The last stage of our return journey to the UK having successfully and mostly very enjoyably escaped the worst of the British winter, turned into something of a nightmare.

At our northbound overnight stop at the Parador in Calahorra, I received text messages from Brittany Ferries telling me that the departure of our return sailing would be delayed due to adverse weather conditions. The adverse weather conditions were being caused by Storm Felix which was smacking into Portugal and Spain, before making its way onto the west coast of France. Astute readers will realize that between these two geographic locations lies the Bay of Biscay, complete with its reputation for roughness. I had experience some degree of the Bay’s potentially disturbed nature when I had once made the return trip solo, Francine having had to curtail her Spanish visit and having had to fly back for a family emergency. [See 2015 Autumn] Being a poor sailor, I was concerned but chatting with fellow passengers distracted me and got me through it unscathed, along with medication, of course. There had never been any suggestion of a weather delay on that occasion, so clearly Storm Felix promised to up the stakes.

First, a little orientation. The route between Santander and Portsmouth, on Brittany Ferries cruise-type service using more modern boats takes about 24 hours. We were booked onto the so-called Economy sailings, partly because it’s cheaper but mainly because it omits a few services that we wouldn’t use anyway. The Economy sailings are on an older, slower boat (Baie de Seine) and the journey typically takes 27-28 hours.

Our timetabled departure time was 17:15 on Sunday 12th March. The delay notification said that we would be boarding at the regular time (about 16:00) and that the ships’ doors would be closed at 17:15 but that we would not be departing “until the early hours of Monday morning”. Bother, but at least we’d have a cabin and not need another hotel.

We dawdled our way along our 3-hour route from Calahorra to Santander, calling in at Logrono to find the so-called elephant trail, a short walking route taking in numerous tapas bars, each stop, of course, requiring another drink. Well, it’s rude not to. The rolling gait of those who have over-indulged gives the trail its name. (Not us ‘cos it was Sunday and we were driving.)

We arrived in Santander at the perfect time, according to my personal travel manual, at 15:00. [Sunday] After a slightly longer wait than anticipated, possibly because the boat we still discharging the inbound cohorts, we boarded and got used to the feel of our cabin, a 3-berth outside cabin on the lowest accommodation deck, deck 6. Knowing we weren’t going anywhere fast, we set about reading and doing puzzles. There were certainly whitecaps in the harbour and flags were flapping vigorously but being moored, the boat was rock solid. We had our picnic supper and eventually retired.

Clanking sounds, throbbing of marine engines and movements awoke Francine at about 04:00 [Monday]. We gulped our first pair of Stugeron tablets each and settled back down. We made our way calmly out of harbour and into the notorious Bay of Biscay. Amazingly, we successfully returned to the land of nod and got a bit more sleep.

Sleep didn’t last long. Once awake, the ship was rolling distressingly from side to side. Each roll to starboard was severe enough to cause me to slide a few inches down my bed towards the footboard. As the ship rolled back again to port, I slipped back again to where I should be, on the pillow – down, back, down, back, and so it went on. The curtains covering our porthole, folloo the inimitable Mr. Newton’s Law of Gravity, swung out above our heads to about 25°. Being unable to swing in the opposite direction because of the cabin walls, they returned to apparent vertical, although the cabin wall, our reference point, was, of course, itself now at –25°. The movement was not regular, though it was constant. There would be periods of more modest rolling followed by an abrupt change to a more serious rolling. At one point, the hefty wooden cabin stool tumbled end over end towards our cabin door, stopping on its side just short of the door. We left it there out of harms way. The stool having been moved out of the way, our travelling electric cool box was next to totter over, or would have been had I not caught it before it hit the floor. Sudoku puzzle books were scattered across the floor. In seas this mountainous, there was never any thought of my attempting to solve any. Since I get sick just reading in a car, I was anxious not to do anything to endanger my already fragile equilibrium. Neither did Francine want to try to read her Kindle.

Conditions were much worse than on my voyage of two years earlier, so bad that this time the captain eventually ordered the shop and restaurant closed “pour les raisonnes de sécurité“ [for safety reasons]. It transpired that one woman had been thrown off her dining chair not once but twice. Quite why she thought dining might have been a good idea in such circumstances remains a mystery. We were also told to stay in our cabins and not attempt to move around the ship. Sound advice; even taking the two or three steps from our beds to our bathroom in the cabin was fraught with danger. At the risk of painting too colourful a picture, once in the bathroom it was necessary to cling to the counter top for stability whilst seated on the loo. “Tell you what, let’s not bother with a shower.” Since no food was now available to purchase, the crew delivered sandwiches and mineral water to every cabin, bless them.

It’s staggering how unsettling it is when nothing in ones world is stable. All fixed orientation points disappear, hence seasickness I suppose. I found either closed eyes or fixing ones gaze on the ceiling to be about the best approaches. Our discomfort continued unabated throughout the daylight hours of Monday and into the early evening, the time it took us to travel the length of the Bay of Biscay. The usual route out of the Bay and into the English Channel is a passage between a collection of islands off Brest at the western extreme of Brittany. The ships slow down to navigate the narrow channel between the islands with care. In these conditions, the captain clearly thought that was too dangerous and sensibly took a longer route further to the west of the rocky islands, a route which, I think, added a couple of hours to our already long journey time. By the time we finally turned east into the mercifully calmer English Channel, we had been battered, shaken and stirred for a total of 17 hours by the unrelenting sea. The only high point, other than the caps of the waves, was that we both managed to hang on to our cookies, thanks to Stugeron at 8-hour intervals.

The Channel was essentially flat. I couldn’t help but wonder at the transformation of the sea state in such a short distance but I was then very relieved to be able to spend my second night in bed without constantly sliding up and down for the remaining 13 hours before we would finally dock in Portsmouth at 09:00 on Tuesday. It’s further along the English Channel than one might imagine.

Our original estimated arrival time had been 06:30. We had spent an unpleasant 41 hours on board, 39 of which I had spent in the confines of my cabin. I was glad to be back on terra firma. A somewhat unwelcome end to an otherwise wonderful Christmas and winter escape.

The crew was looking forward to a similarly rough return journey back down the Bay of Biscay.

Just to keep the nature blog up to date, after a pleasantly lazy lunch with a couple of our neighbours, we returned to find our first Southern Scarce Swallowtail (Iphiclides feisthamelii) of the new season flitting about the Red Valerian behind Casa Libélule. My initial excitement was slightly dampened when I saw that it was missing one of its tails, but it’s a striking creature and always nice to see. My guess is that this damage is probably the result of a bird strike.

Early specimens have a better chance of being in good nick. Sadly not this one. It looks better in profile, though.

The first day of our last week dawned with an attractively blue sky so we had no qualms joining Helen for one of her Monday walks up into the mountains.

I say no qualms but I have been suffering from a gripe in my right knee ever since we visited Peñíscola, which I suspect was a result of my having attacked mountain walking with a little too much gusto/enthusiasm earlier on in our trip – too much, too fast, perhaps. However, with a little more moderation, some of which was enforced, it has settled a bit and I’m avoiding the painkiller/anti-inflammatory combo. It seems better going uphill but aches a little on the way back down.

Today’s trek was up and down Alt del Ample, one of the mountains on the southern side of Jalón. We met behind the fuel station and headed a short distance up the road to the Sierra de Bernia, a road with which we’re very familiar, for our start point. We began by walking more or less level for some distance before eventually getting onto the incline which proved to be a steady, pretty constant gradient to the top. Enjoyable.

Here’s the view from the top back down into the Jalón valley. The mountain in the distance on the left is the Montgo, towering over Jávea/Xàbia and Dénia. We were surprised that conditions were clear enough for our eyes to see two of the Balearic Islands on the horizon, not that they were visible to my phone camera. 😉

It was an 8km route and a very pleasant way to start our last week of this trip. We’ll miss our Monday morning walking buddies when back at home. And the weather, of course.

Having been taunted by fresh Swallowtail butterflies when we walked up to the cross above Murla recently, today being sunny, we attacked the hill and cross behind Senija, which is a more gentle climb that I can manage with a camera slung over my shoulder on a monopod. This hill is usual a good place stalk butterflies and particularly the two resident species of Swallowtail. I was hopeful.

We had a friend with us and it would also serve as a leg-loosener if we managed to attack a more serious walk with our Monday walking group tomorrow. The three of us set off.

Part way up Francine spotted a couple of emerging, underdeveloped orchids. They gave us a good excuse, if one were needed, to dally and catch a breath. She clicked away for the record. A little further up another one was spotted.

Gaining the rocky summit running along to the cross itself, things looked disappointingly quiet on the butterfly front. There were, though, the usual Wall Browns (Lasiommata megera) and I did manage to snag the topside of a Blue, which I’d need my reference book to decide upon. Though the markings look rather paler than usual, I’m pretty confident that this is a Long-tailed Blue (Lampides boeticus). What I should have done was try to get the underside as well which would have put it beyond doubt. [The underside is what one usually gets.]

A coupe of Swallowtails (Papilio machaon) did then zoom by. They flitted and occasionally settled but always at some distance from where I was standing. frustrating little chaps. Then they seemed to disappear. Then they reappeared but again, only briefly and most uncooperatively. They disappeared again. I wandered and found one flitting about a different patch of ground, where it seemed to settle reasonably predictably. I worked myself into the correct position for the light and waited, finally snagging a couple of shots.

It’s very early in their flight season and I’m sure they will soon become more plentiful. The nice thing about catching specimens early is that they are likely to be pristine, as yet unworn, with a full complement of two tails that have not yet been damaged. This is one such specimen. [BTW, this picture looks as if it’s been colour-popped but it hasn’t, the bush really was that nondescript grey colour.]

It was worth carrying the camera.

Somehow, whilst touring New Zealand in November last year, I managed to strain one side of my jaw. I suspect that a gaping yawn might have been the cause. Since a knackered jaw hinge made eating, an activity of which I am rather too fond, a painful exercise, I initially resorted to daily doses of Ibuprofen. Their advertised anti-inflammatory effect didn’t seem to be making things as comfortable as I’d have liked, so I added the pain killing action of Paracetamol. The combination did make things a little better.

Off to Spain and still on my drugs combination, though twice a day rather than the permitted four times a day, I rediscovered walking in the mountains, an enjoyable activity for winter time when my insect friends are not around to provide my entertainment. In the space of two weeks I thoroughly enjoyed six walks of varying grades with a couple of different walking groups. I even invested in some new Spanish walking boots.

Though at the time I suffered absolutely no ill effects whatsoever, it seems my right knee may have suffered something of a delayed reaction. Whilst visiting friends in Peñíscola, where we walked but not up and down mountains, my knee began by grumbling and ended up approaching painful, the knee cap seeming to click into place rather alarmingly on occasion. It seems a little puffy compared to its neighbour, so I now suspect an outbreak of Housemaids Knee. P’raps I’d done too much, too fast?

Bless the Spanish. On a visit to Valencia, we toured farmacias purchasing supplies of Paracetamol tablets – my imported supplies were running low – but not those wimpy 500mg jobs, oh no, these were 1g tablets and about the size of horse pills. At least I had only one to swallow, albeit twice the size.

Ignoring the available walks completely was getting tedious so today I took my drugs and went for a kill or cure approach, accompanying our Monday walking group on a walk from Parcent to Murla, where we ascended the mountain behind to see the cross. Part of the climb turned out to be just that, a hands-required scramble. My knee did seem to warm up a bit as the drugs worked their way around my alcohol blood stream. Oddly, perhaps, my knee seemed better going uphill than downhill, and we made it to the top. [This is Pete, our companion, rendered by Samsung’s usually crappy phone cameras, master of all he surveys.]

Here, whilst catching my breath, I was pleased to be briefly entertained by three new season Swallowtail butterflies which had made the same uphill journey with much less effort than that required by we humans. Wildlife really does put us to shame, even our crème de la crème Olympians. This so-called hill-topping behaviour is a mating strategy amongst some insects, so they’ve clearly got energy left after the journey. [I hadn’t lugged my camera up the mountain so here’s a picture from last year on an easier mountain aided by a more cooperative knee.]

We have now discovered that those delightful Spanish farmacias sell Ibuprofen is larger doses, too. As well as single tablets of 400mg, you can get 600mg jobs, which is like a UK dose and a half. For now, I’ll stick to the 400mg dose and see how much adverse reaction I suffer.

Kill or cure? At least with double-dose single pills, I won’t rattle quite as much.

A week or so ago, we were browsing through a friend’s Spanish recipe book. [Barrafina, since you ask.] As I flicked through, on almost every other page I found myself thinking, “oh, that looks worth trying”. This is an unusually high hit rate for any cookery book where I am concerned. We borrowed said book and I noted a few recipes to try during our current cool spell.

The first recipe I thought I‘d try featured Merluza [Hake] served on a bed of peas and broad beans, sweated with onion, then simmered in chicken stock before being minted. The Spanish are inordinately fond of Hake and I’m beginning to understand why; it may be a member of the generally rather dull Cod family but it actually has flavour and a very delicate, soft flesh. The Spanish are also very fond of their habas [broad beans], so this had “Spain” written all over it.

Only when I began assembling my ingredients did I realize that this vegetable mixture was coincidentally very similar to a fish accompaniment that I developed myself, also featuring peas with broad beans and mint, though I add diced cucumber with baby courgettes and use spring onions, instead. I don’t use stock but just sweat the veggies in butter. Very similar, though.

I had trouble with one ingredient, which was really just a garnish on top of the Hake. I’d never heard of it before: cecina, which is pronounced th-e-theen-a and not ch-e-cheen-a, as I did mentally. I think the trouble was that it had been described as cured beef, somewhat like the Italian Bresaola, so I’d mentally turned it into an Italian ingredient. Anyway, I scoured the shops looking for some cecina.

In Spain, there are more packs of thinly sliced meat products than than you can shake an Iberico black-hoofed pig at. There are countless jamons of one quality or another,almost as many sausage derivatives including, of course, Chorizo but also salami-like concoctions, and many more besides. During all my shop scourings, what I couldn’t see was a word resembling cecina on any packet. Not to be deterred, I grabbed some jamon as a substitute and proceeded. How bad could it be? [It wasn’t at all bad and the hake was excellent.]

Yesterday we were out at a friend’s birthday bash in a restaurant so we knew we’d want only something light in the evening. I grabbed some olive and anchovy banderillas, a selection of smoked fish, some cheese and a packet of thinly shaved ham-like meat. The packaging was less than informative but the contents looked different and interesting. I can’t show you, it’s all gone. 😀

Anyway the meat was a packet too far last night but we’ve just enjoyed it for today’s lunch. It seemed vaguely smoked but I suspect it was simply cured. After we’d scoffed it all, we turned over the container and there on the reverse …

So why couldn’t they write that important stuff, what the packet actually contained, on the front, pray tell?

I’ll know next time, though I’ll do the minted veggies my way if I do it again. 😉

Yes, it’s been snowing this morning in the Jalón valley. You see, Spain DOES have winter.

Nothing has settled on the valley floor but the surrounding mountains have been dusted with icing sugar.

We are booked in for the annual Almond Blossom walk Next Wednesday, 7th February, and the almond trees have begun blooming. You can just see a faint pink blush in some of the valley orchards. Lets hope the blossom survives its wintry experience.