In the words of Francine, “we’ve become tired of staring at our unresponsive ‘Hi-Ho Silver-Haired-Cloggy-Away Dutch neighbours” – the ones with the caravan that is so badly loaded it rears up like a stallion when you slam the brakes on…

[You should get the joke in a minute.] We spent s splendidly peaceful night at our blissfully rural site Bruere-Allichamps. The morning dawned with as many clouds as we’d had the day before but, nonetheless, I decided to wander along…

One of the items on our Brockenhurst shopping list of yesterday was peanuts. Not peanuts for us but peanuts for a bird feeder that we purchased down here on a previous visit. We are pitched beside a tree that has…

Having piqued Francine’s interest with a dawn photo shoot at Moraira, we did manage to kick ourselves out of bed early one morning in an attempt to get back there before the sun. We were even brave enough to try…

The observant may have noticed that Franco has been strangely quiet since Boxing Day 2013 [a.k.a. Piglet Day]. This silence was largely down to something of a hiatus back at home caused by Francine’s mother taking a tumble on Boxing…

With an overcast day in prospect and chores having taken up a fair chunk of the morning, we thought we’d head over the mountains south to investigate the Fonts de L’Algar, a tourist attraction/trap waterfall uncomfortably close to Benidorm. Since…

About one kilometre down the valley towards Benissa is a lavender garden that is open to the public only on Sundays. Being a fan of the lavender fields of Provence, Francine was keen to stick her nose into this one.…

Spain is one of those European countries where languages get mixed up. Here, it’s a little like driving into Wales and suddenly being faced with a mixture of road signs in Welsh as well as English. I’m not a fan…

With almost a week of mostly sunny, clear weather in the bag, we thought we’d try a walk up the Jalón river, that is to say, towards Alcalalí. I suspect that the river flows a little too quickly for for…

Bereft of life, that is. The Bernia is a roughly Snowdon-height mountain, that is to say about 1000m/3000ft-ish, to the south of the Vall de Pop where we are house-and-dog-minding. There is a spectacular circular walk around its peak but…