A Journey’s End

“Where on earth are you ?” I hear you gasp – “ The middle of a brick yard is hardly utopia- are you sure you’re not sickening for something, taken a wrong turn or perhaps you have finally lost it? If this is a journey’s end then I think that I , your reader, deserve an explanation!”

Dear reader, you shall have all the information you need to understand fully why this is a journey’s end and is my utopia ( and no, for those who know the meaning of the word, it is not imagined but very real – and yes it is my perfect place! )

It isn’t perhaps your idea of a holiday destination. As you correctly identified , it is surrounded by disused brickworks and, of course, wonky chimneys! At this point I am hearing you shout “Stay away from them, they may fall at any moment – are they fenced off? Surely there is to be an immediate Fred Dibnah style demolition?(for those of you wondering who on earth he is – look him up on Google – a great Lancastrian bloke) The answer to all of that is no, no, no – this is Spain, where Health and Safety appears not to appear! Please don’t get me started on H&S – whilst it is a subject worthy of my attention, it will be addressed in a future blog. After all I wouldn’t like to fall at the first hurdle and prove that occasionally in my little utopia , things aren’t always perfect!!!

So let me tell you ( get to the point I hear the DB saying!) , this place is where we have our bolt hole. It is in a small industrial town on the east coast of Spain – not a villa, no swimming pool, no marble walls, no sea views ( well if you stand on tiptoe in one spot on the roof terrace , you can just about see the sea !!) just an ordinary Spanish town house but it gives us an extraordinary life.

I told you – ordinary! We weren’t going to buy a house in Spain – no, honestly, we weren’t. This house belonged to my adopted mother in law – that’s got you thinking , hasn’t it! Oh and ten points if you can guess her name!

Shortly after meeting the Dearly Beloved back in 1997, he suggested a holiday here, and so here we came! Now the house was nice, we had lovely weather, the beach is second to none and within easy reach and we were here together! That was all – nothing more! Eight years later, and now Mrs Dearly Beloved, the DB received a phone call from his previous mother in law, saying she was selling the house. I remember so clearly where I was and what I was doing – reclining on a sofa ( I told you previously we didn’t have a chaise longue!) in the lounge. When he came in to suggest we fly over to have another visit in case we might be interested, I just said ( and dear reader, I have absolutely no idea where this came from) “tell her we’ll have it.’

The rest is history! Sometimes I make spontaneous decisions like that, who knows why or how, but I always make them with a surety that it is the right thing to do. So there you have it, dear reader, a journey’s end, in the middle of disused brickworks, surrounded by wonky chimneys – and we two ( oh not forgetting Millie as well) couldn’t be happier!

Next time on Camino Romero – The Hokey Cokey in Europe- from the UK to Spain via France and Andorra!