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So finally home with no mishaps. We rode our bikes from the storage facility home in a hailstorm and today's weather reminds us of good reasons for fleeing in the winter. Overall a great trip - over 4000 miles at 35mpg. Only one bit of self inflicted damage to the van - a broken plastic window covering due to a moving tree.
We would certainly do this again in winter if only for the weather, comparatively long hours of daylight and lowish cost of living in Spain. Also the brilliant cycle path network. But we would miss England, not just friends and family, but the range of food and drink available over here, the atmosphere of cold nights in warm pubs and simply more to do. If we stayed for a long time in one site we would probably need to hire a car to get out and about: there's a limit to the number of bottles of wine you can carry on a bike! We certainly wouldn't want to live there permanently. So lots to consider.
Many thanks to all who have followed our progress and to Peter and Mary next door for keeping an eye on things, especially the volume of mail.
Because we have had over 550 visits to the blog I will surely do one next time. We hope this will be a trip in late April possibly going to Holland, Denmark and maybe Sweden. We'll let you know.
Adieu, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all (that's the Xmas cards sorted),
love
J&P

A FEW MORE PICTURES

 Rubbish in the river at Guardamal. It is not just the British who drop litter.

 A cormorant drying its wings.

 At Virgen del Mar.

 Ditto.

You'll have to take my word that the mountains in the far background are snow covered.

FINAL JOURNEY

Hi,
So we have taken the easier option and gone for a ferry from Santander to Portsmouth. We spent a few more days last week in Guardamal, had some nice food not involving eels and then made our way north of Madrid where we stayed for a night and saw a few snowflakes. We then continued north through Burgos and some spectacular mountain scenery (we took the wrong road!) more quite heavy snow and finally arrived in Santander. The campsites there were either closed or missing so we drove afew miles west and stayed at avery pretty site - Virgen del Mar. We were the only ones. There were some bracing walks and it was within easy reach of the ferry.
Because the drive through France in Winter would not have been great and the costs of sites and moorway tolls as well as the ferry crossing to Dover would have been quite pricey the overnight crossing to Portsmouth seemed like a good idea. And it was.
We are now in a pub car park just north of Wickham with the promise of a pint of Gales to come.
I will do a final post with a few photos at the weekend when we will be back in Manchester.
Thanks to you all for perservering so far and 1 more post to go.
Cheers
J&P

HOMEWARD BOUND

Hi Everybody,

A full post will appear next week but just to let you all know that after our sojourn in Guardamal we headed up to Madrid and are now near Santander from where we will catch a ferry overnight to Portsmouth and then home at the end of next week.

See you all soon I hope,
J&P