Cheltenham Racecourse, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

May 1st 2012, maybe the weather will improve, we are well into spring now!

Cheltenham Racecourse, Caravan Club Site, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

This place did not get very good reviews on the website, but it seems perfectly good so far. Not really suitable for dogs or children, but since I dislike dogs and do not have any children with me, that is not a problem.

The site is actually inside the racecourse, we are right next to the track.

Tomorrow, there is a Race Meeting, in the evening, (firsts race at 17:00) so we should have a grandstand view.

It goes on until 20:30 which surprises me, I would have thought it would be too dark to be racing by then, perhaps horses have good eyesight because of all the carrots they eat? Well, my mother always told me, that eating your carrots was good for your eyesight, on the basis you never see a rabbit wearing glasses, do you?

I have never been to the races before, so it may be interesting.

Kathleen's cough has returned, so our first afternoon is taken up with a visit to a local doctors to obtain more antibiotics.

Wednesday, it is dull, but dry, around mid afternoon we even have a short lived burst of sunshine!

We walk into Cheltenham, town centre, via Pittville park.

Cheltenham looks like quite an affluent place. It has lots of shops in the centre (Marks and Spencer, Next etc) what joy. What is it with women and shopping?

The racing is a bit of a spectacle, cannot understand the attraction of spending a few hours watching it however. For most of the time, there is either nothing happening, or the horses are so far away you cannot see anything! Clearly I am in the minority with this view, since there is quite a crowd in attendance.

Overnight, yet more torrential rain, with thunder thrown in, beginning to feel like we should be in a boat, not a campervan.

Thursday, a trip to Gloucester, the rain continues.

We manage to avoid the shopping centre (praise be to heaven!), instead we have a look around the cathederal, to escape the rain.

The cloisters, used in the filming of the "Harry Potter" films, I am told. In my limited experience of cloisters, they are unusual, they have glass in the "outside" wall, so they are not open to the elements.

I can only assume, the weather, in 1300 or whenever this place was built, was no better than it is today, ie cold and wet.

we follow the cathederal visit by a walk to the historic dockyard, the rain has diminished to just "very heavy" now.

It is hard to imagine, Gloucester, was once a thriving port, even although we are a significant distance from the sea.

Now of course it is a tourist attraction, rather than a working dockyard area.