Packing up a house in 40 C is quite a job – a couple of hours work in the morning, dip in the pool and a siesta was the only way to cope!
Sweaty Steve arrived in a van with no air conditioning to take our belongings back to the UK and rather pleasingly we hadn’t amassed too many extra bits and pieces.
As well as the village fiesta, which seemed to go on for days with fabulous fireworks and extremely loud music, the last few days were very touching. Neighbours Sergio and Veronica arrived on our doorstep with their paella dish and gas burner and produced a delicious seafood paella. Juan put together compilation CD’s of Spanish music for our trip in the van. Jose and his family produced Bar Jovi t-shirts and Concha continued delivering her never ending supply of vegetables.
With t
he van packed and ready to go we sadly said our goodbyes and set off on our return journey. The only motivating factor of heading North 
was to hit the cooler weather which by the time we reached beautiful Galicia the temperature had dropped to about 22 C.We camped for a week near Ferol where the girls had their first experiences of surfing clad in full length wetsuits. Simon celebrated his 49th birthday by surfing for the day and proved he still has what it takes, but conceded that his professional surfing days are probably over!
Repacking the van to head off to Santander we congratulated ourselves on a cheap successful weeks camping. Arriving in good time at the ferry port, I handed over all our passports including Plums to the customs officer, who flicked through the lot and then announced that Plum couldn’t travel as we didn’t have the correct stamp in the passport, suggesting we would have to rebook the ferry and travel and few days later. With disappointed sighs all round and Simon muttering that being in Spain we must be able to slip someone a few euros to get a stamp in a passport! A rather frantic couple of hours followed with a visit to the local vets and rather complicated travel options being discussed. The final decision was Plum staying in kennels in Santander and a company called Man in a Van in Spain would bring her back to the UK ten days later and £450 poorer.
Our arrival home was not quite complete without Plum but she arrived safely and in good spirits. Life has settled back into a fast paced blur with the girls settling into a new school and Simon and I left wondering whether our trip was a dream.
