Just finishing off the last few bits of shopping today and my thoughts are with those people who won’t be able to go home to enjoy Christmas with their families. An ambulance just went past on blues. There’s two policemen on duty over there. There’s firemen, doctors, nurses – all who’ll be missing Christmas with the family.

Here’s to you all, wherever you are. Merry Christmas everyone.

It’s actually day 12 today – I had to count that on the calendar! Staying in Todi has been fantastic for the both of us. The house we’re staying in is incredibly relaxing with fabulous views and peace and quiet abound. We’ve mostly read books, hung around the house and the swimming pool, had a bit of a walk and driven to town for dinner or grocery shopping once or twice. We’ve slept without alarm clocks waking us up. I feel more alive and refreshed than I have done for a long time. I do feel a little regret for not spending more time exploring the surrounds, but we needed the break to be honest. Besides, we’ve been invited back again next year – I don’t think we’ll drive next time.

We’re staying here with John (Sean’s Dad) and Sophie (his wife). They happened to have two friends staying at the same time (Bill and Sue) which wasn’t a problem – the house is a 3-bed Tuscan villa with a large living and dining room. So evening meals have been a mix – John cooked spaghetti bolognese one night and Bill and Sue cooked another night. So a few days ago, Sean and I announced that we’d cook – spaghetti carbonara. So we prepared, we got a recipe – it didn’t seem too difficult. We then had a bit of a spanner in the works with concerns over the eggs – you mix the spaghetti into the raw eggs and they kinda cook from the heat. So we moved on from carbonara and Sean and I scoured the internet and decided to stick with an Italian staple – Lasagne.

To be fair, I’ve made lasagne before, but only with the help of Mr. Ragu and Mr. Dolmio. This recipe called for making the ragu (the meat/tomato sauce) from fresh as well as the white sauce (actually a bechamel sauce). So, when we got the ingredients, we never realised how much of an epic it would be. We started cooking at just before 7pm and finally served a huge lasagne to serve 6-8 at 9pm – and we cut out quite a lot of the time the ragu is supposed to cook for! It was, however, an absolute resounding success. I served full plates for everyone and had plenty left over…until everyone asked for seconds. I don’t think I’ve ever had a meal go down quite so well. I also learned how to make a bechamel sauce – here’s a hint folks: make sure you have a whisk before you start. Doing it with a fork is bloody hard work.

So today is our last full day in Todi. We’re packing the car tonight for an 8am departure tomorrow. We’ve found a little hotel just south of Strasbourg which means we have some 8 hours of driving to do tomorrow (not including rest stops). Thursday night we have a ferry crossing to Dover and we’ll be in London for Friday where I have a work event. We had plans for the weekend but having experienced a long day’s driving on the way here, we decided to try and leave the weekend to recover and catch up on household chores – we’ve got almost a full suitcase of laundry! I think we’re both actually looking forward to going home now – to more familiar surroundings where shopping isn’t quite so much of an adventure and you can recognise “beef stock” (and not “beef soup”)!

It was a pretty long journey down to Marseilles, mostly on motorways. The terrain got progressively more yellow as we went, the trees and buildings becoming more meditaranean and the temperature rising. We found ourselves stopping for water a few times.

Driving in Marseilles was a nightmare and the route in to the city showed it to be a rough, industrial port. I’m sure there are nice areas of the city for tourists to see during the day, but having been through so many beautiful places, we decided to grab a quick sandwich and a drink in a little patisserie before getting back on the road.

It was a few more hours before we finally arrived at Aups having spent the last half hour or so travelling on smaller, provincial roads through some of the stunning Provence countryside. Aups is a beautiful small town which brought to mind memories of French towns from black and white wartime films. I fully expected to see a crowd of French resistance slinking around a corner away from a couple of German generals – my first impression wasn’t helped by the fact that as we got out of the car, an air raid siren sounded. Apparently it’s used to call the local fire brigade out…

We wandered around a little before meeting up with Sean’s cousin and headed over to their house – a beautiful little cottage. We spent a day and two nights here, just chilling out getting to know Eve and Patricio and the kids, Ishmael and Irene. We ate good food, drank good wine and beer and swam in a nearby lake.

Day 7 was yesterday, Thursday 10th, and we woke up early and got ready to leave. We had a long day of driving ahead of us and after saying goodbye to everyone, we packed the car and hit the road. By 10am the overhead signs were telling us it was 27 deg C and we soon stopped for a break on the mountains above Monaco. We hastily grabbed a few photos and took off again. The principle behind building this Italian road seems to have been to pick a point between the bottom of the valleys and the tops of the ridges and build a road along that line, building tunnels and bridges as necessary.

It was a long, long drive down to Todi and the roads got worse and worse as we went before finally ending on the dirt track that served as an access road to the villa. It had been a long day and it wasn’t long before we were crashing out on the sofa watching the sunset.

This morning we woke up to this view (picture to follow) from the balcony of our bedroom. I’m actually sat on the bed taking that one. It’s an incredible place here and we’re loving just chilling out and relaxing and NOT driving. We popped briefly into Todi today to do some shopping and pottered around before heading back and spending a lazy afternoon just chatting. I’m sat on the terrace writing this with the sun slowly falling towards the distant mountains and Sean playing on the guitar behind me. I’ve not had a watch or mobile on me today. It’s been magic. My biggest dilemma is currently whether I pop down to the swimming pool for a quick swim before dinner. I could get used to this.

Miles travelled: 1855

Our route so far (Google maps)

It was a long slog down to Strasbourg with both of us quite tired. We pulled in and headed to the tourist inforation center in the main station. The station itself was incredible – they’ve built a glass lozenge over the old station which protects it. Modern meets traditional. From there we walked over to Petit France for lunch. This is the older part of Strasbourg and is absolutely stunning. We walked around, had some lunch and listened to a bagpipe player (he must be very lost) for a bit before getting back on the road again.

Next stop was Zurich although by this time we were exhausted. We looked at our options and realised that with a long day of travelling ahead, exploring the city was likely out of the question. We had a fantastic night in a very upmarket Holiday Inn before getting back on the road in the morning.

As we headed through Switzerland, the terrain changed from the soft undulating hills to steep, craggy mountains with near-vertically sided valleys. The scenery kept surprising us and we climbed up from Martigny and crossed the Swiss/French border somewhere high in the pass before dropping down into Chamonix. We decided to grab some time here and took the Montenvers train to the Mer-de-Glace Glacier. It was an awesome sight and we even got to walk inside the Glacier where they’d dug out a “grotto” and sculpted the ice.

It was probably gone 5pm before we left for the short drive to Grenoble and this is where we got unstuck. In booking all of the hotels before we left, I’d managed to book the Grenoble hotel for the Sunday night instead of the Monday night. Expecting to pay for another night, we dragged ourselves into the hotel and had a wonderful surprise when the woman on reception convinced her manager to waive any charges and just let us have the room tonight. Fab ending to an incredible day.

I’ve uploaded some photos to flickr already – there’s more to come when I have time and a decent Internet connection.

Miles so far: 1,163

Pretty good. It’s re-routed me a few times because of traffic on the M4 – this morning for example, with an accident closing one eastbound lane at J29, it took me an alternate route. Given that my journey is nominally 40 minutes, it was reporting a 30 minute delay and when I passed the traffic on the M4 it was stood still. I got into work 7 minutes late.

It does have limitations though – the M4 Severn Bridge is a bottleneck and if that was closed there’s not much it can do to re-route me. It’s managed to get me to callouts sucessfully, to find locations via Google search results and take me there….all in all, I’m very happy with it. I do think it’s worth paying the £8 per month for the extra services, it turns it from just another navigation tool into somethign quite exceptional.

It has had a few problems though – random crashes from time to time, though it recovers within about 30 seconds and jumps straight back into the thick of it. The latest software won’t let me run the unit from TomTom Home – that’s really frustrating because there was no warning of that on the download and that’s how I add my route corrections. Still, no show-stoppers, a cracking navigation unit.

I find myself asking “What kind of stupid were these pirates?” Think about it – you’re faced with HMS Cumberland, a Royal Navy Type 22 frigate. Designed as an anti-submarine platform, it’s armed with a whole array of weaponry from the 4.5″ guns to Harpoon and Goalkeeper weapons systems. She also carries a few Royal Marines.

So, there you are, in a small wooden dhow, faced with a Royal Navy frigate and a bunch of Royal Marines in launches coming to board you. Do you think “I’ll take a few potshots with my AK before I turn and run, striking a critical blow to this armoured warship”? I’m sure I can see how that’s going to end so well…

Think we should award these guys posthumous Darwin Awards?

Reported widely on the BBC, I read it today and was surprised to see the MSP at odds with the police already – along with both Scottish Labour and the Lib Dems:

“I thought there was an over-reaction in terms of deploying riot police which possibly enflamed the situation…” MSP Fraser, BBC New

Personally as soon as I read his comment, I though his opinion was unlikely to be true. The police certainly weren’t amused and neither was Machester council leader, Sir Richard Leese, who said:

“If you are going to put blame on anybody you put blame on those people for their behaviour – they have to take responsibility.” Sir Richard Leese, BBC News

The police, who where policing a very difficult situation it seems felt it necessary to issue riot gear to the officers on the ground in order to control the crowds. Given that the MSPs in question weren’t there, I have to wonder how they think they’re talking anything but absolute rubbish. Of course, they’ve ended up with large amounts of egg on their faces now as GMP have released CCTV footage of the crowds, shown here on the BBC website. Quite frankly, looking at that footage, I think if I was that poor officer I’d be shitting myself with a mob of violent, angry and likely drunken hooligans bearing down on me. I can only imagine what that must have been like for him and all respect to him.

Of course, the wrong and allegedly honorable MSP Fraser has now issued a statement, not to camera this time, where according to the Beeb, he’s had to “temper his comments”. Apparently, after viewing the CCTV “the situation was more serious than [he] first suspected” and “The attacks on police officers and paramedics are deplorable and have to be condemned without reservation.”

So apart from thinking that the hooligans involved in the violence and riots should be strung up, I have to admit that my opinion of this MSP is now very low given that he seems to think he can judge a situation better than trained and experienced officers on the ground. Idiot.

First of all my car died. I ended up renting one for a week, followed by borrowing one from a used car dealership that was able to get me out of a very difficult situation, but that’s a different post. Finally, I managed to find a new car – a nice shiny red VW Golf estate which has impressed me a lot. I’m loving it.

So in my nice new car I was heading to base this morning, not to work and for once not to a callout. Meeting at base at 1000 we set about to prepare ourselves and the base for today’s event – a royal visit.

At about 1400 today, a number of cars pulled up outside base and out stepped Prince William. As the news reports, he was visiting a number of places in the valleys and stopped off to see us as his final visit of the day. We had some fun prepared for him – some hobnobbing with the local dignitaries, a light lunch and then change and head up to Morlais Quarry where we took him to the top off the cliff and he got to lower someone down a cliff – I don’t think his protection detail would have been too amused by my idea of lowering him off the edge of a cliff, but nevertheless, we had some great photo opportunities. It was a great day with fantastic weather and we all thoroughly enjoyed.

That’s when it all went downhill though, because on the way home, some drunken twat drove into my nice shiny new car and drove off without stopping. The damage isn’t too bad, it was a glancing blow but it’s knackered one of my wheels (it’s bent the actual metal bit) and twatted my rear door and rear wing, and after a drive tonight, I think it might have done something to the suspension or thereabouts. I only managed to grab a partial index – “S633…”, and I know it was a pale blue or silver hatchback – a large one, quite wide. Beyond that, the prick didn’t even slow down – no brake lights. I’ve just got home after filling in a police report which was gratifyingly easy and quick, though the nice young PC didn’t hold much hope of catching the turd, and reckoned he was probably drunk anyway.

Great.

The search down near Bridgend was for a missing woman reported on the news. She was missing since Saturday and it was clear from the start that we were looking for a body – the police were already holding someone in connecting with her disappearance. The South Wales police Specialist Search Unit were searching along with us, and it looks as though the body has indeed been found on some waste ground in Pontyclun, some distance from where we were searching. This has now publicly become a full murder inquiry.

That’s what the weather report said about tonight. So I shouldn’t really have been surprised when I heard a pager go off not long after being in base. It was Dai’s – he gets messages from the Bridgend team as well since he lives in Bridgend. They’d just been asked to attend a search down on the Gower. Huw looked at Dai and whilst Huw got his kit to change into, Dai started repacking the Landrover after Saturday’s callout. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I grabbed my kit and got changed myself. Just as I was finishing, another pager went off and Huw called out. “This is it, then.”

Rushing out o the car I grabbed my rucksack and quickly got my boots on. Getting the first response Landrover ready, I ended up driving and Huw jumped into the passenger seat. Heading out of base, blue lights flashing, we headed up the lane. A quick note – if an emergency vehicle is trying to pull out of a side road with blue lights flashing and sirens blaring, let it out. Don’t just drive on in front of it. I mean, it’s not like we’re in a hurry to get somewhere. Bloody idiot.

With the joy of the weather, driving became very interesting. The heads of the valleys road was particularly wet with huge amounts of surface water and one hell of a gusty crosswind. It was definitely a challenge. We rapidly got down to the M4 and started heading west, towards the Gower…when the pagers went off with a standdown. Confirmed by radio with the police, we found that the Coastguard had found the lady in question and we turned off the blues, took the next exit and drove back in a rather more sedate manner.

The rest of the evening was taken up with a debrief on Saturday and it was good to hear from the ambulance service, the hospital and from the helicopter praise for the professionalism of our work with the casualty.

Oh one other announcement we had tonight. On Saturday, Brecon team has it’s Christmas party. Oh, so does Bridgend. So half of South Wales’ mountain rescuers will be drunk. Don’t say it. Just don’t. There’s an unwritten rule that this Saturday night Central Beacons team will be sober. Just in case.