First run out of the year.

 The plan was to go to Poolsbrook Park campsite, I checked the availability, no problems, went in to book and someone swiped the Saturday night pitch from under me ! So back to the drawing board. Eventually we decided to stay close to home and found a site near Retford, £21 per night plus electric.

This is the first time that we have had a prepayment meter on the pitch so opted to pop £20 on (we knew that we would be refunded any remaining credit) as we needed to charge leisure our batteries from empty and we would be using our small fan heater in the evenings.

The nearest bus stop was just up the road and the current national bus fare of £2 made it easy to travel into Retford for the day.

As usual, we trolled round the charity shops ( a few dvds were purchased) and shopped for some bits and bobs that have been running low in the van. We were very impressed by the wall painting relating to the historic sheep fairs., painted in 2018 by Retford Art Society painters it makes an eye stopping addition to the town.

We wondered down the the canal to have a look at the lock.

As we turned to leave the canal, I noticed another painted building hiding behind a rather large motorhome and car.

All in all we were pleasantly surprised by Retford especially as we had never visited before, in spite of it being so close to home.

A quick two night stay but I would imagine that we will return to this pleasant quiet campsite, and the electricity cost for the weekend was just a smudge under £5  😀

That's about it for now, crafty update next week ( I may have made a fleecy purchase or two ) 

Speak soon x

Cold, wet and windy !

 That just about sums up our short break, super windy Christmas Eve with gusts in excess of 30mph made sleeping interesting with the van rocking slightly. Nowhere near as bad as the storm on the Outer Hebrides a few years ago when we had to keep moving the van because of the wind hitting with so much force that it felt like it would tip !!

Breakfast as usual, no pressies to open etc due to not celebrating but a wonderful chance to take our time and actually have chance to chat without other things pressing on our time. This has been one of the biggest bonus's of  getting away so often, simply giving ourselves the time to chill.

Beds made, pots washed and we had a stroll into Cromer. Like an idiot, I just picked up my camera without bothering to check the settings so by the time I noticed, I only had a few reasonable shots. Our original plan was to head back down town on Boxing day and  challenge ourselves as to who could find the most interesting subject to capture but I think the weather may stop us.

camera on wrong setting

Slightly better.

We spent the evening watching warehouse 13 which is currently our van dvd  binge set.

Boxing day dawned, wet , breezy and decidedly cold so we were reluctant to put a foot or even an arm out of our sleeping bags but eventually someone was brave enough to venture out of the warmth to put the heating on,

My current position as I have 4g on my phone for the first time since we got here and I'm making the most of it to catch up on vlogs etc, still raining outside but I have some knitting to get on with.

Later

We decided to brave the drizzle but postponed the photo challenge until next time. we played the penny falls in the arcade and I won three keyrings one of which I gave to a small boy who had been watching me all the time I was pushing the 2pz in ( his mum spotted me and said thanks )

We were surprised to see how many places were open and judging by the crowds heading to the pier I guess that there was a show on in the theatre ( I checked later and it looks like the Pier Christmas show was on )

Cromer also currently has a selection of pictures of classic artworks scattered around the own, we spotted maybe four of them before the weather defeated us.

The record fair seemed a sensible place to shelter from the rain at a cost of 2 dvds and a box set. We headed back to the sea front and slowly back to the campsite, didn't spot any of the famous Cromer goats so I guess that they we tucked up somewhere nice and warm for the winter,

The day was rounded off with a pint ( coffee for me) in the campsite bar watching Nottingham Forest being beaten by Middlesbrough ( I sat with my knitting)

In spite of the weather we had a good few days, the water leak has not reappeared, the new batteries work a treat so its just the floor springs that need sorting now,

I now have a week of fibre prep planned after sorting through the gear from the weekend. I left the fridge/freezer to defrost whilst we were away as it had bee freezing up so its fingered crossed that it does the job,

speak soon xx

not a such a good weekend !!! vehicle mishaps :-(

oops, looks like I forgot to post last week, sorry but I really didn't have too much to share or show other than some spinning so I'll combine that with the next post.

For now, I'm going to update you with the chapter of mishaps that have occurred since Friday. Sometimes it feels like everyone is working against you but I'm hoping that everything has now happened and we can get back to our usual travelling, crafty selves.

Friday morning, loaded up the car to drive to the storage unit, passed this sign so we made sure that we were in the middle lane ( I wasn't driving )

Unfortunately the car to our left failed to see either sign and tried to go straight on resulting in us having to exchange details although I think his car came off worse than ours.

We will get the car checked over tomorrow just incase but its driving ok so we carried on to pick up the van.

As expected , the battery in the van was dead and even the big power pack failed to revive it. Not too worrying but just a pain to get it out of the vehicle as its located in the cab floor on the passenger side but we had come prepared with the spare battery which was fully charged

So far, so good (ish). A few weeks ago the van had been back to the dealers as we had a knocking sound somewhere near the back of it, the mechanics dismantled, greased and rebuilt some bearings and pronounced it good. This was the first time we've had chance to get out on a good run and going over the road humps out of storage she is a lot quieter but the knocking is still there. I think they fixed the wrong noise haha.

We decided to get away anyway and drove over to Warwick where we were booked into a small site at the race course.

Pretty site on one side, racecourse view on the other.

As there weren't many pitches free, our choice was between a grass pitch or on the tarmac alongside the race course. Not being big fans of getting stuck in the mud we went for the tarmac option which had the added bonus of being close enough to the jockey club to be able to use their wifi which is a bit of a godsend as my laptop won't pick up the hotspot on my phone.

lazy afternoon, tea,  watched a bit of you-tube vlogs and went to bed only to be woken at 1.30am by the control panel alarm telling us that the leisure batteries were flat ! so problem number two is that either the onboard charger has failed ( it was definitely switched on all afternoon/evening or we need new batteries)

Next day we explore Warwick starting with this pretty post box

followed by beautiful buildings both large ...

....and small.

We then wandered round the market looking for the missing meal ingredient ( onions) grabbed a coffee and toasted sandwich and headed off to the small museum.

then back to the van and discovered this....

Water is now leaking from the fresh water tank somewhere which we think is connected to the noises and may have been happening before but as we spent the last trip away mainly on grass we would not have noticed this. I'm also wondering about the wiring to the leisure battery box and whether something has been dislodged there.

The one good thing is that we were on electric hook up so essentials like heating and some of the lighting work without the 12 volt system.

So that is our tale of woe, we are back home now and an email has been sent to the dealers to book her back in for repairs. We travelled a few pretty bad roads in September so may have caught something at some point anyway, we are not due out again for a few weeks so no great panic.

Sorry if this post has been a bit boring, the next one  should be knitting, spinning, stitching and maybe a bit of lace xx

And they are off !! Tour de fleece gets underway..

 .. and so do we ! We picked up the van, threw in a change of clothes and some food and drove down to the Cotswolds. This time we were staying on the Caravan and Motorhome club site at Cirencester where we stayed for a night on the way back from the Isle of Wight last year.

I did take one of my spinning wheels and a cross stitch project to work on Friday evening. The official start of the tour de Fleece is midnight local time, my start was somewhat later as we decided that breakfast was more important.

I did get to spin both in the morning for an hour and the same in the afternoon and completely forgot to take the customary photo of my wheel in action ! so I leave it to your imagination.

Around midday we wandered into town to do a little shopping and generally have a look around. The campsite is a simple walk from the town through the park. The driveway through the park is quite stunning and if it looks familiar its because it has been used as a film location several times.

                                       The Bathurst Estate and Cirencester Park as filming locations

The iron work above the gate is also quite stunning.

The large building to the left of the gates is the old barracks.

Ooops, a rare photo of my other half (hates having his photo taken, didn't even realise I had caught him in this one).

I didn't take anymore photos, just browsed the shops, bought a book in Oxfam which I will share next post and Ian spotted a jigsaw from the Isle of Skye so that came back with us as well. I think the fresh air got to as we were both asleep pretty much as soon as we got back to the van.

Saturday, day one spinning.

Over the sea ( bridge) to Skye

 Day two.

Fortunately the rain stopped sometime over night and we set off the next morning in the dry, the sun was trying to break through the clouds and the loch was still.

We headed out towards Fort William to stock up on food ( for two days, very small fridge but no nearby shops at the next campsite ) and onwards towards Skye.

Passed a few curious locals on the way.

After an hour or two we spotted the bridge. We have made this journey many times over the last 30 years and remember queuing for the ferry and seeing the bridge being built.

We stopped off to visit with friends before heading to the campsite , once again we were reminded how much we love this island.

Then this happened....

Weird request today from a long haired, bearded biker. Would I be able to spin the bit of fleece that he found on a bush for him. I did (only a foot or so, mixed in a little Cheviot that I was working on ) and was paid with a duck egg and a pin badge off his leather jacket !!strangest exchange so far.

Yep, I was sat spinning and found myself the proud owner of a duck egg and a badge. !!

As sunset is currently at 9.45, we just managed to stay awake to see if we would get an interesting display over the loch.

We weren't too disappointed.😀😀😀😀