Malibu Molly

With the van currently locked away in storage I can't see the actual mileage on the odometer but it's around 11030.  I've not topped up the AdBlue tank since away back at 8899 when we were stung at a Shell garage near Ipswich. I saw that Aldi had ten litre bottles in stock the other day at around £12.  I'll get one tomorrow and fill up the van when we get it on Friday for our weekend in Buckinghamshire. With about 2100 miles since the last fill up i expect it to take all ten litres quite easily. If pumped AdBlue was comparable in price I'd use that.  Let's see how this goes.

With the summer vacation cancelled due to my illness and health uncertainty,  I have started to concentrate on the October trip to France and Spain. Much of the planning was in place already except for the journey from the channel to John's 70th party. I have now moved the June Channel dates to October. Le Shuttle to a little later on the 1st October and the return on Irish Ferries to October 24th at the same early afternoon timing.  I extended the usual three weeks to 24 daya so that we can get back without rushing.  We don't check out of the Alcossebre apartment until the morning of the 18th. This gives us six days to non toll as much as possible to Calais.  Plus we need to book Reggie into the vet's between 24 and 120 hours for his passport to be signed and to be given his worming pill. I expect we'll do Buchy again. On the way down.... We have effectively 4 nights to get to our first important destination in France. Moux. I am trying to work the route to Moux to ...

Once I had rested after my 14 hours sojourn between triage and major investigations, I started to work through the list of bookings I had already made for this trip. Le Shuttle was the easiest and could be done online. That they stiffed us for £36 to change from one low season date to another low season date says more about their business than anything. No humans involved and I did all the work for them. The two Camping-Car Park bookings were easily enough cancelled, although it needed a WhatsApp chat to get it done as it can't be done through the newly updated app on the phone. It needed a Messenger message to their Facebook social media team to get the WhatsApp link.  The cost of the two aires was credited back to my account in minutes. The other campsite bookings took a little longer.  The site in Belgium that I booked through the Caravan Club had been paid in full. Firstly a deposit in January and then the full payment in April.  I am to receive two payments that amou...

With the holiday to Europe shot down in flames we have been looking for things not too far away to fill in the "lost" weekends. The week before is my first visit to Wembley Stadium to support Oldham Athletic in the Promotion Final.  It's so long since we last got to a final of any kind. So this weekend, it's just an awayday across to Sussex for Campers and Coffee.  As we were expected to be in France, I hadn't booked anything.  Once I started to feel better after the UTI had passed I looked and was too late to book the overnight stay on Saturday into Sunday.  However there are day tickets. So I booked us in. It's open from 10am to 4pm so we need to get up nice and early! Looking forward to the short drive across the Hellingly.

When football and campervan trips come together.  My team, Oldham Athletic have fought through a 46 game season, then into two play offs to reach Wembley. They face Southend United on June 1st in the Promotion Final . Neither team was expected to reach the final as they finished 5th and 7th respectively.  Of course. There's no plain sailing. This weekend in May are the EFL play off finals are undisturbed.   Next weekend though there's train and tube closures. This has resulted in reduced capacity at Wembley Stadium. So. This is where Malibu Molly comes in. The game is Sunday. So looking on the Caravan Club site showed a site near Denham to the west of London. Denham on a train line that is 15 minutes from Wembley Stadium Station! So for £5 deposit I have booked two nights at the Wyatts Covert club site. Match ticket bought! Slightly edited ticket to remove QR Code etc.

A lot indeed has happened since the last update. It was only a few weeks ago. We are only a few days away from our Summer trip to France and it has all come crashing down. Over a week ago I felt really ill and after an NHS 111 call I was referred to my surgery. I went to the surgery after another long call. It seemed I had got myself a urinary tract infection. I was bundled off home with antibiotics and paracetamol. With the proviso that if I was sick i.e. vomit, I was then go to A&E.  Thursday evening and  I fell up the stairs and was unable to get up. I simply had no strength in my arms. Claire called 999. The ambulance came within 20 minutes and they treated me and suggested I either go to hospital. Or stay at home. It was 9.30pm. I stayed. They did say that the hospital might not do much more. My blood pressure was very low and temperature was 39.6. Things didn't really improve over the weekend. I went to the surgery on Monday. They called the ambulance and off I wen...

The rally was only about half an hour, or so, away from home in Rolvenden in Kent. We had never heard of Hole Park before and although we have gone through the village a few times we hadn't even noticed the brown tourist sign pointing off the main A28. The Camper Max satnav had it though and so we blindly followed that as we neared the estate. We chose to ignore it at first as the route it wanted us to take initially wasn't that wide or well surfaced.  Then again, the A28 from Ashford was pretty awful in places. Not so much potholes as 4 feet by 2 feet areas an inch deep where the surface had gone AWOL. On arrival we avoided the narrower entrance nearest the village and continued on to the one better signposted. The rally field was inside the entrance to the estate.  There were a few vans there and we drew up next to the hosts van.  Once signed in we decided that as the field sloped a little we'd stay at the bottom alongside a large Carthago liner.   ...

Since the last update I have been looking at Maps, both paper and online, and various apps looking for places to stay in the three overnights we have between  Bühl and Annecy. I have been working in MyRouteApp to to make a route that goes from Bühl to Obernai near Strasbourg that gives us a day on the Black Forest High Road.  It's not that long but it is supposed to be scenic. I have the France Passion book and also the app on my phone to look for two overnights along the Route des Crêtes in Alsace. These generally tend to be non reserveable so it's a matter of seeing what's available when we want to stop. The third overnight has been sorted. I was looking at aires and saw Camping-Car Park has one at Chavannes to the south east of the Crêtes area. It's €13.50 per night with all services. I have been checking for a few nights on the app and there haven't been many pitches left by 7pm. So I booked it.  The new app allows you to choose the time of day when you expect t...

This is sadly probably the worst place we have been to since we took up vacation van life in three plus years. It's not only due to the lack of dog friendliness but the terrible parking management.  Dog Friendly? Score 0/10. It's one thing to have the house and gardens off limits, but to suggest there is a route around the outside of the estate but not actually signpost it and let the local authority put up public footpath signs is poor. We did walk a little of the way to the river at the back where there was an old mill but then it became a little less than obvious where to go! Parking? Score 3/10. It was Sunday of the May Day Bank Holiday. The weather was dry and reasonably sunny. Prime Nations Trust visiting conditions. The main car-park doesn't have a height barrier. It also contains the motorhome/van parking area. This was full when we arrived around noon. There were 7 vans in it. A side car-park to the right has a height barrier.  Behind the first area is the overflow...

We had originally booked to stay at the CL at Hill Farm in Darsham, Suffolk.  I had an email exchange with the owner, Jaik, and I gathered that as well as the five pitch CL, there was also an attached campsite. I also gathered that we couldn't have both nights on the CL as there were bookings. Instead I opted for a pitch on the attached campsite. Although they use the same entrance off the road, the CL has its own entrance inside as do the various parts of the campsite.  We were on Pitch 13.  The pitches are scattered around a wooded area and separated from each other with bushes and trees.  The hardstanding is gravel.  The pitch has electric hook-up and water. To avoid the usual hassles of the Dartford Crossing we planned to be away much earlier than usual.  So it was just after 10.30am when we set off from home. Reggie in his new canvas enclosed area under the table. The expensive seat bed had proved no use on the last trip. This one seems much ...

We are just a month or so away from our outward Le Shuttle trip to France and our summer vacation.  The first part of the trip as far as Lake Annecy was pretty much set in stone. Between the second overnight in Bühl and Annecy we have three overnights. I have identified several camping car aires in Alsace that could be our overnights. I was looking at extending the Germany section by taking in the Black Forest High Road (Schwarzwaldhochstrasse) before crossing the Rhine and joining my existing route at Obernai. That's the current update.