Tuesday, 31 March 2009

Farewell blighty

“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad” Northanger Abbey, Jane Austin

Well it is finally the night before and we leave for France on the ferry tomorrow evening. This week has been good, but also fairly busy and filled with getting things in order for when we leave.

This week has taken us from Dorchester, to Chesil Beach, through Bournemouth and on to the New Forest and Lymington. We have been choosing places to stay based on price, and the cheapest sites in the book have proved wonderful. We have basically toured small out of the way farms, parking in fields with great views and no one else around at bargain rate of £4 a night. For once the clock change has been great as it seems to have given us lots more daylight hours, I guess not having to get up for work helps!

We discovered a leak on the shower tray earlier in the week from some ominous brown goo oozing up though the sealant and a squishing noise when we walked on the tray! Chris has therefore been very busy removing the old sealant and re-masticking everything in sight. Hopefully it will work, its cold walks to the toilet block tonight while it dries out.

We had a great walk along Chesil beach earlier in the week, on what was our only stormy day. The waves were enormous and it made the beach and fleet behind really quite atmospheric. All in all it’s been a good week, and I can’t wait to get on that ferry. Next update form somewhere in France all going well!

Tuesday, 24 March 2009

Wandering the country lanes of the west country

When I last updated this we were in Minehead at the very end of what had been a traumatic 10 days. However I am now pleased to report that we appear to have a fully functioning van (touch wood!) and also have a valid MOT for the next year. Hopefully there will be no more talk of mechanics and garages on here for a while.

This week has most definitely been an improvement on the previous one. We have had a wonderful time wandering around the south west of the UK in glorious weather and staying in some fantastic places, and doing lots of cycling and walking around the country lanes. It is only tonight that we are sharing a campsite for the first time with another van, having spent the rest of the time as the only vehicle on some remote and beautiful CL’s (small caravan club sites generally on farms etc). This has given me lots of practice driving on narrow country lanes, with only a few hairy moments.

We have got into a routine of spending two nights at each of our stops and this seems to be working well. It gives us a day to explore between stops and then a day in the area we are staying. Our route this week has taken us from Minehead into Taunton to get the MOT, and then back out into Devon to a place called Eggesford, between Dartmoor and Exmoor; to Escot House near Ottery St Mary (Devon) ; Halstock, just south of Yeovil (Somerset) and tonight to Dorchester on the trail of Thomas Hardy.

The CL at Escot House was superb (see picture), 5 acres of park land all to our selves with the exception of a flock of sheep! We spent a day wandering around the house gardens and then the country lanes around the edge of the Estate. I also got a chance to try out my Christmas present from Chris and have a go at painting the landscape with my little portable easel. I have to admit to not being very good but it was fun and I have lots of time to improve this year.

We had a great cycle around the villages near Eggesford in beautiful sunshine, and thanks to some evil hills for cycling ( I am quite unfit at the moment!) some panoramic views of the surrounding countryside and farms. We even found a cider farm and rewarded ourselves in the evening with a few cooling glasses of the Winkleigh Sparkling Cider.

Tonight we are parked on a golf course just outside Dorchester, having been to see the Cerne Abbas Giant today. Not all that exciting to be honest but the village of Cerne Abbas is very pretty. We also had a wander round Dorchester this afternoon which seems like a nice place.

This certainly beats being at work!

Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Not on a ferry!


I have never been particulary superstitious about Friday the 13th but after last week I think I will take it more seriously in future!

The last straw was that on Friday we failed our MOT, only minor problems but unfortnately the (new and much nicer!) garage could not get them fixed untill Wednesday of this week.  As most of you will know we were due to leave the country tonight for the proper start of our trip, obviously that was no longer possible and so we have postponed the ferry for another couple of weeks. Its disapointing but the weather here at the moment is fantastic.

We spent the weekend up on exmoor on a lovely little farm site, had a great walk around one of the reservoirs and spent yesterday wandering around Dunster. The plan for the next few weeks is to wander along the south coast before we finally get on a ferry on the 31st. Fingers crossed the plans won't cahnge agaian although given the last few weeks I can't be certain!

Thursday, 12 March 2009

Ecape from Swindon

I was beginning to think we would never get to leave; maybe I did something bad in a previous life! The last few days have been quite crazy and I am very glad to be sat in a field near Glastonbury this evening writing this.

As I mentioned in the last post we broke down on Mum and Dad’s drive last Saturday lunch time. A very helpful RAC man came and got us started again but we decided to leave the van in Down Ampney while we drove up to Sheffield in the car for a few days. We got back late on Monday evening and left Mum and Dads the next morning on route back to Marlborough for one night before heading into Swindon on Wednesday morning to get the fan fixed. A simple plan you would think…………..

"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men 
Gang aft agley, "
 Robert Burns - To a mouse

Nothing went according to plan, the van started fine on the drive at home and we headed into Swindon to get the windscreen checked (a few small chips) and to fill up with autogas. When I tried to turn on the engine to leave Autoglass it wouldn’t start. Yet again the RAC man was called, and we got started after spending a couple of hours sat on a very unappealing industrial estate. We then decided that the best thing to do was to drive straight to the garage in Swindon, where the van was booked the next day to sort the problem (almost certainly just the feed to the starter motor) and have an MOT. We left the van at the Mercedes garage, and with a courtesy vito van drove up to Bristol to spend the evening and get our last set of injections. The vito was the third vehicle I drove on Tuesday as I had also dropped my car back up to the yard, and by this point I didn’t really know what I was driving! The vito had a peddle for the hand break, took a bit of getting used to.

Anyway we had a nice afternoon in Bristol and it was good to have a calmer farewell wander around the city than the manic few days before we moved out. We stayed in the Travelodge on Anchor Road and then popped up to Clifton Wednesday morning for our final vaccinations before we go. Everything was going fine until we spoke to the Mercedes garage. I am going to restrain the urge to have a rant here as this post is getting rather long already but after quite a few trials and not getting half the work we had originally requested done we got our poor van back about 5:30pm.

With high hopes that we were now all set we drove into Swindon, to fill up with autogas. Within five minutes of leaving the garage I had all sorts of warning lights on the dash and the van was obviously not remotely repaired. We gingerly made it to the shell garage where I parked on the pumps and turned off the engine. You can guess what’s coming next. Yep; we BROKE DOWN AGAIN. The short story is that at 9pm we drove back into the garage we had left three hours earlier, very cross and unhappy with the way the garage had handled the whole affair (the long story would involve far too many rude words for public consumption!). So last night was back to Mum and Dads for a few strong G&T’s.

£750, a new alternator and lots of stress later, we finally got our van out of the garages clutches today and hope never to have to return. We had a nice drive across country to Glastonbury, a wander round the museum of rural life and are now parked up on a small site out on the Somerset levels where -fingers and toes crossed - everything is working. Lets hope the engine will start in the morning, watch this space……………

 

 

Saturday, 7 March 2009

The first few days... white horses, breakdowns and apologies to friends who have been messed around!

As Kaa the jungle book snake so wonderfully put it " Thas is going to slow down my slithers " . On route from Marlborough to Bath today we had our first breakdown. Luckily we had popped in to see Mum and Dad, when we went to leave and turn on the van, the engine wouldn't start. So....... the RAC man was called and lots of tea was drunk. It turns out that we don't have anything too serious wrong, just a problem with the electrical feed to the starter motor. Hopefully just a loose connection in the dashboard, but to be on the safe side Chris was shown how to start it with a screw driver to short the circuit!

Other than that the first few days out on the road have gone pretty well. Our first stop was in Marlborough, not far I know but we will get more adventurous I promise! We have spent three nights on a Forestry commision campsite in Savernake forest. The weather has been great, and a fantastic (if somewhat hilly) cycle ride was had yesterday afternoon up over Pewsey down and past some of the white horses.

We have been changing plans constantly this week so sorry everyone if we said we'd meet you somewhere and have changed the date MANY times!!