Travel

Food

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

Hello I am Blue and I am writing a guest post for Kate’s blog. I don’t know where I am exactly but it is a long way from home. I slept most of the day in my cage which is where I feel safest when travelling. I was glad to be with Kate and Marta and Bonnie – for weeks I have been worried because it looked like a big change was afoot and I hoped I would be part of it and not left behind. So here I am in a big hotel and it looks like we are all going somewhere new which is a big adventure and quite interesting. We stopped a lot along the way and I used my new ramp – always with a biscuit appearing when I went in and out. I ate my dinner in a car park where it was very windy and a bit wet but it was good to know the food had been packed. Then we went in a lift – my first one ever – it was better than the ramp and so much easier than climbing stairs with my old knees.
Then – wonder of wonders – a tray of food arrived in the room – there was fish and chips!  Lovely!
I think I will sleep well in here although Bonnie doesn’t want to share the blanket with me so Kate got another bed for me and there are also the big beds of course. Perhaps she will go and get the ramp so I can get up!
We just went outside again and there were so many new smells that I didn’t want to walk far but suddenly there were cheesey biscuits again in front of my nose so I ran in the wind and the rain to a grassy area and then back inside to the warmth of the lift and back upstairs to bed.
When I know where I am – I will write more.

Thank you all for thinking about me – I am fine!

15 things to remember about old dogs….

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

 Old Dogs….
1.   Bark loudly because they are deaf and think you are too

2.   Teach you patience on a walk as they stop to savour a smell for….. a   l o   n g  t  i m e….. and then a little longer
3.   Still pull on the lead but now they pull you back where they used to pull you forward
4.    Have trouble with the front end knowing what the back end is doing
5.    Can’t see too well either…..but use the sense of smell to get about without knocking into things


6.    Are happy with the simple things in life
7.    Come upstairs and then can’t remember what they came up for so go downstairs again

8.       Prefer the beach to the countyside – it’s so much softer on the paws
9.       But still love to get up high and look out over the world – if there’s a handy car park

10.      Like bones even after losing most of their teeth

11.       Know how to open a birthday present – after 15 years of practice
12.       Let things go which in the past would have led to an unpleasantness

13.     Were once young

14.      Are still learning new tricks

15.      Are willing to follow you to the end of the world if it means you can be together

Remembering the journey across Europe

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

Now I’ve had time to recover from the journey and can think about it from the peace and tranquility of Lamorna.  What memories stand out the most?
The actual reality of the trip was very different from both the anticipated and the remembered journeys.
I looked forward to it with great excitement.  I now look back on it with fond smiles. But the reality was a really mixed bag of delight, despair, pleasure and discomfort, wonder and worry.
We drove from Granollers to Tuscany and then from Tuscany to Calais via Switzerland and France.
One car, two people and a Springer Spaniel.
We tried to travel too far every day and we wanted to avoid the paying motorways. This meant that although we enjoyed some beautiful meandering roads through lovely places, we  also had no time to stand and stare. We spent far too many hours cramped in together in the car. leading to  some inevitable cabin fever!
250km per day is fine – 450km is too much.
  • Duna is a natural traveller and curled up at the passengers feet with hardly a moment of restlessness.
  • Camping is wonderful and even the most basic places give you the joy of waking to the sound of birds and the smell of grass.
  • Hard ground, sleeping on a slope which rolls you downhill, neighbours who noisily leave at 6am, changing campsite (and sometimes country) every day, drunk Italians who piss over a wall only feet from your pillow(see below), thunderstorms which create a pool outside your door……. all just add to the experience.  Yet,  a hook on the door of the campsite loos can make you almost cry with relief.
  • The best toilets were in a Swiss site, the worst in Italy

If you are trying to find the nearest baker it’s best not to ask with a dog bowl in your hand.   The well dressed Italian lady shuddered and mumbled “No grazie”.  It took me a moment to realised she thought I was begging.

Mid August is not the best time to cross the Alps going north. We spent three hours in a traffic jam getting more and more nervous about the Gotthard Tunnel which is 17km long.

It reminded me of trying to drive into Cornwall on a Saturday in August.

Our other major traffic jam was crossing the border from France into Italy – we had forgotten it was market day in Ventimiglia.
After August 14th, that magical date when French and Italian people go back to work,  all the campsites emptied out and in Chalons -Sur-Marne we shared a site with a few people from the UK.   The van opposite had a Cornish sticker and it turned out the people were from Penzance.    This came in useful later the next day when we were driving north and realised Duna’s lead was still hanging on the bush.  We rang the site and asked the owner to pass it on the couple whose names we didn’t know but who had told us they drink coffee every Saturday in Renaissance Cafe.

And finally,for now,  I learnt that although my friend Tiffany  said GPS can save relationships, it can also send them into meltdown.
In 100  metres Turn Right, TURN RIGHT   (OK OK  I am)  …..Recalculating, recalculating !!!!!

Next posts – The Etruscans, Duna goes to London, and anything else I remember from the trip!

the longest day

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

We were so relaxed after the beautiful swimming pool that we couldn’t get the necessary push to do our 300 km the next day. So we travelled 100 instead to Nice and met up with my sister and family who were also on their way to Tuscany and the birthday party. The campsite at Cagnes Sur Mer is nothing special but our luck held out and they found us a place although they were full!
The next day we paid the price of our ‘pausa’ and had the longest journey of the trip so far. My sisters family took a sardine tin  train trip to Ventimiglia on the Italian side of the border.
We drove there and also got caught up in the weekly market crowds

Driving through Genova was another mistake –  a futuristic nightmare of tangled roads on stilts which never ended.  I was the passenger and spent most of the time with my eyes closed.
We were aiming for the Cinque Terres – five small seaside towns  which are part of a marine nature reserve.

If I say the words bends, mountains and tunnels perhaps this will give an idea of this part of the journey.  There was a series of tunnels only the width of a car which was exciting at first but became claustrophobic when the darkness never ended.
The road was beautiful and different from anything else on the trip so far

but time was racing on and as darkness fell we still didn’t have anywhere to camp.

Some sites were full. Others said ‘no dogs’.  I felt my heart sinking with each rejection and was impressed by Pep’s never ending optimism. At time like these it is good to have different personalities.
Just as we began to accept the idea of sleeping in the car we found the campsite Saint Michele – thanks I am sure to the same benign saintly presence who takes care of Penzance and Sant Michaels Mount.
Lovely people, dogs welcome, a relaxed and hippy atmosphere and although all our tents were tightly packed into a very small space,   it felt like the best campsite yet.

There is something about camping that feels medieval to me – the footsteps passing in the night, sounds of voices and snores and wheezes and sneezes, walking to the communal areas for water and washing, sleeping on the firm ground with your dog at your side.

Finding this place was like a miracle – finding somewhere to lie down at the end of a long day of spinning round corners, creeping through dark tunnels and careering down hills chased by Vespa scooters can not be felt as anything other than miraculous!
And to top it all, this place was the only campsite we found with hooks on the toilet doors – something so simple can make all the difference.  No need to pee while balancing my bag on my knees.

We woke to the sound of church bells echoing around the Tuscan valley – beautiful.

Salernes just west of Cannes

~ Kate Wilson ~ 2 Comments

Just in case yesterdays photo failed to show how beautiful the bathing pool is here at the campsite I thought I’d show you another one this morning.

I am working on the computer which is balanced on a rubbish bin outside the toiletblock by our tent. My mobile phone is also plugged in recharging and lying on the edge of the drain!