The Land Of Light

The local tourist authority takes every opportunity to refer to this region as the Land of Light in whatever language they're using, so we may just as well just go along with it.

We continued up the coast to Løkken, a shuttered holiday town with a fabulous long beach of squeaky fine sand, backed by towering sand dunes.  Near the town the beach was pretty busy, with a truck removing beach huts to winter storage, lots of walkers, cyclists, people daringly driving a red Fiat on the wet sand and a couple of people on trailbikes.

A group of young Germans were standing around a seal pup which was on the beach just above the surf. It looked very healthy and didn't seem at all worried by the attention, and when we walked back later it had disappeared so we guess it was just having a rest.



Just north of the town, the beach is littered with the remains of a huge second world war concrete fortress. Some are still high up in the dunes, peeking out of the sand, others have been undermined by the sea and slipped down as a massive concrete monolith, lying at crazy angles in the sand.  Some are obvious gun emplacements, others' functions are less clear.  Concrete steps and passages lead in all directions, often blocked by drifts of sand, some ending in a 'Clanger' style porthole on the blockhouse roof.

On the blockhouses we found the first substantial collection of Danish graffiti, some very odd; someone had written words like 'Gillette', 'Volvo', 'Clearasil' and 'Commodore 64' neatly on the blockhouse walls, each with an arrow pointing upwards.  Even more unusual, the whole of 'Shall I compare thee to a summers day' was written out on the wall of a narrow concrete passageway.



None of the photos we took of this complex could capture the scale of it.  It needs a satellite view to see its full extent.

Next stop was Hirtshalls, approaching the northern tip of Jutland.  Danish camp sites have been excellent but we've been paying a lot for facilities we don't really need.  We found a website  that reassured us that overnight parking (as distinct from camping) was allowed in Denmark.  If you stop for one night in a motorhome and all your activities are inside it (you don't hang out washing, put chairs out, wind out your awning etc.) it's considered to be parking rather than camping.  A similar distinction exists in Spain.  The website recommended  Hirtshalls' beachfront carpark as a place to spend the night, and it was indeed a lovely, quiet place to stay.

Hirtshalls is a modern working fishing port, very different from Løkken, with its quay crowded with sturdy looking fishing boats.  Consequently it's a little livelier out of season, although the streets were pretty quiet during the evening as the rain rattled in from the North Sea.  Our local pub, the Skipperkroen, was advertising live music from Jesper Hostrup so we went in to sample Friday night in Hirtshalls. 



The massive laughing barman in his Paris Hilton T-shirt was the first Dane we've met without even a smattering of English.   A small crowd of weather-beaten people stood at the bar; almost everyone drinking bottles of Tuborg and smoking as if they were burning cables.  It was quite like a pub from the past. Everyone had a jolly evening but we have no photos, for obvious reasons - we got stared at quite a bit as it was.

The band started just after ten; two bearded blokes with guitars and Stetsons.  What we can remember of the set list; 'The Joker', 'Irish Rover', 'I'll Be Your Baby Tonight', 'Help Me Make It Through the Night', 'Folsom City Blues', 'Fal-de-Ree / I Love to go a Wandering' (special request from a burly trawlerwoman just before we left) and a couple of songs in Danish.  Perhaps they sang 'Rawhide' and 'Stand by Your Man' after we left.

The following day (Saturday 10th) we popped into the North Sea Museum, which the guidebook told us had a good aquarium.  It turned out to be spectacular, with massive tanks containing species  illustrating a representative selection of North Sea habitats.



There was lots of good information (in Danish, German and English) on marine life and fishing, videos and interactive exhibits and some real treats including three huge sunfish, a taste of fried and marinated Greater Weever Fish, a chance to watch Harbour Seals and Grey Seals being hand fed astonishing quantities of herring and a rare opportunity to stroke the felt wings of a friendly ray.

We could have spent hours watching the shoals of mackerel and bonito circling the big pelagic tank, seahorses dancing, crabs wrestling, but we tore ourselves away and continued north to Skagen. There we spent the night tucked up in another 'wild camping' spot - a carpark almost in the shadow of the windmill in the grounds of Skagen's By & Egns museum. Skagen is clearly a very popular seaside resort in the summer and boasts some lovely seafood restaurants in the harbour area. We ate at one of them and Richard tried what seems to be Jutland's speciality dish; 'Stjerneskud' translated into 'Shooting Star' on menus.  It consisted of a piece of fried breaded plaice, a piece of steamed plaice, a piece of toast topped with sweet mayonnaise, prawns, asparagus, some salad and a little fish roe. Very good.

This morning we visited the so-called Buried Church – Tilsandede Kirke – which was rather disappointing; not as 'sand engulfed' as the guide book suggested, then had a lovely walk through the sand dunes and back to the van along the long, sandy beach. After that we drove to Grenen (the Branch) which is the sandy, shifting headland marking the northernmost tip of Denmark. Here we walked out to the furthest point to see the waves from the Skagerrak and the Kattegat clashing together as the North Sea and the straits of Denmark meet. Along the way we came across another baby seal having a rest and being photographed from every angle by tourists.

Having reached the tip of Denmark it's south from now on, with a bit of east and west thrown in for good measure. Our current location is a peaceful farm site about 10 km inland from Frederikshavn, where we're making the most of today's hot and sunny weather by doing some washing.

Our very expensive Danish mobile internet access runs out this evening, so we might go quiet for a while.

First Impressions of Denmark

Based on a couple of days in West Jutland, in no particular order....

• Clean, well ordered.  The campsite toilets are like hotel toilets (and by that we mean the Hilton, not the Walsall Travelodge).  There's no litter, no graffiti, nothing ever seems to be broken.
• Everyone's been polite and friendly, speaking excellent English (as well as German usually).
• Flat flat flat.  Not completely, but a hill is a bit of a high point
• Strangely free of tradition.  People have been living here for millennia, but almost everything seems new.  The supermarkets are full of Mediterranean food, the farming is modern and efficient with no obvious emphasis on traditional local products.  The towns (Ribe excepted) seem to have few buildings more than a century old.
• Maybe related to that, they seem ready to innovate.  The alternative energy park near Thy was demonstrating wind turbines and wave energy generators that are actually being built and supporting a substantial industry.  Wind turbines are plentiful across the countryside.
• Expensive (though apparently not as bad as Sweden).
• Not many people.  The roads are quiet (and in many areas most of the other drivers have  been German holidaymakers), the towns are small and well spread out.  Feels a bit like New Zealand sometimes.

West Jutland

Our first stop in Denmark was Ribe; Denmark's oldest city.  We camped in an amazingly plush campsite on the outskirts, but it was an easy walk into town. 

We might not have heard of Ribe if Simonl Calder of the Independent hadn't failed to hire an Avis car in northern Denmark, and consequently failed to get to visit.  His article complained about Avis's customer service, and that he couldn't get to the town without a car.  In fact we found it has a rather grand railway station, but he wasn't to know that.

The historical centre is a network of pretty cobbled streets lined with old houses.  Many are built from a timber framework with brickwork infill, dating back to the sixteenth century when much of Ribe was rebuilt after a fire. Others are cheaply built terraces of single storey houses from the seventeenth century, with a scattering of more elegant neoclassical houses from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  On the outskirts there's a grassy rectangle surrounded by a moat, which was once Ribe's royal castle.  Little remains now.

Ribe was Denmark's first substantial town, and for years its biggest port.  It fell on hard times, so couldn't afford to rebuild, so the town centre is well preserved.  Walking round, and knowing this story, it's clear that Denmark has never been richer than it is now.  There are some nice old buildings in Ribe but they're not grand – the old half timbered places reminded us of Knighton or Ludlow, it certainly wasn't competing with Bremen or Venice.  Many look like tarted up slums.  It looks like a town built by people who were earning a pretty tough living.  In contrast, today, everything is immaculate.  You can't help peering in through the windows of a seventeenth century hovel, ceilings too low to stand up properly, and seeing chic designer lamps, original sculptures and classically smart 1960s Scandinavian birch ply furniture.



Ribe is working hard to recapture some of its old prominence.  Every evening in the summer you can join the town's night watchman as he patrols the streets and tells you about the history of the town.  We were lucky to catch one of the last tours.  It was impressively atmospheric, trudging the quiet cobbled streets behind the watchman as he sang the traditional songs, pointed out interesting buildings and told tales of Ribe's history of ships, pirates, witches and floods (fortunately for us, in very good English as well as Danish).




We were doubly lucky to catch that tour, because the following day brought wind and torrential rain, and we spent a day huddled in our cosy van while the wild weather raged outside. As it started to abate we continued north up the west coast of Jutland, through flat sandy country along straight roads lined with maize fields, cereal stubble and potatoes.

The coastal road runs along a line of dunes between the wild north sea and a series of freshwater lagoons (Fjords in Danish, very different to those in Norway).  The beaches here are clearly very busy in Summer, but during our visit they've been populated only by a few brave souls and their dogs, getting sandblasted as they walk. We planned to spend Stella's birthday walking along the beach but the wind was so strong that day that we could barely stand up.



So we huddled in the dunes and watched the waves crashing and foam dancing around for a while and then retreated inland to shelter in the woods for the night. In places the dunes are vast, scattered with holiday villages but also nature reserves.  We know enough to know we're seeing glimpses of the great autumn migrations but not enough to know exactly what is flying past us.

Wildest wildlife spot so far was a tiny adder sunning itself on the side of the path in the dunes.  We didn't put a hand in the photo for scale, as although it was tiny it was armed, but it was about the diameter of a pencil.



This morning we're enjoying the calm and the sunshine just outside Thy National Park.

Travels in cheese country

To a degree it's like home, a wet green landscape ideal for growing grass and turning it into milk, but here it's flat, flat to the horizon of trees five miles away.  The straight roads follow straight drainage canals for mile after mile.

We spent the last night of August in the carpark of a cheese and clog factory on the outskirts of Edam.  That might not seem like a natural combination, but if you have a carpark big enough to host motorhomes and tourist coaches it makes perfect sense.



A very helpful woman showed us around their vast shop and talked us through the cheese making process.  It seemed very similar to the cheese making process in other places; it's amazing how one can turn out creamy and crumbly and another one smooth, elastic and spicy.  Subtle differences of timing, temperature and inoculant obviously make a huge difference.

We went away with a small Gouda cheese, which was remarkable for two reasons;

• It was made in Edam.  Apparently as long as you follow the recipe you are free to make Gouda in Edam or Edam in Gouda.  You can't imagine the French standing for that.
• It's a delicious 'Belegte' mature cheese, smooth and dense but as piquant as a mature cheddar.  The Dutch cheeses you get in Britain always seem to be mild, bland and rubbery, but here they sell ones that have been matured for months or years.  They even had goat's milk cheese and crumbly cheese which was harder and more pungent than an Italian grana.  It seems they keep the most interesting stuff for themselves.

Before our night outside the cheese and clog factory we'd walked to the centre of Edam just in time to see the wooden stalls of the weekly cheese market being packed up and driven away.  After we left Edam we parked and rode into Alkmaar only to find the cheese market was finished for the year.  On our way north Richard was keen to call into Hoorn, because he knew he'd been there before and had liked it, even though he couldn't remember much of it.  In the town centre we were surprised and delighted to see a sign advertising a cheese market at half past eight – the last one of the year!

We parked the van in Hoorn Marina, walked into town and settled ourselves at a table outside a pub on the market square.  We were surrounded by magnificent buildings from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, leaning against one another like a crowd of drunken friends as their foundations settled in the marshy ground.

The chief cheese lady took pains to emphasise that Hoorn used to have the biggest cheese market in the region (maybe a dig at Alkmaar and Edam).  It closed in 1949 as cheese production became concentrated in larger factories.  It's a tradition they miss, so they re-enact the market twice every Thursday in the summer.

The show started (for those of us who'd arrived early) with a big yellow refrigerated wagon being towed into the square by a Jeep, and then crashing into the back of that very Jeep.  An army of volunteers started unloading hundreds of big cheeses from the wagon and stacking them around the square.

When the re-enactment began in earnest, a bell was rung signalling the beginning of the market.  Cheese experts took samples from the cheeses to assess their quality, then they were auctioned.  Cheese carriers took eight cheeses at a time on a wooden platform suspended from straps from their shoulders, carried them across the square to be weighed, then across to horse drawn wagon to be taken to the warehouses (they were actually being returned to the yellow wagon with the dented bonnet).  This was accompanied by women in traditional Dutch costume dancing in their clogs, people in mediaeval costume offering tastes of syrup waffles and selling small cheeses.



Since it was the last re-enactment of the year everyone was in high spirits.  Beemster Cheeses had sponsored the whole event and provided what must have been thousands of pounds worth of cheese for the show, much of which was being dropped or slung surreptitiously into car boots around the square.  It was a little poignant to see the square full of identical cheeses – Beemster being exactly the sort of big dairy that killed the old market and the variety that must have once existed, but it was great  fun for participants as well as spectators.


On our way from the Netherlands to Denmark we stayed in Germany for two nights – taking advantage of their free overnight parking places for motorhomes. Some of these are in lovely spots, and very generous; the first one we stayed at had free electricity. We also stopped in Bremen, wanting to have a look at it without really knowing why.

We caught the train into Bremen Hauptbahnhof, and emerged from the station to a cityscape of rather stark post war buildings – a bit like Kingsway Swansea with a bigger budget.  We were relived to find the old town square with its mediaeval cathedral, town hall and giant statue of Roland (the Christian hero from the Dark Ages who we keep running into on our travels).  There was a lot of space around these monuments.  It was pretty obvious that this was a town that had taken a pasting in the war and had to be rather selective about which buildings they tried to save.



One district, Schnoor, had survived relatively well.  The warren of mediaeval streets is now full of tourist shops and restaurants.  In its heyday it probably wasn't half so chic!  It was interesting to see the Dutch style gables on the houses, carved panels above the doors and inscriptions in language that wasn't quite Dutch and wasn't quite Deutsch.  When these homes were built, Bremen was an independent city state.  The Netherlands was a patchwork of provinces, nominally ruled by distant emperors but in practice independent.  The cultures were aligned quite differently to today. Friesland meant something long before Netherland or Deutschland had been invented.

After that we pushed east and north, past Hamburg and heading for Denmark.  We noticed Germany is scattered with these road signs, anyone know what they mean?



This blog update is posted from Ribe, the oldest city in Denmark, celebrating the fact that we've managed to find a mobile phone shop and buy a Danish SIM card which gives us a week's access to the internet.

Britain in August

It's been a bit of a novelty to spend August in Britain.  When Stella was teaching that was always the month of the long school holidays, so even though Britain was often at its best it was also the best opportunity for a long distance adventure.

A very quick round up of some of the notable events:

• After Pembrokeshire we scuttled back to Swansea to join Richard's parents celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary on 3rd August. They had arranged a small lunch time gathering at Maes yr Hâf in Parkmill.  It was a lovely afternoon and a treat for Richard to meet up with some old faces, some of whom he hadn't seen for decades, and for Stella to be introduced to these people.

• Back in Cardiff we collected Scooby's ashes from the vet and scattered them in his favourite swimming hole in the River Rumney.  We wanted to say thank you to the vets who had been so good to him, and to us, throughout his life, so we bought them a robust outdoor bench where the nervous dogs can wait in the courtyard outside the surgery.  The whole surgery team seemed to be delighted with it, and we were delighted that they were delighted!

• We made a quick visit to Chester to see Jane and Tony, and had a great dinner at the Sticky Walnut bistro in Hoole.  For once we also managed to walk around Chester and see some of the sights.
  
  
• After Chester we popped across the border into North Wales, an area we've rarely visited.  North Wales always seemed a long way away from home, but our perspectives have changed a bit during this year!  We spent a wild stormy night on a campsite high up in Snowdonia snuggled up to the base of Tryfan and clambered up to Cwm Idwal.  On the way home we made long planned visits to Portmeirion and to the Centre for Alternative Technology.  We've wanted to see both of those for years but neither is much fun for a dog.

• Then a quick trip to London in the aftermath of the riots to visit Richard, Sharon and the girls.  Our return to Cardiff in the Megabus coincided with the rehearsals for the Olympic cycling races.  Incoming coaches were typically delayed 2 hours, but fortunately ours wasn't, due to the local knowledge of our driver. Hooray for the Megabus! We'll make a point of not being anywhere near London 2012.
   
• We spent a few days in Fairsky doing repairs to the van, washing all our clothes and relaxing.   Returning to Cardiff we had a couple of  lunches with some of Stella's former colleagues.  It was lovely to see them, but she's not tempted to go back!
   
• Back indoors, we spent a week living in Jane and John's house in Caerphilly, looking after their dogs, plants and chickens while they went on holiday.  It was strange to have so much space, and nice to be around dogs again.

Bella

Archie (top) and Frankie, retired racers

• Our first wedding anniversary fell during that week.  We took the train into Cardiff with a thousand amiable rugby fans to have a celebratory lunch in Café Rouge in Cardiff Bay.  It's been an exciting first year, we both agreed we'd press on with it...

• Richard borrowed Jane's car for a dash to Leamington Spa to look at laser engraving machines, looking for a way to make a living when we stop travelling.  Magical machines, everyone should have one!  Unfortunately he found out why their web site keeps quiet about the prices.  On the way back, he realised he was driving right past Nigel Ford's place near Alcester, so called in for a coffee.  Another good friend not seen for ten years.
  
  
• In the meantime, Stella took the train into Cardiff to do some shopping, got stranded by a broken down train and drenched by a violent thunderstorm.  During the evening we met up with our fellow flat owners at Richard House to catch up and discuss management and improvements to the building.  Met Nanuk the dog, a lovely lively young Pomeranian, for whom everything in life is still  impossibly exciting! We miss our Scooby. We must remember not to accidentally acquire a dog in Morocco.

• On Friday we handed the chickens and hounds back to their owners, and drove to Brighton for Janet and Billy's annual boozy barbecue. We were away last year when they got married so it was lovely to catch up with them.

Which brings us to today, to a campsite in Kent, and our last opportunity to post a blog before we cross the channel and get out of range of the British mobile internet system.

Go West!

We've taken ourselves off west for a few days in Pembrokeshire, staying in a 'No dogs allowed' campsite in Dale and doing the sort of boat trips and wildlife trips that only allow two legs per passenger.  We spent today on Skomer Island, our first visit for many years, a bit later in the season than last time.



As soon as we arrived we were warned that the puffins had almost all fledged and set off back to sea.  They are by far the biggest attraction here.  In peak puffin season the cost of overnight island stays doubles and people queue for boat tickets from 6am.

By the end of July it's all much quieter, but it was a lovely warm day (not too sunny to be comfortable) and we saw everything we could reasonably have hoped for.  As we approached the island we saw big groups of puffins sitting on the water, gathering to head out to sea.  Once we landed, we saw more waiting on the cliff edges.  Just around the coast we saw kitiwakes and  fulmars with huge fluffy chicks.  There's just one chick per pair of fulmar each season, so like the 'Little Emperors' produced by China's one child policy they're always tubby and over indulged.  To be fair, in the autumn they have to fly to Argentina, so maybe they deserve to be spoilt for a while. 

Behind us a Herring Gull was trying to scare off a Greater Black Backed Gull while her chick looked on bewildered, sucking his thumb.

As we watched that drama, a parent bird of one of the last unfledged puffin chicks came in with a cargo of sand eels.  It watched us for a moment, then scuttled across the path and into its burrow. 

A little later, a second one came in, and dashed to a burrow right on the edge of the path.  I always wondered how something that lives in a burrow can always look so immaculate, but of course it's because when they emerge they always head straight to sea for a wash.





Around the next headland the Grey Seals were relaxing and waiting for the tide.



 The system for getting out to Skomer has recently been updated.  You can park in the National Trust Carpark (£4 for a car, £6 for a motorhome) and buy a Skomer landing ticket at the reserve office (£8 per adult).  The landing ticket books you a place on the boat, but you need to pay the boatman's £10 fee on board.  The crossing only takes about ten minutes.  The most strenuous part of the visit is the climb up a flight of steep steps from the jetty.

End of an era

I know that everyone whose dog has died insists that their dog really was the best dog ever, but in our case we know it's true.  We've heard it from dog people who really know about dogs, we've heard it from cat people who didn't think they liked dogs, we've heard it from dog owners who wish their dog was more like Scooby...  Today we're not in the mood to hear about any rival candidates for the title.

Scooby Dunstone 1998(?) - 25 July 2011

Yes, we knew his health could change any day, and last weekend it changed.  Scooby's breathing became laboured, he lost his appetite for food and for fun.  On Saturday 23rd he came for a walk and  even had a swim in a pond in the Forest of Dean but he had to do everything slowly, stumbling occasionally and pausing often to catch his breath.  On Sunday he was even worse, coughing and unable to walk very far without puffing.  The vet found his chest to be filled with fluid which impeded his breathing.  We left with a course of diuretics to try to clear the fluid, an attempt to win him a few more weeks.  He spent his last day lying in the sun in a campsite in Wentloog near Cardiff, rising occasionally to stagger to the hedge for a pee (clean and well mannered as ever).

On Monday morning he'd deteriorated further.  He was an action dog, and hated going to the vet, so prolonging and intensifying the treatment in an attempt to win him a few more weeks of life as a gasping invalid clearly wasn't fair.  He invoked his dog privilege and was provided with a swift, painless and dignified exit.

Which leaves us feeling …. oh maybe I'll come back and edit this when I think of a strong enough word for it.  'Upset' will have to do for the moment.  He's been such a big part of our lives for the whole time we've know each other (and longer than that for Stella).  He's inspired us with his lust for life, he's made us laugh, he's comforted us with his loving presence, and he's woven through all our routines.  Everywhere we turn, his absence leaps out at us.

He often used to spot the person sitting in the room who thought they didn't like dogs.  He'd approach them, ignoring their distaste or nervousness, haul himself onto the seat next to them and settle down on their lap with a contented groan.   It seemed a high risk approach but it usually did the trick, and even if they didn't end up thinking of themselves as dog lovers they usually ended up as Scooby lovers.

At times like this you really need a warm heavy chin on your knee and some soft ears to rub. The Beautiful Big Blue Van seems too big with just a crew of two.

The Beautiful Big Blue Van in Britain

Where to start …. another long break in the Blog, lots to catch up on.

We didn't want to go abroad with our poorly dog, and we didn't want to leave him with anyone else, so set off to see some bits of the UK that we've not visited before.

Our loop through Scotland was cut short as we had to return south to Pontefract to attend Stella's Auntie Kath's funeral.  After that, we were ready to resume our travels, but Stella's back suddenly went 'sproing'.  That laid her out for a week, which we spent slowly making our way back to Cardiff to her trusted and reliable physiotherapist.

Loch Lomond was fantastic (and lived up to its reputation).  Arriving in low season we got a fantastic camping pitch with a view across the loch to sun dappled hills.




A few minutes later, the rain started in earnest, the hills disappeared into the cloud and were never seen again.  Once the wind dropped the midges rose like smoke and pressed themselves against our windows like the crowds at the January sales.  In spite of that we had a great time, wrapped up in waterproofs, splashing in puddles and enjoying the quiet woods (and enjoying what we could see of the landscape).

Kath's funeral was as happy an occasion as these things ever can be.  It was good to meet up with the more distant members of Stella's family, some of whom we've not seen for years.  During the short walk following the hearse to the church, the whole village appeared on their doorsteps and joined onto the end of the cortège.  The Vicar's sermon was at times funny as well as moving – it was clear she knew Kath well.  The event ended with tea, cakes and chat in the church, a new innovation especially for Kath who would have loved it.  It was a fitting send off for a lovely, lively and gregarious, not to mention garrulous, woman.  She will be missed by a lot of people.

In some ways its been a frustrating few weeks.  We've had odd appointments and commitments which have meant we've not been able to travel far.  We've made the best of it, kicking around the old county of Glamorgan meeting people, doing errands and being lazy.

We managed to get away to Devon for a few days parked up in Hallsands Bay, a beautiful quiet spot where Richard had spent a couple of memorable weekends diving and fishing for scallops.  It was great to spend a few lovely sunny days there together, even if there were no scallops this time.



Hallsands is just down the road from the village of Dunstone, one of several candidates in Devon for being the ancestral lands.  Since it's in rural Devon, rather than being 'down the road', it's actually down a narrow lane hemmed in by tall stony overgrown embankments and thorn hedges.  The Devon lanes did the Beautiful Big Blue Van's paintwork no good at all.

The Dunstones at Dunstone Farm, Dunstone, Devon

Today we're parked up in a field in north Gower, overlooking Weobley Castle and the Loughor Estuary.  It's a fantastic spot, with the view out to Whitford Point changing all the time as clouds blow past us and the tide ebbs and flows over the marshes.  Richard spent this afternoon having an introductory surfing lesson at Hillend.  Great fun.



Scooby is in fine form.  Eight weeks ago his life expectancy was four to six weeks, but he's still going strong.  We know it could all change any day, but so far so good.  He's still up for a three hour walk, for chasing his ball or having a swim.  He's slowing down a bit, but still having fun and being fun.  Tomorrow we're visiting the vet to get more arthritis tablets for him – a few weeks ago we thought that packet of tablets was going to be a lifetime's supply.

Not surprisingly we've spent a lot of time discussing what we do next.  Since our summer hadn't gone to plan, we felt we owed it to ourselves to extend our travels by a few weeks.  When we looked into the ins and outs, we concluded we might as well extend it through the winter as well.  Better to be living cheaply and travelling in the van with tenants paying our mortgage than sitting at home, maybe unable to get jobs, unable to sell property during the winter, watching our savings going to help bail out HBOS. 

We've offered extended tenancies to the people who are living in our house and our flat, so we're nomads until March.  The Beautiful Big Blue Van rolls on!