Back to the grind, it’s definitely been an odd sort of weekend but I guess every one of us can say that. I do have a little bit of work to do today, a couple of fairly warm leads to work with and set about my duties with enthusiasm. I genuinely do love what I do, like I have said before I actually do see it as just chatting to people and I do like a chat.
What’s really nice for a salesman is generally speaking at this time people are happy to talk to me, which does make for a refreshing change.
Come the afternoon, I’m running out of people who I can genuinely call without getting myself added to some nuisance caller list. So thoughts turn back to my emails that are now forming themselves into some sort of serialisation diary type thing. I have really enjoyed writing these extracts, I am not sure where it’s going to take us if anywhere but it will be fun while the ideas keep coming into my head. Some of the amazing feedback I have been receiving has been truly inspirational, thank you for taking the time to email me it really does mean a lot to me.
As I’m sat here starring out over the roof tops, dreaming of leaving the house for further than a walk with Lola. My thoughts wander back to my VW email and my travels around Europe.
I am sketchy on dates but it would have been early June 2008, myself and my then partner set out on our voyages. Not to long after these travels we parted ways. We are still civil and speak from time to time, both of us are now married so it was probably the best thing all round.
I won’t give you full tale of our travels as it took us a good few months; but over the next few days/weeks I will offer up a few of the highlights for me.
Our travels start with great aplomb. I have left the cooler plugged into the van battery. So we are pushed off the ferry by a team of very aggressive looking dock workers and jumpstarted off a nearby forklift. It won’t be the first time we have battery troubles on our trip, but it doesn’t exactly set my girlfriends mind at ease. Needless to say we do a fair bit of driving to charge the battery before we stop again.
La Rochelle. La Rochelle is a coastal city in south western France. It’s been a centre for fishing and trade since the 12th century, a maritime tradition that’s reflected in its Vieux Port (old harbour) and huge, modern Les Minimes marina. The old town has half-timbered medieval houses and Renaissance architecture, including passageways covered by 17th-century arches. It is a beautiful place to walk around and take in the history and architecture. As is Nantes which is a little further North, we take in Nantes on our way though from our ferry drop off at Roscoff.
From here we wind our way through Bordeaux, following roughly the west coast of France in to Spain.
La Rochelle Harbour
From here we deviate a little from our plan to follow the coast. Northern Spain has an area called Basque Country. Basque Country is an autonomous community in northern Spain with strong cultural traditions and at this moment they and the Spanish government aren’t seeing eye to eye. So we give them a bit of a wide berth and opt to shoot a more central path towards the west coast of Portugal.
Now the west coast of Portugal, (or at least it was then) is a pure unspoilt wonder and best of all there is no one there (how ironic that I think the best thing is that there is no one there despite the fact that I am stuck at home, craving company). Or at least that was the case twelve odd years ago. Go prove me wrong, its stunning; a little windy as its facing the full brunt of the Atlantic but aside that I could have stayed for ever. But it’s a little early in our explorations to be setting up base so after a few days we move on.
Windswept and interesting
From here we wind our way down the coast, do the touristy bit in the Algarve and cross the border back into Spain.
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