Hi.

New Blog 28^th January.

Well we are still in Markadia settling into a nice routine of chilling, fishing, and sleeping we are turning into right old lay a bout's !..

We have been here over 3 weeks and it has flown, it is doing Sandra the world of good as she is looking a lot better in her self after all the trauma of 2011 with her health, we shall carry on with this theme and hopefully when we move on she will be back to her old self.

We will probably stay here another 2 or three weeks depending on the dentist, I have lost one week when the tooth he put back temporary fell out breaking the peg he had put in to hold it in place, so he had to re do it this time with a false tooth which is more robust than the capped one that broke off. He says it will take another two sessions till he finally puts in the new tooth. The Portuguese technician is going to let me jump his cue of patients as I am on holiday and my time in Portugal is limited..

We had a quick work out of the time we have left before we come back to the UK. We will set off up to Coto Chris at the north of Portugal in about 2 weeks time making sure we get to his house on a Friday so we can have the weekend staying at his place, we will then spend a couple of days going back to Mequinenza in Spain where we can spend another month wild camping at the side of the Ebro having another go for the big fish that escaped from the carp sack when we were there last time.. (Some hope).. We will;then take about another 4 days or so meandering back into France till we get to Hornfluer where we will spend a couple of nights in the “Aire”, it is here that there is a local vet who speaks very good English, She gives Evie all the relevant jabs and treatments so she can stamp up Evie's passport to get her back into the UK.

Well that's the plan lets see what happens!..

A few more pictures..

Just a note!... If you click any of  the pictures they should pop up full size.. Ray.

Hi
Pictures from Nellies New Year cruise..

New Blog.

Well it has got round to Christmas and we are nice and warm tucked up in the van, we can at least watch the telly as we get all the Sky programmes we have at home except BBC of all things!.. The Weather is very misty when the wind comes from the East, and the visibility into Fragga where we went Christmas shopping was bad.

Had a nice tea and set the rods, it would be just our luck for the alarm to go off when we are into a good program on the telly, but silence remained so we settled down, put the bed out and we went to sleep. The alarm was quite all night until 8.30am when the alarm went off, a nice way to be woke up on Christmas day, a carp of 28.6oz..

We phoned home to speak to the family it was nice to talk to everybody especially the grand kids, opening our pressies was nice especially with wall to wall blue sky and it being quite warm, all the locals were walking past on their strolls, and it was just like home with the kids riding their new bikes..

Sandra has discovered a couple of pairs of Eagles that are perched on a ledge on the mountain across the lake, she saw one flying about while taking Evie for a walk, she has tried loads of times to take photos of them but none have turned out successfully, oh well !..

It keeps alternating between freezing when the mist comes and red hot and blue sky s when the mist burns off, we took advantage of the nice weather to make a film of how we fish at Mequinenza, I tried to make it on this laptop but something has gone wonky and it wont let me into the program I use, I will put together a movie on the computer at home when we get back.

New Years Eve. Last fish of 2011 a carp of 36lb 12oz, not a bad end to the fishing season ..We walked into town for the midnight celebrations, everything was shut in Mequinenza except a couple of bars and the Kebab shop, so we had a couple of pints in a bar then went to the Kebab Shop where we stayed for a couple of hours and we really enjoyed it talking to the owners, well talking is an understatement as they can not speak much English and I cant speak much Spanish, but we all managed.

We rang home and some friends for midnight in the UK which is an hour adrift from Spanish time which is an hour ahead making it 1am when we rang, I wanted to ring Aunt Jess but have lost her number when I put in the Spanish sim card..

New Years day we went for a cruise in Nellie her longest voyage yet, we sailed up to the dam wall, it was good fun and we took some good photos looking back from the lake. We did not bother fishing today and it was nice not to be tied and be able to chill and watch the telly most of the day..

2^nd January 2012.

1^st fish of the year at 2 am a 38lb 14oz carp a great start for the new season, will it last?.. we fished all through the day with no more bites and then into the following night until 2am again when the alarm screamed into action again, woke us up and got us tumbling out of bed once again, I picked up the rod and bent into the fish and it was solid, another Siluro?.

The fight went on out in the darkness as the fish just swam about in the distance as it had stripped off lots of line in it's initial run while we were getting our gear on to go out in the cold night air. After about 20 min's a shape appeared on the surface illuminated by our head lamps, it wasn't a Siluro but an enormous carp, that only just went into the big carp landing net when we could get it into the shoreline, it weighed a ton as I lifted it onto the unhooking mat in readiness to roll it into the carp sack where it would spend the night so we could weigh it and take it's picture in the morning daylight.

Next morning we went out to take it out of the sack but as I looked at the sack on the end of the tether line I could see it was flat without the fish shape we normally see, a pull on the line confirmed this and an empty sack came ashore and straight away we could see the zip open where the fish had shoved it's nose into the partially open zip and forced it's way out.. Bugger!.

The only thing we could go on was the carp was a lot bigger than the one we caught 4 years ago which weighed 52lb 2 oz, so it was the one that got away, even though we caught it.

So it was decided that this would be a good day we would break camp packed up Nellie and the van, got the car on the trailer and set off to Portugal as we would never better this fish..

It took us two days at a steady pace to get to Markadia in Portugal. The place on the camp site we normally park up was free so I wriggled into the space with the van which is a tight manoeuvre because of overhanging branches, and I have to site the van with the gap in the trees so the Satellite dish has a clear view to Astra 28 satellite..

We are now settled in have put up the wind curtain which hangs off the roll out canopy all of which makes a big room we never have had before, money well spent on that.

The site is very quite with only four British folk on at the moment even though the weather is brilliant, maybe most folk have gone down the Algarve or are being put off by the problems with the Peages (toll booths) with all the shenanigans that have been rife on the motor home forums, I must admit we have not had any problems with the tolls so far!.

The fishing here in Markadia is the best we have ever had, the first days fishing started with me catching 3 Carp and a Barbel, with Sandra catching 3 Carp on my rod when she had a wonder down to see if I had caught anything.

The next day we both went down to the Barregem fishing, Sandra rowed Nellie out and dropped a marker buoy in, something we can fish to, I went out and baited the area in preparation putting in ground bait, chopped Spam, pellets and sweetcorn. This worked spectacularly as I caught over 50 Carp, 2 Barbel and Sandra about 10 carp well over 150lb of fish.. The carp are all between 1.5lbs and 4 lbs averaging 3lbs..

Next day down to the lake at dinnertime, I set up both rods and Sandra went back to make a pot of tea for us and a bacon sandwich for me. Big mistake I took a bite from the sandwich and my front tooth broke off!. We spent the rest of the day finding a dentist to fix it, we finally found one in Bega the next big city, he stuck it back and I an now having dental treatment which will mean a new tooth being made which will be screwed in..Oh I nearly forgot we got a parking ticket for our troubles as well, not one of our better days!..

Next day I fished alone while Sandra washed with here new twin tub washing machine we bought at the “Lincoln Motor Home Show” it appears it is one of our better buys as it works great. I fished on and caught 24 Carp and 2 Barbel in the afternoon, but this time the bigger fish have moved in with average going up to 4lbs.

Friday the 13^th..Fished today with Sandra , I caught 27 Carp and one Barbel, Sandra caught 3 Carp and was in all kinds of trouble with her fishing, catching everything but fish, even managing to fall off here fishing chair when she leaned over to get something, a bit like Dell Boy in “Only Fools and Horses” when he falls through the bar flap.. It made us both laugh as she was scrambling about in the mud trying to get up, luckily she didn't fall into the lake.