Granada to Ronda...

Fanny of the day award goes to me today. Narrowly escaped by nice car boss after the suggestion over breakfast that my map reading skills were questionable… a mistake not to be made twice! I was so cross I managed to forget to collect the fridge bag and the freezer blocks so once Dad and I had navigated our way out of Granada and onto the right road with only one wrong turn I realised and we had to go back. We finally got out of there but we were further behind the boys than I’m comfortable with so I might have shouted at my Dad more than I normally do. My stress levels on this trip have been higher than normal. Half the time I’m trying really hard to do the best for the boys and get everything done and the other half of the time I feel like I’m totally fucking useless at this support team lark. I have my Mum’s worrying disease, when I worry about the stuff that hasn’t happened yet and is probably unlikely to happen either!

I hadn’t anticipated how stressful the driving part would be. Not so much the driving, that’s a piece of piss but when you’re pulling a trailer it limits the places you can go. My reversing skills with a trailer are actually quite impressive (even if I do say so myself!) and I’m quite sure that Ary would be proud. It really is just about practice but when you’re trying to find somewhere with a satnav system that is complete and utter bollocks in the rich bitch car difficult, but it does make life easier to have an actual paper map. My Dad taught me to read a map and I can find my way to where I need to go, even when the scale isn’t exactly accurate. That is until you arrive in somewhere like Granada and turn down the street that google maps is sending you (after you’ve literally driven past the hotel at least twice and given up on the rich bitch satnav) and you know that if there’s a dead end at the bottom of the hill when there’s two inches between the wheels and the kerb, on both sides, or something comes up the other way you literally are going to have to push that trailer all the way back up there. To say there have been fraught moments would be an understatement.

I’ve only fucked up one roundabout by driving up the wrong way on the slip road off it and even then it wasn’t a disaster cause there was only one other car coming the other way. The other two times I’ve nearly driven up a one way street the other drivers coming the right way have let me know before I got there. So they don’t count. It would of course help if the street signs were (a) visible before you’re on the junction and (b) had road numbers on them! We take a lot for granted in the UK when it comes to travelling. From knowing where to go when you get on a ferry to knowing what is a one way street and what’s not. There are generally no entry signs. Here, you have to guess. I think if we’d been sponsored for the number of roundabouts we’d been round, we would have made at least treble figures for that alone. It’s fair to say there are more we’ve been round twice than once.

This photo was taken at lunchtime. I was instructed by Douglas Senior’s colleagues to take a shot of him with his beardy as he’s been sponsored to grow it. He hates it so it really is worth the sponsorship. They were having a dress down day in his office in his honour today so wanted proof that he was indeed hirsute.

I’ve no idea where this was and if I’m honest, I’m past caring now, although I’ve just asked nice car boss and he reckons it was at Periana, just before Colmenar. (I probably should stop calling him nice car boss now really since it’s pretty fair to say that his car is a tip!) We went the least direct route, over as many hills as possible and it’s fair to say that nice car boss probably hit his all-time low of the trip. I take my hat off to him for carrying on when the other two got in the broom wagon a little early today, he has so much determination, the rest of us couldn’t help but be impressed. Alas Ronda was a little tricky for us to navigate which meant that after cycling 140 miles, he got there before us. Support team fail!

The longest day ever, for all of us given that we were up at 6am and arrived at the hotel at 10pm.