Steve's 60th Birthday! (10 nights)

Well this trip really was an emotional rollercoaster of a trip and has been very difficult to write about. We had to say goodbye to our beloved Barney just a few days before our holiday started. His cancer had become critical and he only had days left so we said goodbye humanely. We shall miss our dear boy forever and caravan trips will never be the same ..we only bought a caravan so that we could take him on holidays with us so there is a big void now.

The trip itself was split into 2 parts, 6 nights in Woodstock CL Cold Inn nr Tenby and 4 nights in Erwlon Llandovery where we met up with all the kids and grandkids.

Woodstock

We were lucky enough to have our favourite pitch next to the open field area so unrestricted views of the countryside.

The Sunday was Steve's 60th Birthday and we went to The Buckaneer in Tenby, Steve thought it was just going to be the 2 of us but some of the family turned up to surprise him so it turned out to be quite a big day for him. The rest of the holiday in tenby was spent quietly with trips to saundersfoot for beach walks and seafood and quiet times around the caravan.

Erwlon

The second leg of our holiday was very different ..the youngsters like their parties and were determined to celebrate Steve's birthday. I made him a cake a couple of weeks before his big day. I always make egg free cakes for the family due to our granddaughters allergy so made it in advance and froze it ..it turned out quite well, even if I do say so myself.

So rather a mixed holiday ...celebration and sadness and a feeling of disbelief that we didn't have Barney with us.

Mother's Day Weekend 24th - 26th March (2 nights)

Dare Valley Country Park

A short break of 2 nights but as we arrived at 9.30 on the Friday morning it seemed much longer. The sun shone all weekend with temperatures peaking at 17 degrees it really felt springlike.

The park itself is beautiful with lots of walks to suit all abilities and to my mind the caravan site is really under used. It might be a tad expensive for families but for couples £19 a night is reasonable.
http://www.darevalleycountrypark.co.uk/index.php/en/caravanning

The children really enjoyed all the cycling too but this was a bitter sweet weekend as we now know it was barneys last holiday with us. His cancer has spread throughout his bladder now and when we go to Saundersfoot next weekend he won't be with us. :'-(

First trip Ancient Briton Penycae. 10th March - 13th March (3 nights)

Well we made it ..our first weekend away this season! We didn't go far, 15 minutes up the road in fact to a pub called The Ancient Briton. They have developed a campsite behind the pub which to be fair could be better. Lovely shower block ..which we never use anyway ..obviously had a lot of money spent on it but the hardstandings leave a lot to be desired. Not a flat one on site! I really don't understand why caravan site owners bother spending time and effort putting in hard standings and not make them at least near level.

We ended up turning Baby 90 degrees as then we only had one steady fully extended ..we eventually found a rock to put under it to take the strain off a bit. This photo shows the slope a bit better.

Anyway besides the extra time taken up trying to level it didn't take long to set up ...notice we have gone back to a Dorema Mistral Ripstop Awning! Still going to use the full awning for most of the season but this awning is ideal for quick getaways early and late in the season. We managed to sell the Mistral all season awning so that paid for the new one at least. I think we have finally got our perfect combination.

We have also bought a set of Fiamma Limpets

These are going to stop the sides of the awning flapping in the wind, the only complaint we had with the lightweight awning.

Our last trip of 2016 was marred by Barney being taken ill and his diagnosis, when we returned home, of Bladder cancer. He is still with us but the cancer is now quite advanced so we don't know when it will be his last trip. So photos of him and Bella are a must.

Fingers crossed that he makes our next weekend away.

Bring on Season 2017.

We haven't been out in Baby yet this season ...well not outside the garden anyway lol. We've been sorting out the last of our rental properties ready to put on the market and hopefully boost our savings pot to a level where we can say 'we're off in the van' whenever we want.

We have done a few things ready for this season though. We've got 18 nights booked ..April, 6 nights in Saundersfoot, 4 nights in Llandovery and 8 nights in Hurley Riverside in May. So not a bad start to look forward to. The other thing we've done is to buy another Mistral ripstop porch awning. As we invested in a full size tencate awning the porch tencate has become redundant as it's almost as heavy to put up and a lot more of a pain to get square. It definitely isn't as easy as the Mistral ripstop ..I know we've wasted a few quid but you live and learn. The only thing we didn't like about the Ripstop was the gap between the back of the awning and the caravan, well we've solved that problem by purchasing some Kampa Limpets ..what a brilliant idea..

You connect them to the awning and then as you screw them up a sucker tightens onto the van.

So now we have a lightweight porch awning again and we've finished the rental property we can start looking to a weekend away ,,,watch this space, our caravan season is about to start.

Washingpool Farm CL Dorset 30th Sept - 9th Oct ( 9 nights )

This really is our favourite time of the year to go away, warm enough to enjoy the sun but not too warm to walk with the dogs. A change of scenery is always lovely but the scenery in Dorset is stunning and the views from Washingpool Farm are no exception.

The pitches are spacious with water and electric to each pitch, the only criticism is that, as with most CL's, the hard standing could do with a weeding. It is a pain trying to stay level when there is a clump of grass right by the wheel. It inevitably changes the level of the van when the ground dries out. It was wet when we arrived, though it did stay dry for the rest of the day, but then it bucketed down through the night. Our first morning we woke up to beautiful sunshine which set in for the whole week, so by mid week the van had dropped in level the side of the weeds. I don't think the CL owners are aware that if the vans not level the blinking shower doesn't drain properly!

Anyway it didn't really detract from the lovely site!

Washingpool farm has the most glorious farm shop and restaurant. We didn't eat in there but bought most of our food from the shop. Heavenly fresh local produce made self catering a real pleasure. We often watched the farmers hands bringing in the produce we ate for dinner and as it was the week of the potato harvest we ended up bringing a sackful home.

One unfortunate consequence of picking the week we did though was the filming of 'Broadchurch'. They filmed on the Sunday night on the farm ..something that the owners failed to inform us of. We arrived home after a day out to find a load of vans and people milling around ..we though they were doing some work to the roof of the shop, the noise kept us awake until gone 3 in the morning. It wasn't until late the next day that we found out what was going on which we though was very discourteous to us as paying guests.

Anyway, Washingpool Farm wasn't the only place they were filming 'Broadchurch'. The crew were also in West Bay ..

All very exciting if it wasn't for the hanging around waiting for the filming to clear away from the places we wanted to walk and the problem of keeping one very yappy rescue Schnauzer quiet lol.

We will definitely be going back to this site next year as it is so central to explore the Jurassic Coast. We had some lovely cliff walks and spent a fun couple of hours fossil hunting on Charmouth beach.

August Bank Holiday 24th - 29th Aug (5 nights)

This post is very late as my laptop gave up the ghost ..and despite being away for repair for weeks on end I have ended up buying a new one.

We went back to Dan yr Ogof so we could be close to home ..We were baby sitting my grandkids rabbit so we had to go back and fore to see to him. It was an unplanned long weekend and Steve had to work the saturday but it was still a fab break. We had bought new awning floor tiles so it was also an opportunity to try them out before our trip to Dorset. They are light weight foam and brilliant for insulating against the cold and stopping internal condensation in the awning. Another first on this trip was the cadac being used as a proper BBQ ..Steve had only ever used the skillet and was quite surprised how good the meat tasted.