A wonderfully peaceful night by the Canal de Castillo, and another lazy morning, mainly revolving around blogging. An excellent goats cheese salad, including guest appearances from some beetroot, as well as fig jam. 

Early afternoon we got back on track, following our little diversion, and headed off to check out the aire at Villada. Very nice, bijou, all the important services, and not a soul there. We found the shadiest trees and parked under there for a while for coffee and cake. 

From then on we’ve been pretty much driving along good roads, very quiet as always, and mostly incredibly straight and flat. To be honest you do reach a point when you long for some undulation in the landscape and road, but we can’t complain really as the weather is beautiful, albeit at our top end heatwise. 

We also popped in on the aire at Valencia de Don Juan. Perfectly functional, and quiet, but we’re getting more fussy in our old age and thought we could find something a little less urban. So we drove off, but unfortunately Sophie caught sight of a large castle ruin in the town, and insisted on a look around. It was that time of the day when I’m getting twitchy about where we might stay, with only one viable stop left in my armoury. Time is of the essence and another castle visit can wait because there’ll always be another one around the corner, won’t there? Apparently not, so we had to look at the castle walls, from every angle, taking into account the best lighting, and so on, but to be fair it was pretty impressive, and we managed to keep it a brief affair. 

So now we find ourselves at the aire at Astorga. Right next to the bullring, but thankfully no action taking place in there at the moment. As Sophie was quibbling over whether I should have topped up with diesel in a previous town, I’ve arranged it so that the view from her side of the motorhome this evening is that of the WC emptying point. Apart from that this a perfectly pleasant and quiet site, and in the distance I can see the main cathedral. Sophie has done her usual 11th hour research, which is fair enough given that we rarely know where we’ll be each evening, and she tells me there’s plenty to see here and in the area. 

Highlights of the day, excepting Sophie’s current view from her window, were seeing a fox boldly strolling across a field in the middle of the afternoon, storks perched on churches, and birds chattering like the kind of small monkeys you might see in Jersey Zoo. 

Progress so far: