seek out new places.

Camping Nautic, where we are staying, is new to us. The place is on the edge of town, a ten minute stroll from the shops and at the end of the esplanade. The best thing about the site is it is next to Cala Pixavaques, a picture perfect cove with a small sandy beach and an ideal swimming spot. Our pitch is 80 metres from the beach. I have become a fish.

There are downsides to the site, pitches are quite large, but awkwardly placed trees and lamposts make it tricky to manoeuvre a 7m van into them. There is some noise from the railway and AP7 motorway too, but it is a town site, it's not reasonable to expect total peace and quiet.

Even in early October it is busy. A mini-EU, or more accurately, EEA with vans from Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Poland and of course a clutch of Brits. There is some clustering - so you do get outbreaks of stereotypical behaviour, which is always entertaining. We are next to the mobile Republique. Every late afternoon involves a loud and enthusiastically contested boules match which goes on until evening, when, one presumes, 'les monsieurs' are told by leurs épouses, "Le diner est servi!" ....tout comme leur maman a fait quand ils étaient petits garçons.

Whereas I am happy to indulge in a bit of amateur social anthropology, simply observing, Gill can be prone to more direct interventions. I put her liking for social engineering down to her spell as a special needs teacher in Manchester and her involvement in the development of assessment strategies derived from behaviour modification. She is not averse to applying them to unwitting members of the public. 

Her latest project might be best described as interceding in cross-cultural communication to effect behavioural change in campsite salutation rituals. First it is important to set out the normal, or at least the habitual behaviour. It is simply good manners to greet fellow campers in the morning with a cheery 'something-or-other'. If you all speak a different language, it raises the question, what 'something-or-other' is appropriate? A tacit agreement has developed where most people use the greeting of the country they are visiting - "Hola, in Spain; 'Morgen' in Germany; Buongiorno in Italy...and so on. When I say most people, this does not include most citizens of La Republique, who insist on a very assertive 'Bonjour' no matter what foreign part they happen to be in. This irks my beloved who now greets our neighbours with a beaming smile and a jaunty 'good morning!' prompting baleful glares in return. There is no way Skinner is going to work on the French who have decided that reality is a 'simulcra' anyway. How could the actual ever change the simulated? It pleased Gill, however, to have made the point, but she recognises it's impossible task, so has reverted to a universal 'hola' for the moment..

So, life goes on, political shenanigans on the news, summery weather with a deep blue sky and an even darker blue sea. Days slip by, my intention to start on the pile of books I've brought stymied by the time it takes to update the blog. Occasional sniggers from across the table signal that Gill is making better progress on re-reading the Discworld novels than I am with Monsignor Quixote. I must be doing something right however, when I checked my blood pressure yesterday it was lower than it's been for months. A reasonable 135/80 - it has not been in that zone since....well oddly enough since May when we were parked by the Mediterranean at l'Estartit.