Strange times. Watch the skies.  Everything disrupted… Everyone pulling together, media dominated by it, everyone knows someone affected, and can talk of nothing else… sound familiar?

As international incidents go, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption and resulting ash cloud grounding flights across Europe, is actually quite a nice one.  Yes, I know its has cost recovering economies millions, clobbered already-struggling airlines that we all depend on, and had a hundreds of thousands of chaotic personal impacts around the world. However, let’s just remember, no one has died - at worst people have experienced extra travel costs and lost work time (when will everyone learn to work as flexibly as we do at www.sarosresearch.com?) 

People are united against common cause in the face of disaster, but this time there is no-one to hate or fear.  And no one to blame or sue.  This is the earth reminding us what it is capable of, all on its own.  Our latest aviation technology is just no match for a bit of dust in the upper atmosphere, so people are having to stay put, or find other ways to get from A to B.  Someone remarked on the radio last night that they had been vividly reminded of the sheer physical distance between their home in the UK and their holiday villa in Tuscany, that they flit to and from without a thought most of the time.  I believe it does us good to be reminded of this… of course the world is smaller today and that is a good thing, but now and again it needs to let us know that its curvature and bulk is still a present reality.

Of course we’ll be devastated if my Mum’s visit can’t go ahead next week as planned.  Our landlady is stranded here with grandkids due back at school, no internet access in her holiday villa, prescriptions running out - lots of complications.  Cassie’s LAMDA examiner hasn’t made it to school, and her karate grading may well be postponed as Sensei unlikely to be back from the UK, but all of these things are surmountable in time.  Frozen food rotting undelivered might just make people more aware of their dependence on air-freighted groceries, and certainly no one in the UK is going to hungry as a result.

Despite the election fever there seems, from this distant vantage point anyway, to have been relatively little political capital being made - I am sure the Daily Wail will blame the government for everything somehow, but amongst normal people the mood seems to be more one of collaboration and co-operation.  Twitter trends such as #getmehome and #ashtag are helping co-ordinate lifts across Europe, as is http://www.facebook.com/carpooleurope - of course there is some inevitable profiteering, and as much suspicion of, but is it too naive to think that there might be some long term learning from this… that you can preserve and not waste food, that cars travel as well full as empty, and that best laid plans can ALWAYS be challenged by things we’d never predict in a million years.

Apparently airport security staff, before they are kitted up with their new x-ray specs, are trained to look out for people who are anxious, sweaty, and distracted.  These people could be potential terrorists and bombers I guess…. however, they could also be passengers with the lovely Ryanair.  Wearing as much of their luggage as humanly possible, stressing about the threat of having their bags measured or god forbid weighed, wondering if the costcutting and profit squeezing is one day going to hit safety and fuelling margins, and fuming with resentment at the endless scratchcard and merchandise pushing.  Not to mention the self-congratulatory announcements about ‘yet another on-time flight’ just because they describe Alicante to London as taking 2 hrs 45 minutes when it always takes less than 2 hrs 20…

But before you even get to peel off the layers at security, you have to find the airport in the first place.  Of course we’ve done this a few times now and it’s getting easier, but it’s strange how one of the largest portals in Europe can be so invisible on approach.   It’s in a kind of dip in the landscape, and a lot of flight paths are over the sea, so you are practically on top of it before you notice the airport at all.  Driving from the North as we do, you go right past Alicante city to reach it, and there is sod-all signage, so you pass all signs to Alicante and see the city going by off on your left long before you see a sign saying ‘aeropuerto’ (which is also helpfully right next to the sign ‘Murcia’, which happens to be in the same direction, but also has an airport.  Not the one you are booked to fly from though, which adds to the fun).  Even when you’ve driven it many times its weird how there’s always this moment of doubt - have we missed the exit?  WTF has the airport gone this time?

All in all, I can only conclude, one should never leave the Costa Blanca at all, it’s way too stressful, and I am all for staying put.

Just got back, after a few days back in London. 

Quite a strange emotional journey, the first trip back to the place that used to be home.  Of course it’s always hard leaving the family, but it was made harder this time by Richard severely twisting his ankle and being barely able to walk / drive etc… I hated leaving him to it, even with as much preparation as possible doing all the parenting for even 4 days is hard work, we all know that.

I had a lift to the airport with a friend who had guests on the same flight, so that was a  huge help.  Arriving back in Stansted I was met by Mum and Stephen who took me back to their place in Cambridge, and it was really lovely to see them again and in their familiar context – it was all so familiar, it was as though Spain had never happened in a weird way!  But then talking to the kids and Richard on Skype reassured me that both worlds can go on existing simultaneously somehow.

I took the train into London the following morning, and visited clients and colleagues in the rainy grey city.  I had very little time in my schedule for retail therapy – it was as though my London head had taken over in frantic overscheduling, and some people I had hoped to see I never caught up with at all!  I did manage a very pleasant dinner with Nina and Mark, who also put me up that night.  Also that evening I had the weird experience of visiting our old house – but no longer our home – in Molesey, which I expected to be emotionally challenging but was in fact fine.  It was good to see our tenants clearly contented and keeping the place in decent order, and it didn’t look or feel like home so that was just alright.  I delved into the office lockup for a load of summer clothes, and our old Sky box which Richard had high hopes for.

Next day a colleague living locally kindly drove me into London, as my luggage load had increased substantially.  It took over 2 and a half hours of nose to tail traffic, barely breathable air, under slate grey skies…  I thought about driving along the coast road to the Port in the sunshine in Javea, with the orange groves to one side and the Montgo glowing orange in the horizon… and I smiled quietly to myself. 

It was wonderful to see everyone, as my back to back meetings included a lovely Saros reunion lunch.  Working with these people every day it wasn’t like we’d missed each other in the usual sense, but as we only manage to get together face to face a few times a year it is always very special, and from a meeting point of view we also accomplished a lot.  I am already looking forward to our big summer party, even though I know I’ll be speaking to everyone again on Friday once I’m back at my desk.  I am so lucky to work with such a great bunch of people, who mean a very great deal to me.

I didn’t shed any tears though as I waved goodbye to London and sped away from Kings Cross back up to Cambridge, where I had another lovely evening with Mum and Stephen hearing all about their recent exploration of India and seeing all their amazing photos.  I also had lots of beautiful gifts to try and cram into my bulging rucksack, which came in just under the Easyjet weight allowance somehow!

Next morning I was headed for home, and as I finally saw the blue skies and sunshine of Spain, lighting on the faces of my lovely family who drove to Alicante to get me, I knew that now I was truly back where I belonged…

Waking up in the Hotel du Merde like Alain de Partridge it was at least easy to think ‘lets get out of here fast’.  Actually doing so was a different story however, there didn’t seem to have been too much more snow during the night, however it had maybe thawed slightly, then frozen solid.  Never mind skis, to get to the car we practically needed ice skates – it was literally hard to brace to get the door open.  We slid gently down to the garage, where we found the air pressure machine out of order, and the staff – presumably now debarred legally from smoking in their workplace indoors – having a fag break on the forecourt!  We then couldn’t leave due to a transporter lorry cautiously negotiating the black ice on the slip road – we were NOT going to get too close, as we were sliding around enough ourselves.  We kept reassuring each other that surely the motorway must be gritted/de-iced, and when we finally inched our way to it we found that to be the case.

Driving was slow and mysterious through the icy landscape.  It was very beautiful, but scary as well, to see snow ploughs in operation and watch the altitude markers getting higher.  .  But the roads were very quiet, and weren’t actually iced over, so we took it steady and carried on through, glad we could see where we were going - we were very glad we hadn’t attempted it the night before

For one thing we’d have missed the incredible Millau Viaduct – none of my photos did it justice  so google it, if you want to see ‘the motorway through the clouds’.  It also represented a bit of a turning point after which the road mainly seemed to descend – as my blocked ears kept witnessing – and gradually the snow gave way to dull grey skies.  Eventually late morning we passed the place we were supposed to have stayed the night before… poor planning / time to shoot the navigator I guess.  But who’d have believed how fast things can change.  (Yes OK I knew / should have paid more attention to the bloody great mountain range we had to cross en route.  Live and learn, it’s what I do).

Finally we reached the End of France…or the end of the A75 anyway, where it finally joins the coastal route, and we got signs for Barcelona!  Now even the sun came out – we could almost have missed the unusuable aircon, and would never have believed that a couple of hours ago.  A fleeting glimpse of the Med around Narbonne and we suddenly felt like an end of some sort was in sight – rolling the window down for some fresh but no longer freezing air.  Of course we knew it was as much to do with altitude as latitude, but still felt like we’d passed a turning point.

On nice fast dual carriageway now we ate up the miles towards the border.  The final dramatic end of the Pyrenees looked stunning in the sunlight.

Baz still faithfully sat on the windscreen - although we now knew the route was pretty much straight on till the Javea turning, we needed the speedo.  As we’d been unable to fit a Europe-wide map on our memory card we had the French and Spanish maps separately, and as we finally approached the border we had the weird sensation of driving off the edge of the world…  as we were waved through the ‘douane’ and at last we were in Spain. Seemed to have taken us a long time to get here – the planning has been at least 2 years – but finally we were in our new country.  I reloaded the Spanish Tomtom map with all our old bookmarks, and there was some feeling of coming home.

Of course we were still a long way from home yet, but it was only lunch time, and we now had a full route proposal and knew it was ‘only’ 385 miles to Javea.  That’s only Newcastle to Wales plus a little bit… but, reluctant to commit after yesterday’s best laid plans, we decide to just push on and see what happened.  The Autovia del Mediterranea was fast, empty and easy.  We rolled on through the beautiful Catalonian countryside, stopping for a quick bite of lunch (trying not to speak French to staff in the café), and passed the ring road round Barcelona, after which at last we started to get signs for Valencia, which really did feel like home was in sight. 

We had one more comedy CD in the car – all Ricky Gervais podcasts exhausted  -so Dara O’Briain helped us get a few miles down the road, and all stuff we could never listen to with the girls on board.  We talked about whether we should stop, for the night or even just a coffee – Richard had been driving since before 9, again I had contributed nothing, but he seemed to have a new burst of energy as we started to get to familiar places.  Darkness fell – but hurrah not till after 6!  -as we passed by Valencia, Cullera, Gandia, and Baz ticked the miles away.  Nearly home.  Finally, finally, the Javea turnoff came up.  Follow the road, down through Gata, my eyes were now so tired I didn’t dare think about what Richard’s might be like.  Only once did I have to politely remind him ‘other side’. (“ ‘Other side’ what?”  “Other side of the *********** road!!!!!!  Darling.”)

At last we were in the right bit of Javea, and set Baz for his final task, finding our house in Adsubia.  Of course being Baz he promptly took us up a winding too-narrow street, with other cars coming towards us, and finally into the wrong road altogether, but at last Richard found a bit that looked familiar and between that and the map we made our way to our house.

After declining to carry me over the threshold – more asterisks  -Richard eventually sorted through a million and one keys, and at last, there we were, in our villa.  Rincon del Paz, ‘Corner of Peace’. I thought of all the places  we had looked at in our search, and realised how lucky we were – it was everything:  in Javea, older style, pool, 4^th bedroom… was this really ours?  Of course it was freezing cold, pretty grubby, and we had to get all our stuff in including off the roofrack… but we were finally HERE, having made it under our own steam, home at last.

Even the phone line was working.  I got a fire going whilst Richard phoned through an order to the curry house round the corner (our ‘arrival day’  box contained a torch, keys, firelighters and the menu!)  I texted my mum our new phone number, then minutes later the phone rang – it works!  But no it was Richard, outside the house furious unable to find the takeaway.  So we both set off,  brought our cold curry home, washed the grease of a couple of plates, and ate our re-pinged takeaway in front of our homely blaze. 

Both doubles failed on the Tolerable Mattress test, but we went for the flattest one and stuck on the memory foam topper I had found cheap on eBay just before Christmas, which made it ok.  Our woodsmoke-aired bedding was quickly on top of it, as well as some spare mattresses in the chilly bedroom.  I took my toothbrush out of my bag and for the first time in weeks thought about where I might keep it, rather than putting it back in the bag.  We were home!

It was still dark when the alarm went off, but we didn’t take long to get ourselves up and look busy, we knew we had a long day ahead of us. As soon as I was dressed I ran out to check on the car, which was still there, so that was good. Breakfast was, like everything else at that place, basic, functional and sufficient.

Before we set off we lashed the roof stuff over again with the newsagent’s stringy stuff and tried to secure the useless plastic sheeting at the back. It was so cold that even if I didn’t have the residue of a chest infection it would have still, I’m sure, have hurt to breathe. The car made a scary whistling noise when we started it up, but that seemed to stop soon.

We set off toward the autoroute, watching the sun rise over a deserted landscape. It was clear as anything and the sun was blazing down, but when we looked at the shaded verge it was still thick with frost - the screenwash nozzles didn’t defrost until we pulled over and squirted deicer into them. We put on some music and our shades, and relaxed into having the motorway to ourselves. I was even thinking about trying some of the driving, even though I had never driven on the left and it was apparently really hard to get into gear… thankfully Richard seemed relaxed enough about it as the road droned endlessly on.

Suddenly a stench of burning rubber had us pulling over – oh god this is it, I thought, but Richard calmly complied with all European traffic regulations by popping his hi-vis vest on, unfolding a warning triangle and poking around under the bonnet to reveal the shredded remains of the aircon drive belt. Well we weren’t likely to need that on a day where there was still ice on the bonnet an hour after setting off. So we got going again quickly.

Circumnavigating Paris was fun but Basil (Fawlty, soundalike) the satnav did a good job in difficult times, despite our distraction by a badly-timed listen to the Now Show CD someone had thoughtfully placed in our family secret santa stocking (thanks, whoever that was!). After Paris France seemed pretty boring – flat, cold, sunny and with endless pylons marching across the unchanging landscape. We stopped for lunch at a service station somewhere – and bought new bungees and straps to replace the ones that appeared to have simply perished in the cold. Tyres seemed to be holding up despite the load, but diesel was very pricey.

Later that afternoon, as the road began to climb and the light to fade, we took back all we said about the boring flat landscape. As the snow began to fall so did our journey speed, and we realised our planned overnight stop in Bezier was becoming less and less likely to happen. Very annoyingly, we were unable to connect on the premium rate number to cancel the booking before being charged, but eventually stopping for the night became the highest priority – the road ahead through the Pyrenees was almost certainly closed anyway (trying to interpret French radio bulletins was a challenge but we got the gist), and we were going more and more slowly, becoming seriously concerned about safety. Richard had been driving for more than 9 hours, we were now averaging less than 40mph according to Baz, and we had to call it a night. So we ended up in a seriously grotty Travelodge-equivalent in the Auvergne somewhere. Room stank of a mixture of French fags and air freshener, no internet, and not even any soap in the dispensers. It also didn’t have anything remotely pretending to be secured parking, and we couldn’t see the car from the main building. We weren’t about to go any further though, and we figured any opportunist thieves – with skiis – would have to be pretty determined, to be bothered to risk hypothermia to nick our stuff. We had a dispirited meal in the services café downstairs then gave up. We had started so well, made such good time, but the weather had won this round.

The road goes ever onwards…

We’ll consider that the journey began when we actually set off, from Wales, on our journey to Spain. No one wants to read about the joys of living out of a few suitcases for Christmas with two young children, trying to finish up major projects at work through a killer virus, going from one relatives’ sofa bed to another, wondering if you have put the right stuff in the right box in the right place, holding a sick child who’s crying ‘I want to go home…’ as she throws up over someone else’s sofa. Nor does anyone want to hear about the sheer thrill of a gearbox seizing up and dying, nor the excitement and expense of finding a replacement, couriering it over Christmas, and the hard work of a team of heroic Welshmen in fitting it in one endless day’s work. We’ll gloss over all that and start from day we actually began the final journey down here.

It was touch and go from the start, whether we’d make the trip on the day planned. Richard and Mark went returned from collecting the car, complete with new gear box, around 1am! ‘There’s a few bits and bobs he hasn’t finished putting back’ I was told – and after all these amazing guys had done a 3 -4 day job in one very long one - but I wasn’t prepared for the state of the car the next morning… It was absolutely filthy, no front fascia, looked more like the tractors they are accustomed to working on. But it was too late to turn back, and it was driveable – so Richard put the bits back together (mostly – a few minor details like a gear selector plate, connecting the speedo or reversing lights were simply too complex to address in the time we had) whilst I sorted out all our clothes and Christmas stuff etc, and tried to find cleanish places to load it all in the car.

A final Wales breakfast saw us on our way around 11am. It was hard saying goodbye to the family especially the girls, but with all the uncertainties over the car it was good just too be finally on the road. The weather was clear and we made good time on the M4 back to what we used to call home – well actually Nina and Mark’s house. We found the satnav had a setting that displayed a full digital speedo, so who needs dials? Once we’d gathered up our bits and bobs from there, my Dad met us and followed us down to the lock up to help us load up the car. For some reason the pile in the lockup had expanded over Christmas, and the tarpaulin seemed to have shrank, it was also freezing cold and rapidly darkening, but between the 3 of us we got a whole load of stuff hauled up and secured on the chilly roof. Had to tuck a plastic sheet over the back foot or so of it as the tarp just wouldn’t fit, but we knew a similar arrangement had held up on the trip from Newcastle so we were sure it would be OK.

At last we were off towards Folkestone – for the only Eurotunnel crossing of the day that could take roofracked cars. We were a bit dismayed by the state of our roof load – the tarp just seemed to be disintegrating probably just from the sheer cold – but a nice guy in WHSmiths gave us a load of stuff they strap newspapers up with. At last we were on the train and going over to France, eating service station sandwiches and enjoying the glamorous side of international travel.

We rolled out of the train into a very cold and snowy Calais, and finally put the French Tomtom maps to the test in reaching our prebooked motel. The maps worked fine and took us to the door, but we were a bit dismayed to find how very not secured the parking was. Had to hope the landy with its shredded load looked like a heap of junk no one would touch! With fingers barely unfrozen enough to operate the automated check in we found out way to our room which was tiny, warm, clean and basic. We found the bottle of wine we had brought, and I think I was pretty much asleep before my head hit the thin hard pillow!