Stephanie Jane: My Week in Review to 7th January

A good start to this first week of the first month of a new year: I baked delicious soda bread rolls to accompany homemade hummus! I'd actually woken up too late to bake a fresh batch of my usual Slow Cooker Wholemeal Bread, but was saved by remembering we'd bought more yoghurt than we needed for making curry. I mixed up a batch of this easy soda bread recipe which I've used before, but instead of baking it as one loaf, I cut it into quarters for rolls. They baked up in the oven in about 15 minutes at 200c.

The hummus is also super easy and so tasty (and cheap) that I don't think I'll ever go back to shop bought. Purists will probably be horrified at the lack of tahini, but I didn't have any and wasn't going out searching for it! (I've included my reliable hummus recipe in my Finally a Vegan book.)

We are settled in at a new campsite now: Los Madriles at Isla Plana which is just outside Puerto De Mazarron. The little town of Bolnuevo, a few miles down the road, is the first place I visited in Spain and that was nearly a decade ago. We thought probably in 2005 or 2006 - before I started blogging anyway so I couldn't quickly click back through posts and check but Dave found pictures in his Truprint account!

Los Madriles is a little more expensive than Los Pinos at Denia or Camping Monmar in Moncofa. With our ACSI card it is €19 per night here including 4kw hours of electricity per day and a fairly large gravelled pitch. If we stay more than 25 days (which we are certainly planning to do) this drops to €17 per night and if we could stay more than 50 days (which we can't as we are already booked elsewhere) this would fall to a very reasonable €14 per night. The campsite is terraced on a hillside with mountains behind us and sea views in front. The facilities here are excellent - clean and warm sanitary blocks, a little shop and bar both of which are actually open! Petanque courts, table tennis tables, a large library of swappable books and, best of all, two swimming pools filled with lovely warm thermal spring water. We've already been swimming on two afternoons and you can see me swimming away from the camera in this photograph above!

We haven't cycled yet, but have taken some nice walks from the campsite. An offroad track leads from opposite the entrance down to the beach where we first turned right into Isla Plana. We were surprised to discover a fourteenth century bath house and Roman house foundations right beside the promenade! In the other direction, La Azohia is a little over 5km away with an easily walkable or cyclable path all the way. Originally a fishing village, it does still have a few working boats and also several freeloader carparks for overwintering motorhomers!