..and breathe!

It seems like spending time with Martin and Sarah (aka Team Bob Mali) last night has done our heroines some good. For one thing, there is no comparison in the levels of "stuff" they have packed (for those of you who haven't seen the vehicle at ready-to-go stage, it may give you an idea if I tell you that mummy said they ought to have made a grid plan of where everything was to give them a fighting chance of finding anything they happen to need) which must go some way toward alleviating that sense that mum and Jane usually have that they are under-prepared despite all evidence to the contrary. For another thing, Martin seems to have instilled a sense of 'holiday' to the proceedings. This is quite important, because if you are the sort of person who is driven to get to the destination as soon as possible, perhaps quite competitive even (I'm saying NOTHING), I would imagine a journey of these epic proportions would soon start to feel like something of an endurance test.

Biarritz gets the Witches Abroad seal of approval - so much so that they were threatening to just stay there instead, but if anyone else is reading this and thinking of driving there, they do have one tip: what you really *don't* want to do is navigate through Bordeaux at rush hour, with a low winter sun in your eyes and driving on the wrong side of the road. That isn't much fun.

All in all things seem a lot more relaxed this morning. They are satisfied that they have broken the back of the crossing Europe part of the trip (they need to be at Gibraltar for Sunday), so they set off at the far more reasonable hour of around 9 o'clock this morning (so 10 local time), and are hoping to reach Madrid by nightfall, but will stop somewhere else en route if they haven't as Peg's only flaw so far is causing eye strain if they attempt to drive in the dark, because her lights are a little on the dim side. They can see the mountains they have yet to cross, it's a lovely morning, and they are raring to go!