22nd November Wind nesday

A rubbish night's sleep last night. The wind is probably the worst we've ever experienced here and the noise was incredible - imagine being in the Antarctic with the wind whistling round your tent!

Every so often there would be a great gust and you're waiting for a following bang, clang or crash. I think our brains were in overdrive fully expecting to see Rolo with an upturned palm tree speared through the windscreen when we got up this morning. Thankfully there was only palm leaves and leaf debris scattered along the road.

Our furniture had gone 'walkies' overnight.

Our breakfast entertainment has been watching someone's table blowing about on their balcony. Unfortunately it looks like it's unoccupied. The table was flapping and bashing about on the right side and has damaged the balcony rails. It then got blown along and is currently wedged by the shutters. Hopefully it's not going to get blown over the rails into the canal which currently has got waves on it!

Despite the racket up here in the apartment we decided to get out and see what it was like. It was actually comparatively quiet as outside it was without all the whistling and howling we're experiencing with our shutters and balcony doors not quite creating a good seal. I was pleased to have recently finished knitting a hat and Ian put his new hoodie hood to good use.

We managed to have a good walk along the sea front as the wind was coming off the mountain. The buildings were providing some shelter and we didn't have any sand blasting or getting blown over! As we were up in Roses we tried out our Revolut card which allows us to purchase things in many different currencies. We'd not previously got cash out of an ATM so wanted to see the best place to withdraw money i.e. cheapest! We found out that Deutsche Bank charge €4 a transaction, Santander €7 and Banco Sabadell €1.80 - guess which one we used 😅. We ended up with €50 notes which are a nightmare to change as you may remember from our previous attempts to change them. As the ATM had run out of other notes we thought the bank might help out in changing them. A definite no, no without an account. However, we were there the same time as a bloke from Manchester, who was trying to bank a load of coins, so we did our own exchange. We got some coins and he could bank our note.

Having walked right to the marina end of Roses, and nothing else planned, we stopped for a coffee. We have not been to this cafe before but it was well sheltered from the wind, had a sea view and we warmed up quite nicely - had to remove our outer layers! A good spot to watch the world go by and use their WiFi to update apps. They also served Biscoffi biscuits with their coffee so we'll use this one again 😃.

Back for lunch it's been a soup day. After wearing a woolly hat a salad didn't have quite the appeal it has when it's hot and sunny. So it was chicken noodle, baguette and garlic cheese today. We're now down to a few basics in the fridge as we eat everything up before we leave.

As it was sunny but still windy this afternoon we had a walk over to Mercadona to buy some more coffee - need my decaffeinated ground coffee fix several times a day. We did buy a small packet though as we reckon we'll finish it by Monday evening. 

With our data allowance running low we're eeking out the amount of time we can watch TV so we're rewatching our DVDs. Some for the 3rd time but as Ian usually nods off he's probably going through his first watch 😅. We've already made a note to ourselves to bring more DVDs next time as well as a few more warmer clothes. I might even pack a woolly hat and gloves.

This evening the wind seems to be a bit quieter so hopefully I'll get some uninterrupted sleep. We have a lunch date tomorrow with Richard, taking him to the place we went for our first friends in the bay meal. So it'll be a relaxing day to look forward to tomorrow.