First Camp of the Year!....at last.

Normally by the end of May we would have got in two or three camping trips in the Campervan, but this year with it being the coldest spring in over 50 years it never happened. Indeed even May which can be a warm month in years gone by was decidedly cool and wet (not good camping with young kids). However we were determined to get away over half term so we searched round for sites in North Wales  and found a cracking 4* site in Snowdonia just outside Caernarfon. The first camp of the year always takes longer as we have to dig out all the awnings from their winter storage in the attic and collect all the gear which seems to go AWOL  just when you need it .
  I gave the van its spring service a few days before we set off and prayed the weather would improve....it did..Wahey.... On the day we set off it was glorious sunshine and wall to wall blue skies..result. However though it was only a 100 miles away everyone else had had the same idea, so a two hour journey turned into four hours. At least we were able to pull over to make lunch whilst everyone else sat fuming in the traffic jams (smug feeling)
 North Wales has everything a camping trip could need..Beaches, Castles, Mountains and some great pubs for when the thirst gets the better of you..The first evening we drove into Caernarfon to the castle and strolled along the harbour with the walls of the magnificent castle on one side and stunning views of the Menai Straights on the other..truly breathtaking.

  The following morning dawned with again great weather, so clearly today was a beach day...but which one?. Laura recalled as a child going to a beach on Anglesey near the village of Llanddona which was only a few miles away. However what Laura had failed to remember was that the road down to the beach was down a steep 35 % winding single track road with very few passing places, but boy it was worth the white knuckle descent to the beach...Half a dozen other campers had made the same perilous descent and were parked right on the beach at the high water mark, just kicking back and enjoying what mother nature has to offer....It was a brilliant sun soaked day.

  As is the way in Britain though, no two days are alike and so the following morning was grey and damp. No fears though today would be a "Castle" day, Penrhyn Castle to be precise. It was great to be inside and there was a great cafe serving home made soup...And since at the end of the day we felt that a BBQ would be pushing our luck in the rain , a pub tea was in order.. Well when I say "tea" I mean Welsh sirloin steak was washed down with a pint of local ale in a  500 yr old Inn next to Caernarfon castle...nice..:-)

The Corkscrew.....

Just a quick Blog this morning as the heavens have opened and I have ten minutes to spare while I drink my cuppa.
  The Corkscrew...no I'm not on about any new theme park roller coaster ride, but that humble implement that's supposed to sit in the cutlery draw at home or in your campervan. It comes in a variety of designs but its purpose is simple, to allow its owner to open with a minimum of fuss a  bottle of their favourite plonk.
  A straight forward task you may think, ahh but no. Picture the scene.  Your meal is ready you have a bottle of wine in hand, but can you find the corkscrew??? Can you heckers like. I have come to the conclusion after many years of research that "corkscrews" have the same paranormal abilities as "the odd sock" or the "missing keys". You'd think with our advanced intellect humans would have no problem getting a cork out of a bottle without a corkscrew, but under pressure we seem to resort to the problem solving abilities of a chimp.(no offense to chimps implied.
  So what's the answer I hear you say?... Simple, you buy more corkscrews!! So that why now we now have six corkscrews, there are probably more but they're off having a party with my odd socks and car keys. So tonight when you come home in desperate need of a glass of Merlot and can't find your corkscrew, just give us a shout as I might just have a spare one to lend you.... Ohh its stopped raining! Now where did I put my Campervan key's??????

Spring Break.....Not in a Campervan...

Easter usually heralds the beginning of the camping season for us, but with Easter varying from late March to April the weather can be a bit variable. However we were optimistic this year as last year in March and April it reached around 70f and since it was the first week in April the weather was bound to be better....How wrong we were.....
  March turned out to be the worst winter weather for decades and even though now its turned mild I can still see snow drifts on the hills from my lounge window and its mid April..What to do???. Now I can put up with cold camping but the rest of the family would not share my enthusiasm , especially in the biting easterly wind straight from Siberia...brrrr.

   Fortunately my wonderful wife Laura is always on the look out for a "deal" and spotted an offer at a "holiday park" in Devon in a static caravan..."with full heating" for the very week we we're planning to go camping...Now I have a confession....I "HATE" caravans....there I said it. To be honest I have never stayed in one but the idea of living in little boxes all lined up in a row sprawling over the hillside brings me out in a cold sweat.
   Now many will no doubt agree with me on how these places look from the outside, but the fact is the park had full indoor "fun" pools , a SPA, restaurants, and tons of stuff to do for the kids even if the weather was dire. So I bit my lip took a sedative and off we went for five days at Devon Cliff's. leaving the poor Campervan at home. I will admit I had a preconceived idea as to what these Parks were like and what type of people  go to them....again so so wrong. The caravan was luxurious , the Park spotless and laid back and the people from all walks of life including the well to do if the Range Rovers and Jaguars parked outside were anything to go by and yet "all" of us were in affect living in identical 12' x 35' boxes.

  The kids loved it and by chance our friends who also had their camping cancelled, booked the same place without our knowing. So it was a bonus to meet up with them in the pools and the pub at night. We got chance to tour the Devon coastline through some idyllic villages and sample some scrumptious  ice creams and Devon cream Teas.

Amazing Spaces...

 Last year there was a series on channel 4 called "George Clarke's Amazing Spaces" which showed what great design ideas you could incorporate into small spaces. The places people converted ranged from underground toilets to 1960's coaches and of course the ubiquitous VW Camper van. It was inspiring to see what people could achieve on budgets ranging from a few hundred pounds to tens of thousands of pounds. When we built our Camper Van our budget was tight and yet we built and have enjoyed our Van for the past four years for a fraction of what it would have cost to buy a new purpose built van.
  A few weeks ago we went to a Camping and Caravaning show at the NEC in Birmingham courtesy of some free tickets we got from Sarah at Inspired camping . I had never been to a show like this before and it was quite an  eye opener as to the ingenious storage idea's designers build into their Campers. One idea that I really liked was the little Teardrop Caravans which could be towed behind the smallest of cars or the most underpowered of Campervans.

  In the four years since we built our Camper she has done us proud, but as with all things they need a bit of TLC now and again. So this spring we will be giving the interior units a bit of a makeover and then in the early summer the body work will be having a couple of panels replacing to keep the dreaded rust at bay.We view our van as a keeper and so spending money on her is seen as a long term investment as she has brought us so many happy memories over the last few years.

A Campervan Winter.....

Moments of Trembling....the MOT!

Its that time of year when my heart beats loudly my mouth goes dry and my fingernails get chewed off....Yes MOT time....  Indeed moments of trembling would be a fitting meaning of the MOT test when your poor old Campervan gets prodded and poked by an MOT tester with no sense of humour or willingness to be bribed.
  Though we all recognise the need for our vehicles to be tested once a year to ensure they are not mobile death traps, it is a nerve racking time for the owner of "older" vans. Why the trepidation I hear you ask ? Well usually this is the time we get a list of things that need fixing which means ££££ will be flying from your wallet.
 Now we've had our van for four years now but I always forget and get caught out with the MOTs This year was no exception as it was about to run out three days before Christmas (bad planning) and of course I left it to the last moment and you guessed it they couldn't fit it in... eeeek. So the vans MOT had expired and I couldn't drive it for two weeks until the garage reopened in the New Year. So this morning with sweaty palms I dropped the Camper off for her MOT.....FAIL...ahhhhh. Thankfully Steve and Les who do most of the work on my van felt pity on me and got her in straight away for the relative minor work and I will have her back tomorrow...phew.

If you go down to the Woods today......

 This summer has been a poor one for getting away in our van. Mainly due to the lousy weather and also by the fact the van was in the garage for 5 weeks having its gearbox being rebuilt.  So when we picked up the van last week I was itching to get away even for one night. Laura was taking Erin down to London at the weekend and the weather was set fair, so I decided to do a quick lads night away with my six yr old son Joel.
  After much head scratching as where to go, I decide on a spot just a few miles away in a woodland we'd been to before as a family. A few provisions were chucked in the van and off we set and since it was local we were there in less than 30 mins.. It was a lovely warm Autumn evening and it  didn't take long to make camp so we set off to hunt for blackberries near the lake. I kicked myself for not packing a fishing rod as the fish were biting.

  Our appetites were duly built ,so I rustled up some supper for me and Joel just as the sun was setting and shinning into our little clearing on the edge of the woods. Its funny how the mood of a woodland can change as darkness creeps into what had been lush canopy of green with pools of dappled sunlight.Once Joel was tucked up asleep in the Campervan I lit a fire to keep me company and cracked open a beer. I could see the stars through a clearing in the canopy of foliage and now and then a snap of a twig and a rustle in the undergrowth, as some creature scuttled by. At night I was glad of the campfire as my imagination played tricks on me with the dancing shadows all around.