OPERATION COCKEREL IS A GO! GO! GO!
After 4 months of planning and waiting for the right
start time, rather like Apollo 18 or the 07:23 from London Bridge to Charing
Cross, the day finally arrived.
Having sold the Jeep and bought the Renault 4 and having
escaped from Jerez with half my shirt and no pants and finally getting Cristine
(The Renault 4) through the ITV (MOT) on the third time of trying, it was at last green light for go.
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| Third time lucky |
Leaving Spain does have its downsides, and I will let you
know what they are when I think of one. I never did get my money back from Golf
El Puerto and funnily enough my solicitor is now not returning my calls. Quelle
surprise. I can imagine him cycling on my bike (stolen) to the golf club to
enjoy his years free membership. Hope he gets oil on his trouser leg.
Some say that Atlantis is in fact located under the Cote
de Doñana national park, which is ironically, located 10 miles from Jerez, and
According to Plato was wiped out by a cataclysmic event bought about from on
high. All I can say is, that when god was playing ‘Disaster Darts’ that day, he
must have been on the piss, obviously aiming for Jerez, he hit Atlantis. Nice
one God.
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| "One hundred and eighteeeeeeeey" |
Day 1
I set off for France from Valencia with Cristine packed
to the gunwales with all my brik-a-brak, my home made table of bamboo and all
my camping equipment. At 19:30 and after 258km I arrived at Camping Vingyols,
in Vingyols, south of Barcelona and was greeted by a tall German bloke with a
strimmer and mirrored glasses
Better get this right I thought
“Hola” I said
“Hello” he replied
Good start I thought. After a brief chat he said I could
pitch my tent anywhere under the Hazelnut bushes past the bungalows. Well my
worries of whether there was going to be any space in the campsite were soon put
to rest as there were only three pitches
taken in the whole place. One by a French couple, one by myself and the other
taken by a horse. Not sure if the horse was French or not.
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| Garden was a bit long and thin |
I pitched my tent and headed into the local town for a
beer and watch Barcelona V Spartak Moscow. There were only two bars in town and
I am glad to say I picked the right one. Tapas came thick and fast and so did
the beers and the goals. As I sat in the bar the rain began to tumble out of
the sky outside the bar and my thoughts wandered to the water resistanceability
(Ed…is that a real word?) of my, as of yet, my untried and untested tent.
A couple of hours later I returned to N º 3 Hazelnut
Avenue and my concerns were unfounded as the inside of the tent was perfectly
dry. A far cry from camping from yesteryear I thought.
I lay my head on my travel pillow and was out like a
light until about an hour or so later when the dogs started barking and being accustomed to this by now, I lay awake and
listened.
As the dogs barking died down there came another noise,
completely different, from another kind of animal.
“Screeeeeech Mooooaeeeee” it went
It came from the woods behind the campsite.
“Screeeeeech Mooooaeeeee”
There it was again, but a different pitch. And there were two of them.
“Screeeeeech Mooooaeeeee”
“Screeeeeech Mooooaeeeee”
Obviously conversing these two, I thought, but what animals
were making these noises. I deduced by the decibels that they must be small animals,
probably furry. Don’t ask me why furry
“Screeeeeech Mooooaeeeee”
“Screeeeeech Mooooaeeeee”
I was racking my brains, I went through every animal I
could think of, and some I couldn’t, trying to put the noise to the animal.
It was as if I had one of those plastic children’s toys,
the round ball with the holes cut out in different shapes and you had to push
the correct shapes through the correct shaped holes.
“Screeeeeech Mooooaeeeee”
It was as if this shaped noise was like a cross with a
ball on the end and a triangle fixed to the side that slid up and down. I.e.
impossible…..
I gave up, and I fell to sleep, happy in the thought that
at least there were two of them and they would propagate the species of the “Mystery
Animal” so future generations could enjoy and study them.
Back in the woods……
“Screeeeeech Mooooaeeeee” (Alright Colin)
“Screeeeeech Mooooaeeeee” (Fine thanks Geoff)
“Screeeeeech Mooooaeeeee” (So it looks like it’s just you
and me left)
“Screeeeeech Mooooaeeeee” (Yup)
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| Colin and Geoff out for a stroll |
Day 2
I set off again at the crack of Dawn after fighting with
my “2 Seconds” tent. One of those that you throw in the air and “Wump” it’s
open in 2 seconds. Mine should be called
the “20 minutes tent” that’s how long it takes to fold the bloody thing up.
Off I set, heading further north and to France.
The border crossing is now non-existent and there wasn’t
even a stroppy French policeman to ask for my Passport. In fact I didn’t even
know I had crossed the border, then I realised that I hadn’t seen any dog shit
on the pavement for over half an hour so I must have left Spain about 20km
back.
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| Getting out of Spain was at times tricky |
I arrived at Camping La Garenne just west of Perpignan as
the sun set and just had enough time to get the tent up before the light faded.
Luckily I had my head torch but when I put it on my head I realised that it was
as heavy as a Knights helmet and threw out as much light as a 1984 South
Yorkshireman’s miner's lamp.
They gave me a dry, arid pitch that was right at the front
of the campsite. Unfortunately there was a large spot lamp shinning across the
ground and onto the side of my tent.
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| "Oi , you knicked my tent pegs?" |
I’m never going to get any sleep with that thing gleaming
on my tent, I thought, so I got my large, heavy tarpaulin out of the back of
the car and strung it between the two trees at the front of the pitch thus when
it hung down to the ground it created a large black curtain blocking the light.
With that done I broke out the Primus stove and my bag of
goodies. My dinner consisted of a cheese starter followed by a bowl of pasta
with cheese and for desert, cheese.
Well that certainly helped with the dreams but the real
action didn’t kick off until the middle of the night.
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| "Who put grapes in my shopping basket?" I exclaimed at Carrefoure |
I retired to my tent and unfolded my sleeping bag which I
soon found out, as the temperatures dropped significantly during the night, had
about as much heat retention as rolled out piece of steel.
I crawled into my ceramic sleeping bag and finally nodded
off to the sound of a distant dog.
The silence was broken abruptly in the middle of the night
by something scrabbling and scratching outside my tent on the tarpaulin.
I sat bolt upright and instinctively shouted at the top
of my voice.
“Oi, SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS”
I was wide awake now, scrabbling inside the tent for my miner's
lamp.
What the hell is it?
Rats?
No bigger.
Dogs?……
And there it was again the scratching scrabbling noise,
but this time getting closer to my tent..
“HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAA” I went in an even louder in a low
threatening voice
Then the wind dropped and my tarpaulin, that I had
inadvertently set up like a big sail, stopped scraping across the gravel ground
towards my tent and returned to its
original position at the front of the pitch.
Realising my schoolboy error, I lay there in total silence.
I had woken up all
the dogs from Perpignan to Paris.
“Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof” (What the
hell was that noise?)
“Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof” (Sounded
like that English bloke in that tent)
The whole campsite
was awake. I could hear the grumblings of the French from inside their caravans
and murmurings from the other caravaners the other side of the hedge.
Me? Quiet as a mouse.
Day 3
The day started with me sheepishly packing up my
tent. Other than the odd glance from the
other campers as I made my way to the wash rooms, nothing was mentioned, but
one just knew they knew.
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| A fond farewell from La Garenne campers |
I folded up the tent and headed off along the tree lined
roads of Southern France.
I stopped in Narbonne to go to Decathlon and buy a new
head torch and a sleeping bag. After an hour or so I was up to date with the
sleeping equipment and I headed north towards Nimes.
This was a three star campsite, well… I decided to push
the boat out a bit, and Corrine was pleased to take my money, €10, at this busy
but well-run camping.
I just had time to pitch my tent in the fading light
(Ed...again the fading light) however this time I was relaxed as I knew I had
my new head torch to help me. As the sun finally went down, and the campsite was
plunged into total darkness, it was then I decided to get the head torch out.
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| Prisoner number 55 |
Doh! After struggling with getting the thing out of the
packaging, difficult even in the daylight, and locating the batteries, I
finally got the thing to work.
I switched it on and …..Hallelujah…. It was as if the
light of creation was ushering from my forehead illuminating the whole
campsite. Was that a ships horn I heard?
“Bloody hell…that’s more like it” I said out loud.
By 10pm the rest of the campers, I say campers again it’s
mainly in fact all caravans and mobile homes, had eaten and by the sounds of
things had gone to bed.
Not to say that its mainly old people here but I worked
out that I was the youngest at Camping Gabriel by an estimated 20 years, and
the next youngest was a tree.
I started up the Primus again and on the menu tonight
was:
Le Menu Repas
Sprackling
∞∞∞∞
Entrèe
Sun dried
sunflower seeds roasted with rock salt – Pipas
∞∞∞∞
Plat
Toulousaine saucisson
cooked in goose fat and Haricot Vert – Can of sausages and beans
∞∞∞
Desert
Fine wafer thin
caramel slices with chocolate fondant filling covered with cocoa syrup - A Kit
Kat
As I warmed up my dinner, I realised that there was one
drawback of having the Belisha beacon as my head illumination.
 |
| "Bonne appetite" |
Within 3 minutes I had become a living breathing David
Attenborough documentary. There was every sized bug imaginable bouncing off my
head and I am sure some went into the sausages and beans. I half expected to
see Bear Grylls come out of the darkness with a net and a knife and fork.
My fears were confirmed when I could hear a from the direction of a French
caravaner, who had obviously come well equipped, as he had hanging from outside
his caravan, one of the electric neon fly killers like the ones you find in the
fish and chip shop that once in a while go “Tzzzzzzzz” as a fly goes to meet
its maker.
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| "Whats this I'm eating?" |
Well this thing sounded like a fazer fight scene out of
Star Trek
”Tzzzzzzzzzz…..Tzzzzzzzzz…….Tzzzzzzzz”
I didn’t realise that I had inadvertently checked into
Mosquito Miami.
I heartily tucked into my Bugs and Beans and after half a
bottle of wine, I was soon ready for bed.
With my new sleeping bag unrolled I looked forward to a
good night’s sleep. That is if I could get into the damn thing.
The bottom bit, by the feet, was so narrow. I ended up
sleeping like Jesus on the cross with my feet one on top the other and as for
the arms out stretched, forget it. Warm yes, but did I have to trussed up like
a chicken. Mai Non!
 | |
| The new range of Sleeping bags from Decathlon went down a storm* |
*mask not included
Day 4
Fishing through the bins was the first order of the day
as trawled through the wheelie bin looking for the receipt for the ‘Strait-Jacket’
sleeping bag (Ed...Freudian slip), I threw away the night before. By this time,
though, other campers had a deposited their detritus on top so it took a bit of
rummaging but I found it. I knew watching all those Bin Fishermen in Spain
would come in handy.
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