The first half of this was written in December 2023, the second half in November 2025. Doesn’t time fly! The second half becomes a bit telegrammatic but might get me up to date.

We arrived on schedule at our favourite campsite just outside Denia. Just outside in this context means a 15 minute bike ride along the beautiful coastal path, past the designer beachside houses, beside the harbour with its bobbing yachts and into the bustling port town. The site is amongst the trees fifty metres from the broken and pebbly beach with a few cafes perched with their feet in the water.

We had a reasonable pitch at the top of this path but which necessitated moving our chairs about to catch the sun as it moved across the sky. It’s a hard life. No sooner had we set up than two of our favourite people turned up – Hanneke and the ever-young ZsaZsa. Her life expectancy had exceeded the expectations of two or three years ago when Hanneke travelled with a spade just in case:-( Hanneke had a new boyfriend travelling with her and they were heading off for him to get his flight home. The weather was warm (for the time of year:-) so in I went. Neil did as well a couple of days later.

Apart from fun and idling we had chores to fulfil. I had left home with a chipped, but not painful, back molar. Then I knocked a piece off a front tooth and adopted a bit of a witch-like look with an unpleasant fang. The woman on the campsite reception directed us to a dentist in town who spoke english, and I got an appointment a couple of days later. (Those were the days if we did but know it!) I ended up with two trips as the repair to the molar did not want to stay put. Excellent service and pretty cheap too – dentistry is not covered on the insurance. Being in town early meant we could explore a bit and have lunch. Denia grows on us year by year – magnificent castle, beautiful sandy beach, many good value eateries and just generally everything you could hope for in a Mediterranean port.

The campsite has many over-wintering retirees and a good social life had developed. A communal bring-your-own-furniture paella lunch was arranged and with the help, and starter, from another camper I became a very early adopter of sourdough bread making. First time I had used the oven as an oven rather than a cupboard actually and I melted the plastic bags stored in the grill above. Clearly the insulation between components parts is not great.

We explored the further side of town where the fresh fish are served near the port, raided the market for cheese and tomatoes, lovely almost black ones, and did a fair bit of eating out whilst exploring.

While we were there, the first inkling that this remote Covid virus might become rather less remote entered our consciousnesses. We didn’t worry much, assuming it would be bought under control pretty swiftly. A couple of cases were found in Italy and toward the end of February we bought a bottle of hand sanitiser just in case. Our month was up anyway so we headed off up the coast to France – things were pretty normal on the whole.

…. Briefly, we got to the fermette and France locked down. Neil raced up to Folkestone to get the car MOTed and got back the day they closed the borders. He was stopped once en route and questioned as to why he was heading south when England was north. He explained that he had to collect his wife which seemed to be an acceptable reason. We then stayed in France for the next five or six months as the lockdowns came and went. The police called on us, but only to check if there was anything we needed being pensioners. The mayor called on us to give us our two masks for going shopping. We got a lot of DIYing done on the house and walked one hour a day in every direction around the fermette.

Note the beautifully painted shutters and well tended garden!

Once we were allowed to mix outdoors the village became very sociable to make up for lost time – the weather was wonderful.

Eventually we had to leave. We jumped through the necessary hoops (testing, reporting, getting paper and e-copies of confirmation) to get some sort of pass that would allow us to cross borders and headed for the Rotterdam-Hull ferry. The Zeebrugge one was closed during Covid and has never reopened. We crossed the Belgian border unchallenged but the Dutch police swooped on us from the side of the motorway and checked our papers. The e ones didn’t work, the QR code didn’t work, but the paper one saved the day.

So that was that. Erica and Tom had been living in our house for several months as their house purchase got caught up in the general grinding to a halt of everything. They finally managed to move into their new home in September so our house had been well looked after.

I have finished this very brief summary in January 2026 and will pick up from there.