Morning breaks

Mornings

January 3

I love lazy mornings. I love the bed-warm feeling of slowly waking with the dawn, gentle light filtering around the edges of the window coverings. I love being able to sit with my morning cuppa, my mind still dreamy and free-floating. When my energy and the location allows, I enjoy stepping out onto a beach into a summer sunrise with birdsong as my accompaniment. In winter, I love gazing at a blue-frosty garden from within my snug, or at rain giving the world its shower.

I must confess that this luxurious languor is now fairly typical of my lifestyle, retirement having given me the pleasure of there being no alarm-clock to intrude on my peace. Even the word ‘alarm’ has the effect of raising blood pressure. I like my blood to rise slowly towards any need for activity.

Some of my fondest memories of morning are of being curled up on the sofa with cats, a cuppa and my youngest son. He’s also a morning person, and while the others still dreamed under their covers, he and I could have our special time, talking about this, that and whatever.

This morning I woke to dawn along an Atlantic horizon. We are camped on a beach park, less than 100 yards from the tide line. Cuddled up in my duvet, I waited for the inevitable Spanish sun to appear through the sea fog. Snug inside our camper I watched some fishermen arrive and with the tools of their trade disappear along the beach and into the mist. Gareth slumbered on, as did the dogs. Gareth is NOT a morning person and doesn’t function until he’s had his jolt of coffee. The dogs don’t stir until he does, either. They know that I like my quiet morning time and that unless the sun is up, hot and strong, I’m unlikely to take on the challenge of herding these two young lively spaniels anywhere.

January 4

Dawn this morning was a red blaze across the fields around us. The old man whose vegetable plot is just below the aire we’re parked up in, is already up and in his ramshackle shelter tending a little brazier. He greets a friend who’s come to join him for a smoke and they chatter cheerfully. It was a noisy night, though; the Spanish keeping their strange hours even in this inland, less than affluent town.

The town is Valverde del Camino whose main tourist attraction (according to the Aires book) is a museum dedicated to thanking the British who first settled the town and brought investment through mining. Contrary to the information given about opening times the museum was shut, so I didn’t learn a great deal more. A little wander into the town revealed its credentials in leather work. We saw some beautiful boots and shoes displayed in shop windows, and as I’m a shoe-freak, Gareth was relieved that the shops weren’t actually open (at least, he was keen to insist that they weren’t - I’d have been bankrupt years ago if he didn’t curb my indulgences).

We’d also taken a walk along what may have once been a railway and could have continued walking for miles and miles into fabulous rolling, thinly wooded countryside. We were intrigued by the plastic bottles hanging in the trees lining the track. There was a little glade, too, planted with an assortment of different trees, also with hanging plastic bottles, and a makeshift sign that when we Googled it, translated as “Respect the dead and the source”. There was a little seat and we wondered whether it is some sort of private cemetery.

Today’s lovely red dawn opened up another beautiful blue morning and we continued driving up into the Sierra Morena, Spain’s longest line of hills and separating Andalucia from what our guide book describes as the bleak plains of Extremadura to the north. This hilly area is popular for hiking and trail-biking and its main industry is production of the famous ‘jamon’ (cured ham), haunches of which we’d seen in abundance being sold for Christmas. The black pigs feed on acorns and the woodland is clearly pig paradise. We saw very few pigs, however, and Gareth surmised that they’d all met their unhappy end for Christmas feasting. 

Rosal De la Frontera is a neat, newish town that signals the end of Spain and entry into Portugal. We filled up with fuel, expecting a price hike as we had encountered on Italy’s border last June, but there was no such nonsense. The Spanish we’d encountered in Andalucia were all kind, quietly friendly, fair and un-avaricious.

Entering Portugal we were immediately confused by a scruffy notice of ‘electronic toll’ and nothing else to indicate whether, how, and where we needed to pay. The state of the road indicated to us that it wasn’t a highway or the sort of road maintained by tolls, so we had Ms Sat Nav take us off through the quiet, sunny, deserted meadows, sugar-dusted for miles with daisies and sprinkled with ‘buttercups’ (or something yellow and similar). Trees like the sponge train-set ones dotted the countryside too. Our place for the night is Mertola. This part of Portugal is apparently poorer than the rest but the poverty isn’t obvious given the pretty white and blue homes we passed by. On a few occasions we were delighted by the friendly wave we received from old men as we drove through sleepy little villages. There is a definite, different feel from the Spain we’ve just left, but hard to put a finger on what the difference is.

Mertola is a delightful old walled Moorish castle town above a river gorge. We parked up on the little riverside quay directly beneath the towering cliff and monumental town wall topping it. We’re hoping that the custom of deterring intruders by pouring boiling oil and hurling boulders from the towers is no longer current nor has been replaced by alternative missiles such as beer bottles. A walk around the castle gave me vertigo, a walk through the streets found a barber for Gareth and then we spent the evening on-line trying to get our heads around the Portuguese system of toll roads. After a lot of frustration we are none the wiser, but Portugal promises lots to interest, surprise and confuse us.

January 5

That was the quietest night we’ve had! Totally undisturbed except for some vertigo-related dreams, I woke at one point totally unsure of where we were and there wasn’t a sound except the snores of our dogs and Gareth’s sleepy breathing. There were no jingling sounds from the boats by the river bank, no cars passing in the night over the bridge high across the gorge, no barking from the dogs in the little smallholdings opposite or goat bells tinkling along the narrow rocky pathways. There was no late night laughter from the bars that abut the walls above us, no mopeds or cars rattling along the cobbled streets - not a sound! Everything - animal human and mineral slept through the night. The suggestion of birdsong and a far off cockerel signalled that it is actually morning here below this citadel, but when I opened the blinds the day is a shroud of thick mist and as yet there are no sounds of any activity. It’s cold outside, too, so I am up and writing this, hoping to post it today with a few more photos. Shortly I will seek out the bakery nearby where yesterday evening I saw a baker preparing the dough; we’ve fallen nicely into the continental morning ritual of hopping out to get our morning bread (“Our father....” and all that 😋)

That’s it for now folks. I’ll tell you about the treat that followed next time.