Canard, Lola and the Smiling Dolphins

Saturday 28^th August 2010. Camping a la ferme du plantie

Hallo. We are in France in a campsite which is really a garden. There are two cats, one is called Canard (Duck) and the other one I named Lola. Lola tried to steal our pain au chocolat. I like them:)

Since we left Stockport On Thursday morning we have travelled to Portsmouth on public transport with very heavy bags (turns out my back is very lazy) and then sailed across the sea on a beautiful pea green boat (and by that I mean a giant cruise ship/ferry). Where we sailed across is full of whales, dolphins and porpoises (32 different species spotted to date), so it was very geared to whae spotting, with a nice guide called Clive. I saw lots of dolphins, 2 pilot whales, some backs of fin whales and a tuna (noone else saw the tuna but I didn't make him up, his name was Marcel). It was all of the fun, I also enjoyed trying to figure out how to use Shaun's camera to photograph their little smiles.

There was lots of 'entertainment' on board. I was not entertained by it. For tea on the second night we had childrens meals coz they were cheaper. I had fish cake and chips and a fruit salad, it was very tasty, the chips tasted like school dinners:) At the end of the day when it went dark I spoke to Clive and told him about my degree. He told me I should've told him sooner so he could've told me more in depth stuff about them. He acted like my degree made me clever. This made me happy.

The boat was very rocky and I felt quite sea sick and consequently didn't sleep very much, I also couldn't sleep coz my tummy shouted at me that children's portions were for children.

We got up at 6am (UK time) and got off at Bilbao. We got a taxi to the car hire place and he ripped us off but I don't speak any spanish so I couldn't argue. Then we drove. We had breakfast in a Spanish service station. The lady shouted at me. I don't speak spanish. I had a potato, cheese and ham omlette. It was clealrly mashed potato but I was so hungry/tired I ignored this fact and nyomed it all down. I then bought some bugles and ate some in the car:) We stopped in Bayonne and bought some bread, ham, cheese and ate it on a bench. Then we got confused by a possibly broken public toilet that kept trying to open while we used it. Silly French toilets. Then we drove lots. We stopped at a Champion and bought tinned paella amongst other things. Then we drove to the lovely campsite we're at now and cooked our tinned Paella. Lola doesn't understand/care that camping stoves are hot and kept almost burning her nose. Silly Lola. Jen and Canard are now lying reading a cool camping book. I am too sleepy to function. That is all for now.