By 11pm, we were the only ones left at our overnight stop, then a new neighbour arrived & parked right behind us. They then started up and left their engine running for about 15 minutes, which was thoughtful of them. Little did we know that this would be the least of our noise problems. 

Around 11pm we’d heard distant rumbles of a rock concert, presumably a long way off across the bay. It didn’t seem loud enough to be a problem and faded with the wind. In any case, it’d no doubt be over in an hour tops. I drifted off and was awoken abruptly at 2:15 by Sophie, who last night adopted the policy of “a problem shared is a problem doubled”. She blamed it on my snoring, but I think the truth was really that she couldn’t sleep due to the increase in the heavy metal concert volume, and just had to share this fact with the closest person to her, which unfortunately was me. 

Being the eternal optimist I felt it couldn’t go on for ever, so I turned over, pretending to be asleep and leaving Sophie to huff and puff on her own. Actually she was asleep pretty promptly, whilst I endured every moment of the remainder of the concert that finally came to a loud drummed crescendo at 3:24am. A very peaceful night then followed, with six straight hours of sleep. 

I think our original motorhome neighbours from earlier on in the evening perhaps knew something we didn’t. 

When Sophie arose and peaked out the window she was surprised that our new neighbours had pink wing mirrors. Sophie was clearly still bleary-eyed from last night because in fact our neighbours had simply hung their clothes to dry on their mirrors. Shortly afterwards, the men from the council arrived and turned on the sprinklers, at which point one of them noticed that one sprinkler was right next to our neighbour’s washing. He then kindly went and stood dutifully on the sprinkler until it’s allotted time was completed. 

After some washing, working, route-planning etc we headed off, but not before I’d tested Sophie’s patience, which is something she’d suggest is not an uncommon occurrence. I’d forgotten that I’d parked up to a small rounded boulder, well pebble really (in my eyes), and so I drove right over it. I’m not sure what all the fuss was about. No harm done. Anyway, I then got on with the topping up and tipping out, to give Sophie some time out for the steam to subside. 

As my usual planning is generally random, based on very little more than direction and then using Park4night stops as waypoints, I was surprised that the adjacent village was rated as one of the prettiest in Galicia. So we made a visit to Combarro. Sensible parking, once I’d fathomed the one way system, was a good start. The heart of it along the sea shore was very nice, excepting the shops selling the usual tourist tat. 

We saw a great lunch venue directly above the water and ventured in. They offered us the “a la carte” menu, but we didn’t understand anything on it so we disappointed the man by asking for the “menu del dia”. We only understood a little of what this entailed, so took a chance. 

Before our meal even arrived in this lovely restaurant location with impressive views, we were surprised when next to me outside, a young lady arrived in her pyjamas, slippers, and dressing gown with hood and rabbit ears. She’d come to hang out her sheets, which did diminish the view somewhat. 

The first item of food to arrive was a flat pastry thing with some sort of chicken in it, which was “perfectly OK” according to Sophie, then a very large platter of the largest moules I’ve ever seen. Sophie didn’t fancy those so I had no choice but to eat them all. 

After all that the paella arrived. A decent-sized paella pan was placed on the table and we tucked in. Sophie didn’t fancy too much of it so to be polite I ate as much as I physically could, but had to leave a bit in the end. It was a lovely spot and a memorable location, and as we watched our neighbours tucking into their strange courses, we felt somewhat out of our depth when it comes to Spanish cuisine.