247 DEAR DIARY, DAY ELEVEN…

Dear Diary,

And now, the end is near, and so we face the final motorway-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road…. It is the last day, and just a short blast from San Sebastián to the docks at Bilbao to catch the ferry home. 

First things first, I needed petrol badly.  The low-fuel light was glowing so brightly that it could be seen from space, like the light atop the Pyramid Hotel in Las Vegas.  The filling station was around the corner, which involved negotiating the many, many roundabouts and pedestrian crossings, and I got lost.  Sake.  Did an illegal U-turn right in front of a police car. It was early in the day, and he clearly couldn’t be bothered, so he shook his head and drove off. Result. 

We packed for the final time, stuffed the bags into our little cars and headed to Bilbao.  We left early and hoped the traffic would be kind.  The traffic was light but full of Spanish fart knockers, with a special mention going out to the asshat driving the FlexiBus who tried to run me off the road and found me leaning on the horn and wildly gesticulating again.  I hope he gets crabs…in his gums. 

We made it to the port and engaged in the full ‘hurry up and wait’ pantomime getting through port security, then passport control (where I had to get a picture taken as I don’t look like my passport photo anymore because of my hobo beard).  Then there was the queue to get on the boat, and finally we made it, parked up and headed for our inside cabin (boo), but it did have an artificial window (hmmm) and a telly with actual British TV channels (yay!) - oh how I’ve missed you ’Slum Landlords, Nightmare Tenants’ on Channel 5. 

We found an invitation in the room for a tour of the bridge of the ferry!  I thought it was a joke at first, but we turned up at the meeting point anyway…an hour early.  

It seems the boat runs on British time; we were still on European time.  

We went back later, and sure enough, we got a tour of the bridge!  It was really interesting and a bit unnerving as no one seemed to be steering the ship.  I asked if I could have a go, but they politely refused.  I just wanted to do some doughnuts in the Bay of Biscay; is that too much to ask?!?

To soften the blow, we headed to the bar and hit the high-quality IPA.  We then got roped into doing a quiz where the host gave us a letter, and we needed to find a car make/something found in the kitchen/animal, etc. that began with that letter.  They asked that we use a clean team name, so we used our usual: ‘The Padded Coat Hangers’.  The name is clean, where it comes from, not so much (watch Episode One of Benidorm).  

Long story short, we came 2nd despite getting the most questions right, but took it in good humour by demanding that the winners buy us a drink from the bar vouchers they won.  We huffed to the restaurant for tea before heading back to the bar just in time for the karaoke, where a guy in an Ipswich shirt did his version of ‘My Way’ despite not being able to carry a tune in a bucket. 

Before retiring to gently rocking beds, Lisa, Rachel, and I tried to get some pictures as the sun set over the Atlantic.  The results were spectacularly bad, as we all ended up with wind-affected, early 80s New Romantic fringes. 

Before trying to get some sleep, I checked our location on the ship’s navigation channel and found that we were roughly halfway across the Bay of Biscay, which doesn’t really feel far enough for all the effort the ferry has put in. Anyway, I’m off to get some sleep, and we should be sailing past Normandy when I wake up. 

Yours,

Rob