On the Road Again!

Another quietish night once the party crowd in the seasonal caravans had piped down and gone to sleep.  We still had the drivers to visit the loo almost all night.  It seems that the rules, and there are a few, weren't applicable to the guy that needs the loo at 3am and needs to drive 300 yards. Anyway we set the alarm from 8am. We didn't want breakfast as I had a trip on the way back planned for breakfast! In the end I was up a few times with Reggie for his pee breaks. A guy across the way decided that 6.15am was the right time to empty the garage at the back of his motorhome with all kinds of crap including a gas BBQ complete with grill, metal wheeled stand and 10kg Calor bottle! Then let his spaniel dog run around all over the place without its lead. Once up we set to work doing the packing and I noticed that the motorhome service point had a car parked close up to it.  There's a square marked out and painted with criss-crosses, but it's hard to back into it with a c...

We were up late, or rather we were up early and then late!  Reggie manages to sleep most of the night at home. I generally go to bed around 11pm and I leave him with his bed on the sofa and some treats to "find" before he settles in for the night.  Often when we go down around 8am (we are retired okay!!) he can be found still asleep. So when in the van in a much smaller space he is up around 5.30am and asking to go out. I end up getting up and turning off the alarm to get the sliding door open and he can get out. Then he comes in and repeats the same whine until I get up again or Claire feeds him his breakfast.  Then he wants to go out again! This morning was no exception.  So after all his visits outside, it was light at 6am BTW, we went back to sleep. It was 10am when we both woke up!  The site was still very quiet as it's March. It's Friday morning and only the retired are on site.  Oh. The workforce are out and about in tractors and other noise making e...

An early weekend? What's that?  Well it's a Thursday to Saturday trip that does have one of the weekend days in it! As usual on a Thursday morning I was at the greyhound rescue foster home a few miles from where I live.  More information on the charity from Kent Greyhound Rescue . I had only seven dogs to feed and exercise and left the last one in the care of another team member to keep an eye on so I could get home before 11am. Pack the van and get away for the 11.30am start. We just about managed that. We couldn't get into the site until 3pm according to the paperwork I had printed off after booking. The paperwork actually gives the pitch number as well. We were going to be pitch 59.   On the way up we made easy progress up the M20 to the M25. Even the hazard and road block that it is the Dartford Crossing, it's a tunnel going north, was relatively easy to navigate. Rather than stop as usual at Thurrock Services we carried on until we were on the A12.  We avoi...

This weekend in the UK has two things happening.  Firstly the clocks go forward an hour in the small hours of Sunday, and secondly, Sunday is "Mothering Sunday" or as it is more widely known as "Mothers' Day". I still have my Thursday morning visit to the Greyhound Rescue  to feed and give the dogs a run before we can set off. I am usually back before 11am and so if we get the van loaded up pretty much on Wednesday afternoon, then we can then leave ASAP.   The destination is to Essex again. Waldegraves at Mersea Island again.  We last stayed there back in May 2023 and I thought it would be another opportunity to get away before the kids Easter holidays. We tend to not do a lot at Easter any more. So two nights on a hardstanding pitch with EHU will cost us £25 a night. In March dogs go free and that saves us £4! Going a bit earlier in the week, THursday, might mean we avoid the influx of two years ago.  It was virtually empty and t...

An early morning as Reggie needed to have his ablutions... I had a lie in for a few minutes and Claire took him out. He was a little out of sorts but still ate his breakfast. After breakfast we had a few false starts on our walk. The idea was to check out the dog walk. Firstly we forgot a poo bag. Then treats for Reggie. Both sorted. We still forgot his water bowl... In then we walked on the beach to West Mersea. Past hundreds of beach huts at the neighbouring Park Dean Park and then the privately owned ones that line the coast. Sometimes on the incline they are four deep! The highest number I saw was 602 and there were quite a few more that we didn't walk past .. We decided to have a coffee. The Two Sugars Café was cash only. I had none. 😮 Claire hadn't brought her purse. 😲 We checked Google Maps to see where the nearest supermarket was and set off. It was mostly on road but not much traffic. It was a Co-op. Cash machine raided and I bought a meal deal. As it was barely much...

I got back from the greyhound rescue a little earlier than usual and had my breakfast. Even though we are only away two nights, there is still quite a lot to pack in the van. Clothes of course. All the bedding. We tend to favour sleeping bags and have one each. These are more comfortable when the outside temperatures are low.  Of course, we need stuff for Reggie. His bed. His food and essentials, his noo-noo and some toys. To calm him he has a licky mat with peanut 🥜 butter. So it was 1229 when I pulled backwards off the drive. This manoeuvre so much easier with the rear camera. Molly is a little longer than Suki at 7.02 metres. We made good progress up to Dartford. The traffic for the tunnels under the River Thames was quite heavy and we joined the queues before the A2 junction.  With everyone swapping lanes and almost three lanes of nose to nose HGV's it left only only lane for private vehicles, cars and us! Eventually after 25 minutes we were free and in the right-hand tun...

With a few weeks to go before we go away to France on the Awaycation, it seemed like a good idea to get the away for a few days as a shakedown! So I was looking at another short trip. I looked at some Caravan Club sites and there were none that really pushed any buttons.  We like to go midweek where the chances of the sites being overrun with kids is limited.  The Caravan Club doesn't have any Adult-Only sites. I moved my search to certificated locations. There were a few but given the uncertainty of UK weather it was hard to find any that have hardstanding.  We could have returned to one of the ones we did last month, but they were nice, but are in the middle of nowhere.  One has a pub nearby that would have been a good dog-walk with a cheeky pint at the end of it, but the pub closed, possibly due to the pandemic, and has never re-opened.   So where to? Mersea Island? I had a look at Fen Farm again. We did that in March (I think) and it was good but grass...

The second staycation this year will be at Fen Farm Caravan Park on Mersea Island in Essex. We have stayed in Essex before on a "tester" stay in a pod near Clacton. This was before we had a fortnight in Scotland and a week in a glamping pod. More and more places are installing this type of accommodation. They appeal to people that want to camp but don't want a tent or don't have a caravan or a Moho!  Even our local Camping and Motorhome Club site has loads of them now.  A bone of contention with members that own a touring caravan or Moho/campervan as facilities for tourers are now seeing up to twenty or thirty non-members using the facilities and they aren't getting updated or improved. Anyway back to Fen Farm. It's £20 a night and that includes the EHU. It's relatively cheap even for late March.   I know what an island is! What I didn't realise until the site emailed, is that the island is cut off at high tide. There is a webcam so that you can see...