Granada!

Hello all.

For those that are just joining us I have packed up my job, bought a motorhome called Millie and I am now travelling around Europe. We are a month in and it's great. Lonely, a little cold, but great. 

I am no longer battling the cold of western France. We are now battling the intense cold of the Spanish night times. Millie and I have finally arrived in the south of Spain! I am currently in the public Library of Granada using their wifi after returning from some hot springs about twenty miles away in a town called Santa Fe. They were stunning, Millie and I were parked up a dirt track in an olive farm in the middle of the mountains, two feet from a natural hot spring. There isn't a shop for miles around, just hot springs, trees and naked old men. It was great. Bizarrely just what I needed.

These are the main thermals which were full of young people and noise, I opted for the quieter one round the corner that was smaller and populated by a collection of old men and two beautiful people from Gibralta. It's a favourite spot for homeless, jobless and local farmers to come and bathe, who it would transpire in the town of Santa Fe are mainly old men. My time in London before I left was emotional and the drive here has been long and tiring. Two days relaxing in a thermal bath was exactly what I needed. Thankyou Nick Southcombe, who after reading the first post recommended I visit Granada and these thermals, both of those recommendations have been stunning. I will also be visiting the community you recommended within the next few weeks.

The drive was challenging to say the least. I hugged my friend Jon goodbye on a wet and windy Bordeaux morning and it was another ten days until I had any real contact with another human being, unless of course you count the old woman just outside Madrid who told me off for not trying her honey properly. Thank you, you made me smile. I think it was the combination of the enclosed space, intense cold in the night time and endless Spanish countryside full of abandoned villages. One of the naked old men, a local farmer, told me that certain areas of Spain have been struggling with poverty for so long that there was no work and no food so people just upped and left, leaving whole villages to fall apart. It's bizarre to see so much desolation in what is essentially a first world country. I saw some grafiti that summed it all up, "A dignified future for the Villages of La Mancha!" I hope they find one.

On a seperate note.

Dear Spanish countryside,

You are incredibly beautiful. 

I salute you.
 
Yours truly.

Greg

p.s. why is your earth so red? It's nice, just a bit weird.

The solitude of the drive was broken beautifully as I arrived in Granada. I picked a random spot in the middle of granada via my gps and ended up on top of a hill full of motorhomes. What are the chances I hear you cry! it gets better. I parked up next to a van with a unicycle and a book on meditation on the front seat. For those of you that don't know me, I love to meditate and I have been part of a circus since I was 5. This van's front seat epitomised two of my great loves in one static gesture. I was so excited by the idea of it's owner, this human being, a potential doppelganger, soulmate, maybe even my future bride. I worked myself up so much I had to have a lie down. It turns out it wasn't my future bride it, was a young man from Sweden and niether of the objects were his. This is where the story begins to take a slightly different tone. That night he invited me to a soup he was making. It's funny how things can get lost in translation because It turned out that what that really meant was "Can you come make a soup and then do the washing up, alongside breakfast and dinner for the two following days" Now the first day after the soup he had fallen ill so I gave him the benefit of the doubt after that I began to notice a slippery slope developing.It wasn't until I was alone in the Thermals that I realised if I stayed close to this man, as lovely, charming, interesting and connected to Granada as he was. A large proportion of my time would be spent cooking and cleaning. For him. I think the old me would have kept friends with him and just struggled to try and make something work, feeling guilty every time I had to ask him to clean up and feeling tired everytime I cooked. Fortunately I have since moved to a new even more picteresque location and have found some incredible human beings who receive my generosity with thanks and the reciprocation of theirs. It's a much more agreeable exchange all round really I don't know why I didn't do that in the first place.

It's beautiful, I am now parked up in a place called Sacromonte, which translates as holy hill. Its a hillside overlooking Granada, full of caves. They call them caves they are actually houses that people have dug into the sides of the mountains. It started off as a gipsy village but it is now the heart of alternative Granada: full of fascinating characters, art, music and great decorations. The majority of caves are covered in colours, banners, tropical plants and the most bizarre outdoor furniture, I have never seen so many sofas or arm chairs on a hillside. I played football with a load of people from the caves yesterday and they were lovely, aggresive footballers but lovely people.

Whats that viral community? You want to hear about my artistic endeavours so far? Well I'm a little embarrassed to bring it up really but as you've asked I'm writing a novel. It's called "Katius". It's really good. It's exciting, full of love, danger, self discovery and loads of weird creatures that don't exist yet. I started it four years ago as a gift for my sister and every year I write another chapter for her birthday and then another for Christmas. What's that viral community? You would like to read said novel released chapter by chapter as an online serial? Ok I'll stop that now, would you like to read my novel? I'm releasing the first chapter with my next blog absolutely free of charge. One question would you like it as a pdf document or as an audiobook? Let me know as a comment on here, via email or as a comment on any of the facebook links which you'd prefer. Whichever gets the most requests will become a reality.

It's been beautiful so far, learning how to become more comfortable with solitude, learning how to live with the intense cold of the Spanish nights and how to be guided by that little voice in my stomach. More and more I am enjoying getting lost and the wonder that comes out of the unknown. More and more I am discovering how fortunate I am and more and more I am missing peanut butter, swings and round abouts. As always if you have any suggestions as to where I should go next please keep them coming all the suggestions so far have been amazing!

Thankyou for reading and for the continued support, please continue to share with anyone you wish and do let me know if you would like to read the first chapter of my novel Katius or have it read to you with a series of different and enjoyable comedy accents.

Much love and I hope you are all very very well.

Thank you

For those of you who missed the first post this is my blog. 

I have spent my life savings on a motor home and I am currently driving around Europe in it. 

It’s called Millie. She looks like this.

I once heard decision making is like jumping into a stream. The decision to leap is difficult but once you are there the flow of the current takes you where you need to go. I currently feel like I'm in a huge river after taking what feels like 5 years of checking the temperature and holding onto the edge. For the first few days I was wondering if it was the right decision? is it pure lunacy? This morning I woke at sunrise surrounded by woodland and stepped outside to meditate in an open field, the rising sun kissed the dew on the interweaving network of long grasses and spiderwebs that lay around me while the sky blue was so open above me I felt it might consume me, a swarm of sparrows swirled and danced like a shoal of little black fish in the sky. It was so silent. It was so wonderful. I had been asking for a sign that I was on the right track. That was a really good one.

I now have a few thank yous:

On a more general note I would like to say thank you to the incredible response to this blog, from all personal emails, to comments on here and Facebook, the warmth, enthusiasm and support is incredible, humbling and the best kind of motivation. Thank you. Thank you for your wonderful suggestions as to where I should go; the more interesting communities, people or places to visit the merrier.

Now on a more personal note; thank you to the wonderfully generous stranger who let me stay at their house when my Paris accommodation fell through and Millie was locked in a car park. You’re wonderful. Thank you to the beautiful couple who got in their car in the dead of night when we were lost and drove us half an hour to the nearest free camp site. Thank you to another couple who very patiently taught me how to pick and prepare wild oysters, they were delicious. Thank you to the inspirational old Swedish man, the route you planned for me has been amazing! Thank you France for the incredible amount of ambigious or simply false signage, Millie has driven over 1000 miles this trip, a good 200 of which have been lost. Thank you to the man running the circus in Bordeaux who, again when we were lost, let us park on their site for free. Thank you to my friend Jon Whitten who accompanied me from St.Malo all the way down to Bordeaux, you are an incredible human being and it was an honour to be serenaded so much by you and your ukulele, good luck back in London. Finally thank you Paris for reminding me why I don’t like living in big cities.

How is it that people are so generous? Have they always been this way? Did I need to get into a Motorhome to see it fully or are they always like this? Are people like this in London and I just never noticed or is it just more difficult to do in big cities, easier to get dragged into tunnel vision. I don’t know. But I do know how wonderful a small deed feels when received. I wish I could package up how all these people have made me feel and send it to them, what a wonderful thing to receive that would be. They should definitely figure out how to bottle that.

The joy of a trip like this is that I wake up in the morning and if I like the place that I am in then I stay, if I don’t then I don’t. I’ve noticed each time that I try and think through logically where to stay it is never as nice as when I allow my gut instinct take the wheel. Yesterday was a wonderful example. I saw a wood that looked beautiful, drove into it and kept driving until I found a spot where I knew I could park safely. I was tucked in off the road on the edge of a field surrounded by trees and woke up to the most amazing sunrise. I think I will have to learn to speak gut a bit more fluently.

I have decided that in a past life Millie must have been an amphibian of some kind. I have found and fixed two exterior leaks, a leaky boiler and replaced a broken roof window. She is permenantly trying to flood herself. I thought I had finally waterproofed her until I arrived late one evening to find the living room had turned into a swamp. It transpires there is a gaping hole in one of the wheel arches and whenever I drive on wet road the wheel flicks all the water right into the living room via a chest of drawers. My friend Jon was a godsend, he not only found the leak, after having had no sleep on an 11 hour ferry, he helped me dry out most of the damage and put together a patch made of old bike inner tube. It still smells a little of damp and it completely destroyed an entire bulk box of 40 odd peanut snack bars but its now waterproof. I’m gutted about the snack bars, We scattered two of them in a nearby wood as an attempt to gain some closure, it kind of worked.

I hope you are all well in whatever you are doing and again a massive thank you for all the wonderful support, it’s amazing to know there is such a wave of positivity following me wherever I go. Be blessed and remember, never go quick over speed bumps when you have potted plants in the back of your motor home.