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Saturday 5th May, 2012, we actually get some sunshine! Not all day, and it is only through the occasional breaks in the cloud, but sunshine never-the-less.
We take the bus to Tewkesbury.
This is where we should have been staying, earlier in the week, but the Caravan Club Site there is flooded.
This is the approach road to the site, it certainly is flooded, as you can see, with an intrepid 4x4 driver chickening out, and reversing out the flood.
The Cricket ground is next door, and is under a couple of feet of water, goodness knows when the next cricket match will be played there, but not in the next week or so, that is for sure!
All, that can be seen of the Caravan site, is the sign marking the entrance.
Tewkesbury itself appears quite a pleasant place, plenty of places to eat and drink, and the caravan site is within a short walk of the town centre, perhaps we will try this one again, at some future date, when it dries out!
The Cathederal, (or is it an Abbey, not sure, but I think it is) is still quite high above the flood level.
We have an explore and are treated to a very pleasant musical interlude by the choir, who are doing a practice session in there.
Sunday, we have a fine sunny day!, this is the first day it has not rained since we left home two and a half weeks ago.
But of course, Sunday is church day for Kathleen, so we walk into Cheltenham and Kathleen attends Mass, whilst she does this, I buy myself a Sunday paper, and find myself a park bench to sit reading it.
After church, it is bacon sandwiches and a coffee, then we take advantage of the dry and sunny weather to have a walk through the countryside around the Racecourse.
We manage a circular walk of almost three miles, without getting wet, amazing.
We even see the steam train, which runs past the racecourse.
I have not mentioned this, but, I bought a cordless handheld VAX vacuum cleaner, for Kathleen. She had the made the occasional complaint (ie moaned continually) about having to clean the van with a sweeping brush.
So being a generous sort of chap, I bought this little device to placate her.
She absolutely loves it, and cannot resist constant vacuuming of every crumb dropped, or bit of dust, whatever. Kathleen and that VAX are inseperable.
Bank Holiday Monday, and the weather is back to normal, freezing and pouring with rain, as we leave Cheltenham and head for our next stop, which is Bristol.
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.
The Cricket ground is next door, and is under a couple of feet of water, goodness knows when the next cricket match will be played there, but not in the next week or so, that is for sure!
