What's bugging us?

We are not sure, but we've both been intemittently slightly unwell for weeks, in my case for months. The same symptoms repeatedly - sore throat or ear ache, itchy eyes, occasionally a bit of a cough and the feeling that you are going to succumb to a fluey cold. Then you feel fine for couple of weeks before the pattern repeats itself. Annoying. Is it some form of mild long covid? 

We probably should chat to a GP about it when we get back, though actually getting to speak to a doctor is not straightforward. The NHS is falling to bits, sadly the practice we are signed up with is collapsing more quickly than most. A couple of weeks ago we got a feed from our local paper announcing the place had been put into special measures after the Quality Care Commission found, amongst a host of other failings, a pile of 2000 letters from hospital consultants that had not been dealt with. It was never a great practice, but just before Covid struck the group of doctors we had known for years all took early retirement when the place was acquired by an American owned conglomerate. The firm operates a dozen or so GP practices across Northwest England. It's far too late to be concerned about the NHS being privatised, large swathes of it already is, contracted out to 'health care providers' with shareholders to satisfy. 

Having felt less than perky in Zaragoza I was pleased to feel much brighter while in Logroño. From there we planned to stay put for a few days in Zumaia in the run up to Easter, maybe take a day trip by train to San Sebastian and perhaps another to Bilbao. Sadly it was fated not to happen, we both went down with a classic fluey cold. Just like the one that I claimed a paragraph or two never seemed to fully develop from its mild early symptoms.

So we stayed put on the campsite, only venturing out for a daily walk down into town. Luckily the weather was bright and sunny, chilly mornings but with warm afternoons. We have used the site in Zumaia so many times that when we arrive the woman on reception says 'hello again'.

Day one - we walked towards the port area down the riverside path...

Took a photo or two of the old town...

Found the cafe where we had tostas last time we were here, shared a Basque cheesecake with our coffees,

Walked to the beach area and admired the spectacular geology....

Day two - exactly the same as day one, apart from café, we went to a different one but ate the same thing. Brain fog is probably overstating our state of mind, but we are definitely happy to just do the same thing, which is not typical.

So, day three, same thing! We decided that you can have too much of a good thing so far as Basque cheesecake goes. Also, just to get a different perspective of the amazing geology we decided to climb up to the white church on the western side of the bay. A coastal path runs from here to Deba. 

Zumaia seems to be a popular place for a day trip, since it was Good Friday it was busy, the coast path especially. A couple of hours wandering about is as much as we could manage so we headed back to the van. Time to pack overnight bags for the boat. Setting out on a trip is an event, a moment. The end of a journey just drains away, not water under the bridge, more like down the plughole! 

Feeling ill dampened our spirits further. Not being able to do much did enable us to spend time discussing future plans. We have vehicle dilemmas. Our car is 13 years old, a diesel Ford Focus estate. There is nothing wrong with it, at 80,000 miles it's got plenty of life in it. However, it is overdue a new cam belt and the rear suspension has an ominous clunk. The cost of the repairs are at least as much as the value of the car. We probably should replace it when we get back.

Then there is the moho question. It's nine years old, has over 50,000 miles on the clock and looks well used. As last month's debacle over getting the fridge repaired showed, if you travel for almost half the year you do need a dependable vehicle and the older the vehicle the less dependable it becomes. It's tempting to trade it in for a more recent model with a low mileage. After checking on-line the cost of doing so was shocking. When we bought our current motorhome in 2018 it was four years old with a low mileage. It cost £44,000. To buy a similarly aged vehicle now would be around £70,000. Does it make any sense at all to invest tens of thousands of pounds in something newer, but practically the same, especially as the rate of depreciation for older motorhomes is half that of newer ones? We concluded it makes more sense to refurbish our current van rather than swap it for a newer model.

This is not entirely a pecuniary matter, there is a more salutary consideration. When we began wandering about for months on end back in 2014 , aside from the occasional full-timer, the odd digital nomad or families home-schooling on the move, the majority of retirees 'living the dream' were some years older than us. These days the situation has reversed, most people doing what we do are some years younger than we are. What is more thought provoking is that the most elderly people we come across look as if they are about five years older than us. No doubt there are exceptions here and there, but in the main it seems to be the case that most people seem to reach a point where being on the road for months on end stops being fun by the time they hit their early seventies. We don't regard ourselves as exceptional, so it makes sense to invest and maintain the moho we have rather than spend all our savings buying a more recent model. Our wandering days are not exactly numbered but they are finite. It took us a while to reach this conclusion, but between being laid-up with the bug and enforced 'leisure time' on the return ferry we had thinking time aplenty. 

As well as concluding that we needed to swap our car but keep the same moho we entertained ourselves on the crossing by moaning about it. We were lucky, it was flat calm for both coming and going, otherwise the whole experience was utterly charmless. 

Brittany Ferries' marketing pitch attempts to persuade their hapless customers that they are on a 'cruise ferry'. What this offers is a triumph of style over substance. The ferry itself is decked out in ludicrously quirky style that is uniquely French. The catering a arrangements reflect a Gallic insistence on 'le menu' with full table service and a Maitre 'd at the front desk trained in customer scare. As for the food, it was terrible, a mis-cued  pitch at gastronomy, weird, badly cooked and laughably over-priced. 

The long sea crossing makes sense on the outward route, this trip is the first time it is the first time we have used it both ways. In January or February it makes sense, saving a cold drive the length of France. Using ir to return later in the the Spring it makes less sense, it is about £200 more than the cost of fuel, overnight stops and motorway tolls, it is tedious and the food is borderline inedible. Maybe the long drive is preferable.

The Solent was grey and foggy, border force at Portsmouth affable, which not always the case when you arrive at Calais.

We were booked into a Caravan and Motorhome site near Winchester. The place has set aside a dedicated hardstanding area for late arrivals off the ferry. It's accessed through a secure automatic barrier with a code hidden in an envelope pinned to a nearby notice board. It's all a bit 'Famous Five', but the arrangement worked.

 I am not a fan of the 'club' and have fulminated about its 'boy scouts' trained wardens a few times on the blog. In fairness the arrangement for ferry customers at the Winchester site worked well and we would use it again.

We headed home next day. It may be mid April but it still looked like winter in the Pennines. I still feel buggy, the weather forecast is gloomy, increasingly Britain feels as foreign as being abroad. However it is our home country, so somehow I am going to have to find away of feeling more positive about it. I don't know how.