taraabit

Check out this image I made using Diptic!

Sat 7th July 2018.

For some reason this post got lost in the time travel to and fro satellites and has only just re-appeared! So is published out of order.

Slowly during the day more family members drifted in to the site until we totalled 20, which was about 10 less than last year.

A quick trip to Tesco’s procured the necessary food for the afternoons get together and at 1pm we fired up the bbq, we had the pressure of a 3pm kick off for England v Sweden World Cup match so the demand was for all to be fed and settled down in time.

Thankfully we managed this and half the throng sat down in front of the tv whilst the others continued to talk non stop which is the norm for the weekend, thankfully England won the match and are through to the semi finals, it was great to hear the roars echo around the campsite as England scored their two goals and an extra loud one when they won, there is definitely a party atmosphere here. One couple at the Bash were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and another member his 50th birthday so there was cake a plenty and bottles of fizzy popped for a while.

The end of the afternoon culminated in the tradition of a group photo.

July 9th 2018

Following the departure this morning of the last of the weekend participants we said farewell to my cousin who organises the annual event and motored off to Stamford a short distance away, even though we had programmed the sat nav to avoid the A1 it still took us on that route, I’m sure we are supposed to be in charge of these instruments!

Finding parking in Stamford isn’t easy I use Parkopedia as my guide it didn’t show a great deal of hope as most car parks had height barriers, there were road works and diversions in town and luckily they sent us on a route which passed Morrison’s with their large car park which we took advantage of.

We spent an hour in Stamford and could easily have spent at least double that but conscious of where we had parked we limited our time. It’s a beautiful unspoilt town and even buildings such as an unused church have sympathetically been converted into other use. It has a long history from Roman through Boudicca , Anglo Saxons, Danes to the Normans who built a castle there about 1075. Stamford stands on an ancient Roman Road which centuries later became a coaching road, the Burghley family, commencing with Sir William Cecil later Lord Burghley first minister of Queen Elizabeth 1st, having huge influence over its development across centuries.

When we left Stamford we motored a short distance into Rutland county and on to Rutland Water Campsite adjacent to the sailing club on the edge of Rutland Water.

Rutland is the smallest county in England and is another one I can tick off my list of counties stayed in, Rutland Water is a man made reservoir built during 1971-1975 and opened in 1976 as a water source for Anglia Water. The area provides a variety of water sports and it’s possible to cycle or walk around the perimeter of the reservoir.

The site has a number of touring caravans around the edges of the field that are obviously permanently sited here, there is no site hut and no one here to greet us and tell us where to park ( so different to the little Hitler rule enforcers on Caravan and Motorhome sites) speaking to one of the occupants of a caravan we discovered the owner of the site was away and we were expected to put the camping fee in a provided envelope and post it in the honesty box. What a difference.

The site is basic providing only water and a toilet emptying point but is in a good location and at the moment certainly quiet, we’ve had a good chat and swapped visits and information re solar panels, layouts etc with a neighbouring motor-homer.

Friday 6th July 2018

We began our journey by travelling for miles around the permanent road works of the M5 and M6 before eventually accessing the A14 where the journey continued at a more pleasurable rate. It was a two and a half hour journey here and we arrived at 11.57 and the reception happily processed our booking, as I left the office there was a lot of commotion by the entrance barrier looking across you could see that a car towing a caravan had entered and the barrier had come down between the two and he had driven on and snapped the barrier off much to his embarrassment.

We are on the same pitch as last year next to my cousin with his caravan at much the same time of year for the family annual gathering “The Bash”.

By this evening 11 of the family had arrived and we enjoyed a pleasant meal together prepared and cooked by my cousin following his Mary Berry cook book guidance.

As the inebriation levels rose and it steadily got darker people began to depart mainly to the nearby Premier Inn.

Friday 29th June 2018.

This is a small site a Caravan and Motorhome CL site adjacent to the Shropshire Union Canal. The pub is ancient, it offers no cooked food and just two beers plus cider and it’s interior is a throw back to the past, real character, it’s garden opens up onto the canal tow path and passing narrow boats moor up and enjoy a drink here. The site is in two halves, we are on the lower half on a hardstanding with hookup for £15 a night.

After pitching up we enjoyed a walk along the canal followed by a drink in the beer garden.

Early evening two of our daughters and their partners came to join us and we had a pleasant evening eating a meal we conjured up in Homer and then we went and sat in the pub garden to enjoy a drink together.

It’s a good site and we would consider returning at some point in the future, access along narrow lanes is a concern and you really need your own toilet facilities but otherwise very acceptable.

Thursday 28th June 2018

We have a two day pocket with no commitments so we have headed north from home to an area west of Stafford. We had a nightmare journey seeings how we only needed to travel approx 30 miles, firstly every traffic light through and beyond Wolverhampton was on red, there were roadworks and the local black taxis were out on protest driving around in long cavalcades beeping their horns. I’ve no idea what they were protesting about!

As we neared the site not following the Sat Nav as per the site instructions our turn off on the A5 was thwarted by a no entry roadworks ahead sign, we continued on for several miles before the next turn off appeared. We headed towards the site and approx a mile before we got there there were more road works and a diversion taking us away from the site, 3 miles later having driven along roads just wide enough to squeeze along we arrived at the other side of the roadworks and still couldn’t get to the site.

We consulted the sat nav, google maps and an ordinance survey map and more by luck than judgement eventually stumbled across the site, nowhere had there been any signs to help, we arrived two hours after leaving home to cover the 30 miles, At least the site is pleasant, quiet, well maintained and the staff are very pleasant and welcoming.

We have spent the afternoon relaxing moving from sun to shade on a very hot day, following the evening meal we listened on the radio (for some reason the tv has stopped working) to the England Belgium match which England duly lost 1-0. Now having a glass of red to console myself watching the sun gradually set over the fields.

Friday 15th June 2018

It was only a 15 mile ride to the eurotunnel terminal and was well signposted from the village close to last nights aire.

It’s a well organised tidy smart place, efficiency is the word that comes to mind from both the computerised systems and the staff. As we pulled in the number plate recognition system called up our names, noted we were early and offered us an earlier train which we accepted. Booking in Layla and having her pets passport checked was a simple and easy process, we had 40 mins to wait so whilst Michelle took Layla for a walk I purchased us Costa coffee and picked up a 3 litre box of wine for our forthcoming family gathering.

We quickly drove onto the train and after a 25 minute journey emerged into a warm sunny English summers day.

Then the misery started, the further we travelled the heavier the traffic and the slower we moved, the M25 is the pits and the M40 wasn’t much better. On the M25 it kept saying variable speed limits, they were STOP, START and CRAWL along, I lost count of the amount of times we stopped completely, it took over an hour longer than the sat nav predicted time. It was such a contrast from the past two weeks motoring.

In total over the past 16 days we travelled 2,187 miles.

Thursday June14th 2018.

We are parked up on an aire on a farm approx 30k from Calais, this makes it easy striking distance to get the eurotrain tomorrow morning. We drove 182 miles to get here today using autoroute and dual carriageways and apart from travelling around Rouen which is always a nightmare we made good time.

On the route up we were amazed to see more and more high end sports cars travelling south, Ferraris, Porches, Lamborghinis, Bentleys etc hundreds went past us there were also motorhomes and specialist vans and then on some we saw “Le Mans- 24 Hour” and the penny dropped. Millions of pounds worth of cars were on the road. Below are just a few that were at the services.

The aire we are parked on tonight is different to others we have used, it’s more like a camp site, just no toilet/ shower block. It has wonderful walks ideal for Layla, a mini golf course etc. It is well laid out with both grass and hard standing pitches, with electricity it is 10 euros for the night, there is a honesty box for you to put your money in should no one come collect.

One hundred metres from the entrance to the site in the middle of the countryside is a is a micro brewery, well who could resist? We had a wander in and I tasted it’s products, only polite after all, then you have a dilemma which to buy, I solved the problem by buying one of each and a cheese to go with them, should be a good evening.

June 13th 2018

We drove 161 miles today, the first half of the journey to our midday break was enjoyable and we kept to the minor roads which were almost traffic free. We stopped at an aire in Châteaudun for lunch, it was a beautiful spot next to the river underneath the Chateau, unfortunately we didn’t have time to explore the town so it is definitely on our list of places to return to.

We needed to fuel up and pulled into an Intermarche on the outskirts of the town, like many the fuel stations are unmanned and as had happened on occasions before it wouldn’t accept any of my cards to start the fuelling process. We continued the second part of our journey on main roads, this part I didn’t enjoy so much, and soon came across another large supermarket complex Carrefour where my card worked perfectly, bizarre. We drove round Chartre where we stayed a few years ago and then onto our stop for tonight Nonancourt another free aire with some electric hookups.

The aire is in the grounds of the Marie and it’s pleasant parkland with a river, in full flood, flowing through, we had a good walk around town, very pleasant buildings but unfortunately no bar open in the afternoon.

Tuesday 12th June 2018

We left the French house early this morning in heavy rain which made it difficult to get Homer off the grass drive, I will have to put down a load of limestone chippings next time we are out.

We made good progress travelling north stopping for a coffee outside Nontron where I went into Intermarche to purchase some WD40 to treat an annoying squeak, next stop was Le Blanc where we stopped for lunch.

We are now parked up at Loches it has four small aires all free for the night and all within a few hundred metres of the town centre, we tried two and they didn’t feel right so we are now on number three surrounded by beautiful flowers and trees of a park.

Loches is a town in the Indre and Loire department, it commenced its life around 500AD and its castle/chateau was for many years the residence of the Kings of France. It was here that Joan of Arc arrived after her victory at Orleans to meet the French King. As you can imagine there are lots of examples of fine architecture here.

The past two days before departure were busy with a mixture of activities to finish our tasks before departure, we managed one quick run out to a vide grenier and I purchased an object to renovate as an ornament, although it could be useful as it is a walnut press and this year for the first time we have walnuts on our tree, all 8 of them!

We also had to take Layla to the vets for her tapeworm injection and pet passport examination that took three minutes and left my pocket 49 euros lighter.