Well not really a tour, only two locations. The first leg was down from Manchester to Glastonbury and a stay at The Old Oaks. We first went there in 2012 and had five or six more visits in the next four years. So it had been quite a while really.

We were located in the Upper Oaks area on a premium pitch which was easily big enough for our 5th Wheel. The site was as pristine as you can get really and I was particualarly interested to see that the lawns were now cut with an electric rechargeable mower working 24 x 7. We kind of got attached to the one trimming the central area and I named him “Earl”. It became a bit mesmerising watching Earl trim the grass and we felt sorry for him when he was out there in the pouring rain working trimming away while everyone else was huddled in their caravan or awning. I really think he needed a cat companion sat on him keeping him company.

While we were there we had a few jobs to do in the caravan. We replaced the bathroom taps, kitchen taps and water filter tap. I’ve still got to install the new drinking water filter and connect the filter tap. We also cleaned the awning rails, which still need a bit of work on them with a tooth brush in the rails. Sue valiantly attacked the locker handles with something called “The Pink Stuff” which was recommended to us by The Caravan Nut…. and fine stuff it is too. It has almost brought the handles up to new condition. Another session and we should almost be there with them.

The big one was replacing the runners on the shower doors. I’d ordered a set from Amazon and they needed fitting. I never knew that shower doors were going to be so heavy! We removed the bi-fold doors and got the bottom runners replaced then came the task of re-installing the doors… you have to lift the things into the correct position then install the top runners… between the two of us we seemed to make it hard work, but got there in the end. The original runners had cracked as there didn’t seem to be a way of securing the doors while in transit. The method was to secure the doors in an open position… and now knowing the weight of the doors came to the conclusion that this was not going to work. The doors needed to be secured in the closed position so the weight was evenly distributed and the doors were held securely by the frame of the shower. A simple solution was to use a child proof door securing strap. These came with two buttons you secure with 3M VHB pads and one step secures the door in the closed position easily…. even with my weight pushing on it.

In the mean time we have been making the inside ‘ours’ if you know what I mean. The installation of some pictures and side lights makes it more like home.

The side lights are ones we found at IKEA. I shortened the mains leads to about 8 inches to reduce the amount of spaghetti cabling and used command strips to hold each light firmly in place. Each light has a dimmer and I selected warm tungsten effect LED bulbs to give that cosy feeling when watching TV and the rain hammering down outside.

We also supplemented the coat rail with a hat rack (again using command strips) to house my mahoosive collection of 6 baseball caps. This was finished off with a wall clock almost matching the wall colour with a style that we were looking for. The clock was a B & M special I think. Again held up with command strips. So far we have not had anything fall off using these strips.

Sitting back enjoying the few days work it took…. and a big belly rub for Henry for putting up with all the too and fro while we did the work. You can see one of the side lamps next to Sue… turned up to full, this provide an excellent reading light as well and generating mood lighting at a lower level at night. All the sockets I installed have twin USB charging ports and I installed a 4 port charging station near the TV… just in case!

Stop No. 2…

From Glastonbury we headed back north, this time to Rhuallt in North Wales. Home of The 5th Wheel Company. When we bought our 5th Wheel they replaced the water heater/warm air boiler and the Thetford fridge. We had been developing a problem with the fridge door….. to the point when we closed the door you had to give it a gentle kick at the bottom to make sure the door closed properly. I sent some photos of the corners of the door as it looked as though it was racking and the corner joints were pulling apart. Simon at the 5th Wheel Company sent the photos off to Thetford and they agreed to replace the door without any hesitation. So we had scheduled a day to visit to get the door replaced… as we also had a few days to spare we turned it into a three day stopover. I do have to say the service from everyone at The 5th Wheel Company always exceeds expectations.

On Saturday, the trip from Glastonbury to North Wales was sunshine one minute and torrential can’t see a thing in front OMG it cannot rain any heavier nightmare. It didn’t help that a large proportion of the drivers on the motorway required driving lessons… the well known makes were doing their own thing as usual.

As we passed Chester it was nothing but clear blue sky, a welcome change from the grey on and off again drizzle at Glastonbury.

The sunshine also gave us a chance to go over the 5th Wheel with an combined exterior cleaner and silicon polish… which really only took us a couple of hours. A few weeks ago we did a deep clean on the exterior that took us nearly two days. Mind you it was down to scrubbing all the locker frames with a tooth brush and most of the running rails. We gave it the first silicone polish back then and that causes the water to bead off really easy and also helps prevent black streaks which are caused by dirty water running off the roof. Yep, we still have to tackle the roof…. it’s a bit of a large task though.

Homeward Bound…

We left Rhuallt a bit later than we expected and headed home. The following day I had an appointment at The Christie for bloods and ti see my oncologist. Heading out of North Wales we decided to call into Chester Services… Flippin huge mistake. Chester Services has to be one of the worst services in the UK. Considering three days before we called into Gloucester Services on the M5 which is probably the best services in the whole of the UK…. maybe Tebay is close but as they are both owned by the same group… I’ll say Gloucester tops the list.

We entered Chester Services and missed the small “Caravans” sign and ended up back on the roundabout for a second attempt (things you do for a Costa Coffee) taking a bit slower and being a bit more vigilant we noticed the red – white text, the sign that said ‘HGV Caravans” So we followed it. It took us straight to the lorry park. I pulled in behind a refrigerated trailer and turned off the engine. We sat there for a minute or two trying to see how the heck you get to the main building as most of the perimeter was thick bushes you could not see through or over and no signs. I opened the door… and shut it again.It wasn’t a particularly warm day but the smell of emptied stale urine bottles and dumped poo bags was overpowering. The only thing that would cure this would be the purchase of a good jet steam cleaner and steam cleaning all the concrete and surrounding areas.

I did have a look on google earth to see if I had missed the caravan parking area… but alas there isn’t one. The best bet I think would be to pull into the coach parking area as this did not seem to have any coaches…. why would it with the smell wafting over from the lorry park.

I could not even see a way to squeeze in the main carpark…. the lanes between rows of parked cars was ridiculously tight. 4 minutes after we pulled in and turned the engine off, I was reversing out of the lorry parking lane and we were back on our way. Even the pull in behind the Drive Through Costa Coffee was too short… it had a mini in it and was full. We could not even use the Costa Drive through… although the building didn’t have an overhang…. it did have a steel height barrier. Another thing I noticed were the bushes at every road junction. They all needed a good trim as the sight lines were very restricted… at one point I had to get the Amarok half way across the road just to see if there was any traffic approaching the junction from the right. The shrubbery has encroached to the road edges since the satellite photo above was taken.

I understand that the Tebay group has gained planning permission to build a new service station serving the M62 / M56 at Tatton… which is now it would seem being held up by a central government planning enquiry. Why am I not supprised. https://www.tattonservices.com

So, we are now back at home, I had my bloods and checkup yesterday and all going well. I have a CT scan next week so we will know more after the results of that. It’s back to planning our next adventure hopefully another two or three stopper. Sue has been binge watching “Vera” on TV…. so I can feel a trip to the north east on the cards.

Take care and safe travels.