Yesterday we embarked on a little adventure to the far side of Malaga - about 90km away - in order to get some replacement glass fitted to the door of the wood fire.
The glass had cracked (not me guv) in the top corner, and whilst it still seemed ok, I wasn´t happy that it wasn´t going to shatter at some stage. I checked with the company that installed the fire back in 2010 and they told me they could replace the glass "while I waited" - which, and despite the 180Km round trip, seemed a better bet than carrying a 15Kg cast iron door around the various local shops selling wood fires to try and find one that could help.
I checked to see that the shop would be open and ready, while G prepared the tea and biscuits for the journey, and even went so far as to check the map and save the destination on the iphone. (The Nissans have the standard carplay that allows your map on the phone to be shown on the dashboard screen), so all set.
I decided to take G´s Juke due to sheer laziness as it was at the front of the garage (and strangely does much better mpg than my Micra despite having the same engine and being significantly bigger)..
Anyway, we set off in bags of time and as we went down the road I connected my ´phone to her system. Or I tried to, as it would not connect. G then confessed that the system had started to give her problems during the last couple of outings, but I thought I could sort that "on the fly". Wrong again. I disconnected her ´phone from the bluetooth and made mine the cable-connected master - but still no joy.
But anyway, just going along the motorway couldn´t be a problem, could it?
Well, yes it can be. The motorway speed limit is usually 120kph, but reduced to 100 in tunnels. Oh, and if there are any sort of yellow lane markers you have to reduce by 20kph. Easy? No. The limit changes quite arbitrarily between 80 / 100 / 120 without any obvious signage (the Juke has this speed limit recognition system which was flashing like a disco as it tries to work out what the limit is). 2 lanes = 100 and 3 lanes = 120 - hell no. Many sections of 2-lane at any limit of your choice and large expanses of 3-lane set to 100 (or even 80). It is almost impossible to comply with due to the changes and poor signage. There should be a law that says you have to have a speed sign every kilometer (what am I thinking of, some sort of logical thinking under spanish traffic planning and management? Ho Ho bloody Ho!)
Of course there is also the fact that we are mapless.
Now this would not normally be a problem, and I had memorised the few turns between the motorway and the shop, and even gone as far as to save a picture of the route directions, but I had reckoned without the spanish motorway exit system (and the signposting around the north of Malaga which beggars belief) - I am surprised anyone from Africa ever makes it to France, as it is so badly indicated - which might also explain why there are so many Africans working in the greenhouses in the Velez area - the signposting meant they never made it out of Andalucia on their way to Calais).
In previous pergrinations to France, I had observed the total illogic with which the spanish number their motorway junctions - which seem to be fairly arbitrary and indicating a km travelled from some obscure point of origin, the road you could turn on to, or just a number selected at random. Trouble is you never can tell - and Google Maps obviously have the same problem as we spent the whole journey looking for exit 272, which never featured in any way, shape or form (or any number within a few hundred for that matter).
Now G and I can, on rare occasions, work well in the car - usually when I get her to spot the road signs, but with us looking for a non existent sign I was reduced to trying to spot when we were going over a bridge for the river velez (and unfortunately that side of malaga is a series of bridges across dry river beds, so I was well occupied). There is also the problem where they have multiple exits for the same town, and/or listing other towns at the same time, so we had no real idea which Velez exit it might be - that is, until we stopped seeing Velez signs and were thus sure we had gone too far!
Off at next exit and make a U-turn, stopping briefly while I look at the phone and see we are "12 minutes away". Back on autopista and count the minutes not the miles. I ignore the first exit we see as no obvious industrial estate to the north of the road , but then we take a chance and go off at the next one. A couple of roundabouts and divorces later, I turn off onto some waste ground thinking I must be somewhere near, but only one exit from this barren plot - which I take. 50metres on and we ask a couple of local workers if Bisontec is anywhere near and they laugh and tell us the poligono (for this is it) is all one way and I will have to go all the way around to get to the shop which is actually about 50m away. Hmmm.
Thanks be to Oscar, we had an empty parking space waiting for us outside the shop (on an otherwise jammed street). The guy was the one I had spoken to and he quickly went about his work - only stopping about 4 times during the half hour to attend to other people bring in broken fire-doors. Looks like a nice little earner (or burner!)
I was like a kid in a sweetshop when I found all the other bits I might need - anthracite paint (matt black it is not), fibre glass string to pack the glass, and even a gift for G of an (acid) spray he reckoned was the dogs for cleaining the glass. That and he gave the door a good cleaning over and even gave me some new shiny brass bolts for the sliders. Just over 100€ for everything and a total bargain
The return journey was easy and uneventful, but we decied not to bother with the tea and biscuit picnic - deciding that going "off-piste" for that might prove to be an exit to anywhere.
Oh - and the satnav decided to work after the car had been stopped for a while. Unfortunately standard IT of "turn it off and then turn it on" does not really work for a car when you are driving on a motorway.
Now on to the cleaning and painting and reassembly - just hope the weather doesn´t go cold before I have finished my task.
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