Saturday, 21st October - home to Coleshill

A quick bit of packing and we set off at around 9:15am. After an uneventful and steady journey round the M25, up the M1, and across on the M6, we arrived in Coleshill just after midday. We easily found Wheeley Moor Farm, our first experience of a Camping and Caravanning Club Certificated Site. It was very similar to a Caravan Club CL – small field, a few vans, electric hookup, and a toilet. All we needed. The only downside was the traffic noise. On one side, we had the dual carriageway which bypassed Coleshill, and on the other side, we had the M6 toll motorway. Annie suggested that we were camped on a larger than usual traffic island. The noise was fairly relentless, although much of it was white noise ‘whoosh’ sounds.

I phoned my eldest brother, and although we were offered ‘a bite to eat’, I didn’t like the look of the weather forecast, so we decided to stay in. We did manage to get a stroll into the centre of Coleshill (taking our lives in our hands by crossing the busy A446 dual carriageway). Despite my body twitching every time we passed a lovely-looking pub (to qualify to be a “lovely-looking pub”, it has to pass a stringent test … it has to sell beer – nothing more, nothing less), we strolled through the small market town. At the main church Annie spotted a notice about walks in the local area, so we followed the directions up the side of the church, through the graveyard, and enjoyed the view across the Blythe Valley. The view wasn’t particularly magnificent, looking back on the photos, but compared to Ilford, it was jolly fine.

It was late afternoon by the time we got back to the van, and we had some tea, split a bottle of wine between us, and hunkered down for the night. We watched an enormous Lunar Star-something or other back quickly in, and the poor driver get out in the pouring rain to hook up, and then to wind down his corner steadies.

Rear steadies – they’re a strange thing. If you don’t have them, you need them. If you have them, you don’t use them. We used them once – our very first night, and haven’t used them since. In the night, however, I wished I had. The wind howled, and the van rocked from side to side. Annie was a bit concerned, until I told her that it was rocking me to sleep. Either she was happy with my lack of concern, or she realised there was no point talking to me about it. I slept on.

Sunday, 22nd October - Coleshill to NEC

We were up nice and early, and although we’d booked two nights at the CS, we wondered whether we’d be returning for the 2nd. We drove to the NEC, and parked in the East-1 car park, right at the back, alongside some other motorhomes who looked for all the world like they’d stayed the night. On the way in to the car park, there was a very big sign which said “No overnight camping.”

Since we were too early for the ten o’clock show opening, we had breakfast and coffee, and watched other motorhomes and cars fill up the car park. We also enjoyed watching an enormous RV carefully squeezing through the entrance, to take up about fifteen parking spaces at one side of the car park. By now, it was time to go look at vans.

We enjoyed the show, although Annie was all ‘vanned out’ by one o’clock, so I saw her back to the van and returned to wander semi-aimlessly around the various halls. My brother had seemingly given up on any ideas of coming to his senses, and had ordered a new caravan. This went against our last conversation, when he gave me the impression he was definitely looking to join the motorhome fraternity. I phoned him up, to find out what he’d ordered, and then went and looked at it. It was a caravan. It had an end bathroom, which was quite nice, but after all, it was just a caravan. And, did you know, you have to have a car to tug the thing round with you? How strange!

After looking in and around what must have amounted to over a hundred vans, the top choices of the day were a Burstner Delfin Performance T700 (right, top), the Rapido 7098 (right, bottom), maybe with the Lunar Fivestar as a runner-up choice. These, it must be said, were my choices, and may not have been shared by my dear wife. For her, my complaint about the Pollensa not having an external locker could be fixed by buying a £37 Fiamma box which clamps to the rear ladder. For me, the solution to this lack of external locker space must obviously be to buy a new van, which would involve finding somewhere in the region of £25,000. “Well,” my argument goes, “if we’re going to do this, we might as well do it in something which does everything we want.” It must be said, Annie’s counter argument, with its somewhat lower cost implication, does make some sense, financially. “But motorhoming isn’t all about what makes sense,” I say, teetering on the edge of losing the argument. But then, all she needs to do is to ask where we’re going to get the money from, and my argument is done for. Ah well, I can dream. And I do.

Oh, and the implications of buying a larger van, in that it would involve a huge amount of work in the back garden, to modify the carefully-constructed new gates, to remove a huge concrete gatepost, to re-site said gatepost in such a way that it actually supports the gate hanging off it, to further extend the hardstanding which cost buckets of sweat by the both of us – all these things stack up against me. I mean, us.


Final call on the day was to the Giottiline Genesis (right). A bit strange, but there's some excellent new thinking gone into it.

By the time I got out of the show, it was five o’clock. When we got back to the van, Annie was all for camping in the car park. Annie confirmed with the lady from the van next door that they had, in fact, stayed over the night before. She said she’d phoned ‘them’ up, and ‘they’ said it would be OK. That was good enough for us, and we decided to give it a go.

Down at the toilet block, I saw the man from the next door van (as you do). Over his emptying his Thetford cassette, we talked motorhomes for a while. Back at our vans, I looked at his, and he looked at ours. He was Mick, his wife was Angela, and the two lads were “the lads”. And the dog was Ellie.

Mick stayed for a while, had ‘a brew’ with us, and then we compared satnavs, as us blokes do. It reminds me of school, when we used to compare other things, but then I went to an all-boys school, and that was the sort of thing we did in those days.

Mick went back to his van, we watched ‘Prime Suspect’, and then I watched Match of the Day 2 whilst Annie slept.

Monday, 23rd October - NEC to Shropshire

No overnight rain, which was just as well, since I was woken at 6.15am by the fridge trying to restart. The gas bottle had run out.

We’ve had this gas bottle since before we went to France, and we’d been running off the same one every since. It seemed to have lasted ages, and we were wondering if we’d hit upon an ever-lasting gas bottle. Just think of it – no more petrol price wars, or invasions of middle-eastern countries for their oil reserves. Just buy one small red bottle, and it does you for life. I was wondering if the secret was the super special magnetic LCD gauge, that we’d bought for the narrowboat gas bottles, and never used – principally because the battles with in a steel locker, and I couldn’t see the gauge in the depths of the cavity. Maybe the magnetic forces on the gas forced them to regenerate, to recreate their little tiny molecules?

Anyway, the gas ran out. I suppose I could have left it, but I braved the elements, man against nature, undaunted, unfazed, prepared to risk his all … and anyway, my beer might get warm. I changed the bottle, which was an experience in itself.

When we bought the van, it had one bottle. We soon bought a second, and it was a real so-and-so to get in. The locker was obviously made for two bottles – there were two straps to hold them in place. I struggled, sweated, and yes, I sweared. Swore, even. Eventually, the second bottle took its rightful place alongside the other, tightly-squeezed in the space.

When the first one ran out sometime in July, I had to take the second one out first, if you see what I mean, to get it out so it could be exchanged. Getting the new one in was difficult. I jiggled them, I jogged them, I ran the rubber hose in front, and then behind, and then back in front again. I twisted the bottles, one way, then the other. Eventually, as I knew I would, I succeeded. It was a real swine.

Now, cut to a chilly early morning on an NEC car park. Motorhomer exits van, careful not to slip on the wet step or tread in the huge puddle of water outside the door. Blearily, the bottle of paintwork polish (bought in France, and used once on one wing, until I realised I needed to tee-cut the paint first) came out. A couple of rags and the “Pitch Taken” sign came out. The new bottle came out. Strange. It just came out. The old bottle was tilted, and the home-made spanner (used for the first time) undid the union. The old bottle came out. The new bottle went in, tilt, tighten union. Gas on. Slide new bottle into place. Clamp in. Old bottle into locker, easy-peasy, clamp into place, Wrap home-made spanner in rag to stop it clanging, and replace. Bottle of paintwork polish (used once, etc etc), pitch taken sign, and spare rags, all replaced, and locker – well, locked. How can it suddenly have been so easy?

Having got up, and had breakfast, we left the site, and drove to a nearby Tesco. We bought a few things (which amounted to over £33 – how can that be?), and popped in to see my big brother. We had a cuppa and a nice chat, and then we were on our way by about 10.30.

The run into Shropshire was reasonable uneventful. The only problem came when we were within 10km of our destination (don’t ask me why we keep the TomTom programmed in kilometres – I think it’s because the distance to destination figure drops more quickly in kilometres, and it seems like the poor old 1.9TD engine is pushing us along at a great lick). Gladys (the clever but bossy little lady that lives in the TomTom) started sending us down narrow, bumpy and hilly roads. I have no idea whether it was the quickest way, the shortest way, or the most awkward way (is there a setting for that?), but I think she was having a strop because we didn’t use her to go from London to the NEC (I know the route, and it’s not terribly difficult), nor from Coleshill to the NEC (all of 3 miles). So up steep hill, down steep dale, round blind bends meeting a car coming the other way and having to back up – I’m sure I heard a little snigger coming from Gladys’s speaker.

Anyway, despite the vagueness of the route, we got to our destination – Ley Hill Farm, and were offered probably the best pitch – number 5. It has hard standing, hookup, and a jaw dropping view across the valley (see photos). We were very happy to find it. Definitely not finding it were either Orange or T-Mobile phone signals. Neither of us had any service whatsoever.

Having parked up, I then unparked and drove back to the entrance, where I could fill up with water. I asked about the grey water. “Just let it drain into the bushes,” the man said, so I did.

The site is very quiet, and very informal. All the facilities are there, although maybe they could do with an update. The showers got a 2 from Annie, and the same from me. Physically there and functioning, but not what you’d call a pleasurable experience. Inside the ladies facility is the library – books of many and varied genres can be bought for between 70p and £1. There are local walks on pre-printed sheets for 10p each. We bought one which was a 5 mile circular route, and we set forth, trekking poles in hand.

Our trekking poles, despite what certain people think, are quite swanky, hi-tech devices. They have shock-absorbing tips, wrist straps, adjustable length, and they cost the princely sum of £5 each from Shepton Mallet. Some might think they look very posy, perhaps a bit over-the-top. But they really do make life easier, especially over uneven and muddy ground.

Our walk started nicely, and the directions on the paper stated things like “… just over a hundred yards from the junction, cross the stile on the right, and turn left, keeping to the side of the field …”. You couldn’t go wrong, could you? I now maintain that the quality of the instructions got worse. It said things like “… cross the stile, into the field, and the next field, and leave by a copse. Enter the lane, turn either right or left, and climbing the hill, note the market…” (that last should have read “marker”, meaning a sign, which caused us no end of bother, looking for a market in the middle of nowhere).

At one point, we crossed a field full of fluffy white sheep. How we laughed as they scattered before us, first one way, then the next. They really were stupid animals! Some of them even ran across our path to get away from us. It was only once we'd got half way across the field that we realised their mission. They were actually killer sheep, and they stalked us, menacingly, until we cleared the stile at the end of the path.

Eventually, we arrived back at the van, with no mobile phone signal again, which was a disappointment as were hoping to see one of Annie’s friends from college and her husband. They didn’t know where the campsite was (other than it was near Cardington), and we couldn’t contact them to tell them. I waited by the entrance to show them where we were parked, and it got darker, and colder, and later. I walked up the lane towards the top of the hill, and when I got there, there still wasn’t a bar of service on either phone. I went back to the van to warm up a bit, and then walked back to the entrance, and waited some more, and then walked down the lane towards the town. I heard an approaching car, negotiating the tortuous bends. I ran back to the campsite, just in time for Mary and Ivor to turn in.

They took us to Church Stretton, and had a lovely Indian meal (which was a long time in coming but it turned out to be Eid so they were all in a dither), and a nice time catching up and reminiscing. Then Mary nimbly negotiated the endless bends and turns and returned us to our MH just before midnight.

Tuesday 24th October - Shropshire to Herefordshire

Up early as usual, and pausing briefly to take some arty photos which will look rubbish when I get them home, we crawled our way out of the site, and down the muddy muddy lanes. We were heading to Mary and Ivor’s house, to see if the van would fit on their front drive, for a future visit.

Gladys was still in a funny mood. At one point during the hour-long journey, it occurred to me that I should check the route she plans for us when we’re in ‘narrow lane’ country. However, there were no major incidents, and we arrived exactly at Mary and Ivor’s house. After a couple of false attempts, we were able to back Polly in through the gateposts, and sit her by the side of their house.

After a cup of tea, we were on our way again, this time heading for Herefordshire, and a posh campsite between Ross on Wye and Hay on Wye. The roads were quite good, and we stopped for diesel, and also for a replacement gas cylinder en route. With less than 10km to go, Gladys had a fit.

It’s not that she stopped working, or started talking in Russian or anything. She was now really getting her own back for not navigating us to Birmingham. She sent us down a couple of narrow lanes, then up a steep hill, and then down a steep hill the other side. We were unfazed, and Polly trundled along happily. With one last throw of her little electronic dice, Gladys hurled something really nasty at us. The sign said “Unsuitable for articulated vehicles.” What it should have said was that the road was unsuitable for anything except a Chelsea tractor (a 4X4), or maybe a real tractor. Another sign said 25%, which to me means you go horizontally four for every one you go up. I swear that sections of that lane were 1 in 1. And the hill went up, and up, and then up further, and then a bit steeper … and then we met a mail van coming the other way.

We had just passed a gap in the hedge, where a track led off somewhere, and there seemed to be nowhere for the mail van to go. I could see the driver’s expression, which said: “what the f*** are you doing coming up here in that thing?” I did wonder that myself. All would have been revealed if he’d seen the TomTom on the windscreen, as I’m sure all TomTom-controlled motorhomes would have been sent up here. Or maybe it’s just our Gladys, who likes to have a little fun with us from time to time.

We stopped, and slowly crept backwards, and backed into this track. The mail man waved, and he was on his way. We weren’t. I wish I’d turned Gladys off, and turned right, down the hill. But I thought we should continue, because I was sure that the summit of Kilimanjaro … err, this hill, was just around the corner, just a few yards away.

We came out of the wide part of the road, and attacked the hill again. First gear was too low, and the poor engine was racing. Second was too high, and the speed dropped. So we continued up in first, engine racing, front wheels scrabbling for grip on the muddy and leaf-covered road. I don’t pray, but I sincerely wished that no other idiot would be attempting to come down the hill at this time. The temperature gauge climbed as we did. Beyond the normal running temperature, beyond the halfway mark up the dial, and then one, two graduations above halfway. The engine seemed to be starting to struggle, as it got hotter. The power seemed reduced. Still we climbed, the poor van shaking and rattling over the potholes and bumps and dead God-knows-whats in the road, until the overhanging trees parted, the gradient lessened, and I was able to grab second gear, dropping the engine revs, and climbing still higher.

Then we were at the top, and the relief of making it was tempered by the realisation that the hill had a ‘down’ bit too. And just as steep. As we started to descend, I could stop worrying about the engine giving up the ghost, or a pothole jerking us sideways into a ditch, and now I could worry about the brakes overheating. I didn’t want to use the engine to brake us too much, as I wanted it to cool down, but I kept ‘feeling’ the braking effect, making sure the brakes still responded to the pedal as I steered us towards our destination.

To cut an even longer story short, we got to the bottom, and hit the blessedly flat main road, and suddenly we were 6 kilometres away from our destination. We cruised along the smooth and flat tarmac, everything on and in the van cooling down. We got to Peterchurch, and Gladys announced that we had arrived. Well, we hadn’t. The postcodes matched, but there was no sign of the campsite. Fortunately, Gladys knew about some campsites through her Points Of Interest, and she took us through the town, to arrive at the campsite a minute later. She seemed satisfied that she’d had her fun for the day, and she had calmed down.

It’s a very posh campsite, all flower borders and mown grass and campsite employees buzzing around on golf carts. We got our pitch, hooked up, and had our lunch.

After lunch, we followed the signs on the campsite to a local farm shop. The fine array of meats on display wouldn’t suit Annie, but we bought some home-made marmalade, and walked back via the road. On the campsite, once again both mobile phones had no signal at all. You don’t realise how much you rely on these things until you haven’t got the use of them – this was the second day without mobile phone access. Anyway, walking back from the farm shop, we found a spot where I got some signal, and we made some calls. Rather strangely, this was outside the village church – maybe we had some divine intervention in the Orange mobile phone network? Or maybe the signals were amplified by the steeple on the church? Spooky, anyway.

We got back to the van, and made a vain attempt to get some signal on the TV. Nothing doing. On the campsite guide, there was a price for cable TV to the pitch, and on the electric hookup pylon, there was an aerial socket. I went to the reception building, and hired a long TV cable for the princely sum of £1. Good value, and we had am eclectic mix of TV channels for the evening.

All the while, we had flies around the van. These weren’t just flies buzzing around, because on the site generally, there weren’t any flies. But as we ate lunch, flies were banging against the side of the van, as if trying to break in. Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” had nothing on this. I don’t know where they came from – maybe they were from the little brook which ran about 30 metres away from the van. But when we walked by the side of this brook later, there were no flies. I think maybe they were all attacking our van. Nasty.

There’s a pub/restaurant on the site (“The Mill”), and the temptation was too much for one of us, so just after six o’clock, I (oops) strolled up, to sample the ambience, purely for research purposes, so that I could report honestly for this blog. I can report that the ambience was convivial, and the beer tasty. I spied the ‘specials’ board for the restaurant, and there were some nice things on there, so I returned to the van, managed to persuade Annie that we really did need to eat out again, and we returned to the pub, where we both had feta cheese and red onion marmalade (yes, really), and Annie had smoked haddock with spring onion and coconut, and I had lamb sausages with mint gravy and vegetables. All were very lovely. We couldn’t resist desserts, so Annie had something chocolatey, and I had apple pie and ice cream. A very gorgeous meal, and highly recommended.

Wednesday 25th October - Herefordshore to Cirencester

Another day, another change of scenery. The showers got a 9 from each of us this morning – timed for 6 minutes of water, it was plenty hot enough, and plentiful. Plenty of room in the shower stalls too. AND free hair dryer. What more could we have wished for?

The only downside came when I jumped in the cab to drive off the ramps. When I opened each door, around 30 flies swarmed from their sleeping quarters, snuggled in between the door and the bodywork. A furious waving of arms and shouting (can they hear?) made them disappear to torment some other mugs.

Having programmed the TomTom the night before, AND checked the route on the map for any nasty white-coloured roads (‘B’ roads are yellow, and ‘A’ roads are red – white roads are Gladys’s revenge), we trundled off through big puddles from overnight rain, heading for Cirencester.

The journey was fairly uneventful, apart from a huge traffic jam about 20km from Cirencester. The cause was some roadworks which had blocked off one lane, but we must have travelled a mile in around an hour. It didn’t really bother us as we were in no rush.

We got to the Caravan Club site at Cirencester Park at around 2:15pm. We were met with very friendly and efficient staff, and we chose a hardstanding pitch near to one of the toilet blocks.

We decided to walk into Cirencester town centre (it was about a 20 minute walk through the Bathurst Estate), and dived into a posh coffee shop for cream teas. We know how to spoil ourselves. We then had a good wander around the shops, although Annie kept having to go into clothes shops, because “they’re just lovely”. They looked like clothes to me, but then, they always do. We were also looking for walking boots for Annie, as hers hurt her feet. We’ve had them over 10 years, so I suppose we could justify a new pair. The sports shop was no good, being too full of fishing gear and Barbour jackets (and Barbour socks, and shoes, and globes, and ….), so we went into Milletts. There, we were able to buy two pairs of walking boots (well, if Annie was having some …), some socks, and some gaiters to go around our lower legs, all for less than eighty quid. A bargain!

Back to the campsite in the rain now, but with cosy toes in our new boots, and we battened down the hatches against the rain. With our oil-filled radiator, and our dodgy TV signal, we were set up for the night.

Thursday 26th October - Cirencester to Kemble

Caravan Club showers were as we would have expected, and scored a creditable 9 from me and the maximum 10 from Annie. Our first 10! The Caravan Club will be pleased. In justifying her score, Annie reported: “plenty of water, adjustable temperature, stool to put stuff on, plenty of room, the shower curtain didn’t stick to you, there was a handle to hold on to which didn’t rattle around, hooks to hang your clothes on which didn’t get wet, …” – she liked them, in other words.

I chatted to a nice couple (aren’t we all?) in the Timberland Endeavour next to us, mentioning that we had been thinking of downsizing. They loved it (the van, not talking to me), they had plenty of room, and you got much better quality than things like “the Trigano Tribute”. So there you go. It seems his cousin had downsized from an Auto Sleepers Amethyst, and didn’t regret it at all. Hmm. More food for thought.

Our journey today took us just a few miles down the road to Kemble. Our destination was the CL behind the pub (“The Tavern”). As we drove slowly past the pub, an enthusiastic lady in the window waved her arm, indicating we should drive around the back. So we did.

The CL had an RV on it and a couple of caravans. We parked up on hardstanding, hooked up, and went into the pub to register / pay / whatever we needed to do. We paid our money, and treated ourselves to a pub lunch. To be honest, I wished we hadn't. The fare was average, and largely the product of a couple of microwaves. We tarried not, and hastened back to the van where we donned our new boots, gaiters, and an OS map, and set off on a quest for the source of the Thames.

We found it. Well, it was marked quite clearly on the map, and even we can follow a few footpaths to a location. There was a large rock, with some sort of inscription that said it was the source of the Thames. Now, I'm not a sceptical man. Well, not all the time, but who's to say? There was no sign of any water, except a few puddles, which I hardly think constitures the source of our great capital's river. But the rock said it was, so I suppose it was.

After our trek, we returned to the van for a quick cuppa, and then we walked the incredible distance of about half a mile to see Annie's cousin. Theresa, who's nursing her very sick husband. It was lovely to see her, and we spent a splendid couple of hours there, before it was time to return to the van.