Where's Frankie?

On Your Marks

Tuesday 17th October

At last we managed to finish stewarding Porth Beach without too many incidents. All the money seems to balance and in the end we gave the site twice as much as we gave them two years ago.

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200 yards from the site entrance is this beautiful beach. So far we have stewarded this site for 6 weeks (over two years) and this is the first time that I’ve seen this bay. Lucy had to stay behind because we had no assistants (although we did have some generous offers towards the beginning of the meet). It’s almost like running a care home for the elderly – they turn up, no idea of how long they are staying for so we ask them to start looking for us the day before they want to go so they can settle up. Out of 270 visitors a good 30 to 40 couldn’t manage that, they came looking for us on their way out and if we’re not there…

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Slightly further on and more almost deserted beaches.

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And a little bit more. Next year we will have assistants and we will be taking occasional days off.

Things are starting to move into action with our Spanish adventure. The ferry has been booked for 31st October sailing from Portsmouth to Santander.

Contracts have been signed, references have nearly been obtained and uniform is on its way. It’s more stewarding but we’re just the assistants and we get days off. We should be arriving in Almafra on the 14th October after visiting a few places on the way. The current stewarding arrangement finishes on the 4th January and we will be emergency back up if something goes wrong on one of the other rallies. That actually fits in really well with what we’ve been doing in the past. We expect to be back in the UK in late April.

Just in time really, the red wine has all disappeared, the gin has gone walkabout and we are nearly out of coffee beans. Lucy has been out stocking up with all the things that you can’t buy in Spain such as olives, garlic and pasta. Seriously there are a few things you can’t seem to buy anywhere, tea bags – not that we use them and Hot Chocolate, the English type where you just add water although we have been trying the Spanish Hot Chocolate with powdered milk with some success. English Mustard was top of my list, Marmite was top of Lucy’s although there was half a jar in the cupboard and that should do anyone for three or four years.

We’ve been out buying new clothes, a new map and don’t tell Lucy but there might be a drone hiding in one of the cupboards. It needs assembly which should keep me quiet for a couple of weeks. 

Frankie has had a wash, a really proper wash and I think I over did it a bit leaving every muscle in my body aching. Windbreaks have been taken out as well as the plastic and wire pegs (surprising how many there were!). Guide books have been rearranged and the redundant ones taken out.

We now have a utility tent and used it during Porth Beach for most of our cooking. We have the refillable bottles and are a bit worried about running out of gas mid stewarding session so we are experimenting with cooking with electric. (It turned out we only used £3.60 worth of gas during the last four weeks).

The blog has been tweaked to try and make it look and behave slightly better. I did notice how many typos there were throughout the text and I can only blame the computer spell checker and my back up, “Lucy the thesaurus”. For a little while all the photos disappeared but I think I have everything back under control. If you notice anything amiss please let me know.

3 thoughts on “On Your Marks

  1. val & andrew

    Hello Wanderers thanks again for your services in Porth looking forward to hearing about you spainish drinking holidays ,sorry assisting holiday,cant wait to see pictures of you two in your uniforms ,next years calendar I guess,,, are you going in a Delorean ? safe travels .

    1. Mark Post author

      We need some tips on Toledo and the surroundings. Swap for a recommendation to visit the Mesquite and stay at an aire close to the Medhina Azahara (which we didn’t go to because it is closed on Mondays).
      Do not get into any taxi driven by anyone old enough to be your great grandad, it won’t go well!!!

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