Category Archives: General

Our first project finished..

03 Friday Feb 2012

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Sue and I went down to the storage place this morning to do a little work on the caravan. We had wanted to install an electrically heated towel rail in the caravan since we were at Chirk last December, as the towels didn’t dry too well just hung over the washroom door. Plus it looked a little unsightly.  I had ordered one via the internet and it had arrived a couple of days earlier. I’d got all the fittings ready in the work shop, so it was just a matter of getting down there and doing it. I took a camera with us and I’ve written it up as a project… so if you want to know more, it’s all here on the Installing an electric towel rail page.

On each trip, we find out a better or improved way of doing something, and the last trip out we decided that the cleaning stuff being in one of the top lockers was a waste of good space. Continue reading →

Our 2012 season starts

02 Thursday Feb 2012

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Well, at last our 2012 season is underway. Since we got back from Wrexham on the 11th December, Sue has been on call to the hospital with the exception of 6 days since then. The first chance we have to get away is next weekend, which is half term and usually busy. Not a problem I thought, logging on to the Camping & Caravanning Club web site… I can search on available pitches. Unfortunately, the booking system was taken back into the stone age late last year and the ability to do almost anything with the booking system is a nightmare. All is not lost I thought. I logged in to the Caravan Clubs booking system. Well, that insisted on listing sites that were still closed, even though I’d put in our travelling dates. Two hours later, and after several phone calls to different sites, I managed to get us booked in at the C & CC Oswestry. So next weekend, we are starting our 2012 season at last!

Looking ahead, we are also starting our continental adventures. After spending so many years flying the plane all over Europe, it is strange to now have to plan taking the caravan. It was so easy… fill in a flight plan a couple of hours before we wanted to go, load the plane, fill up and go. A couple of hours later we could be in France, Holland wherever. Taking the caravan is a little different, and rather than have an exploratory few days… we are driving down to the Dordogne for five days! Continue reading →

Caravan & Motorhome Exhibition 2012 – Manchester

19 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in Events, General

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Well Sue and I made our first visit to the Caravan and Mortorhome Exhibition to-day. It was in fact our first visit to any caravan type exhibition, so we didn’t know what to expect. We only live a few miles outside Manchester and knew when we were on the M60 at 10:45 this morning it was going to be busy.  There were already delays three junctions away. However, we are made of sterner stuff in Manchester and we pressed on. We eventually arrived and parked in one of the Trafford Centre car parks, a short walk… no more than five minutes from the ‘Event City’ halls. The queue to get in only took about 10 minutes and I think the delay was due to the fact everyone was in the same queue… if they had split off everyone that had pre bought their tickets it would have been a little quicker. Once inside… it was warm! top tip – wear light layers and take some water! Continue reading →

Updates to the blog

16 Monday Jan 2012

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Hi

Over the last couple of days I have posted some new pages. Equipment reviews now has  a piece about our Avtex TV and I have just finished one about our Safefill refillable gas cylinder.

Back in May/June last year while I was researching everything we would need to go with our new caravan, I collected a lot of ‘bookmarks’ for websites that we thought were useful and would need in the future, or that we eventually bought stuff from. So to help anyone else looking for information, I’ve started a links page, with links to the sites we used. There are over fifty links on the page, and I’ve tried to organise them in to some sort of order. If nothing else, at least I know where to look for stuff again! It also makes it easier if someone asks me about something… I can just point them at the links page.

I have also posted another help guide…. this time on understanding the dynamics of towing. It basically gives an insite into whats going on with the white box on wheels behind you. I’m part way through writing one about simple electrical fault finding on a caravan’s electrical system. Hopefully that will be ready in a few days. Someone has asked me if I can write something about modifying or altering wiring and making terminations… I’ll see what I can do in the near future.

I have a link at the top of the page “Site Reviews” I’m still not sure if this is something that I want to get into really as there are so many places on the internet that offer site reviews… do we need another one? Still thinking about that one.

S

Wrexham Christmas Market

14 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by in General, Trips

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October came and passed, because of Sue’s on-call commitments to the hospital and the fact that everyone seemed to want heart surgery there was little chance at getting away.  However, December looked promising. Sue’s colleague was due to have major knee surgery in December, so getting away before then would be ideal, after her colleague’s surgery Sue would be on call until at least the end of January. The prospect of mulled wine and a Christmas market seemed good.  A brief search on the internet reveled that Lincoln Christmas Market was one of the top events this time of year. Going on to the C & CC’s on line booking system was a nightmare, some idiot decided that it needed improving and instantly took it back several steps in my opinion… and that of many others looking at the complaints and postings on some of the forums. Just as I thought it was sorted, Sue announced we would have to move it back a week due to work commitments changing.

Right, so Lincoln was out… where else. We had been in touch with Pete & Julie as we were hoping to meet up again with them…. and they suggested York. Back on to the C & CC website… better still ring the sites. After ringing a few, some would be closed, some were fully booked and some were advising that the same time last year they were either flooded or knee deep in snow. York was off.

A very quiet campsite in the morning winter sun

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Oxford – Southampton – Oxford

13 Friday Jan 2012

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I had a shoot to do in Southampton in September, and as Sue could get a few days away from the hospital we decided to go down for a few days. It would also allow us to catch up with some very good friends of ours that live on the Isle of Wight. The shoot was planned for the 24th September, so we thought rather than tow all the way down to Southampton in one go, we would break the journey with an overnight stop at Oxford C & CC’s site, then continue down to Southampton on Friday.

Sue catching up on a bit of light reading...

I searched the C & CC’s website for suitable places to stay…. we were not yet up-to-speed on CL’s & CS’s so wanted to stay somewhere a little larger. Having found a couple of sites, I checked them out on Google Earth and looked at the distance between them and my planned photo shoot. There was nothing close, in the end I Googled “caravan sites, Southampton” and a list of commercial sites appeared on a map… there was one that was perfect. Sunnydale Farm in Netley Abbey. I rang up to check availability… yes they had pitches free…. but as it was the end of Southampton Boat Show, the prices were higher. It still seemed a reasonable deal, £100 for 5 days, so I booked us in. Next, back on to the C & CC website and book us back in at Oxford for one night for the return trip north.

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5 days at Barnard Castle

12 Thursday Jan 2012

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We had to wait almost a month before our next trip. We had arranged with out friends, Pete & Julie (you might remember them from the ‘Hello World’ posts) that we would meet up somewhere. As they had traveled down to see us in Oxford, we decided to head over in their direction this time. I had always wanted to visit Beamish museum in the north east and this seemed like a good opportunity. I booked us in to the Camping & Caravanning Clubs site at Barnard Castle using the on line booking system. I sent an email to Pete with all the details… knowing that he can’t get internet… or a mobile phone signal in the valley where they live I gave him a ring on his land line to let him know so he could toggle off to the local library 20 miles away to check his email. The dates were fine with them. We would arrive on the Saturday and they would drive up on the Sunday to meet us. The route I’d planned was over the M62 and to pick up the A1M north, so there shouldn’t be any problems. Sue had done here usual job of loading up the plastic boxes ready for the trip. This was going to be for 5 days, our longest so far.

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Lake District weekend

12 Thursday Jan 2012

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Pleased with the success of our first weekend away in our new van, we wanted to go a little further. The next time we could get away was the following weekend – Friday 29th July… As we had joined the Camping & Caravanning Club when we had hired a caravan, it seemed sensible to make use of the membership. I logged on to their website and browsed for available places… We had ruled out the south west as we were in the middle of school holidays and guessed it would be mayhem down there. The lakes looked like a good idea, and the weather forecast seemed reasonable too. Troutbeck C & CC site had pitches available for the weekend… click, that was booked. The few days soon passed, I had made a couple of trips up to the caravan in the mean time checking things.. giving it a polish… doing all the man stuff and Friday morning we were ready to go. We went down to where the caravan is stored, loaded up, hitched up and set off up the M6 the 122 miles to Troutbeck. The tow up there was uneventful… even the tow up Shap passed easily and the weather was better than forecast. The torque remap done a couple of months earlier before we bought the caravan improved the towing capability of the Freelander and once we had got on the M60 it was almost like towing with an auto. The TD4 engine in the Freelander was the same engine as installed in the MG-Z and some BMW’s so a mild torque remap wasn’t going to shorten the life of the engine…. at least that is what I was told.

We arrived at the site and were greeted by the wardens. We booked in and were asked if we wanted the top end or the lower field. We opted for the top end. The warden waked down with us following in the car and he showed us pitch number 6 at the top of a ramp leading down to the lower field.

The view from our pitch over the lower field

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Our first trip…

12 Thursday Jan 2012

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Well, we had bought it, got all the equipment we thought we needed so I suppose we better try it out!

Where to go was the next question. As it happened, a chap had joined the Caravan Talk forum and was canvasing for help from the contributors…. what did they want in a caravan site. Now, that was a bit of a leading question and as expected, he got answers fired at him with both barrels… and what one person wanted was soon shot down by others as not being what anyone else wanted at all. I kind of felt sorry for him in a way, but admired him for actually taking the time to respond to all the posts. It was decided, we would visit this site for the weekend, so I ring up and booked in for Friday 22nd July for two nights. Oh yes…. I guess you want to know the site, Lady Heyes near Frodsham.

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