Cantankerous canine catastrophe in Cantabria

That Nice Lady Decorator has the annoying habit of saving bits of her meal for Banjo, the cantankerous (not only in Cantabria) canine, in which she sees redeeming features which, in my opinion, are beyond redemption. He often gets little treats, purloined from the dinner table, to make his day more enjoyable and to make my day more depressing. I suppose that a piece of sausage or bacon or anything else that does not smell is OK, but yesterday lunchtime we had some calamaries (bits of octopus in other words) left over from a delightful tapas meal. Without a thought, she popped then into a serviette and took with her to the car. It was after we returned to the car in the evening, having reached a town called Castropol on the northern Cantabrian coast, that the trouble started.

The all-pervading smell of fish is hardly alluring at the best of times. In many ways it reminds me of my late teenage years, but that is another story. It is not usually an aroma you would seek out and it certainly did not appeal when we opened the car door later in the evening to remove fishy smelling suitcases. They little fishy delights were quickly given to Banjo the dog but I can tell you that I am not looking forward to opening the car door this morning. It will be interesting to see for how long the smell lasts. I am betting on about 5 years, so the new 4 x 4 will, as I have predicted, become a skip eventually, and will start by smelling like one from today.

There is also the issue of whether it is advisable to give a dog who has suffered terribly on the 24 hour ferry over, being in a kennel and being sick -due presumably to the motion of the ship -anything other than dried biscuits. Banjo lives quite happily in the car on the nights where hotel owners are sensible and refuse entry to dogs, but his tummy must still be sensitive after that ordeal, and I am not sure feeding him limpss of octopus is the way to go here. I do hope that it’s tentacles have not spread to far, if you get my nautical drift (Ok, I am having an “obscure reference day”. I blame it on being able to buy bottles of Crianza Rioja in bars for under £10.)

Spanish for “be nice?”

It would have been better to have used this picture yesterday when I was reporting on The Nice Lady Decorator’s sense of humour failure whilst queuing to board the ferry to Santander from Portsmouth. Regular readers will know that she was being, well, a bit arcy, hence today’s picture. Well I understand what I mean anyway.

The northern coast of Spain is very beautiful but would have been more so had the grey low cloud that was omnipresent yesterday ever cleared. It was forecast to clear in the afternoon but it did not, and the weather forecast over the next few days is not very good. It is ironic that we set up this trip to head towards some sunshine and warmth, after the Isle of Wight, but there I was able to enjoy walking in shirts and requiring sunglasses, whilst here in Spain I have been wearing long trousers and jumpers since we arrived.

The 3 mile walk along the wonderful and huge beach at the excellently named St Vincente de la Barquera, where I had hoped to bump into some potential customers for the services of Currencies Direct, was undermined by a keen wind and a hint of drizzle, and, as we wanted to explore the whole coastline, we set off towards the west, stopping at Ribadesella for that lunch from where I took today’s photo.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News