On the Road Again!

Once back from Off Grid we had a quick look around the van and checked that with the inverter switched on that Claire could get the hair dryer and straighteners to work. To get a better appreciation of the upgrades we wanted to get away for a night or two off-grid. We couldn't get away in the week so were looking at the Bank Holiday weekend. We don't usually go away on bank holidays. I have my last Arsenal game of the season on Saturday afternoon and so we can really only go for one night away. So we looked around locally. In the end we have a night booked at the Hop Farm campsite in Beltring near Tonbridge for one night on Sunday into Bank Holiday Monday, aka May Day. It used to be a really good place to visit as the Hop Farm has the largest number of oast houses in one cluster. It's a shame that the company have closed the museums and other attractions. But at least the campsite is still open. It gets plenty of good reviews on Pitchup.com   https://thehopfarm.co.uk/stay

Searching high and low in the house for the dog. Check the garden. Nothing. Then the roses and bushes at the back start to move... Then a face appears. Grrrrrr.

 All taken no flash on the Sony Cybershot.

The final day. I had a lie in until 9am and then went across to see Nigel and the team to say that I had transferred the money across for the work, and that it was all looking good and working. It was about 9.30am by the time I tidied everything away and set off for the fuel station at Grove. Bellingers Isuzu is not far from Williams F1. Yesterday when we went past on the bus diesel was £1.819. The cheapest I have seen for a long while.  When I got there it was even cheaper, at £1.799!  I know, getting excited by a fuel price 30p more than two months ago. If our dodgy government had followed other European governments then they would have cut the tax for a while. I filled up to the click as I always do. 63.10 litres! Or £113.50!!!!!!!! At least with the slow speeds to get home it should last a bit longer. With that I set the TomTom for home and we set off through Wantage and towards Newbu...

Day 2 started at 0730 when I set the alarm, made coffee and washed and dressed.  I found I had no towel. Luckily, I had the brand new dog towel from Dock and Bay. It's actually better I think as it is hand towel sized!!It was also brand new. Then at 0800, they came to look over the van to decide where everything would go. The battery us too tall to go under my seat. So it was decided that it would go under the bench seat in the dining area..... The inverter would then go under my seat.  The rest of the gubbins under Claire's seat. With nothing else to do I got a jumper and my man-bag and set off for a walk to the bus stops on the main Wantage to Faringdon road. My luck was out and I missed the buses in both directions by minutes. Molly on the right! I basically went the way I had driven in.  I sat and waited for the 67 bus to come. Wantage wasn't that far, but I was already hot after walking a mile.  Once in Wantage I decided to go into Oxford. Here I had two buses t...

I planned to leave around 3.30pm for the three hour drive across the south to Wantage in Oxfordshire. The destination is Off Grid Power Solutions to have work tomorrow to make the van more off grid usable. Over the morning, when I woke with terrible stomach pains, we put all the stuff I need for two days away from home.  So, everything was going far too swimmingly up the motorways and around the M25. As usual, despite the A3 junction work being completed, everything slowed to walking pace.  TomTom was actually working at this point to say that the M4 was blocked in several places. Without a co-pilot I had no idea where and why. Instead the route changed to the M3 and Bracknell to the M3 and Hook near Basingstoke. I stopped at Fleet Services to check everything was working and th n set off again. Across country to Reading on the M4 and then Reading Services where I had planned to stop.  At Reading Services I had avoi...

Today I am driving the van across to Off Grid at Wantage so that they can start work early tomorrow morning. Apart from local driving it's the first time I have gone anywhere solo in the van. Okay, I have driven to the storage quite a few times, and to Canterbury, but this is about three hours. I have emptied the van of everything not needed so that the guys doing the work don't have to do it. It leaves them a pretty much blank canvas to work on. I assume to work under the seats in the van, they will remove them. We'll have to wait and see. Offgrid Power Solutions

When I posted this picture on another social media platform, I had people commenting on the cap. Mostly asking if I had ridden it. The answer is no. I haven't ridden any of Route 66 on a motorcycle. Others simply trolling. The truth is. I have driven all of the Route 66 possible in Arizona. From the border with New Mexico to crossing the Colorado River to a section in California. We did it in a Dodge Charger SXT. Photographed near Lake Havasu. The original cap came from the Hackberry Stores. It "went missing" off my desk in 2020. I was lucky to be able to buy the exact same one, same colour, grey, on eBay. The trip was ten years ago. May and June 2016.

It's Day 24 of " Take the Lead " where Reggie and I walk to try and raise money for the charity St Mungo's. I put our names down for a mere 26 miles in April, using the Strava app to keep a record of the walks.  But. I keep forgetting to start it. Or worse, turn it off after a walk, then having to delete it, thus losing genuinely acquired miles!!! This was the case last week.  Turned on when I left Arsenal station, and off when I got back there. All good. Then after walking to the train I forgot and it came out at 78 miles!!! The three genuine miles lost. So how about a donation to a good cause? Justgiving will take any currency.... A single £ or $ or € will be appreciated. Paul & Reggie's Fundraising Page . As well as donating you can see updates on our progress.

With the car in the garage for its annual service, we decided to take the bus into Folkestone. The journey takes about 30 minutes. Thanks to being senior citizens we travel free on buses after the time people will be going to work and school. We got the bus around 1030. POSH. Anyone remember that? We live on the South coast of England. Folkestone is only about 5 miles to the east.  So "port out, starboard home" is the order of the day. If you know, you know. Firstly, a stop in Boots for Claire to use up some vouchers, and then down the Old High Street. The Old High Street has lots of blue plaques explaining what businesses occupied each building in the 19th and 20th centuries. It's now very arty now, and the plaques show that it used to be where the working class lived and worked. A stop at a bakery to get a huge cheese scone and a cake that looks like a pork pie.... Our next port of call was the bus stop at the bottom of the hill by the harbour. T...

Back to the late 90's. Two buffaloes at Woburn Abbey.....

I guess we have to be thankful that we got three years use out of this Belgian pet passport. We had a couple of AHC's in 2022 and 2023 before we got this one in Bruges. It saved us around £400 in AHC's over the intervening years. The EU has sealed the loophole that allowed us in Great Britain have one to travel. But they seem to have dropped the usual bollock when it comes to having 27 countries fall into place and publish details properly. For our SP26 trip we already have an AHC and this pet passport will record his rabies jabs. The AHC will need completing by a different vet before we come home.

The nail hit on the head. Don't fall for the bullshit. As soon as you see an award ceremony, you know it's a mutual arse kissing event, and a chance for some actor to talk shite. Make your own minds up, don't listen to some "elitist" that is paid to play a part.

Reggie recently. Another complication to the trip is that Reggie's rabies vaccination needs re-doing before June 20th 2026. When we had the original dates for the holiday, I was going to get both his pre-return worming and the rabies done in Belgium a day or two before we came home. On top of that we have the enforcing of the rules surrounding the use of EU pet passports for those non resident in an EU country. That means us British, and or course, any EU citizens that live most of the time outside an EU country. So we have a £99 Animal Health Certificate that cost me another £47.50 to change the date and language, and the rabies needing to be done. I had already booked a vet's surgery in a nearby town, San Vicente de la Barquera, to do the rabies jab. They quoted €40.  Our own vet where Reggie has been going since we had him quoted £140! At today's exchange rate that's €160! So we are pretty much set. Of course, a lot of the trip we will embark on depends on Trump...

Another evening meal. Roasted Ratatouille Spaghetti from the Slimming World cookbook. Vegetarian and tasty. Plus it's very filling with plenty of veg, fibre and protein.

What a turn out at this month's Meldrews Sunday at Jo's Café at Brookland in Kent. Sadly I had to go in the car. The V-Strom is Sorned* and on top of that I am still in the post hospital "no riding" period. This turnout was the best for a long time. * SORN - Statutory Off Road Notice. Vehicles with this registration shouldn't be used on public roads.

I finally heard from AHCOnline in the week after a few emails and one from them to say I had emailed the wrong address! They can change the date on the AHC I had ordered for the trip but it would cost.  I said yes, and so now we have a new AHC with a new pickup date and also for the new destination of Spain. Another expense on top of changing the dates for the ferry out and back, and for the first nights in Spain.

After the pretty much last minute winner last week away in Lisbon, when Kai Havertz stole in to score in added time, and a terrible gutless performance at the weekend, all attention was on Wednesday, and the Emirates Stadium. What a poor game. Neither side took the opportunities the opponents gave them. At the end of the day the day, neither team needed extra time! Thankfully, Sporting failed to force an equalising goal. The Arsenal team only seemed to wake up in the last twenty minutes, coincidentally, when Sporting had to throw everything forward to get a goal. Arsenal held on and could even have stolen this game as well in added time. Now we are to face Atletico Madrid in the Semi-Final.

Going home day. Up early and breakfast, then jobs done. During the night we had more rain and high winds. But Reggie was asleep pretty much all night without me having to walk around outside in my pants..... The plan was to be away before 10am as the TomTom and Google Maps had us looking at a journey of four hours and seven minutes and two hundred and forty eight miles. Amazingly for UK roads and the last Sunday of school Easter holidays we hardly had a hold up. Apart from a few miles at each end, the majority of the trip was on motorway!  The M54, M6, M1, M25 and the the M20. We were actually away at 9.45am and two hours later we were pulling into the Newport Pagnell Services. These are Welcome Break services and "well behaved dogs" are allowed inside the main building. So we went in and got a coffee from Starbucks. The caravan parking seemed not existent as following the signs we ended up by ...

Overnight we had rain at times, lashing down at times, and high winds. We were only up a few times with Reggie wanting to do his ablutions. But by getting up time I was still tired. I had a lie in. I had the cab booked for 2pm and with it raining on and off, I wore my raincoat. Good job.... The cab arrived on time ..We'll come back to cabs later. It took about  ten minutes to drop me off by the visiting fans entrance at the back of Lidl.  I got lunch in there before going into the ground. A small pizza about the size of my hand and a millionaire shortbread for those that are interested. The wind and rain carried on intermittently all game. The sun also made an appearance. The game was generally scrappy. Neither side could cope with the swirling wind but Shrewsbury scored the only goal with a looping header in the first half.   I had booked the return cab for 5.15pm. There were quite a few people waiting. Gradually the numbers dropped until just me and two lads. I cal...