Snail Tales

Chloé is still missing. Although today is warm and sunny, it did become chilly overnight. It does not seem to have driven her home. I become ever more resigned to the idea that she is gone for good this time. I am prefering to believe that she has muscled in on a new family. She is adept at that. It is a better notion than many other options, the ones which I do not wish to dwell upon.

Dusty is tons better and I believe that we need not visit the vet but do need to return to being careful that he does not sneak out. Quite his old self, almost.

Nell and I have been for a walk up the coastal path to the big holiday apartment block and return by road, calling for Chloé all the while but saw no sign of her.

My ankle held up pretty well and we made good time. Mr Snail has cycled into town to the excellent deli that we discovered last winter. I was surprised to be the first one home. And, here he is! With a baguette on his back too… He tells me that he has been naughty. I may report back later.

I was very bored today. Sitting around is not agreeing with me. We agreed that the time has come to get on with our stay and that we cannot maintain a permanent presence at the van in the possibly vain hope of Chloé returning. I strapped my ankle up, donned sturdy shoes and a sun hat and we walked to the lighthouse by the footpath and back by the forest track. I called for Chloé all the way but had no luck.

We went to the site restaurant tonight, planning to order Paella. No. Apparently it now has to be ordered 24 hours in advance, so we will try again later in the week.

I opted for pasta (naughty!) with a mushroom and truffle cream sauce and Mr Snail had the Lomo with egg and chips. There was far too much pasta for somebody who has consumed none whatsoever for the past nine months. I couldn’t finish it but only because I found it very heavy going and heavy on my digestion – there was nothing wrong with the dish itself as the pasta was Al dents and the mushrooms plentiful and tasty. Both were plain and simple dishes. Both were of acceptable quality. Both were in fact miles better than Monday night’s meal. Washed down with a bottle of Cava Brut Nature and topped off with Panna Cotta and excellent coffee, we didn’t feel robbed at 44€. It was a pleasant evening, with cheerful and efficient service. You would not have thought it to be the same establishment.

After dinner we took Nell for a moonlit stroll through the wood and down to the sea, in the hope of spotting Chloé out on a nightime prowl. No luck with Chloé, despite my repeatedly urging Nell to "go find Chloé!" but we not only did some star-gazing and saw a stray meteorite, but were also able to enjoy the startling sight of bioluminescence in the waves.

Sheer magic.

Dusty remains very quiet but is now bearing weight on his leg and seems less lacklustre than he was. He is still eating well. I think he is going to be fine. We have been comparing our swollen legs. He wins this time, I think.

I just met the Doppelganger!

We are sitting outside the van, waiting for the errant Chloé. A spotted tabby sauntered along the wall towards us. The resemblance is uncanny, right down to identical stripes on the forelegs. It does however look considerably smaller and lighter than Dusty so must be a feisty beast indeed to have taken him on and then left marks. Seems fearless too; unbothered by our presence.

Currently planning a route direct to Sagres, taking in a couple of forest campsites and the one at Olvera, where we stopped last January.

Just need the cat to come home before we can think of going, and then to oblige by staying home until we can actually depart.

We have pencilled in a stop that is close to the N/S motorway, so if we decide that we really must return, we should be well placed for a quick getaway.

Spirits are very low. Tempers are fraying. Even the sun has gone behind a cloud.

There has been a Cat Incident… or two – and Chloé is currently AWOL.

Last night both cats slipped out. We were fairly relaxed about this. We had chosen a pitch at the bottom of the site, with two lovely cat-sized holes in the wall that are readily accessible. They lead straight out into a wood and thence to the sea.

Our experience here in January had led us to believe that it is a cat-friendly site and a relaxed one, not one generally given to applying rules of any sort. Chloé escaped for three hours on our first visit and when I went to notify Reception and to apologise, they seemed entirely unfazed. I also saw an unfettered cat being fed outside one of the bungalows. It was quiet here then and overall we believed that this would make us a good stop for this trip.

It turns out that what we consider to be a quiet site is actually unnerving for the cats, who are frequently spooked by the Human activity around them.

We went for dinner at the site restaurant (a really underwhelming and disappointing event, with food nowhere near the standard that we had earlier this year. The cook remains the same but the management has changed) and when we returned in the dark, both cats slipped out. It was dark and we thought it unlikely that they would disturb anybody, or that anybody would alarm them at that hour, so we didn’t panic.

A caravan had pitched at the end of our row and a tent between them and us. The caravan held two grumpy people and a whippet/poodle cross that has zero cat tolerance. Subsequent events suggest that its Humans also have a zero cat tolerance level. These people exist in the world. No, really, there do exist people who don’t like cats. Hard to believe, I know, when the horrible wee beasties enrich our lives so much 😀

Dusty returned home not long after going out. He returned home swiftly and loudly… entangled with a (we supposed) feral tomcat. Feral or not, certainly a Tom, as Dusty smelled awful after his encounter. Rank, in fact. It was his first experience of a proper fight and he has received his first war wounds.

Mr Snail managed to separate the pair, a difficult task due to the aggressor being Dusty’s Doppelganger and his not knowing which cat to grab in the dark.

Mr Grumpy had emerged to complain bitterly about the chaos. He also said that Dusty had been under his van earlier, causing the mongrel to go crazy. Well, okay if it was him, fair enough, apologies were made. We doubt that it was him though and it was probably the Doppelganger. Not being defensive about this but Dusty is so timid regarding both strange people and dogs, it is highly unlikely that he would seek shelter under a van that isn’t ours. Also, earlier, after he had escaped, I saw what I thought was Dusty coming along the wall behind the vans, from Grumpy Family’s direction. He cut through the hedge up on to the tier of bays behind us and made a fast beeline for the hole in the wall at the end of that bay. I remarked on it at the time as being odd behaviour for him. He gave every appearance of knowing exactly where he was going and moved with purpose. How could he have known that exit was there? Plus he normally moves more slowly and keeps under cover, he doesn’t have the confidence to move out in the open like that. I conclude that I was fooled by the Doppelganger and that most likely it was he under the Grumpy Caravan.

Chloé did not come home all night despite Mr Snail being up several times to open the door and call her (I felt very sorry for the tenters next to us). She didn’t come home for breakfast either.

I went along to Reception first thing to let them know that we have a cat loose and to apologise.

Mr Snail saw Mr Grumpy and apologized fulsomely again for the disturbance. He was not mollified and was packing up to leave, his "stay having been completely ruined". He also said that Chloé had been on his roof at 05:30. Whoops, sorry again, still not mollified. Go, on, make us feel worse than we already do… if such a thing be possible.

Odd though. I was awake the entire night, stressing, and never heard a peep. She never goes on our van roof. It seems uncharacteristic behaviour for her. But then, so is staying out past breakfast time – especially as we had some rain in the night. Chloé does not care for rain, usually knows when it is coming and brings herself in.

I was thinking that this was it. This time she is gone. In a way it pleases me to believe that she was around early this morning, so is not far away and knows how to return.

I have seen the young lady from Reception again. She seems unbothered about the Grumpys early departure, says it is not a problem, that cats are independent and it’s all just "Life". She is far more concerned for us and our possible loss and waved away our suggestion that we should leave once Chloé returns.

Her kindness and generosity made me feel like weeping. It did however remove several degrees of stress! I think that we owe her a box of chocolates.

It does seem that free roaming cats are accepted as part of site life. She told me that there is at least one wild cat being fed on site by the occupants of one of the bungalows – this is clearly what I saw happening in January.

Mr Snail has seen another tabby, who may or may not have been last night’s culprit, but was swanning down the site and was certainly not feral, he approached but then sauntered off to one of the motorhomes.

We have discussed turning around and going home but are also considering continuing trying to find a workable solution. One approach would be to kiss Spain and its coastal throng of travelling humanity goodbye and to head for quieter areas. Perhaps go cross country to Portugal now. We know quiet forested sites that would suit our cats’ timid temperaments better. We know now that we need to assess "quiet" from their perspective, not just from ours. Although it appears that we are welcome to stay here we don’t wish to upset anybody else but also believe we need to accept the needs of our travelling companions do not match our own.

Such a pity because we do love this area and were looking forward to a long stay. Admittedly, the restaurant no longer remains one of the reasons that we wished to be here, so perhaps the disappointment is not as great as it might otherwise have been.

Chloé is still not back, despite the length of time that it has taken me to write this tome, and Dusty is on the bed in the van and really does not want to come out! I tried him on the line, thinking that if became I sat out, Chloé could follow our scent home but he just cried until I took him back inside.

Overall, I believe that we are back to seeking homes for two delightful quirky and highly independent cats. At least one of we Snails just cannot handle the stress and responsibility of travelling with (these) felines!

Life with Teddy was never like this. I miss that particular traveling companion so very much.

Well, it has been quite a day.

We were away from Viacamp around 9 am. The rain had pelted down in the night, causing much worry about the errant cats (who came home around 01:30) and it was still raining heavily as we had our morning coffee. I suggested waiting a while or even staying put for another day but The Driver wanted to crack on.

As it happened, the rain stopped before we left and it remained stopped all day.

The first leg of the journey was quite lovely. The scenery was great and the light fantastic. There was virtually no traffic on the road, though quite a lot of tumbleweed in evidence! There was what you might call a stuff breeze.

Things went downhill as we left the Pyrenees and neared Lleida, where the scenery really bottomed out.

When we arrived at our destination it was only to discover that our parking spot had been washed away by floods. We moved to a nearby parking place but it lacked services that we were in need of. All other nearby places held the prospect of being weather-damaged also and so we decided to skip a day and do tomorrow’s journey today as well.

It turned out to be a pretty poor decision.

The wind picked up very quickly after we set off again. It became worse and worse and ever worse once we had reached the Mediterranean Highway. We saw one big tailback in the other side of the road where a caravan (possibly/probably) had flipped over and been reduced to matchwood. It didn’t do our confidence much good… I described it earlier as being "extremely windy"; I have since been informed by The Driver (and resident weather geek) that the correct technical term is "fucking windy". Indeed, at one point I called up a wind map service to see if things were to improve. They weren’t. And at that point it was giving gust speeds of 107 kph for our current location.

Shortly after that discovery we had to exercise our Gilets Jaunes for the first time ever, when having to pull up on the hard shoulder because our awning had blown open and one of the legs had come down. Ever tried to close a van awning in gale force winds on a motorway? I don’t recommend the exercise.

The Driver did what he could but shortly after we got under way again I could see that it wasn’t properly closed and was flapping a little. We left the motorway at the next exit and parked at the toll area and tried closing the thing again. It looked to me to be bent out of shape so I suggested deploying duct tape (fabulous all purpose kit essential item).

Happily the awning remained closed for the remainder of our journey. Windspeeds also decreased somewhat. By the time that we reached Alcossebre, you wouldn’t have known that there was a wind at all!

We almost didn’t get here at all. Just minutes before our exit we were overtaking an HGV that suddenly and unexpectedly signaled to pull out right in front of us. I admit it; I shrieked in horror and expectation of a collision. Not sure how but my expert driver avoided it. He was very rude about the lorry driver though. I am beginning to feel that we need a swear box in the van…

We arrived a few minutes before 3 pm, picked a pitch and booked in for an expected month.

Showers were had, beer opened, shorts and t shirts donned… Butterflies and Dragonflies were on the wing. We ate our dinner outside and sat out until after dark, listening to the sea and the cicadas.

It was a perfect end to what had been until then a perfectly dreadful and horribly stressful day.

25 °C today and the same expected tomorrow. We plan to try the pool out.

The Aire having been washed away and completely obliterated, the area now in use for the dispensing of essential water supplies, we drove on to Poblet Monastery where the car park permits mohos to overnight for free.

We would have been happy to stay but we were in need of services as the loo is near full. We searched for a serviced alternative nearby but found nothing that didn’t raise fears of further weather-related issues.

We decided to carry on to Alcossebre, a further 2.5 hours or so away. A good job that we set off early today.

The monastery would have been worth the stay and a visit – it is a World Heritage site and sounds fabulous. I have asked for a return visit when we can plan our sanitary arrangements accordingly.

The wind is being disruptive so perhaps our drive may take longer than the SatNav thinks. The sun is shining though.

As we drive alongside the river there are many scenes of devastation. Catalonia will take a while to recover, I think.

Let us hope for more clement weather when we reach the coast.