On the Road Again!

Since we were married we have tried to get away for our wedding anniversary and this year we have booked a week in France with Reggie in a mobile home. We tested the water last year with a weekend away and with a week to Scotland with him. He was generally very good on both trips. This year though we'll need to have his pet passport kept up to date with a visit to a French Vétérinaire before he can come back. I have located one not far from where we are saying and he is booked in on October 6th in the afternoon. The mobile home is in a seaside town at Cayaux sur Mer.

After staying in two different pods this year I can draw the conclusion between the layouts.  Cooking: The Pod at Lee Wick Farm in Essex, where we stayed at Easter, is laid out with a table and two chairs and small kitchen on the left as you enter. It came with a microwave, fridge and kettle etc. The Loch Ness version has a cupboard and kitchen unit but no sink and no microwave but did have a fridge. Seating: Lee Wick had a futon on the right as you step in. Loch Ness had the wet room. Services: as mentioned the Loch Ness wet room is inside the door as you step in. At Lee Wick, the toilet/washbasin is at the rear left. It's not a shower though unlike Loch Ness. Sleeping: both were setup with double beds on arrival. Lee Wick layout After staying in both variants I found that the Lee Wick setup was far better. The only seating in Loch Ness was the bed. The weather and the the midges mean that sitting outside...

It's two years since my brother Neill and I had the whistle stop trip to Scotland to take our Mum's ashes to their final resting place near Aviemore. It's even longer since the bike club's "indoor camping weekends" came to a halt. Every year for four or five I organised a trip up to Scotland for the SOC and we stayed in youth hostels and student rooms where colleges were closed for the summer. So this year we are going back, but in the car. Claire will be the co-pilot and front seat the back seat driver will be Reggie. The plan is to get away after work and get part way on the road, at least get around London so we can have a clearer run on the Friday morning.  I have planned a second stop near Carlisle. Hopefully the route will take us near some part of Hadrian's Wall as we cut across from the east coast and the A1 to the M6/A6.  And then into Scotland near Gretna. We have two overnights in Glencoe and three near L...

Finally I have worked out the stops on the return journey from Scotland. The route looks like this: The southernmost stop overnight is near where one of Claire's cousins lives and we can meet her and see her new puppy. It's a Labrador and Reggie will no doubt bond with it. I changed the stop on the first night to a B&B from the Day's Inn. The Day's Inn is dog friendly but a little blander than a more traditional stop. Tyre calculates the round trip to home to be about 1370 miles.  On top of that there's the trips out each day. With the Insignia doing about 600 miles to a tank of diesel there's about £140 of fuel to consider. 

When the Norway trip was eventually put to bed for this year I started to look for an alternative where we could go in the car, and take Reggie with us. We saw a TV programme where glamping was featured and this led to our first attempt a couple of weeks ago in Essex. The tester overnight at Lee Wick Farm. So, I set about looking for a glamping site and chose the Loch Ness Glamping site near Drumnadrochit in Scotland.  I chose Scotland as it is still UK and Reggie doesn't need to have a pet passport.   Armadillo Although from where we live, France would be much nearer (about 30 miles and a ferry) but with rabies and other things like tapeworms that we don't get in the UK but the passport is a bit of a pain in the arse. Not so much before we go, but before we come back. Maybe another time. The round trip to Loch Ness is somewhere in the range of 1400 miles round trip before any excursions. So we'll need to plan stops for Reggie as well as some overnight...

So Glamping Day arrived. The car was packed and we were off just after 10am. The initial plan was to go to Saffron Walden and speak to Chris about the GT. TomTom estimated that we'd be there at 11.24am. In the we had to abort as it was way after that and we were still stuck in traffic some 60 miles away and we had the glampsite to go to. I emailed Chris and as he was away today (Saturday) it will have to be another date.  We made a stop at the services at Thurrock to let Reggie go for a pee and stretch his legs, and then we set off again for the glampsite.  Despite the actual roads not matching the Google map image, we arrived in good time and of the three pods, we were the first to arrive.  The key is kept in a small key holder and we had the combination! The pod is quite spacious inside, with the front half having the table and chairs on one side and the futon on the other. At the back is the kitchenette and the bed opposite, the en-suite at the back...

.... another one opens. It is disappointing to have to shelve the plans for a trip to Norway in the summer, but it is not worth going if Claire is going to be in pain for the entire time we are away, and subsequently not enjoying the trip.  So I started to look for an alternative.  If we are to stay at home we might as well look for somewhere for Reggie to come too.  With our first glamping coming up this Friday to test the water, we looked at maybe doing the same but further afield.   We saw Loch Ness Glamping on the TV some weeks ago and it looks nice, plus it's dog friendly and we can go in the car! They are pretty booked up for August, the dates we have booked off already, but there is a three night slot that will allow us to drive up there, about 636 miles door to door. However, there are a few days to look at before then. Even in the car it is a long way to drive. So I need to factor in at least one stop on...

Something that I have avoided suggesting, but with Reggie to accommodate our weekends away in a hotel are surely numbered and so I started looking about for an alternative. A work colleague in a similar situation, but child not dog, said she had been "glamping" in Cornwall, and they all really enjoyed it. So with holidays to plan, I had a look for "dog friendly glamping" on Google and was surprised to find that there are so many places offering a glamp. Glamping ranges from tents to yurts to cabins, caravans to pods - essentially anything where you don't  have to wrestle your own tent up and then sleep on the ground or blow up mat.  Saying all that, in previous parts of my life I have loved to go camping, on holidays and on bike rallies.  In all weathers too, from days in Holland, when the outer of the tent was iced to southern Spain, when the temperature outside was over 35°C and considerably hotter inside the tent. But not for a few years....