We
woke up this morning and Richard said why don’t we see if we can get a ferry
for Tuesday. This meant that we needed
to get to the vet PDQ to get Muffin his exit check. I rang the vet and she could fit us in at
11.15am. Next was to ring Brittany
Ferries along with half of the UK, I think!
For ages it was engaged and when I finally got a ring tone, I had to
wait for 28 minutes before anyone answered.
By this time, we were on our way to the vets! Anyway, someone finally answered, and she
said that she doubted if we would get a dog friendly cabin then came back with
either Sunday, Tuesday for Wednesday! We
chose Tuesday and she took my £20 to change the booking. I then got an email to confirm.
There were two other Brits in the vets also waiting to get their exit checks done so that they could drive home.
It
was at this stage that we realised that things were moving pretty fast here in
Spain.
We
went to Consum in Vera so I could get some gin!
A litre of Gordons for less than £10.
It was chaos in there with empty shelves and supermarket staff running
around everywhere. Fortunately, I just
wanted the gin and something for a picnic as we don’t want to go into motorway
services to eat. At the check out I wondered if the girl thought I was
stockpiling gin!
We
stopped to get fuel and found the people who work the pumps both had masks on.
It
was then Thomas’s to get some bread for lunch – there was even a long queue in
there.
As
we left Thomas’s we saw that the Police were taping off the beach and both the
foot and cycle paths along the Paseo.
This didn’t look good.
If I
thought everything was kicking off this morning, I was kidding myself! It really DID kick-off this afternoon.
The
Spanish Prime Minister had given a press conference declaring a state of
emergency in Spain.
Jet
2 had either turned a flight around or the Spanish wouldn’t let it land – I’m
not sure.
Then
Brittany Ferries announced that they were cancelling their Santander to
Portsmouth and Le Havre to Portsmouth sailings, of course our booking was on
the Le Havre route ☹ So now what.
A
loudspeaker van drove all round Mojacar Playa telling people, both in Spanish
and in English, to stay inside their homes.
What
on earth where we supposed to do now?!
We did bury our heads in the sand a bit at this stage but then I got an
email from Stuart, the property manager, to say that as of Monday morning at
8am all non essential travel would be prohibited in Spain unless travelling to
get food, or work or traveling home – the last one gave us hope so we looked on
the Eurotunnel site and there seemed to be plenty of space. We quickly looked at Google Maps and we chose
our route which went to the east of Paris as neither of us relish the idea of
the Peripherique and then booked our shuttle.
This was our only way of getting home with Muffin. We don’t use the route normally as we only
live a few miles from the ferry terminal in Portsmouth.
During
the evening I got a phone call from Brittany Ferries to tell us our crossing
was cancelled! But at least they did
ring. They are giving us a full refund
which works out about a bit less than the Eurotunnel.
Sunday
15th March
We
had the sad job of packing up today. I
put it off for as long as possible but I could sense that Richard was getting
edgy so I had to make the big effort.
Richard got the suitcase out from under the bed which brought back
memories of the burglary as the case had been pulled out then and looked into.
Once
I had started packing it just seemed to flow.
We are away from home so often that packing has become quite easy
really. While I sorted and packed the
bedroom Richard was in the garage packing other things. We had gained a large paella pan (Mark’s) and
various other things of Penny’s.
Taken
before lockdown
Phil
popped round in the afternoon to take the contents of our freezer. I had it all worked out that there was just
about enough to keep us going until we left – well with a few meals out too.
Richard
took Muffin for two short, on the lead, walks.
The new rules were that you could only go out to go to the food shops,
walk the dog and only one person in a car.
(Things have changed and more stringent since March 15th).
It
was a sad evening, knowing that we were leaving the next day when we really
shouldn’t have been leaving for another 20 days.
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