On the Road Again!

The final day of this Easter Bank Holiday. "Where are we today Claire?" If you know, you know... We were up earlier to get away as close to 9am as possible. The plan was to get the "jobs" done and get away. I did the black waste with Reggie tagging along. He was off lead and he ventured away to check out what might be living in the barn. The destination: The Tiptree Jam Factory Tea Room in Tiptree, Essex. The TomTom took us on the A1120 route that we are used to and we made good time around Ipswich and back down the A12 past Colchester before Tiptree. I had checked it was open on Bank Holidays. It was. I parked in the overflow parking lot. They have a marquee in the garden that is dog friendly. Access is through the usual tea rooms and the small Wilkins museum. We ordered the Tiptree Breakfast and tea and coffee. Reggie didn't settle so I took him back to the van and ...

So Day 4 comes and boy was it WINDY! This weekend is supposed to host "Storm Dave" but up in the north and Scotland. We were parked up nose into the wind. But it didn't stop the gusts rocking the van quite violently. We also had the Remis blind on the roof light above the bed rattling.  We survived. Reggie survived. The plan for today was to go to Claire's sister's house after lunch.  She only lives 4 miles from Waterpump CL, but there are several ways to get there, some of them along sketchy roads. So that was the one TomTom chose. We had a pleasant few hours there catching up and having some homemade apple cake. Once we were away, TomTom chose a different way back. Although this was slightly longer it was on better roads. After a cup of coffee, we had a walk across to the pub. It was about ten to seven and it was closed. It did look like someone was in the kitchen though. Claire tried the door...

I have made a slight change to the weekend.  Rather than have three nights at the Colchester Country Park site, I emailed them to say that we would only be staying for two nights. There's no refund on cancellations but I can swallow that. Although there is quite a lot to see in the area, it's all a fair walking distance and some of the reviews aren't too kind about the noise from the nearby A12. The two nights will enable me to get a cab or Uber from the site to the football stadium and back again.  I had already booked Sunday night at the Waterpump CL and I asked if they could accommodate us on Saturday too. We are booked in. It means we can arrive early there and maybe have Saturday lunch in the pub, or arrive later and visit Aldeburgh or somewhere on the way up from Colchester. One of the days we will see Claire's sister for an Easter visit. The only problem is the shortages of diesel fuel. All due to Trump's War on Iran!

A better night. Reggie reduced the whinging to more acceptable levels before going to sleep and so we managed to get through the night until around 7am! When I did get up so that he could have his morning constitutional there was a thick frost. I had turned the heating down to 15° overnight. The Truma dump hadn't automatically opened.  I took a couple of photos of the frost and whilst he had his breakfast we had another hour in bed. Of course, once we were awake he was snoring in his bed! We cleared up. The EHU cable where the early morning sun was shining in it was nice and supple. The other 20m was like trying to coil up and iron bar!! We were well on the way to Claire's sister's before we remembered that I had forgotten to empty the toilet cassette!!! Damn. We had a nice chat and coffee with Sally and her husband and just before midday we were on the road to Yoxford and the A12. It seemed to take ages!! Finally away. The roads weren't to busy....

The original plan was for a midweek pub stop at the Beach Head near the white cliffs of the same name. With one storm after another popping up we decided that a park up near a cliff edge in 75mph winds might not be too clever. Instead we decided that if the storms abated we'd go up to Suffolk and stay at our favourite site and visit some places on our "to do" list and also see Claire's sister. The weather improved in one way. No wind. But the forecast was for cold. Very cold. We were confident that Malibu Molly would cope with that. Loaded and ready to go. So on Friday after I had a telephone appointment with the hospital about a lung cancer check, we set off. It was around 1140. We made good progress upto Dartford and surprisingly were were only delayed for about 5 minutes. The problems on the M25 started as we approached a few junctions before the A12. For some reason the traffic slowed to almost walking pace and then sped up again.  There's work goi...

A few changes to the plan, such as it was. Friday we will stop off at Snape Maltings where he been quite a few times as Claire had a friend's birthday coming up. There are loads of craft shops there. We'll park up and I'll get the Nikon out to take a few photos, or maybe the Canon 1100D.   Snape Maltings last time we were there... To save a few quid we'll take a packed lunch and I can turn the gas on to make coffee etc.  The hob can cool as we have a walk around. Then we'll go to to the Waterpump CL and settle in for the night.  It would be nice to have a walk to the pub for a drink though... How much walking about we do is dependent on the weather! Saturday the plan is to drive over to Aldeburgh and see what the parking situation is like. There seems to be one car park that can accommodate a 6m van. Another has a limit of 5.5m!  There is some free parking further down the road the we could look at. Then maybe a short drive up to Southwold?  Who knows at th...

With Storm Herminia hanging about into this week  we cancelled the pub stop at Beachy Head. Instead the weather looks better for the weekend and so we are going to pay another visit to our favourite CL near Woodbridge at Waterpump.  Suffolk on the map is inside the red dotted borders.  I emailed Sarah to book a couple nights and will confirm in the week. It is all weather dependent. There are a few places I'd like to go to up there.  Maybe Aldeburgh where I have never been. There's some free parking along the road by the sea. I have set a waypoint on the TomTom to navigate there. It should be a short walk up to the town. It seems the only place to park as both the nearby car parks seem to have a vehicle size limit. It's day parking only that suits us. Of course there's also Walberswick. We have been there before. There's a large parking area there that has a daily charge. As well as those two,  there's Southwold. We have been before and parked up in the moho spa...