The Next Installment

Well for our third trip we decided to try something different. Instead of just being my wife and I two of our grandchildren came with us as well. They are twin 11 year old boys.
This time we visited the Caravan and camping club site at St. Neots in Cambridgeshire. This was quite a short run for us so that we managed to arrive at the site at around about 7:00 pm on the Friday evening. After registration we were shown to our plot but could not fill up with water because the fish and chip van was in the way. We thought 'OK, we will have enough water in the tank', we were wrong!

Swing ball preparations

My wife prepared the evening meal using our new Halogen lamp cooker which is a very efficient and clean method of cooking food. We did discover that although our motor home is a four berth the extra two do seem to make the space available rather small. After our meal we had a walk around the site, the boys played swing ball and then they prepared for bed. The boys could sleep over the cab a lot easier than we could!

A better nights sleep was had by all!

This was mainly because my wife used a mattress topper so that the bumps in the cushions were smoothed out.
The next day dawned wet and misty but fortunately the rain stopped quite early. We had just about got ourselves ready to go out when we discovered that we had run out of water. This meant the gas had to be turned off and the 'van disconnected from the electricity hook up and off I went to fill up.
What a performance! Yet again the hose did not let me down in being extremely difficult, the connector would not fit on the tap. the water pressure was so low that the kinks in the pipe would not straighten out. After a disagreeable fight with the hose my wife went to reception to ask if the water pressure was always like this. Yes it is at this time of the day! the campers are having showers.

We postponed filling up with water and walked into St Neots. There was a lively event happening in the market square being conducted by the Riverside church. After a few minutes we walked on and found a park near to the river where we could get a coffee and an ice cream for the boys. After they had finished playing on the park we headed back through St Neots to the site.

A more successful attempt at filling the water was made, still with a lot of difficulty!
Later on we took the boys to a skate board park and play park on the other side of the river. We stayed there for some time before returning.
After the evening meal they boys went and made friends with some others of their age. Hurray!

And so to Sunday. Like most sites we had to leave this one by 12:00 so we decided to go to Grafham water just up the A1. This was a really nice place to park, except I missed the entrance to the car park so we had to go on for a mile or so until we could turn round. I was not the most favourite person at that time!
We went for a walk on top of the dam for a while then we had a picnic sitting on the grass near to the motor home and the boys tried to fly their kite.

After a while we decided to walk to the shop to get an ice cream, Sugar the dog was allowed to run free and almost immediately found a dead fish to roll in. Whew did she stink! While the others were busy I found an outside tap at the shop and tried to wash the smell off, but she still smelled, which she did all the way home.

So we look forward to the next adventure, who will win me or the hosepipe?

Second Adventure

For our second trip we decided to go to a Camping and Caravan Club site at Chipping Norton for Friday and Saturday night. What a rush it was to get out of work much earlier than usual. One thing we had not expected was that we have to arrive at the camp site before 8:00 pm. Well we started before 6:00 and arrived about 7:15. We were fortunate that traffic was not bad for a Friday evening. As we travelled along smaller roads I discovered that I had a queue following me. Because the road surface was bad, which caused many things to rattle and I was not too certain at what speed I should take bends I had slowed down to about 40 mph. Eventually we arrived.
After we had booked in the first task was to top up the water. What an embarrassing event that was! We had bought a new food grade hosepipe to enable the water tank to be filled, but it was like fighting a serpent! there were so many kinks and twists in the pipe that it seemed to take ages to get the water to flow. At least it was innocent amusement for the camp site manager.

When we had parked at our site the warden mentioned that we should use a levelling device. We though that we knew better and did not. Yet another learning situation. We should have leveled the motor home when we got there as we stayed all weekend in a slightly tilted van, in which the water would not flow easily out of the sink.

We had re-arranged the sleeping arrangements since last time. I slept on a single mattress and my wife slept on a small double bed. This worked for me! But my wife found the cushions somewhat bumpy. The second night she tried lots of different arrangements with sleeping on duvets and blankets while I slept through it all! We will have to come up with another idea about this.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny and so we decided to go to Witney on the bus, I must get a bus pass,  to save moving the motorhome. This was a good idea as the journey took us though villages and a town that we did not even know existed so we saw a lot more than if we had gone on the major roads. Witney is a very pleasant town to visit, but we did not see Mr. Cameron!

After a pleasant snack lunch in a Portuguese bar, where I could drink Portuguese beer at lunch, very strange as I usually have to drive, we looked round the shops and market and had a little while to wait for the bus to get back.

It was so hot when we returned to the camp site that we had to put out the awning. Another first time for us. We managed to wind the awning out but the edges were too floppy. My wife had to ask another motor home owner as I was too embarrassed or shy. Yet again a learning point for me, the campers seem to be very friendly and are very happy to share their knowledge!

Awning in use

Sunday was another hot day. We had planned to go to Batsford Arboretum but the weather was so nice we asked if we could stay on the site a bit longer. We walked to the nearest village which had a cafe, it was 1 1/2 miles each way so the coffee was well deserved. The walk back was quite hard as it was mainly uphill in hot sun.
We then lazed about, had lunch and enjoyed doing nothing for a couple of hours.
Then it was time for home and back to work. Oh for the next time!

Here we start

We were really excited when we finally got our new (second hand) motor home. Unfortunately we had a week's holiday booked in Cornwall just after we took delivery of the motor home so we were not able to go anywhere in the first few weeks. We did spend the time getting various bits, like water hose and gas cylinders, and becoming more exited.
Our first trip was to be a Saturday night only at at camp site near March in Cambridgeshire. We planned to stop in Huntingdon near to the river and to have breakfast looking out at the river.

Breakfast Preparations

It rained! and the carpark was such that we had to park in the middle of a wet carpark with no view of the river.

Carpark in the Rain

Still onwards to March for our first adventure.
We arrived at the campsite, Fields End Water, at about lunchtime. We had lots to learn, how to park the motor home, how to connect to the electric and how to dispose of the waste water. Even though it rained we really enjoyed the peace and quiet of the campsite. We managed to take the dog for a walk during a break in the rain and then much to our surprise we played scrabble during most of Saturday evening.
We had thought that we would sleep on the double bed over the cab. This is reached by a removable ladder. But when we tried it we discovered that it was very small and very claustrophobic! It ended up with my wife sleeping over the cab and I went down to a single bed in the lounge of the motor home.

The next day the weather was better so as we had to leave by 12:00 we decided to visit Ely and Wicken Fen on the way back to our home.
As we approached Ely we wondered where we would park as we had read that it can be difficult to park motor homes in towns and cities. Ely was really easy, well signposted and free! We enjoyed a stroll round this fine city and a coffee.
Afterwards we set off to Wicken Fen. We had checked with the National Trust that it was OK to park the motor home while we visited.

At Wicken Fen

After a snack we had a good walk round one of the paths at Wicken Fen and then started off home.