Mr & Mrs JLR, Together in Electric Dreams. Logbook 1, 27.01.23

Mr & Mrs JLR, Together in Electric Dreams

Logbook Entry 1 / 27.01.2023

A logbook report of a journey undertaken by Jane and Jose Luis Romanillos in their Smart Electric Vehicle in January/February 2023, across France and Spain, in an attempt to get to the mediaeval town of Sigüenza, in time for the memorial guitar concert of José Romanillos senior, world-famous guitar maker and author, who died during the Covid pandemic period of travel restrictions in February 2022, and whose funeral was missed by the author, and many other family members, clients and friends.

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Grief and emotional turmoil are hard to deal with. Very hard. You need time to absorb the situation, understand, heal and then come to terms with the pain. A process. Drugs and medication can help. Counselling. Even alcohol. One other option is to replace one pain instantly with another. If your left leg hurts, then stab your right leg. Not perhaps the most effective remedy, one might say, but the deflection can be a distraction, and in essence that is exactly what my wife Jane and I decided to do in order to deal with numerous ‘pains’ that have recently troubled our personal lives. And that is how it all came about…our sitting here on board the Condor Ferries vessel, ironically called ‘Liberation’, watching the boat gently manoeuvre out of St Peter Port harbour on the evening of Friday 27 January, 2023.

It all started with an invitation and a Sunday roast dinner. We were at the home of my sister-in-law, Mary Carey. Mary is a lovely person; a dedicated, conscientious and highly creative primary school teacher on the nearby island of Herm. She had invited us for dinner and a catch-up chat.

We had just received an invitation from my mother to attend the memorial service and guitar concert in homage to my father, who died last year whilst we were in Gibraltar. Due to the fact that neither Jane nor I had been vaccinated for Covid, we could not get to the funeral. Nor could many others. The invitation also included a request that I make a speech at this event, on behalf of my mother, in tribute to my father, whose identical name I bear.

Over the dinner table, I explained the story to Mary and immediately she made the following suggestion. “Why don’t you drive down in your EV? A bit of an adventure, but you’ve got time, (I think), and you can always write about it as you go…I bet you can’t do it.”

She even came up with a headline title, and the song. ‘Together in Electric Dreams’, by Giorgio Moroda and Phil Oakey.?

Jane and I had been thinking of how we could get to the concert, scheduled for the evening of Saturday 4 February. We both dislike intensely travelling by plane (especially the airport process) and we had thought about driving down along the ‘electric highway’. Hire car charges have now become horrendous. Mary’s wager was the final push we needed.

And so here we are, sitting in our ‘Liberation’ seats, setting off on our mini adventure, with the Smart Forfour EQ safely parked below us on the lower car deck, fully charged, sitting together in our electric dreams.?

We have 8 full days to get to Sigüenza. Can we do it? Better start praying…and singing.

“We’ll always be together

However far it seems (love never ends)

We’ll always be together

Together in Electric Dreams”.

If you would like to continue receiving the full logbook report of our adventures, please make a minimum contribution of ￡10 / €10 / CHF 10 to one or both of the charities we are supporting along our EV journey, by donating online on their websites at:

www.Goal50.com? / Football charity providing support for underprivileged townships in SA

www.smileforgeorgie.org.gg / Guernsey charity that supports many local worthy causes

The charities will confirm to us your name, with your agreement, and you will then receive by email the full logbook reports, as we will only be publishing fragments of the logbook on social media, going forward.

Copyright: JL Romanillos Ltd, 2023. All rights reserved.