Well friends,
The journey south is well under way. But first, let me tell you about a short stay in Portsmouth.
This year, Pauline expressed a wish to visit the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. This meant travelling to Portsmouth one day earlier than in previous years. We stayed overnight at Premier Inn, Port Solent, and next day used the morning to go round the museum. It was the best museum presentation we have ever seen. The Mary Rose was HenryVIII's favourite ship and was in the Solent with the fleet. When the French navy turned up she simply capsized. Of course, the French claimed to have sunk her but there is no evidence. The likeliest story is that she was either overloaded or incorrectly loaded.
However she was located on the seabed and eventually carefully raised on a special cradle. Following this she was sprayed with saltwater for 6 years and then slowly impregnated with a preserving wax. She still rests on the cradle in a former dry dock/. There she sits - about half a ship hull in subdued lighting. At regular intervals visitors see holograms projected on her that show various crew members at work. It is wonderful. There are 3 levels you can use to view her as well as through a glass sided lift that takes you to each level. On each level are hundreds of artefacts collected from the seabed and the ship from huge cannons to small coins. There is even the skeleton of the ship's carpenter's dog in a sitting position. It is the most extensive collection of Tudor artefacts in the world. As it was raining at the end of our visit we were given complimentary plastic ponchos to keep the rain off.
Well worth a visit if you are in the area.
That morning I got a text telling me the ship would be delayed by 45 minutes. This became 75 minutes and then the Pont Aven (pronounced Avenne) sailed for Spain. We had the usual high class food in the restaurant before retiring to bed. Next morning we discovered the ship would arrive 2 hours late at Santander. During the night a passenger had a heart attack and had to be taken off by helicopter. This meant that when we arrived it was dark and we had to satnav our way to Hotel
Chateau La Roca. This was not easy because there were so many twists and turns we kept missing. We did arrive there and we found that, once more, two cycling teams in La Vuelta (Spanish equivalent of the Tour de France) had got our usual parking place. Nil desperandum because our friendly hotel manager had reserved a spot in their underground car park at no charge!
Before retiring we ate a lovely seafood meal washed down with beer. In our room was our usual welcome gift of fruit. We collapsed in bed! Next morning we chatted to all the staff who know us well by now. At breakfast Pauline spilt coffee down her top and trousers so we washed the stained area and dried it with the hair dryer! All was well except the trousers were written off.
Finally we left to start our journey south. The farther we drove, the warmer it became. We arrived at our Parador, parked up and checked in. Now I am sitting in a peaceful room with Pauline resting her legs which are very painful. We got the same room as last year. We now wait with great expectations to see what dinner will be like.
Watch this space!
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