Monday 7 March

Moving on today and for a change got a reasonable start with the satnav programmed for a caravan dealer in Jerez, about 20km away. Regretfully, despite trying two “addresses” no trace could be found, although we did find a metal fabricator with the same name. Hmmmm!

So reprogramme for another caravan place in Seville and we took to the autopista (toll motorway) having been this way before and knowing it was quite slow on the ordinary roads. It wasn't too expensive though and the address we were looking for was just off the main road into the city.

Only there was no caravan place there either. Funny, when you don't need them they're popping up all over the place but we haven't seen a single one today despite covering quite a lot of ground. Not to worry though, we'll just keep an eye open as we trundle around; as we said yesterday we can manage okay for now.

So back onto the autovia to head for Portugal, pausing at a service area for a quick snack lunch and exercise Jamie. (He's so good when travelling we forget he's there.) Just perusing the signposts, one caught our eye; El Rompido is one of a small number of coastal villages that are only accessed straight off the main road. There is no road connecting them, it's just there and back, but this one intrigued us. It turned out to be a tiny village with a small ferry to an adjacent island that was nothing but beach. But it had been expanded out of all recognition by hundreds of holiday apartments together with a few hotels and was very smart – but closed! The harbour car-park had a few motorhomes parked up and we suppose it would probably have been okay to stop, but we would have taken the last two remaining parking spaces, so we didn't.

Instead we headed back to the main road, our curiosity satisfied, and Portugal. Getting a bit later now than we normally like to stop, once across the border bridge and registered for the auto-toll system, we headed straight for the aire at Vila Real de Santo Antonio (don't you just love these long names). Having been warned that many of the aires were full, or nearly so, we were relieved to find a few spaces left, so gratefully slotted in next to a Brit and got the kettle on. Then as it got dark (earlier here because Portugal is on GMT) he started his generator.

To say we're not fans of portable generators is a bit of an understatement. The drone, vibrations and the fumes are very off-putting and it doesn't help if the b----y thing is just a few feet from your door. Now they may very well have a very good reason to require extra electrical power, for example some kind of medical machinery, but in the modern world of solar panels, large capacity batteries and inverters they are so unnecessary – and anyway electrical hookup is available on this aire! But being live-and-let-live people we put up with it, although we decided if it wasn't switched off by 9.00 pm we would have words. But it was, so peace (finally) ensued.