It’s hard to know how to define the ‘perfect week’.
For sure a perfect week will be different for everyone and I think it can depend a little bit on your perspective, so what’s happened beforehand is important. Of course it should include a bunch of good things plus one or two surprises thrown in for good measure and it should hint at good things to come.
By this reckoning, since arriving in Montgenevre, our week has been pretty much perfect.
After the previous weeks trials trying to reach the mountain, we eventually arrived mid-afternoon and although the Aire had been totally full over half term last week, it was emptying out and we were able to settle into our ‘usual spot’ overlooking the town and the sunset.
Having picked up our seasons ski passes in town, we couldn’t resist getting out for a couple of runs before the lifts closed and this year we took the time to properly celebrate ‘Arriving’ by opening one of the bottles of champagne that we’d brought on the way.
As we enjoyed the view, we realised we’ve spent more time here than anywhere else since we started travelling. It seems incredibly lucky that we can spend so much of our time in such a beautiful place doing something we love. The bonus is that it’s such amazing value too.
This year there are lots of Brits here, in fact as I write this I think there are more British vans and motorhomes than any other nationality which is kinda strange. I’m not sure who let the secret out? Happily, amongst them is Richard and Michelle, our friends that we met here last year and bumped into again in Bordeaux later in the year.
We got a couple of ‘finding our feet’ skiing days in and remembered some of our favourite runs and hot chocolate stops. It’s still pretty cold up here with temperatures about freezing during the day and as low as -13c at night.
Weather forecasting in the mountains is, in our experience, a pretty unreliable service. This week being what it is, that meant we had a couple of days of fresh snow fall mid-week which is for some reason always exciting but even more so when we’re in the motorhome.
Taking Merlin for the morning walk was brilliant; you could almost see the look of surprise on her face when she realised something was different about the ground. Then watching her joy as she bounds off like a deer through the snow, which came up to her belly, is really heart warming.
I got to break out the snow shovel (for only the second time ever!) to dig some space around the van before the big snow ploughs come in to do their job.
Then it was two days in the fresh powder skiing. Thursday was pretty overcast and still snowing but still brilliant but on Friday the blue sky returned and we had the place to ourselves. We spent the day with Richard and Michelle all having an absolute blast on and off piste, across the mountains. It must have been one of the best days skiing ever.
With the weekend forecast of wall to wall blue skies, the aire filled up quite a bit for the weekend. In fact I don’t think I’ve seen the resort as busy as it was on Sunday. Having been spoilt by empty piste’s all week, we decided to take the day off. Starting a lazy day with bacon baguettes we followed that up with an hour at the Spa for a swim and jacuzzi.
And next week? Well if the weather can be trusted we’re due up to 45cms of fresh snow and our friends Eddy and Alex are hopefully popping in.
Perfect.
Hope your week has been good too.
Sally, Toby and Merlin
Sunset over Montgenevre (the view from our front window)
When you live in your motorhome even the smallest things can be an adventure or, depending on your perspective, a real pain in the arse. Something as simple as getting fresh water for a cup of tea becomes much more difficult when it’s freezing outside and all the campsite pipes are frozen until early afternoon. Sometimes I think that because of these little things, however you choose to see them, we’ve come to love our lifestyle and our home on wheels.
It’s early February and before we head to the Alps in a couple of weeks time, we’ve got some tasks to do. The first of which is to stop in at our friends in Iveco to fit some new brake pads. As usual, it’s not quite as simple or cheap as expected but also as usual Beatrix is returned to us with all her issues resolved and this time there are absolutely, no warning lights on the dashboard! Amazing, the first time in nearly a year.
After a short stop at Mark’s nursery, Mill End Camping, which is really looking great now for a CL site, we’re off to Suffolk to see family and friends.
We end up having a busy and really enjoyable week with some great connections with family and our friends which includes us learning to use a Vorwerk cooker, an unexpected trip to see Ipswich Town play football and a classic long lunch in the pub on Friday afternoon.
Completing the count down of the days on our ‘Brexit clock’, means we can head back into Europe, we say ‘Au Revoir’ which is a bit sad but it’s also really exciting to be on the road again.
Our now comfortable departure routine sees us stay over at Canterbury’s New Dover Road Park and Ride. As Sally has a workday booked before we leave, I finally take a trip into Canterbury to go and see the Cathedral.
I probably say this every time we stay here, but I really love what the city has done with the Park and Ride for motorhomes. It’s super easy to jump on a bus and get into the city and by making it easier for motorhomers, we head in and spend our money in the local area. It’s such a winning idea, I’m always frustrated that more cities don’t do the same thing.
Canterbury Cathedral certainly exceeds expectations and is well worth a pilgrimage. What a fantastic place. It’s really strange to be here so recently after we visited the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey. The sites have such similarities in their histories and development but where one was destroyed, Canterbury survived, albeit without its monks.
For some reason I’ve always wanted to see where Thomas Becket was murdered by the 4 knights freshly returned from the crusades with the whole “who will rid me of this turbulent priest” thing. It must be a hangover from school history lessons but I was very happy to find the spot and sit for a while contemplating what happened here some 853 years ago.
I mooched about the Cathedral for an hour or so being particularly taken with the view up through the tower crossing, the tombs of King Henry IV and the Black Prince but also by the Hymn books in the choir stalls which made me smile as they’re still the same as when I was at school.
Another great thing is that the reasonable priced entrance ticket is one of those annual pass jobbies which means we can come back to visit when we’re next in Canterbury. Excellent.
We booked a really early train to Calais, partly because it was cheaper and partly because it feels like more of adventure when you get up in the dark to start a trip. The downside of this, and a lack of street lights, is that we’re left to feel our way slowly down the road, both peering over the dashboard as our headlights cast their dim, tealight candle glow in front of Beatrix.
Having used the tunnel crossing a few times now I have to admit we’re a bit blasé about it. Funny how times change as I remember that the first time we arrived at the tunnel, Sally had to get out to see me through the check in gates as I thought they were too narrow for us!
This time, we decided on a quick canter through France as our goal is to get to the Alps for skiing. Our route was closely based on last year’s return leg and we decide to try and avoid tolls where we can.
Our first stop is in the champagne region and Sally found a lovely vineyard, Philippe Hautem, close to our road but in the little village of Vaudemange. We arranged a tasting with our hostess who looked super busy but was happy to make time for us. Although she spoke a little English and our French is a bit pidgin, we had a great time and learnt a bunch of stuff. This little village has quite a few champagne houses and they seem to share some of the responsibilities cooperatively with each house creating its own unique tastes with different blends of grapes. Our host explained that grapes from 4 of their 6 acres is sold to the big brand Mumm, which is pretty common I think. It in part explains why the big brands have a more generic taste and can produce such large volumes each year.
Champagne stopover
As the smaller houses produce more distinctive bottles, it also means we’ll need to try lots more establishments until we happen upon our favourite! Sally thinks this is a great idea as champagne is one of her favourite drinks. We start by taking 3 delicious bottles away with us which seems like a good trade-off for not using the toll roads.
The next stop is Beaune where we stayed in April 2022. Sometimes it’s great to come back to a place you’ve been to before and arriving and parking up this time is more chilled out as we know what we’re doing. We head out for a walk in the old city and enjoy a glass of Cote de Beaune in the evening sun.
Beaune town square Beaune sketch
If you’re visiting the Aire here in the town centre, it’s worth noting that although it was fairly quiet in the afternoon, it completely filled up for the night with big vans passing through. By morning time the carpark looked like a showroom for Morelo motorhomes!
The next day we’d planned to get past Grenoble and into the Haute Alpes. Of course I’d forgotten that it was a Saturday, therefore a changeover day in the Alps, and its school half terms. This meant that the 4 hour drive actually took closer to 7.5 hours. Just outside of Grenoble, in a town called Vizille where we stayed last year, the first of the mountain climbs begins with a 10 kilometre drag at 10% incline. This is pretty hard work for Beatrix as we sit in 3rd gear, climbing at about 15mph, holding up traffic. As we pull into the deserted park up at La Mure for the night there’s a strange judder from the clutch or driveshaft or some such gubbins as we pull away in first or reverse. I’m a little worried by it but figure we’ll see how we go tomorrow and if it’s any worse as there’s an Iveco garage in Gap on our route.
Unsurprisingly, and despite our positive thinking, the judder didn’t get any better overnight but it wasn’t any worse either so we decide to push on through Gap to a stop at Savines-Le-Lac. We really like the drive by the turquoise blue lake and across the bridge to get to the site. This time around there’s almost no water in the lake…. it’s really strange. We later find out that the lake is used for generating hydroelectric power and it’s been deliberately drained to help with electricity generation this winter.
The Passage sculpture at Savines-Le-Lac
After a restful night, the next day we’re off to the mountains proper. The route up to Briancon, where the Tour de France visited last year, takes us up a massive valley with a series of spectacular views around every corner. As tends to happen, we pick up a bit of what I call a ‘tail’ on roads like these so I try to pull over a regular intervals to let traffic past. That’s easier here in the mountains too as there’s lots of spaces to pull over to fit snow chains.
After a slow, gently descent we see a picnic area and as I pull over a series of amber warning lights appears on the dashboard accompanied by a loud beeping! Noooooooo……
The issue, which declares itself to be Gearbox Failure number 078, prevents us from getting into gear at all and once the engine is turned off, it won’t start again. Pants.
This feels like one of those problems that no matter what tools I try prodding the underside of the van with, we won’t be making progress without some professional assistance. So we dig out our insurance policy and breakdown cover for the first time with our fingers crossed that this will work.
So I should say that the people at Trinity Lane breakdown were absolutely fantastic for us. Quick to answer and very reassuring on the phone they importantly recognised that we’re a bit on the heavy side, so they sent out a suitably sized recovery truck. We had an hour or so’s wait and once the recovery chap arrived and tried the ‘turn it off, turn it on again’ trick and realised it wasn’t going to work, he set about loading us onto his truck!
This was all pretty disconcerting as we’ve never done anything like this before. Beatrix is our home and as I mentioned, we have a certain amount of affection for her so we were both pretty worried. Once assured that the truck could fit us on, we fussed about the front bumper getting damaged and then about the back rubbing on the road as we loaded…. It was a bit traumatic.
Beatrix safely loaded onto the trailerThankfully we pulled over at a safe place on the side of the road
The recovery chap decided we should go to a bus repair place near Gap which wasn’t what we or the Trinty Lane people were expecting but it turned out for the best.
Once we’d dismounted, the female mechanic plugged a computer into the hyperdrive and after two hours of prodding, head scratching and beeping inside the van it was declared that something was properly broken and we wouldn’t be going anywhere tonight.
In the end we stayed in the yard of the bus repair shop for two days waiting for our new clutch actuator, which I’m likening to a left leg when driving a manual car, to arrive and be fitted. We managed on electricity from the sun, drinking water from the garage sink and cheap pizza from across the road.
Through the whole incident, we both reflected on how lucky we’d been. It would have been so easy for us to have stopped in a dangerous place on the road, we could have had a really difficult time trying to recover Beatrix and we met and were helped by some really lovely people. I’ll have an enduring memory of our mechanic walking across the yard to see us whilst tapping progress updates into google translate on her phone and us both standing talking into our phones then sharing translations back and forth.
It was about 16:30 when we pulled out of the yard and we didn’t feel we had time to get up to Montgenevre so we settled back in Savines-Le-Lac with the hope that we’d make it further the next day.
Not wanting to tempt fate, there was quiet cheer in Beatrix as we drove past the site of our breakdown and we continued on to Briancon for some supplies and then up the little winding road into Montgenevre. We were four days later than planned but we’re hoping to be here for a month or two so in the end it doesn’t matter too much and with some snow forecast over the next week, we managed to get out for a cheeky hour on the slopes.
We hope you enjoyed the tale,
All the best Sally, Toby and Merlin
Our route through France
Detailed view of the route into the Alps with the site of our breakdown and repairs
On a damp but brightening January day, we are leaving Exeter on our way to Glastonbury.
We’ve had a few days to see my parents which is always good, before we head to France. The night before we left we went to a bistro pub called The Redwing Inn in Lympstone and had a fantastic meal. You know how sometimes when you go out to eat you’re often underwhelmed with the experience? Well, none of that here as we all enjoyed great food with a wonderful atmosphere. Top stuff and we’ll definitely be back but given the width of some of the roads in Lympstone, probably not in Beatrix.
Glastonbury is our next destination. I’ve always wanted to see Glastonbury and this is a part of the country that I’ve never spent much time in. I think the draw is in part the long and rich history of the land here and ofcourse the radiated fame of the festival. Whilst there’s no chance of getting festival tickets, we had more luck with finding space at a campsite, Higher Edgarley House, which is a couple of kilometres from the town.
We travel up on the motorway and then via a winding A road that takes us right through Glastonbury. Although it’s not too tight, it did require a bit of concentration so it wasn’t until we arrived at the campsite that we realised we were right underneath the Tor and its tower. Having a cup of tea, we made a plan to walk up to the top tomorrow and then immediately got too excited with the chance to see the sunset from the top and so set off right away for a walk.
After a bit of huffing and puffing, we reached the top and watched the sun set across the landscape with oranges and pinks giving way to purples and deep blues. Happily, it was also the clearest day we had during our time in Glastonbury and so an important lesson was learnt…… Just get out and do it….. but have a cup of tea first.
Glastonbury Tor at Sunset
We’d been told that Glastonbury was well worth a visit and that a day to look around the town was probably enough and so it proved.
A short walk away, the High Street is an interesting and, in my experience, unique proposition. The ubiquitous brands been scared off the main street by shops containing coloured crystals and bright, second hand clothing all of which are accompanied with the wafted aroma of burning incense sticks.
Whilst walking towards the Abbey, we were passed by what I can best describe as a pagan high priest and priestess. Both heavily made up with their pristine, hooded, white robes flowing behind them, it was certainly an impressive sight and so totally unexpected that we had to make sure we closed our mouths and didn’t stare. I assume they had bigger plans than nipping out to pick up the Saturday papers but who knows here. Reaching the end of the High Street, we’d acclimatised and crossed the road to a quieter corner to wonder at it all.
Our destination was the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey which covers a vast 36 acre site in the centre of town but is strangely almost completely hidden from view.
The little museum at the entrance gives you a good flavour of the history with its Roman origins giving way to development through Saxon times. After the Norman conquest, the original Abbey continued to grow in importance but was then destroyed by fire in 1184.
Rebuilding started immediately but as you can imagine this was incredibly expensive and so, in an amazing 12th Century PR coup, the monks announced that they had found the burial place of King Arthur and Guinevere on the site of the Abbey. The remains of the King and his Queen were moved to a black marble tomb in the nave of the Abbey and thus a steady stream of revenue was guaranteed for the Abbey, which continues to this day. Although even the museum takes a fairly sceptical tone about this, not least as the legendary King is largely fictional, I was happily suckered in and wandered around the ruins looking for the burial place and imagining the black marble tomb.
As you might remember from your history lessons, the wealth and influence of the church, including Glastonbury, continued to grow until King Henry VIII decided he’d rather like to be in charge of things and dissolved the monasteries. In 1539, this caught up with Glastonbury and resulted in the Abbot being hung, the Abbey looted of its valuables and the building slowly dismantled so that the stone could be used for other buildings and roads. Sadly the tomb of King Arthur didn’t survive this and was lost to time.
I appreciate the situations are different, but walking around the ruins I was reminded of the news footage of ISIL destroying ancient city of Nimrud in Iraq and wondered if it was as violent and destructive here in 1539.
As our wise friend Brian told us, there’s always maintenance tasks to manage with an older van and as we had a few days in Glastonbury, we took the opportunity to sort a few. We’d been able to wash Beatrix in Exeter so she was sparkling clean but afterwards we discovered the stairs had decided to work intermittently and we’d also had a strong whiff of gas outside the van as we’d parked up so wanted to check out the new tank pipework for any leaks too. Thankfully with some help from our fantastic hosts and a next day Amazon delivery, we managed to get both problems sorted.
We had planned to move up to Cheddar and see some of the sites of Somerset but there’s not too much choice in campsites this time of year and the price for what is available is out of our budget for now. Cheddar Gorge will have to wait for next time.
We decided instead on heading to the New Forest. We’d stayed at a ‘Camping in the Forest’ site just after we left our bricks and mortar home and we both really loved the area and this time our first stop was to Homefield Campsite just outside the town of Lymington.
Lymington, it turns out, is a really pretty little town and after a bit of window shopping, we had a good walk around the harbour. As Sally was working the next day, I got out to see Highcliff Castle and the beach there which is a very well cared for bit of coastline with views out to the Isle of Wight and The Needles.
We had a bracing and windy walk out on the spit from Milford-on-Sea to Hurst Castle. Hurst Castle, which is well worth walking out to by the way but which is sadly starting to fall into the sea, isn’t one of those pretty medieval castles but has the low, dark, menacing look of a proper fortress. It’s been developed and redeveloped for use in every conflict from the Napoleonic wars to the Second World War and standing there, you can see it’s such an important defensive point for The Solent and Portsmouth.
You might remember that in the news, a mysterious green comet was due to pass very close to the Earth this week. In speaking with Julian, the site owner, I found out that we were in a really good place to see the stars as there’s not much light pollution and with clear skies forecast, I dug out the handheld telescope Sally’s Dad had given us. Alas, despite some really bright stars, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights came and went without sighting the elusive green comet. To be fair, it wasn’t like I was out all night or anything but still no sign of it. Some people did see it though and I attached one of their photos.
Image from BBC – photographed by George Chan
The campsite at Homefield is rightly popular and there was no room at the inn for us over the weekend so we decided to head just 10 minutes up the road and into the New Forest itself.
Setthorn Campsite is one of a number of Forestry Commission sites that allow you to stay right in the woods and the nature of the New Forest. Last year, we woke one morning here surrounded by wild ponies grazing which was really special and as well as the wildlife there are fantastic walks through the enclosures and heaths. It’s really kind of magical and we got the same feeling arriving this time. The only downside (?) is that there isn’t much phone signal here though which we remembered after a few frustrating minutes of trying to get onto the internet.
We give up to our books. It’s really more of reading and writing place anyway.
Hope you’re having a good weekend,
Sally, Toby and Merlin
The Road to Glastonbury. Bonus photo but don’t forget the tea
A welcome shift in the jet stream has brought back the clear blue skies and freezing temperature of December but it’s well worth it to be free of the rain.
A dog about town
We’ve got a few more days in Bath and last week we’d seen a lot of notices at many of the historic sites informing tourists and residents alike that parking and access would be restricted due to filming. We were intrigued!
Stepping out of our lovely warm van and it was so cold that we decided Merlin would need her very fetching puffa ski jacket.
We walked into the Royal Crescent to find it bustling with activity. Trucks, tents and cranes on one side of the road were juxtaposed with horses, carriages and actors in bright period garb. In the middle was a flurry of people with headphones and clipboards running in all directions. We overheard one of the runners telling a friend that this was the first day of filming on location and it was all pretty much chaos.
The production was in fact Netflix’s Bridgerton Season 3.
Watching all the activity we thought it must be pretty difficult to book an outdoor location like this and hope that you get the sort of weather needed plus we doubted a lot of the gear would work so well in the heavy rain we’d had.
It’s also amazing how many people and how much kit is required to film something like this on location. It must cost a fortune! We’ll have to see if we can borrow someone’s Netflix when it comes out to see if we can see the scenes we watched outside No.1, The Royal Crescent.
Hovering around for a while, it looked as if filming was finishing for the morning and the actors were all headed off to lunch in a big tent, so we wandered into the city to look for some ourselves.
Bridgerton filming at No.1 The Crescent
Searching for a dog friendly pub or café, we found The Salamander which was full of both character and local ales. Excellent.
The next day, as Sally was working, me and Merlin wandered back to see if there was more filming going but a bit like Christmas on January 5th, everything had gone.
Brunel’s and Banksy’s Bristol
After a lovely week in Bath, we were off to Bristol. Neither of us can remember spending much time here before so it should be a great place to explore.
As a Mechanical Engineer, I’ve long admired Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his amazing engineering projects and he has a close connection with the city. Sally’s dad had reminded us that the SS Great Britain which was built in Bristol, is now a museum in the harbour and the Clifton Suspension Bridge, which is built largely to Brunel’s design, crosses high over the River Avon here.
It ended up being a short but eventful drive from Bath to Bristol. Firstly, getting out of our little home for the week was strangely tighter than it had been getting in, or at least that’s my excuse for getting the angles a bit wrong, and we added to our collection of ‘adventure stripes’ on Beatrix’s side. Having negotiated a few small residential streets we were off on the A4 and looking forward to our next destination. Navigating around Bristol though, we had a sudden shock as the council have recently (Nov 2022) introduced a clean air zone and there was no way we could avoid it. Uh oh.
Sally checked up and it looked like we were going to have to pay £100 for our 10 minutes in the clean air zone as Beatrix was unsportingly classified as an HGV. Not the welcome we were hoping for.
Undaunted, we carried on to our campsite and checked into Parsonage Farm, which has a lovely rural setting in Long Ashton to the south west of the city centre. Although there is a bit of road noise, it’s only a few miles walk across the Ashton Court parkland to the Clifton Suspension Bridge or on towards the Bristol harbour.
We chose to go for a longer walk with Merlin and check out the park and bridge first. It was a good plan as the weather was glorious.
The bridge was fantastic and is one of those experiences where the photos don’t do it justice.
Originally designed and started by Brunel in 1831, work stalled for a number of reasons and it was not completed during his lifetime. After his death in 1859, it was decided that it would be a fitting memorial to complete the bridge and after some changes to the plans, it was finished and opened in 1864.
The towers were designed in an Egyptian style, which was popular at the time and were originally going to have Sphinx’s on top. and, interestingly, the chains that support the roadway came from the Hungerford suspension bridge in London, another Brunel project, which was replaced with a new railway bridge.
Construction was made by first bridging the gap with ropes, then attaching wooden planks across the ropes and finally a travelling dolly was used to bring sections of the metal suspension chains out. It must have been incredibly dangerous and the workers must have had a head for heights as it’s a dizzying 100m down to the river below.
The first modern Bungee jump was made from the Clifton suspension bridge.
As we walked over, it did occur to me that it would be a great location for Bungee jumping but I have to admit to feeling a few butterflies in my stomach. The walkways are on the outside of the bridge you see and almost the first step from the tower takes you out over the gorge. Looking down, the road and river seem like a loooong way down and there’s just a little bit of movement under your feet as the bridge reacts to the traffic trundling across.
As a working bridge, we were in amongst the daily commuters and we noticed no-one else seemed to be having a ‘butterfly moment’ as they were all engrossed in their own worlds so perhaps the experience wears off as you become used to it. Nevertheless, we decided to take a sit down in the sunshine with a latté and a cake before making our return.
Beatrix in the fog
Saturday morning was cold and a thick fog had descended.
Taking a bus into town, we had a good wander through a Saturday market with a particularly excellent vintage map stall that I narrowly managed to avoid buying things we don’t need from.
Following the river around to the docks led us to Wapping Wharf and Spike Island. We walked down to Brunel’s ship the SS Great Britain which was famously the first iron steam powered ship to use screw propellers and was, for many years, the largest ocean going ship in the world.
Alas, it was quite expensive entry to the ship and the museum doesn’t allow dogs so we had to make do with a glimpse of the ship in her dry dock and then we walked on.
Just behind the ship’s dock, although seemingly hidden from many of the tourists walking around trying to find it, is Banksy’s Girl with Pearl Earing. It’s the first Banksy artwork we’ve seen in real life and I’m pleased we got to see it in his home town, allegedly, but it’s sad that people feel the need to graffiti over it. Still I guess that’s the nature of the medium.
SS Great Britain, sadly, but probably quite rightly, dogs aren’t allowed
Despite the cold weather, our campsite was the perfect place for a fire.
We’d got some firewood from our previous stop and this was the perfect excuse to use my Christmas present from Sally, an axe! There isn’t a photo of me splitting the logs to make some kindling partly because Sally was convinced I was going to lose a finger and secondly because ‘Axe wielding maniac’ didn’t make a good blog photo or title.
Thankfully, all fingers intact, we were able to settle in for an hour to enjoy the sun going down and lights coming up over the city with a warm fire, a glass of wine and some toasted marshmallows.
We do need to apologise to the van that was stopped downwind of us though as the fire did smoke quite a bit. I blame wet wood rather than poor fire making technique but either way, if you’re reading this, we hope you didn’t end up smelling of smoke.
It’s perhaps an old cliché but Italian vehicle wiring has a reputation.
I’ve owned a few Fiat’s and a Ducati in the past and it’s just one of those things that you acknowledge and accept kind of comes with the territory.
Now Beatrix is half Italian and half German and, continuing with the stereotypes for a moment, I would like to say that her styling is Italian and her build quality is German. Alas, that’s not quite how it worked out.
Now, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and we love our home on wheels but this week we did have a few electrical gremlins to contend with.
On a wet Saturday in January, our travel this week takes us from Welwyn Garden City to Cheltenham and then on to Bath.
The journey cross country was peacefully uneventful. We were travelling on the weekend, the roads were fairly quiet and we had the complete mix of needing our shades for the bright sunshine immediately followed by having the windscreen wipers on max speed to deal with the pouring rain.
Suddenly, we were shaken from our easy rhythm by the fuel gauge which I noticed was now showing totally empty with its amber light flashing insistently at me. I was sure it had been a quarter full?
I’ll not lie, a small panic ensued in the cab whilst we found somewhere to pull over to check if diesel was leaking down the road. Thankfully there was no rainbow telltale sign of fuel on the wet roads or on the underside of Beatrix anywhere. Phew.
Sally found us a petrol station which was only 2 miles down the road and we made it ok. After only squeezing in £60, Beatrix must have been at least half full so it must be the gauge. Double phew.
Drama over and we found our little CL campsite at Salt’s Farm which is just outside Cheltenham and close to the Cotswolds. Relax. Lovely.
Making it more special, whilst out walking with Merlin, we found a Cider shop and bar close to the campsite which had a really bohemian tented bar with food trucks and fire pits. Welcoming dogs inside, needless to say we stopped for a well deserved draft cider and a burger.
As we finished our first cider, the heavens opened with what felt like monsoon rain. It was hammering down on the tents and pouring through every open seam whilst the wind howled through the tent flaps. We stayed for a second.
The next day, the weather looked a bit brighter and considerably less wetter so we made plans to walk into Cheltenham and explore a bit. As the campsite had electric hook up included in the price, we were using our electric kettle and toaster in the morning, when Sally said “I think I can smell burning”.
To give you some context, this is quite unusual for us as normally it’s me that first realises if food is burning for example and if I mention I can smell something, Sally looks at me blankly.
Sally smelling something burning made me jump up pretty fast.
I grabbed the fire extinguisher and we quickly turned the kettle off. As I stood up, I was expecting to see a problem in the kitchen with something smoking where the plug sockets are but everything looked fine there. I dashed out to disconnect the mains electric hook up cable.
Getting back into the van, I too could now smell that acrid burnt electrical stink. Sally was busy taking the seat cushions off so we could easily get into the electrical cabinet. When we looked underneath the smell was much louder and we could see smoke coming from the 230v breaker box. Flicking the main breaker off and then by shutting off the inverter and mains hook up, I was confident that everything was now safe and the problem wouldn’t get any worse. It did however smell really bad and we hadn’t even had our first cup of tea!
I think the fact we keep some screwdrivers and the Multimeter in the main cabin says something about our confidence in the electrics, or at least how often they’re used, and I set to opening up the 230v box and confirming the power was off.
Needless to say, the smell was much stronger and the reason for it was immediately clear.
The problem, it emerged, was that one of the wires had likely been pulled from out of the connector and the small amount of cable that was left was degrading and simply wasn’t enough to manage a kettle or Nespresso machine. In overheating it had melted the adjacent cables and even the plastic that separates the Earth and Live cables. It wasn’t technically a fire but it was a long way from ideal to have this happen in our home.
Time for a cup of tea, made with gas I might add, a bit of google-ing to help come up with a plan.
In the end, we got ‘Sons of Anarchy’ out of the garage and I whizzed about the Cheltenham and Gloucester area looking for a motorhome or RV place where we might find a spare.
Predictably my quest was met with lots of head scratching and chin rubbing. No one had ever seen a plastic block like this before and the more people I talked too, really the less I liked this as a solution for the 230v system. So it was Screwfix to the rescue and we ended up with some household style connector blocks which I think are much more up to the job.
Now we just had the horrible smell to deal with and would you believe it, after some research, Sally found that the magical bicarbonate of soda and some white wine vinegar would work best. Who would have thought it!
Whilst we were messing about with tools, we had read that our fuel gauge problem might be solved by disconnecting the engine battery for 10 minutes. Essentially turn it off and turn it on again. Sure enough, when we put the key back in the fuel gauge came back to life and shot up to full.
With our electrical gremlins behind us, we had an afternoon out in Cheltenham. The town centre was ok but to be honest felt a bit generic with the usual high street stores and a bunch of empty of shop fronts which was a shame. Happily, someone had recommended we also see Montpellier and I’m glad we did as this part of town was really nice. There are lots of independent stores, hotels and plenty of bars and cafes around some green spaces. As we’d had a good walk to get there, we treated ourselves to coffee and cake at a lovely little Merlin friendly café and got the bus home!
Bath
We’d been to Bath before for a long weekend but it was years ago and one of the joys of being in the motorhome is being able to visit beautiful places and spend a little longer there, so that we can get to know them better. Bath is one of those places we had wanted to come back to.
It was a little tricky getting into the Penn Hill CL site at Bicknam but we made it no problem and by following the written instructions not the sat nav, we avoided accidentally straying into the Low Emissions zone and a hefty fine. We received a warm welcome from the site owner, Merv, who was not to be rushed in giving us a big information pack and the full tour despite the heavy rain that was now lashing down and the fact that Beatrix was parked with hazard lights on, blocking the road.
Over the next few days it really rained. Reminding us of the Lakes last year, it didn’t let up for 36 hours or so. By the time it had stopped, the River Avon had flood warnings and parts of the city were flooded with the Bath rugby game called off as the ground was partially under water. We were both glad to have chosen the campsite at the top of the hill and not the campsite in the marina which looked decidedly soggy.
Finally, the weather broke and although it’s colder, not being constantly soaked is great. With Sally as acting tour guide, we did a walking tour through the city to see the sites. We’d been to see the Roman Baths before so didn’t go in this time but did see all the other amazing architecture of the city.
It really is a beautiful place with the history and design, the colours and the relaxed feel in the centre all combining to make a visit really special.
The water fell as rain over 10,000 years ago
The temperature of the King’s Spring is 45oc
There are 42 minerals in the spa water
Bath Thermae Spa
Since we were last here Netflix has filmed a lot of its popular series Bridgeton here. We realised this as we found a little dog friendly café by the cathedral to have lunch and we were somewhat surrounded by merchandise, photos and memorabilia. The café was apparently the Modiste dress shop from season 1 if you’re interested.
After a getting in a lot of steps, the next day we’d managed to book into the Bath Thermae Spa for a couple of hours of relaxation and bathing. This contemporary glass and stone spa is newer than I’d realised having only opened in 2006. Apparently the old pools became somewhat poisonous and were closed in 1978. Bath was originally populated because of its famous hot springs and it has the warmest natural hot springs in the UK. The waters here have been enjoyed through history by the Celts, Romans through to the Victorians and now by us!
The new spa has a cool open air pool on the roof, which gave us an amazing and unusual view out over the cityscape, a series of treatment and spa rooms in the middle and a naturally warm pool with Jacuzzi’s in the basement. All in all it was an excellent experience and it’s always especially nice to enjoy when you don’t have have a bath in your house.
A selfie with the Tour GuideDog and human at the Royal Crescent
After a fab family Christmas, which involved Sally cooking, brilliantly I might add, for 12, we decided we’d spend a quiet New Years Eve at our campsite in Maldon.
Our plan was for a chilled out evening for just the three of us. I had been thinking of a campfire with an outdoor starter of baked Camembert perhaps with the last surviving bottle from Saint Emilion. Mmmmmm.
The weather, however, had other plans and we actually ended up with 3 days of near constant rain around New Year. Although this effectively put paid to the campfire idea, the Camembert and wine was a-ma-zing.
There are always things that you can do in spite of the weather and we do try to not let it put us off our plans too much but when you live in a small space, it can be a real pain in the butt trying to dry two sets of coats and trousers whilst trying to catch a muddy wet dog with a towel before it jumps on all the chairs. Sometimes it’s just easier to sit things out…. or move!
It can get a bit frustrating being cooped up for long periods in a small space but we always seem to manage pretty well and use the time to do some admin bits, read books and to start having a good think about what we’re going to do in 2023.
For me, the New Year has always been an exciting time, unbounded by life’s usual constraints, to think about what I’d like to do in the coming year.
Our travel plans for 2023 have begun to come together as we’ve been talking about them. So we’re off to Montgenevre for the remainder of the ski season from mid-February. Before then we’re going to the West Country to see Bath, Bristol and Glastonbury with the surrounding areas which is somewhere we’ve never really spent much time in before.
Our longer summer trip is going to be Italy this year. It would be amazing to travel through the northern half of the country at least and I’m dreaming of a journey down from the Dolomites perhaps as far as Rome. Now is one of the most exciting phases of travel planning as we have a map with places we’d love to see but not much more than that!
If you were thinking that the timings of our trips seem a bit fixed then you’d be right. It’s because the Brexit ’90 in 180 day’ allowance really seems to dictate when we do things at the moment, particularly if we choose to do a ski season. Nevertheless, heading out to Italy after the busy and hot summer holidays is something we’re in the fortunate position to do and I’m sure we’ll enjoy it.
Considering some of the other things we’d like to do this year, I was struck by the effectiveness and fun of a challenge from 2022. Through October, I completed a sponsored event for Cancer UK, to do 100 Press-Ups each day for a whole month. I’m very supportive of the charity and am proud to have raised a little to help but I also found the challenge equally rewarding to undertake and complete.
It got me thinking for 2023. What other monthly ‘challenges’ could we set ourselves? Perhaps not the usual monthly charity or abstinence events but rather some things that are more inline with our van life that we might like to do more of.
Thinking more broadly than just physical challenges, I’m imagining a ‘Cook all meals outdoors in June’ challenge which I think could be fun. Anyway, more to follow on this and any ideas would be welcomed please.
For us, after nearly 3 weeks stationary, we’re on the move again. Saying goodbye’s to family for a month or so, our first stop is back to Welwyn Garden City to complete some medical admin bits and bobs. WGC is the last place where we lived in home that was made of bricks and it’s fun reminiscing around some of the places where we had spent so long dreaming of what our future would be like, now we’re in it.
After the town park up, next up will be a rural stopover near Cheltenham and then off to Bath to see if we can squeeze into a small city based site.
After filling our stomachs with a huge Christmas dinner with family, we were relaxing and playing the Present Dice game when our camera motion alert went off. Nothing unusual with that, it goes off when cars go past and when people walk past when we’re not there.
However on Christmas afternoon, this was something different.
Toby looked at the video footage and saw a pair of small, beady eyes moving inside Beatrix.
Our suspicions were that the beady eyes belonged to a mouse. Eek !
It was one of those times where we couldn’t do anything about it. We had a few drinks and so couldn’t drive back to Beatrix immediately and even if we could, we didn’t have any ‘mouse catching equipment’.
We took Merlin for a walk and talked through some of the scenarios we might find when we returned to Beatrix. Anyone with a motorhome knows having mice stowaways are not ideal. Mice are only looking for food and shelter and to get these they have very small sharp teeth that can chew through most things – linen, wires, packets all sorts of things – a lot of damage can be done!
We didn’t know what we’d have to deal – was it one mouse or more?
On Christmas evening the only real action we could take was to find where we could get hold of some mouse traps on Boxing Day so we could catch it/them. The usual DIY stores weren’t open – however Argos had some traps, I ordered them and we could collect them from 10am on Boxing Day. With that sorted we went to sleep. I have to say it was not my most restful sleep. I was nervous of the what ifs, what would we find? Lots of self talk – could we have prevented it? How long had it/they been in Beatrix? – what would we need to do to get rid of it/them? What cleaning up would be needed?
We woke on Boxing Day, had breakfast and scooted to Argos. With mouse traps, bin bags, kitchen roll and disposable gloves we were ready to find out what we were dealing with.
We returned to Beatrix and discussed our approach. We needed to know where it/they had been and where it/they might have nested. A methodical look through Beatrix started. We started in the kitchen area as food was always going to be a reason for a mouse taking up residence.
We found mouse chewed biscuits in the bottom kitchen drawer under the sink and nibbled Malteser and crisp packets in the storage under the floor.
Now we knew where they’d been and looking at the evidence so far it didn’t seem like a family had moved in, it was more like a lone mouse.
We binned and cleaned what we needed to. Then the hunt was on for the nest or where it/they were hanging out. We took everything out from the storage areas under the floor and saw some areas where a mouse had been. We cleaned and put down the traps. It was a long day and we then returned to my parents. Now it was about waiting to catch it/them.
The traps we put down on Boxing Day weren’t ideal – they were live mouse traps – and it seemed like a Crypton Factor challenge for the mouse to actually get inside and be caught. On Tuesday, with more shops open, we headed out to find a more lethal solution. Toby revisited Beatrix to see if we’d caught anything, find what else had been eaten overnight and to lay a series of cunning new ambushes with the new traps.
Unsurprisingly, the mouse had been back. Hindsight’s a wonderful thing but we hadn’t moved all the food to higher locations and the mouse found and helped itself to the mince pies and some of Merlin’s treats overnight.
New traps were put down and the cameras set. One more night of waiting.
We checked the traps on the Wednesday and found one had gone off and the mouse – still alive with its back leg caught in the trap was hiding behind the Alde heating unit. With some innovative use of metal poles – we removed the mouse and trap – and then cleaned and disinfected some more. Hindsight again – I had checked some areas where I thought the mouse might have nested, but hadn’t checked the linen drawer. More evidence of nibbling was found and the start of a nest!
We removed all the linen, including our new collection of ‘holey’ bedsheets, binned the ruined things and washed everything else. I’d read that mice don’t like the smell of apple cider vinegar and so we sprayed around the edges and possible entry points to prevent further mouse invasions.
Thankfully, we now appear to have been mouse free for the last two days and, fingers crossed, now we’re back in residence we won’t have any more mouse activity.
What we have learnt: food should always be cleared away and placed in mouse proof containers or placed in cupboards above head height as they seem less keen to get to these through the cabin. We’ll keep some mouse traps in Beatrix, without bait in, as if you need them, you really need them and don’t want to have to wait for shops to open. We need to review mouse entry points. We will also be a bit wiser when parking in rural locations next to fields – there are risks of mice so we will spray entry point with apple cider vinegar to deter them and use mice traps.
Thanks as always for reading. Sally, Toby and Merlin
So it seems that in December, Winter has properly gotten started in the UK and we’ve had quite a busy couple of weeks on the run up to Christmas.
As we left you last time, we were heading north towards Sheffield to a campsite we love called Wymingbrook Farm. It’s perfectly located just 10 minutes by scooter one direction to my sisters house and 10 minutes the other way into the Peak District.
It had been quite an easy but a long drive up from Hertfordshire and having navigated the bustle of Sheffield city centre, we were relieved to reach the farm and pull into our space. Opening the door and stepping out there’s that clean, clear and countryside smell that you only seem get in the Peak or Lake Districts. After years of holidaying here, for us, it’s like taking a deep breath, letting it out slowly and relaxing.
A word or two on energy
It’s fair to say that when we started this journey, we didn’t really have a clue about what it would actually be like to live in a motorhome fulltime.
Sure, we’d read all the blogs and brought all the kit but we didn’t have any real experience of motorhoming and, unsurprisingly, spending occasional weekends at a campsite that was 5 miles from our house with electricity, showers and toilets is not the same as being independent and on the road every day.
One of the main things that wasn’t really on our radar in the early days was our use of energy, which in our case means electricity and gas (LPG).
Whilst, with quiet satisfaction, we judged most things pretty well and have taken to and absolutely love our new life, we’ve found increasingly that we spend less time on the bigger, fully serviced campsites gravitating instead towards smaller and more peaceful stopovers, which often don’t have electricity.
Another influence has been the absolutely staggering increase in price of electricity in 2022, which campsite owners are having to pass on to customers in one way or another. For us for example, this has meant that the cost of staying at the larger club run sites is now often out of our budget.
As we gained this experience, we made a plan for 2022 to improve our self reliance, to see if we can live more sustainably and be off-grid for longer.
In April, we improved our solar performance with new panels and more modern controllers and this month we’ve increased our LPG capacity by adding a super big refillable tank, neatly hidden under the Beatrix’s skirt, that will double our existing capacity.
Through Summer and Autumn, we were super pleased to find our new solar set up has delivered exactly what we hoped, with our batteries mostly recharging each day we’ve even been able to enjoy ‘free’ cups of tea made with sunshine.
Winter is, however, a much bigger challenge.
Solar panels are much less efficient with the angle of the sun at this time of year and there are fewer daylight hours available to gather precious Amps into our batteries. Surprisingly, on bright, lighter grey days we do get a few Amps in but there are also those cloudy, miserable, wet days when there is just no solar gain at all.
The other side of the energy equation is no better either as the shorter, colder days mean that we have our lights on for longer and run the heating more often.
Now, of course, all of this is obvious and the numbers can be easily be calculated by a GCSE Physics student but the reality of living it feels different and we don’t yet have any experience of how it will affect how we live.
Why spend so much time explaining all of this?
Well, at our farm stopover in Sheffield, we’ve decided to test our readiness, and save some money, by not hooking up to electricity and will instead see how we can manage with our batteries and new super large gas tank.
Assuming all goes well, we’ll do the same as we travel around Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex too.
We get off to a great start, as the weather is absolutely fantastic and the only major change for us has been that we both spend more time watching the Victron App* on our phones than we do watching Strictly Come Dancing. The cloudy sun helps us to get some free Amps and although it’s chilly, the daytime sunshine warms the van too. (* The Victron App tells us about the amount of charge is going in or out of our batteries)
Beautiful sunrise over the Peak District. When the sun is out it’s easy…….
But of course, it doesn’t last and our sunny morning walk is replaced by a thick, low and freezing fog which sits over us for days.
…….. but vanlife isn’t always sunshine though.
After spending a lovely couple of days with Jacs and Chris, which included the creation of some imaginative balloon animals by Sally for our wonderful nephews, we bade everyone farewell and headed to the coast. We decided to stopover at Skegness on the way down to Norfolk as we missed the seaside and we’d never been to the Lincolnshire coast before.
Ending up in Winthorpe, we had that same ‘resort out of season’ feeling that we felt on the Atlantic Coast of France. The North Sea is a bit, err, browner this time of year and there’s a lot of wind farms on the east coast but the deserted beaches with their patches of long grass clinging on in the wind felt somehow wilder and our sunset walk had an amazing light.
Lincolnshire beach walk as the sun sets, Dec 2022
The first leg of our East Anglia Christmas tour, was a stopover with friends for the weekend near King’s Lynn. It’s always such great fun and at this time of year we were lucky enough to be invited to a school Nativity/Christmas show too which was brilliant and we really enjoyed.
At this point, the weather really took a substantial turn for the colder with temperatures over night as low as -6c and barely scraping above freezing during the day. All of this meant our heating was on pretty much fulltime. Whilst the bright blue skies and winter sun recharged our batteries, using the heating like this burned off all of the LPG in our super big gas tank in about 5 days. Oops.
I admit I’m a bit disappointed as I hoped we’d be able to survive longer than this but I guess we wanted to live normally, for us, which meant not being cold or having to sit under a pile of jumpers and blankets all day to stay warm and the conditions are pretty ‘exceptional’ for the UK. It’ll be easier when conditions warm back up to average.
It does make me very glad for the electric hook up we get in the ski resort at Montgenevre as our time at 1800m would be pretty limited without!
Wishing Lucy and Ben a Merry Christmas, we headed out to a campsite in Sandringham for a couple of days to recharge and to enjoy the forest which was stunning in the Winter chill. The Luminate light trial was fun too with a welcome glass of mulled wine at the end.
Our pitch at Sandringham
Driving around the coast, after an LPG fill up, our next stop was on the North Norfolk coast at East Runton. We squeezed Beatrix onto one of the few remaining campsites that are open at this point in the year and enjoyed a cracking walk over the bump and into Sheringham.
While the sea always looks amazing, it was a lot less inviting than when I’d been surfing in Cromer over Summer that’s for sure.
Rainbow out to sea, looking back towards Cromer, which reminded us we needed to hustle back to Beatrix!
After a few bright, cold days of beach walks and hot tea’s, we headed inland to another little farm campsite to see Tim and Victoria.
The coast, it turned out, had protected us from some of the cold weather and we were surprised to see that a few inches of snow had fallen over the last couple of days. We were definitely grateful to have our awesome winter spec tyres fitted on Beatrix as the smaller lanes were totally iced over in places. In fact, driving actually felt safer than walking as even Merlin, with four paws and claws, was slip sliding around when we went out.
The village of Gresham made up for it though with a perfect Christmas card view.
North Norfolk in the grip of the snow and cold snap, Dec 2022
The final stop of our tour, was to see Anthea and Kevin and then to head over to Pullingers to get a few important little things sorted with Beatrix before we head up into the mountains next year. It turns out that there’s not really any need to tell our friends what dates we’ll be coming to see them as the increasing frequency of Amazon deliveries arriving at their address heralds our arrival.
We are very grateful to know so many wonderful people who are happy to have us stay on driveways, receive our mail or let us use their washing machines.
After our Christmas tour, we’re also really happy that this new lifestyle of ours allows us to see them more often and share more time and create new memories with them.
And so, it’s on to our final stop of the year and for Christmas with family.
In the end, we enjoyed four wonderful days in Exeter.
When we stay with my parents, we usually abandon Beatrix in a campsite nearby for a few days and sort of ‘move in’. A little bit like university days, this also entails arriving with a large pile of washing…. or three. Thanks Mum!
After a great catch up, we’re now heading cross country to a planned stop at Iveco in Dunstable, to sort an irritating red warning light on the dashboard and to get Beatrix a shiny new MOT before travelling north to see family in Sheffield.
We’ve booked a few sites when we’re due to visit friends but learning from our Autumn trip in France, we’ve decided not to book anywhere for the one night ‘in between’ stops. Time will tell how this works out but there are literally hundreds of potential places to stop, even in Winter.
To find them, we prefer to use an app called ‘Search for Sites’ which has proved both easy to use and reliable in terms of the site descriptions and reviews although I know there are a few other out there too.
It is worth pointing out that it’s also started to get quite a bit colder, after an incredibly mild November.
This could make things more interesting as a lot of the ‘in between’ stops won’t offer electric hook up which means we’ll be reliant on our batteries/solar panels for power and our LPG tanks for heating. All of this means, I suspect, that Winter “vanlife” in the UK could be a challenge but we were looking forward to finding out how we’ll manage.
Our first stop is at a place called Wyndham Farm in Dorset. This turns out to be a great first step as access to the site is really straight forward, even for us, and the location is in really beautiful, peaceful countryside.
It’s a perfect Autumnal afternoon with clear blue skies, the bright sun low in the sky and when you really need your woolly hat so we decide to walk a few miles around the local area returning to the farm with a happy and filthy dog!
On the way, we stumble across a lot of really gnarly looking oak trees, the biggest and oldest of which has a plaque and a name. It’s called Judge Wyndham’s Oak.
The oak could be 1000 years old and is named after Sir Hugh Wyndham who was Justice of the Common Pleas in the time of Charles II (1660-1685) and apparently used to sit under its shade relaxing, smoking his pipe and thinking.
Harder to imagine on a sunny afternoon, is that the oak had also been used a gallows to hang some of those people convicted of the Monmouth Rebellion.
I’m always amazed to discover these wonderful little hidden secrets all over the country that we find from the road less travelled.
Judge Wyndham’s Oak, Silton, Dorset (2022)
For our next stop, we were hoping to head over to Oxford. For some reason, it’s a city that I’ve never been to before which perhaps comes from spending my formative years closer to Cambridge. Anyway, I was excited to visit and was hoping we could find a Canterbury style ‘Park and Ride scheme’ that would allow us to stay close enough to the city that we could easily get in for an afternoon. Alas, the best we could find at Redbridge, didn’t get the most positive of reviews and seemed pretty expensive so Oxford will have to wait till next time.
We settled on a site nearby Abingdon instead and ended up at Peach Croft Farm which was perfect for the night. It’s a lovely little farm with a surprisingly popular tearoom and farm shop attached with excellent cheeses and deli produce for sale.
The final stop of the trip was at the Fancott Pub near Dunstable. As this was just 15 minutes from Iveco for the next day it made an ideal overnight spot. The pub was beautifully lit up for Christmas and was really quiet. After a quick drink we headed back to Beatrix for dinner and got everything ready for an early start the following morning.
So we’ve had this red engine warning, ‘EDC’, light on the dashboard for sometime now. Even though I know what it relates to and that it shouldn’t cause us any issues, unless we’re driving in the Sahara…… in summer, it really bugs me everytime I start Beatrix. In fact when I’m driving it’s always there too, beaming at me, just on the edge of my vision.
It reminds me of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The issue that caused our red light happened way back at the start of our trip to Scotland in May this year. We were just starting out on the A1 when a series of warning messages rapidly flashed across the dashboard then disappeared again to be followed up by the ominous, red EDC warning.
In order to resolve it, we’ve visited a couple of Iveco dealers in England and one in Scotland but despite several confident starts it has always ended up with head scratching, uncertain “uummmmmm’s” and doubtful suggestions about needing to check the wiring. We always end up leaving with the persistent little light still taunting us.
To be fair, as our travel arrangements usually mean we were only stopping in for a few hours of a day there has been limited time to really get to the diagnosis which may well mean taking things apart, so our plan in Dunstable was to be there for a couple of days to have time to get the problem resolved and the light extinguished once and for all.
It’s weird when we drop Beatrix off for work at the garage. By that I mean it’s not like leaving a vehicle for a service as she is also our home so we end up packing a rucksack each and the three of us head out into town feeling a wee bit homeless. Thankfully there’s a great dog friendly café in Dunstable and we head there for breakfast which we extend as long as is reasonably possible before heading back to the garage.
There is good news and bad news from Iveco when we head back over. The wiring doesn’t appear faulty and nor, unsurprisingly, are the parts we needlessly replaced in Scotland however it would appear that Beatrix’s brain (ECU) may have been ‘slightly’ damaged when the original electrical short happened. Whilst having a non-standard brain means she’s a good fit into our little family, it’s clear that something needs to be done if we’re to sort the red light and more importantly, pass the MOT.
So a new ECU is ordered, which has become our Christmas present to each other, and thankfully after some delicate surgery and reprogramming, Beatrix’s new brain is installed and happily it has resolved the issue! Red ECU light gone! She then belatedly attends and passes her MOT test with no observations which is a huge relief and by 16:00 on the second day, we’re on our way again.
The team that look after us at Iveco Dunstable are very helpful as always and we know it’s not easy working on a 14 year old van, especially when it’s been converted into an A Class motorhome.
We load up and pull out of the garage heading towards our campsite in Ashwell with the dashboard looking strangely unfamiliar without our red EDC warning. But wait, what’s this…… another flickering red light with warning message….. no it’s gone….. no it’s back…… I struggle to read the warning message whilst negotiating the traffic.
Unfortunately, the further we drive the more certain the warning becomes and finally it would appear we are now the proud owners of a ‘Check Brake Pads’ warning light.
Bugger.
Slightly frustrated and a day later than planned, we make our way across to the Ashwell Club site, which is a place we love and have visited a few times before. We’re given a really warm welcome on what has become a very cold evening and we’re both really looking forward to the next couple of days when we have plans to see old friends from our work life which will be great.
As for our new red light; well its coming up to Christmas so we’ve decided to think of it as a seasonal, festive light for the time being and we’ll deal with it in the new year!
Hope you enjoyed coming along,
Sally, Toby and Merlin.
PS: For anyone who may be worried, we did of course check out the warning with Iveco who had physically checked the brakes and confirmed that we have plenty left so it would seem to be a bit of a pre-emptive alert.
As our confidence and experience grows on the road less travelled, we reflected on one of the changes we made for our Autumn trip to France: our approach to booking where we stay each night.
Although we’re living fulltime in our motorhome, we’re actually quite new to all this and when we ‘set sail’ for the first time, we got comfortable booking and staying in Club sites across the UK. It became a default position as I’ve not always been a ‘fly by the seat of my pants kinda gal’ and for me the idea of not having somewhere booked was really out of my comfort zone.
The trip to France gave us the opportunity to see how easy, or difficult, it would be to travel without booking in advance. We had the outline of a plan, places we wanted to visit and things we wanted to see, we hoped that just ‘turning up’ somewhere would allow us to be more carefree with our travel.
Why book: I guess the main reason we book sites is confidence. Confidence that you have a place to stay and you know what facilities you’re going to get when you arrive. Booking also has it’s downside – the time it takes to make the booking itself and then if you want to make a change there can sometimes be a cost as well as the time needed to change the booking.
Why not book: the key words here are flexibility, freedom and adventure. If you don’t like somewhere or the weather is awful, you can move somewhere nicer or with better weather. This freedom sounds wonderful, I’m not going to lie it’s great, however, it does come with the worry of “what if’s”. What if when we get to the site it’s no longer there, or it’s closed, or it’s full or….. All of these are valid, yet whilst we travelled for 54 days in France we only had one of these “what if’s” occur. It was really liberating not having to make all of the bookings or having to rebook if our plans changed.
The above probably simplifies our decision making strategy and it’s never about just one thing. When not booking, if any of the « what if’s » did happen then the availability of a backup becomes important and that really depends on where you are and when you’re travelling.
The backup plans: UK
In the UK, we book most of the places we stay at, whether that’s campsites, or now more usually a Certified Location (CL). This is mainly because in the UK there are not as many backup places for large motorhomes if the what if’s happen. The number of backups becomes even less when you’re looking for places to stay out of season. A lot of UK sites are only open for the summer months (some from April to October others only June/July and August). As full timers we need a place to stay all year round.
The backup plans: France and EU In France, and we believe in many other European countries that we’ve yet to experience, there are a lot more locations for motorhomers to stop at, whether campsites, Aires or Passions. These countries are also more geared up for motorhomes. This means in Europe we’re more up for not booking as there are more backups.
Backupsandthe type of pitches available. Because Beatrix is 6.5T we’re not always comfortable staying on grass pitches all year round. Lots of smaller UK Certified Locations (CL) only have grass pitches available. It may seem a rash statement that we aren’t comfortable staying on grass pitches so let me quantify that, if we wheel spin in Beatrix we could easily damage her gearbox and it’s expensive and time consuming to replace. So, if we consider staying on grass pitches we need to know: the ground underneath and the recent weather. These two things aren’t easy to know before you arrive at a site. In the UK we often phone the site owners to ask. The small site operators are equally keen in not having a 6.5T motorhome stuck in their field so they’re often pretty honest in their response and tell us if they think it will be a problem or not. We are fine camping on grass pitches in a dry summer and on grass that drains well however it’s something we have to consider.
What we learnt about not booking in France during the autumn of 2022
I mentioned that only one “what if” happened during our France Autumn tour. We went to one site on the Ile de Re and it was full. It would not normally have been full out of season, however they’d decided to do some renovation work on the site off season to get ready for next year. We ended up going to another site just up the road. We loved the back up so much we ended up staying an extra few nights, the weather was beautiful, sunshine and warm, the location was stunning – right next to the beach and it had all the facilities we could possibly need. This backup gave us the opportunity to do reconnaissance on where we could wild camp if we wanted to next year out of season.
Not being attached to a route or duration – i.e. the freedom I spoke about was very liberating. If we had booked our trip, we would have been “attached” to spending a lot more time in Normandy when the rain came and the temperature cooled. Instead, we were able to head south and find the sunshine and warmth which was great – all of this without having to cancel or amend any bookings. Liberating.
So, what’s the answer to the question to book or not to book?
Well, of course, it depends on you. Where and when will you be travelling? What’s your attitude to risk versus the ‘excitement’ of not knowing and having the flexibility to go wherever you want.
For us right now, we still mix up booking with not booking however, I enjoyed the freedom to follow the sun and my comfort with uncertainty and adventure has definitely been stretched.
Hope you enjoyed the post. We’d love to hear how you travel and find the places you stay.
