On the Road Again!

Today's jobs in between rain showers was to get down to Dover and fill the LPG tanks before we start the holiday.   Dover BP by the entrance to the Western Docks, where the cruise ships dock, was £1.199 per litre. Luckily they had plenty but I had phoned up before we made the trip. I took photos of both gauges before we went. Right bottle Left bottle We tend to use the right side bottle more than the left as it is easier to access the tap to turn the gas on. When we got home I filled the AdBlue up from the containers in the garage. It used all of the 4 litre Redex branded AdBlue, plus another 1½ to 2 litres from the huge 10 litre bottle from Aldi.  For good measure I emptied in a full bottle of Wynn's Crystal Clear and Protect anti crystallisation liquid in with the new fill.  This should see us through the entire holiday trip. If there's any on the pump in Spain I might top up there as it is much cheaper than here. That's another pre-trip job dealt with. Whilst I wa...

Monday We had to be off site no later than midday and so we had started packing away the night before.  Reggie was up and out several times from before 7am and I was feeling tired by the time I got up and joined Claire for breakfast.   I took him out as she was washing and getting ready. As we were in a large field with fences all round, I let him wander off lead.  The van next to us had a young small cockapoo that was a little timid. Behind them was a nice couple with a very friendly, and again young, poodle.  Reggie and it got on, sniffing etc.  As we were talking one of the marshals came over to say there was an accident on the M4 and no one could get off the site.  In the end that was later amended to a person jumping from a bridge onto the road. Under cover of all this Reggie went and ate the poodles breakfast out of its bowl! Whilst I was apologising he went next doo...

Today's jaunt for Molly was to the BP petrol station by Dover Western Docks. Essentially to fill the LPG bottles and maybe a snifter of diesel. But also to give MyRouteApp Navigation one last chance. I set a route and it worked. We had sound.  We are off the Spain in just over a week and have been seeing Facebook and YouTube posts about how cheap diesel is on Spain. Plus that it's getting more difficult to get LPG due to some change on Spanish or EU law. Whatever! Hence the massive 98p spent on LPG today.  As for diesel. It was 159.9 per litre so I decided to make sure we had enough in the tank for the drive to Portsmouth and the Brittany Ferries shop, and enough to find some cheap diesel ⛽ in Spain! As usual the pump clocks over the amount you want. Trying to stop firstly at £30, then £35 led to £40... Eventually I stopped at £42.02. Add the 98p and it's a round £43!!!! So today we have managed around 30 miles. As it was a part fill the Fuelly app won't give a miles pe...

As we are away for a few nights for Claire's birthday from Friday I wanted to top up the water and check that the heating and water heating was working on gas.  For the first time, I used the left bottle. Previously I have always used the right one. So this one has gas that we filled up with in April last year. Does LPG/GPL have an expiry date like cheese???  I filled the clean water only watering can three times to put some in the freshwater tank. Remembering to turn the water heater drain to closed before starting the water pump... This is where I had to move fast as I heard the tap in the bathroom coughing and spurting seconds before the kitchen. The bathroom is okay but the kitchen tap wasn't over the sink. Luckily Claire's new drainer was there ... Flooding avoided. Next to put the heating to gas. A few seconds and the electric fan started followed by the "which" of the gas. I gave it a few seconds before turning on the water heater. The same satisfying ...

We have been watching too many vlogs on YouTube and they has made us want to get away again in the new van.  So far we have only been out to Tesco to fill with diesel and then to Sissinghurst Castle Garden for a run out to see how it handles. "Molly", as we have named her, went straight into the storage site and has been there a week or so. I had a day trip on the bike with my brother Neill and a friend, Phil, on Sunday. We went to the memorial service at the Canadian National Monument at Vimy Ridge in France.  I have written this up in another blog on Travellerspoint . We were lucky that the weather was good. Sunny and around 18C once the fog in the Channel had worn off. So this one will be in a couple of days to Back of Beyond in Dorset. The weather has been horrendous around here since Sunday evening. The forecast for Friday to Sunday looks okay, at least not raining! As I write this it is lashing down.   We stayed there last year on the way to the week we had in Devo...

Today we had a run to Rye to pickup Suki from storage to bring her home.  It's a bit early for our trip next week but we have a few things to do. We have to clean and purify the fresh water tank. I have a neutral chemical to do that. So today the drive to Rye took about 50 minutes. We discussed the problem we are having with the replacement left side mirror. The original was broken when we hit a piece of wood jutting out of a hedge. That was three days before we went to France last June. The cheap replacement works but there is a problem with the indicator when turning left. The system comes up with an error. The mirror indicator does flash okay though. Hopefully they will have better luck than us in getting a genuine Peugeot version. Amazingly after about a month or six weeks since she was parked up after the warranty work had been done on the leaky kitchen tap, she started first time. I had taken the dbPower unit with me to give the battery a boost if needed. She ran well after I...

Had a drive down to Dover to the garage by the Western Docks to fill the LPG tanks with gas. It's 0.99p a litre. After many YouTube videos I had a good idea how to do it and had the nozzle in. The pump didn't zero. Luckily another motorhome pulled in and the guy had a look.  Admitting you are a newbie helps as people are helpful.  Once checked we waited and waited for someone to come over and see why the pumps wouldn't reset. In the end it started to work and we filled with 22 litres. I also filled the diesel as well. Last time as it was almost empty we had only managed to fill to the £99 pump limit.  This time 24 litres. As we haven't done more than about 80 miles I guess the last time it wasn't quite full.   I entered it all into Fuelly  and the calculation only comes out at 28mpg. Over time it will start to level out. So we are ready for the trips we have away in May. In future we'll fill the tanks at shorter intervals!!