The Labraventures of Carbón, Spanish (ex-) foster dog extraordinaire
- Thread starter Emily_Babbelhund
- Start date
- Location
- Cornwall , UK
Sweet dreams , both of you 
xxxxx
xxxxx
Emily_Babbelhund
Mama Red HOT Pepper
- Location
- Regensburg, Germany
Yes, all tucked in in Dunkirk.Yayyy! Hope you both get a good nights sleep, are you in Dunkirk already?
Took us ages longer than planned as I was just too sleepy to drive safely and kept having to stop. If not to nap, just to hop around in the rain to wake myself up. It rained the whole way with gale winds. Exciting driving in the little TARDIS!It ended up taking nine hours...argh! But tomorrow I'm not moving the car, which i'm very happy about!
Emily_Babbelhund
Mama Red HOT Pepper
- Location
- Regensburg, Germany
Today's drive was long but pretty uneventful. The worst bit was not getting to sleep until 5:30am and then having the alarm go off only two hours later. I had to suck down the caffeine again today or I'd still be napping somewhere in the Netherlands, but tonight I'm going to resort to some prescription meds to try to cancel out the caffeine and re-set my abused body clock: fingers crossed.
Yesterday by comparison was quite the adventure. It started out so well in Regensburg. I picked up my car keys from Nadine's store (Nadine herself being in Munich for the weekend) and left her the Toll House cookie fixings. She wanted my car park pass while I was gone, so I remembered to drop that off in her home mailbox on the drive out. Carbon and I went to the McDonald's with the dog park and shared lunch. There was even a little sun as we shuttled down the Autobahn towards Frankfurt.
Then...insert scary music here... my wonky digestive system struck.
This is where you need to stop reading if you have a low tolerance for ick. I'll pick up the G-rated stuff again in the next post, but things are about to get nasty.
Poor @Beanwood knows all about my volcanic tummy and is sworn to secrecy. I'd also owe her my first born if wasn't way too late for all that. But I do owe her pretty much anything she ever wants FOR AS LONG AS I LIVE. I'll just leave it there. Well, yesterday about two hours out of Regensburg, my Stomach of Doom struck again. I started to feel a bit odd but luckily the German motorway system is great for rest stops with decent WCs. Mere minutes after I started thinking, "Huh...maybe that was a poor lunch choice", there was an exit for a rest area.
I pulled in, parked the car and limped over to the block of WCs. The four doors on offer were all locked and two or three people were waiting. OK, no problem. Except in a couple minutes it was a problem as my stomach was feeling more and more dire and no one seemed to be exiting from the closed doors. I walked around to the other side of the block to see a very grumpy little man blasting a hose into the men's toilet and an older man yelling at him about how he was disabled and couldn't wait anymore: apparently this had been going on for some time. "I'm not going to open the toilets, I don't care what you say!' shouted the little man. "You have to go to the next stop after the building works."
Oh. no.
"Um, i'm really sorry, " I said, "But I'm having an emergency here and so is this man. Couldn't you open just one toilet?"
"No!" yelled the Napoleon of German toilet engineering, promptly disappearing into the men's toilet he'd been cleaning and slamming the door behind him.
My situation in the meanwhile had frankly become dire. REALLY dire. I looked frantically around the rest stop. Plain daylight, no nooks and crannies amongst the bushes and dozens of people standing around or sitting in their parked cars.
I swallowed hard and limped back to my car. "Mind over matter, mind over matter, mind over matter," I repeated to myself. I CAN get to the next rest stop. Even though I knew from the live traffic feed on my satnav that there was a 20 minute traffic jam between me and the next rest area: mind over matter!
The only problem with positive thinking was that in this case, my matter was not listening to my mind. in fact, my matter was pretty much stomping up and down on my intestines as hard as it possibly could. Seconds after sitting back down in my car, matter won in a rather spectacular way that I'd not experienced since the age of two.
Carbon, with his delicate doggie nose, looked at me as if to say, "Hey, I did not know that we could do that in the car! Que bien! How excellent, I will remember that for difficult moments in future travels."
Ugh. At least one of us was pleased.
Now that that the deed was done, there was nothing left to do but simply drive down the road and get to the next rest area. It was a very strange drive indeed. Strange, warm, wet and odiferous. And I'd thought it was bad the time a cork had burst in a Spanish cider bottle I was carrying, soaking the car in rotten-apple booze scent in 40C weather. This was much, much worse.
Thirty minutes later I rolled into the next rest area. I slid on my long rain coat before getting out of the car to hide "things". Thank goodness i was at least wearing very dark-tinted jeans.
I'm not going to go into what was involved in the next twenty minutes or so. Suffice it to say that I would have lost my lunch if there'd been any of it left in me. Ick. Ick. Ick.
While i did my best, there's only so much you can do in a public toilet to clean up even with ample use of the private sink and hand soap: the remaining two hours' drive were not very nice. I'm an odd one in that in the springtime in Spain when they fertilise the fields near my house with cow manure, I actually like the smell as it reminds me of spring flowers and sunny beaches. So that was my strategy for the rest of the drive: la la laaaa, here I am driving along in Spain in the springtime...isn't it glorious?
Ick. Ick. Ick.
That is the state I arrived at my hotel last night. I don't even want to imagine what the hotel receptionist thought. I can guess HE wasn't thinking of sunny Spanish beaches when he caught a whiff of me.
Yesterday by comparison was quite the adventure. It started out so well in Regensburg. I picked up my car keys from Nadine's store (Nadine herself being in Munich for the weekend) and left her the Toll House cookie fixings. She wanted my car park pass while I was gone, so I remembered to drop that off in her home mailbox on the drive out. Carbon and I went to the McDonald's with the dog park and shared lunch. There was even a little sun as we shuttled down the Autobahn towards Frankfurt.
Then...insert scary music here... my wonky digestive system struck.
This is where you need to stop reading if you have a low tolerance for ick. I'll pick up the G-rated stuff again in the next post, but things are about to get nasty.
Poor @Beanwood knows all about my volcanic tummy and is sworn to secrecy. I'd also owe her my first born if wasn't way too late for all that. But I do owe her pretty much anything she ever wants FOR AS LONG AS I LIVE. I'll just leave it there. Well, yesterday about two hours out of Regensburg, my Stomach of Doom struck again. I started to feel a bit odd but luckily the German motorway system is great for rest stops with decent WCs. Mere minutes after I started thinking, "Huh...maybe that was a poor lunch choice", there was an exit for a rest area.
I pulled in, parked the car and limped over to the block of WCs. The four doors on offer were all locked and two or three people were waiting. OK, no problem. Except in a couple minutes it was a problem as my stomach was feeling more and more dire and no one seemed to be exiting from the closed doors. I walked around to the other side of the block to see a very grumpy little man blasting a hose into the men's toilet and an older man yelling at him about how he was disabled and couldn't wait anymore: apparently this had been going on for some time. "I'm not going to open the toilets, I don't care what you say!' shouted the little man. "You have to go to the next stop after the building works."
Oh. no.
"Um, i'm really sorry, " I said, "But I'm having an emergency here and so is this man. Couldn't you open just one toilet?"
"No!" yelled the Napoleon of German toilet engineering, promptly disappearing into the men's toilet he'd been cleaning and slamming the door behind him.
My situation in the meanwhile had frankly become dire. REALLY dire. I looked frantically around the rest stop. Plain daylight, no nooks and crannies amongst the bushes and dozens of people standing around or sitting in their parked cars.
I swallowed hard and limped back to my car. "Mind over matter, mind over matter, mind over matter," I repeated to myself. I CAN get to the next rest stop. Even though I knew from the live traffic feed on my satnav that there was a 20 minute traffic jam between me and the next rest area: mind over matter!
The only problem with positive thinking was that in this case, my matter was not listening to my mind. in fact, my matter was pretty much stomping up and down on my intestines as hard as it possibly could. Seconds after sitting back down in my car, matter won in a rather spectacular way that I'd not experienced since the age of two.
Carbon, with his delicate doggie nose, looked at me as if to say, "Hey, I did not know that we could do that in the car! Que bien! How excellent, I will remember that for difficult moments in future travels."
Ugh. At least one of us was pleased.
Now that that the deed was done, there was nothing left to do but simply drive down the road and get to the next rest area. It was a very strange drive indeed. Strange, warm, wet and odiferous. And I'd thought it was bad the time a cork had burst in a Spanish cider bottle I was carrying, soaking the car in rotten-apple booze scent in 40C weather. This was much, much worse.
Thirty minutes later I rolled into the next rest area. I slid on my long rain coat before getting out of the car to hide "things". Thank goodness i was at least wearing very dark-tinted jeans.
I'm not going to go into what was involved in the next twenty minutes or so. Suffice it to say that I would have lost my lunch if there'd been any of it left in me. Ick. Ick. Ick.
While i did my best, there's only so much you can do in a public toilet to clean up even with ample use of the private sink and hand soap: the remaining two hours' drive were not very nice. I'm an odd one in that in the springtime in Spain when they fertilise the fields near my house with cow manure, I actually like the smell as it reminds me of spring flowers and sunny beaches. So that was my strategy for the rest of the drive: la la laaaa, here I am driving along in Spain in the springtime...isn't it glorious?
Ick. Ick. Ick.
That is the state I arrived at my hotel last night. I don't even want to imagine what the hotel receptionist thought. I can guess HE wasn't thinking of sunny Spanish beaches when he caught a whiff of me.
- Location
- Buckinghamshire UK
Emily, don't feel bad about it. It may have been unpleasant but nature will catch us all out at some point. I was unwell all down our stairs once and ick ick indeed! Then as well as cleaning myself up I had to clean the stairs. Double ick!
Emily_Babbelhund
Mama Red HOT Pepper
- Location
- Regensburg, Germany
OK, back to the G-rated stuff.
The hotel last night was a little weird. Only notable thing was that they charged me EUR15 for Carbon, so I got a chance to use my inspiration from @Boogie and inform them that was actually against EU law. It didn't work for me and I wasn't going to make a huge deal about it, but I did think they should know that it could get them in hot water in the future. I don't mind paying a fee but in this case it felt rather like a shake down: dog fees aren't stated prior to booking plus EUR15 for a EUR48 hotel room seemed out of proportion. Anyway, Mags' speech got used to good effect.
I'm much happier with my little Airbnb apartment in Dunkirk. Cute neighbourhood a two minute walk to the beach and across from the Hotel de Ville. Easy street parking right in front of the row house. Dunkirk itself is a lot neater adn more charming than other Channel seaside towns I've seen. It was dark by the time Carbon and I did a bit of exploring, but in the rain and gusty wind it has a great Halloween vibe: a bit deserted and wild and quaint all at once.
Looking forward to seeing a little more tomorrow...and all on foot as the little TARDIS needs a rest!
Now off to the Land of Nod...
The hotel last night was a little weird. Only notable thing was that they charged me EUR15 for Carbon, so I got a chance to use my inspiration from @Boogie and inform them that was actually against EU law. It didn't work for me and I wasn't going to make a huge deal about it, but I did think they should know that it could get them in hot water in the future. I don't mind paying a fee but in this case it felt rather like a shake down: dog fees aren't stated prior to booking plus EUR15 for a EUR48 hotel room seemed out of proportion. Anyway, Mags' speech got used to good effect.
I'm much happier with my little Airbnb apartment in Dunkirk. Cute neighbourhood a two minute walk to the beach and across from the Hotel de Ville. Easy street parking right in front of the row house. Dunkirk itself is a lot neater adn more charming than other Channel seaside towns I've seen. It was dark by the time Carbon and I did a bit of exploring, but in the rain and gusty wind it has a great Halloween vibe: a bit deserted and wild and quaint all at once.
Looking forward to seeing a little more tomorrow...and all on foot as the little TARDIS needs a rest!
Now off to the Land of Nod...
- Location
- Cornwall , UK
Oh Emily,you poor soul , how absolutely horrible for you and so brave to share it here with us too . Dont feel bad , please dont , just put it down to a nasty experience , tomorrow is another much better day , everything will smell fragrant once more ( I sound like Julie Andrews in the sound of music I know ! ) very gentle non squeezy hugs xxxxxx
Emily_Babbelhund
Mama Red HOT Pepper
- Location
- Regensburg, Germany
No worries: everything was back to clean and fragrant (the good kind of fragrant) as I washed out my clothes in the hotel last night with the clothes detergent I always have in the car. All was dry and ready to go by this morning. I felt SO comfy for my drive to Dunkirk.
The best kind!
- Location
- South Wales
Utterly brutal, poor @Emily_Babbelhund - I’m jolly pleased you’re now feeling shipshape and Bristol fashion again. Well done for looking after yourself and hopefully that’s an end to it. I hope Dunkirk is an easy pleasure xxx
Emily_Babbelhund
Mama Red HOT Pepper
- Location
- Regensburg, Germany
Oh yes, felt better immediately. Just a temporary funny tummy which had a slightly less temporary effect on my clothes. Helped that my hotel last night had a kitchen corner so I made my own food last night and this morning. I think I'll be skipping fast food for the near future!Poor you Emily, I do hope you feel better now. It is just one of those things that can happen to anyone.
- Location
- East Sussex
Poor you. Hope the tummy troubles are (I nearly said 'behind you') over for good. Have a restful day tomorrow. In England hotels and B&Bs charge extra for dogs (as you must have experienced).
Jacqui-S
Moderator
- Location
- Fife, Scotland
Oh @Emily_Babbelhund you are very brave.
OH has IBS and has had many an impromptu hedge stop. Always loo roll in our car.
I on the other hand need to work on my pelvic floor for another reason....
Glad you are all fixed up and back to your own sweet self xx
OH has IBS and has had many an impromptu hedge stop. Always loo roll in our car.
I on the other hand need to work on my pelvic floor for another reason....
Glad you are all fixed up and back to your own sweet self xx
Lisa
Moderator
- Location
- Alberta, Canada
Oh man, ick indeed. 
What rotten luck that the stupid rest stop wasn’t open. Glad you are feeling better now, though, and that you can rest up for a bit.
What rotten luck that the stupid rest stop wasn’t open. Glad you are feeling better now, though, and that you can rest up for a bit.
Boogie
Moderator
- Location
- Manchester UK
Oh heck @Emily_Babbelhund!
We’ve all had runny tummy incidents from time to time. I love cream but if I eat it I need to be near a loo :blush:
What a rotten bloke refusing you both assistance.
Glad you are safely settled in a nice hotel room - wishing you a comfortable onward journey. xx
.
We’ve all had runny tummy incidents from time to time. I love cream but if I eat it I need to be near a loo :blush:
What a rotten bloke refusing you both assistance.
Glad you are safely settled in a nice hotel room - wishing you a comfortable onward journey. xx
.
Emily, so sorry that you had to deal with that situation, especially the toilet totalitarian! These things can happen to anyone, and we all have our stories.
By the way, I love your writing style. I look forward to reading your memoirs. Co-authored with a certain gentleman dog of course.
By the way, I love your writing style. I look forward to reading your memoirs. Co-authored with a certain gentleman dog of course.
Emily_Babbelhund
Mama Red HOT Pepper
- Location
- Regensburg, Germany
"Toilet totalitarian"
