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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.
Thursday 26th April 2012, we leave Chorley, still in the rain!
We head for Tredegar House Country Park, Caravan Club Site, Newport.
By missing out the rest of Wales, we are now back on track, to our original plan.
The site is within the grounds of Tredegar House, a very impressive Mansion, dating back to the 1600's.
It is nice to be on a site with good facilities, we are definitely not "roughing it" campervaners!, the Caravan Club never fails to please in this respect.
The weather has improved (very) slightly, we even manage a walk to explore the grounds, without getting wet.
According to the BBC weather forecast, on Wednesday, Tredegar was the wettest place in the UK, well, on Friday (27th), it looks as if it is trying to equal that distinction. We wake to pouring rain.
There are few things more dismal than an overcaste wet day on a campsite!
The rain stops for 11:00, and we do the "looking for a Catholic Church" walk, Kathleen encounters a group of Pensioners at a bus stop, and of course gets all of the necessary information, where the church is, bus times etc etc.
What she does not find out is that English bus passes are not accepted in Wales!, so later in the afternoon, when we go into Newport on the bus, it costs £6 return! If you are thinking of doing it, save yourself £6, it is faded grandeur, some smart buildings, but otherwise about on a par with Gateshead, but (if this is possible) with more chavs.
Saturday (28th April 2012), we are told is to be the "best" day of the weekend, if that is true, it is a big disappointment, grey overcaste sky, cold wind from the North, no rain (the only redeeming feature).
We catch the bus into Cardiff (about 10 miles away). Given the weather we spend most of our time in an a couple of "joined up" shopping malls, Queens Arcade and St Davids Arcade. Absolutely riveting.
The monotony is broken by a visit to this rather magnificent church (that will tell you how riveting the shopping mall was, when a church is a highlight!).
I have to say, Cardiff is rather magnificent, and is thronged with people shopping, eating and generally spending money, no sign of recession here, that is for sure.
Sunday and the weather is absolutely dreadful, we are woken at 6:30 in the morning by the site warden, warning us that a tree has been blown down.
At present, it is resting on the fence, the branches are resting on the roof of our van. True to form, I have slept through all of this.
I quickly get some clothes on and move the van to another pitch, before the tree, comes down completely.
All over the site, people are being moved from pitches where trees either have fallen, or look as if they are about to.
But, to give you a true perspective of how bad the weather is, Kathleen misses church, because she cannot face the two mile walk there, in the pouring rain and howling wind. Now that IS serious weather.
It gets better, a phone call from the Site Warden at Tewkesbury Abbey (our next stop), to tell us the site is flooded, and to advise we cannot go there on Tuesday as planned, the bookings are quickly rejigged to go to Cheltenham instead.
Drought!, what drought?
Monday, we have a strange light in the sky for most of the day, a sort of yellow ball, and the sky is a strange colour, mostly blue.
It does not last, by 8:30 in the evening the clouds roll in, and we have a thunder storm.
Kathleen is given the all clear by the Doctor, so tomorrow, we will be off on our long delayed trip.
Allanson Hall Farm, Adlington, Chorley
This is a Caravan Club Certified location, ie a small 5 van site.
The site is pleasant and right alongside the Leeds - Liverpool Canal, which means plenty of walking and cycling possibilities.
We spend the afternoon, walking along the canal.
The towpath, is on the opposite side of the canal to the CL, but there is a quaint stone bridge, just a few yards along the road. On the left is the view from the bridge.
Soon, we come upon this mother duck, with her brood of ducklings, out for their afternoon excursion.
I think there are 13 ducklings, but the whizzed about so quickly, they were difficult to count, so I could be wrong!
The down sides are:
- apart from Electric Hook up, the facilities are minimal.
- the village is somewhat limited.
The White Bear advertises food, lunch time and evening, the menu looks promising, honest "pub food", but the interior has seen better days.
The Spinners Arms looks more upmarket, but does not do food in the evening.
We end up with a take away from the "Village Chippy", not an experience I intend to repeat.
Canals (in the UK anyway), seldom conjure up a pleasant image, but as you can see on the left, this is certainly a very pleasant spot to have a house, with the garden comming right down to the canal.
I manage to get the TV working, using the Digital Aerial, so no need to tangle with the Satellite dish. This allows Kathleen to get her fix of the Soaps.
It is a beautiful evening, sunny, blue sky with a few "cotton wool" clouds, but the weather forecast (one advantage of the TV, you can see the News and Weather), for tomorrow looks dreadful, a big low pressure area sweeping in from the Atlantic, bringing with it torrential rain. It is hard to believe, sitting here in the sun, but we will see in the morning, let us just hope they are wrong.
Well, they were not wrong!, Wednesday, we have a day of wind driven downpours. Definately not a day for cycling or walking along the canal. We take the bus into Chorley, apart from a reasonable coffee shop, which served good soup with crusty bread (for lunch), not really a memorable trip, got soaked walking back from the bus stop to the van.
The initial effect of the antibiotics is positive, we even went out for Sunday Lunch.
By Monday, back to square one. Kathleen's cough is so bad you can hear her coughing two rooms away. Our next door neighbour even asked me how she was, because he could hear her coughing when he was in his garden!
A joint effort from me and Dana, and she is convinced she needs to return to the doctors.
A different antibiotic is prescribed, fingers crossed this will do the trick, by Wednesday, she is well enough to be criticising the way I fold the washing, so, clearly she is on the mend.
Never the less, we are not going to be leaving here before Tuesday next (ie 24th April).
Eventually, common sense prevailed, and Kathleen went to the Doctors. Antibiotics were duly prescribed and now she is slowly feeling better, not well enough to go off in the campervan yet, but on the mend as they say.
Television
We have never bothered with Television on our campervan trips, and other than sometimes feeling a little out of touch, because I have not seen the news for several weeks, I cannot say that I have missed it.
But, this year, we are planning a tour in the UK, in Spring, it can reasonably be assumed, the weather will at some stage (if not the whole time!), be less than satisfactory.
We bought a small LCD TV from ASDA, and an indoor digital aerial, plus I made up a coaxial cable to allow us to plug into TV bollards at those sites which provided them.
First problem, in conversation with my brother (Brian), he told me that many of the TV bollards have "F Connectors" (no I did not know what they are either), rather than "normal" coaxial connectors. Why do they always make things so difficult?
After suitable advice and guidance from Brian, a trip to Maplin's to buy the relevant bits. This turned out to be an expensive trip. I went for some bits costing about £2, but in my conversation with Brian, the subject of Satellite TV was raised, the germ of an idea had been planted. Once in Maplin's, I spied the "Camping Satellite TV Kits", they were on offer. I was hooked. Soon, I was leaving with a Satellite TV Kit, Satellite Finder meter, and an overheated credit card.
I have no idea how to set up a Satellite receiving dish, so Friday evening, I carefully read the instructions, and consulted various websites. I learned about Azimuths, Elevations and LNB skew. I even found a website which showed my house, from the air, gave me Elevation, Azimuth and LNB skew, plus a "line of sight" guide to warn me of any obstructions to the signal. But, none of the Websites or Instructions provided any guide as to how sensitive or otherwise the various settings were, did I have to have it right to a couple of degrees, or to the nearest minute?
Saturday, I set about putting the various bits together and attempting to get a TV picture in the campervan.
I can tell you, this is an exercise in futility.
I had this basic understanding, up in the sky was a satellite, beaming out a TV signal. All I had to do was point the dish at it, and hey presto.
I soon had the satellite finder meter screaming away, to tell me I was "on target", but, which satellite was I locked onto?, it turns out there are dozens of the damned things spinning about up there! One every three degrees around the world, according to one website, according to my O level Geometry, that means 120 satellites to choose from.
After about two hours, I had a TV picture, and several channels to choose from, problem was, they were all in German or French. Clearly, I was "on" the wrong Satellite. Why can't they do something simple, like at least broadcast the Satellite name, can that be so difficult? I mean, they have managed to put them up there, and they are broadcasting hundreds of TV and Radio Channels, would it be too much bother just to broadcast the Satellite name?
I know I need Astra29.5E, but, it would appear I have Astra19.2E.
At this point, I found, tucked away at the back of the instruction book for the Satellite Receiver Box, a really simple guide to aligning the dish.
I will more or less repeat it here, it is short and simple, and it worked in five minutes!
Point the Dish due south.
Forget about the Elevation, for now, just set it vertical.
Forget about the LNB skew, for now, just set it to zero.
Stand behind the dish while doing the adjustments, so you are not blocking the signal with your big fat body.
With securing clamp just loose enough to be able to move the dish, move it to the left (ie East), about 3mm at a time, wait a few seconds between moves, watch the Satellite meter (and/or listen to the high pitched noise) as the signal strength rises.
As soon as the meter and/or noise indicates the signal is begining to weaken, go back slightly to get the peak signal.
Do not move the dish left or right (ie you have the Azimuth).
Now, assuming you are no further north than England, tilt the dish back about 3mm at a time, again waiting between moves and observe the meter and sound, until the maximum signal is obtained. You now have the Elevation.
If you are unfortunate enough to be in Scotland, the elevation may be negative, in which case you need to tilt the dish forward, but otherwise do as above.
Now, if you really must, tweak the LNB Skew (ie twist it clockwise or anticlockwise), again checking the signal strength as you do so. To be honest, for me, it made next to no difference.
After only 5 minutes, I have the signal meter at it's peak, and a nice high pitched squeal being emitted to tell me I am on target.
Into the van, use the remote control to instruct the Satellite box to scan for channels, and bingo, we have English TV!
I know it is not very modest, but I have to say, I am a genius!
Mind you, all in, it did take five hours to get to this stage, so I think perhaps a second career as a Satellite TV installer is not a good idea.
I dismantle it and pack it all away, ready to repeat the exercise at some caravansite. Watch this space, there just may be a Satellite system for sale shortly.
It is Spring, time for another Campervan jaunt. This spring, we are touring in the UK, Wales (including Anglesey) and the South Coast, stopping off near Windsor, to see Gary, Susana and Gabriel, then Norfolk and home.
We are not usually so organised or regimented with our route, but past experience with sites being full in the UK, has made us cautious of our usual European approach of just turning up. To make matters worse, this year is the Olympics, and the Queens Jubiliee, so the predictions are that everywhere remotely "touristy" will be full.
Kathleen has been poorly with some mysterious flu type bug. So, our departure has been delayed by a day.
Easter Weekend, is, as usual, a damp squib in terms of the weather.
Easter Monday, I begin the final tidying of the garden before we go away, back lawn cut, edged, paths swept it all looks very tidy.
Same at the front, lawn cut, edged, drive swept and treated with weed killer.
All looking very smart.
All we need now is for the weather to improve, a bit of sunshine and temperatures in the twenties (like it was two weeks ago), would be very acceptable.
The TomTom is feeling poorly, I have checked the casing for stab marks, but no visible damage, Kathleen must have just put a spell on it. When I charged it up and turned it on, I got an error message saying "No Map Found". I checked, the map file was there, but I copied it from the backup copy anyway (aren't I good having a back up!). That did not fix it.
Restored the whole lot from the back up. Big mistake. It will not even switch on now.
Next step is a drastic option, reformat the memory, using Windows File Manager, that will wipe everything, then I will have to try reloading the software, from my backup.
Initially, I used information provided by TomTom on the internet to achieve this, with no success, next, I ignored all of the official TomTom information, instead I distilled a variety of "tips" from various forums, and surprise, surprise, I have it working again. Not sure this bit of news will be well received by "the boss".
For this year, I have a new toy, it is a Drift Video camera, I have used it to take some video of our cycling exploits, see here. I hope to get some video of our journey, time will tell, stand by for boredom.
Last minute change of plan.
Kathleen's "flu" bug is still making her ill. Too ill to be jaunting about in a campervan. So, I have cancelled everything upto May 1st, hopefully, if she recovers before then, we can rebook some or all of it.
So instead of heading off for our first site, instead she is to visist the Doctors today (which she should probably have done nine days ago!).
Watch this space, normal service will hopefully be resumed as soon as possible.
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!
