Let's move before they raise the parking rate

Driving in Spain seems fine and generally an uneventful experience. However, the Spanish do have entertaining parking techniques. The first rule is never park more than five metres from any shop you wish to patronise; if this involves double parking or leaving your car at an interesting angle to the road/pavement, so much the better and blocking a main road is an essential aspect of this parking technique. The most exciting parking formations may require hazard lights, but this is only necessary in more extreme examples. In Frigiliana we parked the Blue Bus in the bays along the road and walked down the steep path into the fantastic gorge below the village, shown in the photograph, and around the pretty town. We returned to the van to find that someone had parked within millimetres of our front bumper; getting out required some effort!

Over the Festive period the van was vandalised while parked in a busy town centre street. It looks as if they tried to prise open one of the van side windows, which are double-glazed, with something sharp and when they found they couldn’t do this they scratched the drivers side window in a series of swirling patterns. This damage is annoying, rather than a catastrophe and will test the claim we have from our insurers that glass damage can be fixed in Europe.

We waved Matthew and Rachel off at Malaga airport; it has been fantastic to see them and they made our festive season and birthday celebrations. Having decided to turn native, Anthony triple parked in the queue by the arrivals area while they unloaded their cases and no one batted an Iberian eyelid! We are back on the road again tomorrow, after two weeks stationary and in a house. We feel blessed that we were here while the rain came down and also pleased that the weather improved for Matthew and Rachel; they left a sunny and warm Malaga and arrived in a cold and snowy Manchester a few hours later.