Thursday September 16th
Val: Yesterday we had a bit of a shock because we decided to go down to the coast only to find a strange light (the one representing a car engine) had come on in the car which appeared to have something to do with an emissions problem. At the same time we were going up a steep hill in Vejer and Bill felt the car was drastically losing power and he couldn’t easily get to the top of the road. We pulled out the book of words and were told to find a garage asap. We happened to have spotted one previously in La Noria, the new part of town so we chugged our way there. The guy was helpful and said to leave it there and he would do a diagnosis on it to help find out what was the matter. He asked us to leave it overnight.

We abandoned ideas of the beach and walked home via “Via PC” the cyber café where, for 12 euros a week, you can latch onto their internet access (if you’re lucky). As the dongle hasn’t arrived we felt this was the only way forward. We have used these people in the past and haven’t found it works terribly well as often you can’t get access but we hoped it may have improved since our last dalliance with them. Like the last time we seem to only get a good connection if we’re sitting on the flat roof so late last night in the pitch black there I was skypeing Becky surrounded by the stars in the sky and the twinkling of lights in the village.

Bill: Returning for the car this morning, the assistant mechanic said it was OK but, if we returned at 4, his boss would tell us what had happened. He said test it out so we went to Barbate, Canos de Meca, Zahora (where we had a coffee at the thatched Sajorami restaurant looking out over the Bay of Souls to Cape Trafalgar) then on to La Bahia for lunch on the Conil seafront. This was our first meal out since we arrived here. We returned to the Vejer garage without the light coming on again where the mechanic told us the diagnosis showed that everything was working as it should so the fault must be in the sensor. “So why was there such a loss of engine power?” I asked. “If the engine light goes on, the computer responds by cutting the engine power to reduce the risk of damage to the engine.” He replied. Let’s hope the incident was a one-off. I don’t fancy returning 1840 miles at 40mph!

Today has been the first cloudy day – which made being out mid-day much more comfortable. Our first rain has arrived this evening. From the brownness of the landscape, it is much needed. To misquote the bard: “The Calle de Merced has not seen rain.” Sorry!

The storm clouds seem to have stopped all the satellite TV channel signals apart from the ones the Pope is on. Hmmmm! Richard Dawkins: please take note.