We left Cambridge and headed east towards Nortfolk and more specifically Sandringham. The site was again beautiful and with a club site you know exactly what to expect. We walked around the Sandringham grounds and found out that there was a light show which was due to start. We got to see the preview of the light show without having to pay which was pretty fantastic. We all enjoyed walking and running (for me still jogging) in the area. We also arranged to see Toby’s mum, Laurie, Kelsie and her little girl. It was a lovely day, the sun was shining, although it was chilly and we had lunch out and had a short walk on the beach. Sandringham was beautiful although clubs sites come at a cost. 

Our next stop was to visit friends in Norfolk. It would be our first « friend visit » and we would need to think about how we would manage boundaries without seriously annoying our friends and how we could help them. First stop one of Toby’s friends from school. 

Whilst we were there it was lovely – as the friends are incredible. They have two beautiful daughters and it was nice to live with them for a few days and offer some help – looking after the girls and having some genuine great conversations and seeing what their world looks like during the week. This was what our travelling was about, as well as visiting great places, we wanted to spend some quality time with our friends and family and the people we care about. It was nice to re-engage and almost kick start the friendship again. I think the friends also enjoyed spending some time with us. I can only offer my thoughts on this! We plugged our electricity into their garage and had permission to use their shower and washing machine. This was luxury as home showers are wonderful in comparison to the shower in Beatrix and campsite showers.  What staying at a friends gave us was a bit of extra support and comfort to start doing some maintenance tasks on Beatrix. Toby decided to drill a hole in Beatrix’s roof to add a Wifi booster aerial. Being at a friend’s house meant if anything went horribly wrong we could stay in the house and would have some DIY tools to be able to fix things. Luckily it was a relatively easy thing for Toby to do. He then scooted to Kings Lynn to get some sticky pads to stick the wiring onto the roof. A successful fix. I also fell in love with this friend’s washing machine and tumble dryer. The washing machine sings at you and the tumble dryer is amazing as you can specify how dry you want the washing to be. A luxury and it saved us a shed load of money as each wash in a launderette is on average 7GBP. It was a wonderfully relaxing time. 

We didn’t want to overstay our welcome so only stayed a few days. As it seemed to work we said we would probably be back to visit again. We then went to another club site in Norfolk, Seacroft near Cromer. Again it was an easy drive from our friends to this site. We arrived in good time and I had made an error booking saying we did not need an awning space and when we arrived the couple who were managing the site said we would not fit on a non awning pitch. Luckily they had had a cancellation and we ended up with a great pitch. We filled up with water at the front of the site. When we then tried to restart Beatrix she would not restart. It seemed like her engine had just died. We went to let the site couple know as we were blocking their motorhome service area. They were having a miserable time as they also had another broken down motorhome at the only other water point on site – it would be a problem for them. One of the guys offered to use his tractor to try and jumpstart Beatrix, he was just going to try and sort it when Toby retried Beatrix and she started. It was not ideal as we did not know why she had not started however at least she started and we could settle onto our pitch. Phew for us and the campsite team!

The pitch was lovely and we stayed long enough to get to know the area. We had some fantastic weather being able to walk from Cromer to Sheringham in glorious sunshine and able to walk on the beach.

The scenery was amazing. We also had the opportunity to watch a small plane doing acrobatics twice over the sea. We had chosen Cromer as we hoped to spend some time with a couple of other friends and managed to do that by having dinner at their house for another friends 50th birthday on Saturday. There were high winds on that day and we were glad we were in a house that evening. Whilst we were at Cromer, we learnt a bit more about Beatrix in that her great table, as well as moving left to right and front to back the table also moves up and down which means you can make a bed in that area. As we learnt how to do that we used the table as a « bed » to watch a film using the projector on the front screen of Beatrix. It was actually very cool – a real cinema experience in our motorhome. We both jogged to get fitter cut Merlin and did our tax returns. It would be rude not to have chips on the seafront – although the seagulls did try and steal the chips and were very menacing looking!

Summary of November

Spending time with people you care about is important, friends and family. By our new life we were raising the priority of this for us and it was great. We were loving it and I hope our friends and family are noticing the difference. Great Britain has some wonderful scenery Norfolk, Cambridge and I also know it helps when the sun is shining. Things sometimes go wrong or things break and it is how you deal with it that is important. Having a Toby who is great at fixing things helps.

Thanks for reading

Sally, Toby and Merlin