Category Archives: England

I was making plans with a friend who’s coming over to Europe recently and told her of our plans to be in the Alps this autumn and that she should join us. I cautiously added that our plans have a tendency to change without notice and beyond all recognition, usually within a couple of weeks of having made them. Sure … Continue reading

“”Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver” I celebrated my 28th year on this planet recently. Twenty eight years of my one wild and precious life. This is what I decided to exchange a day of my life for on this particular day. The Eden Project in Cornwall … Continue reading

Dover’s now-familiar white cliffs approached, and with some anticipation we drove off the ferry and were waved past the immigration officials — Katherine remembered what side of the road I’m meant to be driving on at the last minute, so that was convenient. England! Ah, England. Our first stop, via an unsuccessful initial attempt to book into a site for … Continue reading

Our time in Ireland coming to an end, it was time to meet the ferry to take us back to Pembroke, Wales. So, we drove east from Kerry for a few hours until we felt like stopping, then I arbitrarily picked a town on the sea that may yield a decent overnight spot. This turned out to be Youghal, a … Continue reading

The day after Bath was a bit of a loss, recreationally speaking: A drive to Nettle’s home town to get her LPG tank put in and a couple other bits and pieces, then onwards towards Oxford, with a lengthy stop-over to get some supplies at B&Q, a Bunnings-like establishment, then eventually to another Certificated Location (CL) club site in Faringdon, … Continue reading

After our long walk, and quite possibly over-staying our welcome at Bath Chew Valley Caravan Park we moved on, to one of the certificated locations in Keynsham, a half-hour-or-so drive from Bath, and a relatively pleasant and uneventful drive from Bath Chew Valley. Much more sensibly-priced — something like £5/night. This was a grassy field next door to two very … Continue reading

While setting ourselves up with a motorhome, we stayed in Solihull, a borough just outside of Birmingham where my grandparents grew up. We were picked up from the train station by Trevor, my something-cousin-something-removed and Keith, his father in law, my grandfather’s brother, and therefore my great uncle (I’m getting good at this) and driven to Keith and Olga’s (my … Continue reading

Having just loaded our bags into our new motorhome, who we’ve decided to call Nettle, and found places for things (still sitting in Steve the dealer’s driveway), we spent a little while online searching for a place to stay for the first night. We wanted somewhere close, but the best candidate was completely full, so we settled on one in … Continue reading

We’ve found our new home! The whole thing went infinitely more smoothly than we expected — it was the second motorhome we looked at, too. In Birmingham (specifically, Solihull), we stayed with Keith and Olga, my great aunt and uncle, and met Trevor and Jane, my…first cousin, once removed, according to Yahoo answers, and her husband. They are fulltime motorhomers … Continue reading

With a few days of fun and frivolity over and done with, it’s time to knuckle down and get to work finding our new home. This is made much easier with our mobile broadband, and we’re spending most of our time trawling eBay, Gumtree and one or two other forums for likely motorhomes. We moved on from Islington, and went … Continue reading

Waking up the morning after we arrived at Tiff’s place in Islington, I was feeling pretty sick, so we were working with the theory that I was going to be absolutely useless. This really sucked, because it was Katherine’s birthday, and the last thing we wanted to do was be stuck inside while I sneezed, wheezed and coughed my way … Continue reading