Arrival in Valencia

Chris, Jo, Liz and Brian on the apartment terrace

We all arrived safely here at the apartment on Sunday afternoon around 4.30pm, closely followed by Tim from and his wife, Diana, to show us around and hand over the keys (thanks for the bottle of bubbly!). Around two hours later, Jimbo the Scot arrived complete with around 30 boxes of our stuff plus kids bikes, folding bikes, kitchen sink etc. After filling the hallway to the point of bursting, we all managed a plate of tuna and pasta with the remnants of the bubbly.

Yesterday was an early start for most with the decanting of thirty boxes into thirty neat piles (Chris says 29 because his didn't end up in a neat pile!) and the children both went down to explore the swimming pool a couple of times (see below)


The 'piscina' (swimming pool)

Chris and Jo both made some English friends at the pool. Meanwhile, Brian spent the day fizzing over a problematic broadband connection. Despite the engineer from ONO (cable broadband company) turning up around 4 hours early, after he'd left, it was a further half day trying to get anything to work!

Of course, the biggest celebration of the day was Liz's birthday (I'm thinking of running a poll on the blogsite for people to guess her age!). Having failed to provide her with a birthday card, Chris and Jo both designed one for Brian, but then forced him to hand over 1 euro each for the results (Chris reminds me I'm operating on a line of credit as I have yet to pay!)

To round off the afternoon, a Skype call with various members of the family followed by a long cycle along the old Turia riverbed, past several playgrounds, crazy golf, past the Palau de la Musica and the Gulliver (a children's drop slide and climbing frame in the shape of a giant concrete Gulliver from Gulliver's Travels).

Some of us were up nice and early this morning, though we discovered Chris sprawled out, fast asleep on the sofa in the lounge (just like a teenager, but without the booze and fags!), but when he finally came to, he discovered a series of mosquito bites all over, so he needs a day of cold swimming pools and salty sea water to calm the itching down!

Cottenham to Valencia

The trip from Cottenham to Valencia was lots of fun and surprisingly the ferry trip from Portsmouth to Bilbao was calmer than anyone could have expected (a previous ferry trip northbound last Tuesday has seen Force 10 gales so we had anticipated a swell at the very least).

Arriving in Portsmouth on Friday evening, Chris and Jo were told off for taking a photo in the port itself (for security reasons!) which I thought was a little unfair, so I took one instead!


Portsmouth ferry terminal

The ferry was due to leave at 9.15pm, but because of the weather shenanigans earlier in the week, we finally departed at 11.30pm, by which time we were all very tired, though we still managed a three-course meal in the carvery (despite the dissuasive efforts of one of the restaurant's managers who seemed a little 'unsure' as to how to deal with people with special dietary needs - it reminded me a little of some of the better episodes of Fawlty Towers - can't remember if it was the goose-stepping episode or one of the ones where Basil abuses the diners when they ask for any particular item on the menu!). Still, the rest of the catering staff were absolutely fantastic and provided an A*** service, as if by way of an apology!

As we've said, the crossing itself was so smooth, we hardly knew we were moving. Perhaps the funniest aspect of the trip was the huge number of whale 'twitchers' (as I referred to them) on board. These folks - hundreds of them - were up on deck at all times of the day and night with cameras on tripods, binoculars, deckchairs and other gear, dressed in a weird array of clothing, eyes permanently fixed onto the horizon. I'm not certain a single one of them spotted anything other than a very occasional fin, but it was highly entertaining watching them run from one side of the ship to the other as someone called out "whale at 11 o'clock" or similar. I was dying to shout out a few false alarms just to see them all get some exercise!


Chris, Jo, Liz and Brian on board 'Pride of Bilbao'

With nothing much to do on board, we did watch a movie in the ship's small 'cinema' - more of a lecture theatre - Evan the Almighty. Very funny if you haven't seen it already.

Sunday morning we were up with the seagulls and after a rushed breakfast, we were amongst the first to depart the ship. Jimbo the Scot kindly navigated us to the motorway just outside Bilbao before we overtook him and started on our eight-hour car journey south. Coincidentally, we bumped into him again at a service station a couple of hours later before we arrived ahead of him at the apartment on Sunday afternoon. The bikes had managed to stay intact on the back of the car and within a couple of hours we had been reunited with all our luggage as Jim hit Valencia. In fact, Chris reminds me that Jim went a bit 'off course' when he got into Valencia, but one of the benefit of a 9th floor apartment is that we can see most things with a bird's eye view, so when Jim put his warning lights on,we were able to spot him and navigate him down to the apartment from over 500 metres away.


Arrival of car and bikes at the apartment