Sleep was difficult due to the banging and clattering from the sun shades above us and the pitch just behind us. The caravan was being shaken around, not dissimilar to airline turbulence. The “Sunshine” awning providing a giant sail to add to the discomfort.

At 04:00, we decided to take a look outside. Well, nearly every awning peg had been dislodged; the sides of the awning were being violently flapped  around, totally unsecured; anything not anchored down was blowing around – complete chaos. We dismantled what we could in the dark and re-pegged everything, just hoping it would last until the morning when we would have to take apart and stow all our outdoor items… Finally back to bed at 05:00.

Woke again at 08:00 and checked the weather – accuweather was forecasting winds of 55km/h and gusts of nearly 80 km/h. There was no way we would be able to take the awning down – it would behave like a giant sail.

In addition to this, a 4m length of rebar was hanging from the next pitch and being tossed around like a giant swing in the wind – nicely poised to impale itself into ours or one of the other vans nearby.

An urgent call to service and eventually Manuel arrived in his pickup truck and started to tear down the sun shade and it’s metal supports. We saw no evidence whatsoever that so-called EU bureaucracy has had any influence on Health and Safety, as Manuel climbed his ladder in the gusting winds and stripped down the shading!

Given we couldn’t dismantle the awning, we re-pegged everything again (in fact double-pegged most things) and have spent the entire day waiting for the winds to subside. It’s now nearly 18:00 when the weather warning expires, the wind is still strong in bursts but not quite so frequent. The awning is still just about surviving…

Perfect opportunity to get back on track with the blog…