On the Road Again... Again

Reggie managed to sleep longer overnight than any night so far. Only 5.20am when he wanted his first pee break. We got up early, jobs done, and we left at 10.20am after dropping off the waste water and the toilet cassette. The ETA on TomTom was 2.10pm. With TomTom connected to the phone by Bluetooth Tethering it's supposed to vary the route according to traffic congestion.   Once back onto Baslow Road again, this time going away from Chatsworth (!) we were directed off the main road onto another up hill and down dale rollercoster towards Chesterfield and the M1.  As we got nearer, we could see on the TomTom and on Google Maps that there was a long red line on the original road. If we had ignored the route change we may have got stuck. We have done this before... and regretted it later. Once on the M1 we were able to make good progress.  We planned to stop at Cambridge Services and get a coffee. There are massive changes here. I have been many times as it's the former...

Day 2 is Monday 1st December.  It was raining again and so we togged up with our waterproof trousers as well as wellies for Claire,  and walking boots for me. Reggie was wearing his overcoat that looks like a mini horse blanket. It was a little muddy at first but the massive parking area is actually sheets of metal laid out to make a massive floor. The walkways threaded along the roadways and the same stuff as the parking. The market is quite phenomenal with so many stands. Selling all kinds of baubles and things, as well as food! We invested in a bratwurst for lunch. It's de rigeur at a Christmas Market.  We also bought some pies from an artisan bakers. These lasted two days. The Bakewell pudding we bought in the site reception. Lovely. Did two days (only) as well. Day 3.  Much the same as the day before except it wasn't raining!  Again we walked from the site using the "secret door" into the park. This time we on...

Getting from Ashridge Farm site shouldn't have taken too long as the TomTom said it was around 125 miles to Chatsworth Caravan Club site.  After TomTom chose the weird route to Ashridge it seemed that at some stage we'd end up on some narrow shitty roads again. As we needed some shopping, we dialled in a stop at Tesco at Sandy on the A1. It is a little way off the main road. So we went across country rather than the more direct A507! This meant going south on the A1 instead of north as it's a dual carriageway.  It was only one junction. Which happened to be the A507!! Then we did a 180° turn northwards! In the end we went into the Sainsbury's at Biggleswade.  From here it expected to carry on north on the A1 to the A14. Oh no... TomTom decided to go across to Bedford and then the A421 to the M1. What joy.  At least we saw the massive airship sheds at Cardington to the left as we approached Bedford.  Things have changed greatly since I worked at SIMS and the Capi...

Sunday December 14th. All tickets are sold out now.

The last fill was back in Spain at the Bonarea petrol station on the road towards the N340 in Peñiscola.  The odometer was showing 14462 miles. The reason is simply that the AdBlue warning light came on. In the year we have had the Malibu this has never happened before. I usually top up from bottles more often. Checking back, that fill at the Bonarea station was on October 9th and we have done 1752 miles since then.  Maybe that's why the warning light came on? We found the Coop garage in Framlingham and bought a 5 litre container of it. It actually costs more than diesel per litre. In Peñiscola on the pump is about 35p a litre. Here it was £14 for the 5 litres. That went in at 16214 miles on the odometer. I need to get that in my notebook!  Incidentally,  the station in Framlingham also had an LPG pump.