On the Road Again!

This is an AI manipulated photo. Can you guess which part? It looks like the lamb Samosa.

The YouTube video I referred to in the Pro-Plates blog is this one from Amanda & Mark from earlier this year in Spain. It doesn't matter if you are in the van, the scumbags will try and get in. You can skim through if you like to about 13.09 minutes. Amanda & Mark Broken Into Vlog.

After seeing posts on too many forums and on YouTube, I have decided to fit these. It seems that over the water in the "safe" European Union that thefts of vans and from vans is on the increase. To avoid adding to the statistics I am having these Pro-Plates fitted to the van next week before we go on holiday to Spain and France. It's one less thing to worry about when away on a site or on an aire. I always lock the doors using the button on the dash but this doesn't activate the alarm. Our alarm is armed from either the locking button on the ignition key fob, or from the fob that Claire has with the spare keys.  Using the fob sets the alarm both outside, i.e. the doors and inside.  When we leave Reggie in the van, we have to turn off the inside alarm. That's done from the fob as well. I have been doing the same at night when we are going to bed. The alarm beeps a bit but that can't be helped. This should give us an additional level of door security and stop th...

Whilst full of the euphoria from winning the Premier League... Have I mentioned it before? Anyway, I ordered a t-shirt for my upcoming holiday to Spain and France. It's not a Champion's shirt, but a 26/27 shirt. Hopefully it will arrive in time for the trip up the Emirates to watch the Champions League final on the big screens. It's an official Adidas Arsenal product.

We have a few camping chairs that we have bought over the years. They seem to have got bigger and heavier each time. One packs up and we buy another one.  What we don't need after downsizing to a campervan from a much larger motorhome, is a lot of space taken up that could be freed up. Enter the Pilton chair.  It packs up much smaller than anything we currently have and hopefully as it's got a weight limit of 150kg!   I am not that fat! I guess they'll arrive any day soon and we can work out how they put together and even more importantly how they go back in te little bag.

Quite rare for use to get the goldfinch on the feeder. This was taken through the kitchen window on the Nikon D50 at full 100mm.zoom. With a longer lens it may have been so much better.

We are booked on the Irish Ferries service from Calais at 1235pm on the last day of the trip.  When we came back from France last October, we stayed in the Camping-Car Park aire in Calais . It's a large area with 102 pitches. It's perfectly placed for a walk along the seafront after arrival and close to the ferry port. I have pre-booked it. It's a long way off but it will be July and aires get quite full.  Including local tourist taxes it is €17.50 for the night. When you book they expect you to enter an arrival time. In the past they didn't have to.  So as we need to be at the ferry port around 1100am at the latest, I have booked for an arrival time the day before at 1200.  And to cover our butts, a leaving time of 1100am. So that's another booking sorted.

Did I mention that Arsenal are the Premier League Champions 2025/26 with a game to spare? Perhaps I am too humble... I have bought an official t-shirt on pre-order from the Official Arsenal site, but wanted something a little quicker, at least before I go on holiday. So, I bought this. Unofficial Champions t-shirt. Hopefully this will arrive before we go away 

I thought I would invest in a t-shirt to mark the occasion. Proper Adidas football shirts (they are NOT jerseys!) are eye wateringly expensive. This one, an official product is £22.50.... They are all on pre-order and so I expect it will arrive when I am on holiday! Offical Product!

Pathway 4G and Mobile WIFI For a while we have struggled with wifi whilst away in the van.  It seems to have got worse more recently, and this may coincide with trading the motorhome for a campervan. Whilst the motorhome was also a big box on wheels, it was generally wood and fibreglass. Where the campervan is a metal box with a few holes for windows and doors. It's effectively a Faraday Cage that blocks the signal to the phone.  A few years ago when still at work and we had company mobile phones, there was a worry that they could be hacked and we were given phone cases that were Faraday Cages.  They worked. Phone inside and there was no signal and so it didn't ring. It worked very well. The idea of the Pathway 4G is that it uses a SIM card and is a router.  I ordered a Lebara SIM for the router. Lebara use the Vodafone network in the UK. I have my doubts about that as we had Vodafone before and it was terrible at home. Photo from Belmont Leisure linked website Am...

Earlier today I went for a free hearing test at Hidden Hearing at the NHS Clinic in Hythe. I have had a hearing aid in my right ear for around ten years. I tend not to wear it as I find it's useless. All it seems to do is make my ear sweat. So after talking to other sufferers and my brother, who now wears two, I got around to trying an alternative solution. The current aid was replaced in 2024 on the NHS. It is as useless as the first one but has Bluetooth to my phone.  From all the tests where I press a button when I hear a beep, it shows my right ear is pretty much had it. It's not the small perforation in the ear drum, but the inner ear, the cochlea. A hearing aid will be useless. The left ear is not 100%. Then again I am over 70 years old. The audiologist suggested I try a solution where the aid in the right ear, Bluetooth to another in the left ear. The cost will be about £3000!!  Claire basically pushed me into going back to have a demo. I'd rather give the NHS a chan...

 When we were kids, my school friends Martin Oakley and Alec Jackson and I used to walk home from school. It wasn't far but as 9 year olds we were supposed to get the bus.  Some days we'd meander home via the River Erk and mess about along the water's edge or climb the sandy "cliff" above the flowing water. It was always a laugh if someone got a "booty". To us that was getting a wet foot. We didn't wear boots, but you get the idea. This was Chadderton in Lancashire. It was 1964. Other days Alec and I would walk home. Martin lived in the opposite direction from school. Firstly, we went to St Matthew's Infant School, and across the road, Chadderton Hall Junior School. By 1964 we were at the junior school.  On some of the days we walked home, we'd spend our bus fare, sixpence. Before decimalisation pence! That's 2½p in the decimal money we use today. We'd either buy sweets in the parade of shops not far from Alec's house. Or we would...

Over the weekend we had quit a few walks around the camping areas and the show itself.  Inside the show it was generally too packed to get the phone out let alone a DSLR! All these were taken as Reggie and I walked around. All but a few at the bottom of the page taken with the Canon EOS 1100D. My flags! Phil Read on the back of a club member's van