99. On the twelfth day of Christmas

COSTA DA CAPARICA - LISBON - PORTUGAL

Polite Whatsapp message from sister Elizabeth this morning which after passing through broterpret says For heavens sake, pull finger and let Mum know where she is meeting you for New Year as she needs to get her air tickets.

Late afternoon a courier turned up at the campsite office while Jac was in the camp laundry. The washing machine is eight euros per load so I am really kicking myself for not ordering a portable washing machine on Amazon Spain when we arrived. My decision was on the basis that Elizabeth sending our replacement number plate on a three day courier would mean that we would end up waiting for the ninety euro washing machine to arrive. That was nine days ago and looks like three day number plate courier will actually be a twelve day courier.  Visited the office on the off-chance that the courier was our courier but fat chance. Turns out that Portugal doesn't have weekend mail, with Monday Christmas day, Tuesday, Boxing day, is the soonest our replacement number plate can arrive though I would imagine the backlog of Christmas mail must be massive. 

Since arriving, we have now done five loads of washing so have spent forty euro. Suddenly the ninety euro machine seems value, had I ordered it.