Tag Archives: Camping & Caravanning Club

Wrexham Christmas Market

14 Saturday Jan 2012

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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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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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Hello world!

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

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Well, I guess this is the start of just another caravan blog. I didn’t know really what to call it, as I didn’t know where I was going with it. This is my second blog.

The first one was easy as it was all about one particular event, me and a bunch of other pilots in a handfull of small planes flying round the world… if you really want to have a look its called “Round The World Flight“

So, whats this blog all about then?

In May 2011 I had a photographic shoot to do in Essex and normally I’d have driven down from the North West, done the shoot and driven home again. A round trip of 400ish miles and a very long day. As Sue had some time off we decided to hire a caravan to see if it was something we would enjoy. Now you don’t just sit there reading a paper and suddenly announce to your partner “I think we will hire a caravan next week dear” how did we get to this point?

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