Knowing that we were going to embark on a second year in the motorhome made us think about what we would do differently and I can happily say that we actually didn’t change that much….
– New spice tubs, which are actually now phase 2 baby food containers for the freezer… thanks to Claire H for the inspiration… saves on weight and they are so much easier to get to!
– Second leisure battery …. we decided against additional solar panels, but we did have an extra battery fitted to help on those short dark days…. dull, dull, dull
– A few less items of clothing …. if that is actually possible, although somehow I appear to have increased the number of pairs of trainers that I have from 2 to 3 on top of the tennis shoes…
– oh and I do now have an iPad…… I blame my brother for encouraging me down the slippery Apple slope even further, and I am incredibly grateful to my parents and brother for the present as it makes my photos look even better 🙂

Apart from that, we had either already managed to change our approach whilst we were away last year…. or it is all pretty much the same – can’t be bad 🙂

My last blog was a little short and missed some of the detail of the last week or so in the UK as we were on the ferry and the crossing between Dover and Calais loses UK phone coverage pretty quickly. I am pleased to say however, after the last trip where I lacked in border crossings I have set the bar and already taken France/England and it looks like I am going to get France/Spain as well ….little things are so important!

I am sure many of you are wondering what Calais was like and whether we saw any problems. It did feel like we were driving through a prison camp as we left the port, with two barbed wire fences surrounding the Port and a camp about 500m outside of it, but we didn’t see any trouble at all, it was in fact quite peaceful.

After getting out of Calais we drove for a couple of hours arriving at St Valery Sur Somme which was the place I went to on my French exchange week twenty eight years ago. We stopped for two nights at our first Aire (Rue de la Croix l’Abbe -GPS n50.18220 e1.62881 – 10 euros for 24 hours) and had a lovely wander around the town and also a cycle along the canal all the way to Abbeville.

The weather was on the turn and we were forecasted a few days of heavy rain and wind, so we have decided to get some miles in and try and push through to find some sunshine. So, after a lovely run along the canal, we moved on from St Valery Sur Somme and headed to Orleans (La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, Chemin de Fourneaux – GPS n47.88550 e1.83990 – 5 euros for 24 hours with electricity).

Continuing our journey further south, we stopped for the night at Donzenac, a pretty little medieval village and we managed to park on the Aire which is just outside a campsite on the edge of the village (Rue de la Riviere – GPS n45.21897, e1.51829 – FOC for 24 hours)

Making a slight detour – possibly more than most people would have done due to our Sat Nav wanting to take us cross country – we stopped for a night with Anton and Rosette – Anton being my second cousin – who live about 4km from Laveur (North East of Toulouse). It is a very pretty part of the world with lots of vineyards and soft rolling hills around the river Tarn. Despite our lack of advanced warning, Anton very kindly gave us the abridged tour of the area and we even had some delicious Apple, Almond and honey cake left over from Rosh Hashana….. we will be back for more 🙂

After leaving Anton and Rosette to go and buy a motorhome (only joking….) we took the scenic route to spend a few nights just outside Carcassonne, a place we have looked over at from the motorway many a time but never actually visited. We opted for a campsite (A l’ombre des micocouliers – 12 euros a night with ACSI) which is about 13km outside Carcassonne on the Midi Canal, as there isn’t an Aire with services and we planned to stay a few days to take in the local area and get out on the bikes a bit.

Our strategy worked and we have left the storms and torrential rain behind us, only arriving into a bit of a heatwave although after a meander through town to find a nice local butcher we settled in for the night and were lulled to sleep with the tap tap tap of rain on the roof.
We woke to strong winds on Thursday morning, but despite the grey skies it didn’t actually rain and the rest of the day provided blue skies and sunshine, albeit being a little on the windy side, leaving us to do a 64km cycle ride along the midi canal which is very peaceful and scenic, if not a little bumpy in places.

With the grey clouds closing in on us again (although as the wind is so strong they were blown away by the time we woke this morning), we decided to cross the border into Spain this morning, leaving France behind us until 2016, having stocked up on plenty of Brie, Goats cheese, Taramaslata and Barley ….. we watched the grapes being harvested for yet another years wine and headed to the coast.

Having spent another couple of lovely weeks cathing up with friends and family we are finally sitting on the ferry about to head to Calais.

During just under three months in the UK we have managed to get in a fair quantity of curries, fish and chips, Jacket potatoes, roast dinners and we even managed to squeeze in some mince pies ….. how good is that?

We are now fully prepared to delve back into the wonders of Europe, although no cheese is going to be able to compete with the Camembert that we have just finished ….. I think it may have been brought over from France 3 months ago 😦

So, year two starts today and the current plan is to stay in Spain and Portugal until the weather starts warming up and then head to Eastern Europe and up into Scandanavia…… watch this space for updates and a new map to follow us around and see how far we actually make it this time!

Leaving Cambridge we chugged our way along the A14 to Melton Mowbray known as the ‘Rural Capital of Food’ …. not quite sure where the capital of food is but that’ll be another trip and we may need to plan slightly longer to make the most of it 🙂

Being a good jewish girl (ahem) I hadn’t ever heard Melton Mowbray or its infamous Pork Pie reputation before, however Keith had, and when we decided to visit this part of the country, he ensured that we scheduled a stop here to try and check out some of its Pork Pies.

We had booked ourselves in at ‘The Grange Nursery and Farm shop’ (£15 per night without electricity) which is roughly 2 miles outside Melton Mowbray situated on top of a hill looking out onto the beautiful Leicestershire countryside.

On a quest to find something for dinner and with the farm shop closed on Mondays, our quick trip into town found us at a sausage shop situated alongside ‘Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe’ which provided ample produce for our bar b q 🙂 Returning to the motorhome we were surprised to see a brown paper bag hanging from the door …. inside were two huge fruit scones from the cafe – we are starting to understand why it is called the rural capital of food!

We have been pretty lucky over the last week with market day and again appear to have fallen on our feet as Tuesday was not only the normal market day, but also the animal auctions…. something you don’t get to see every day.

The two areas of market are separated and both were thriving. I was a little concerned about the proximity of the sausage and bacon butties, pork pies and stilton stalls to the pigs, cows, sheep, goats and chickens…. seemed a bit cruel to me, perhaps they just wanted to highlight the ‘freshness of the produce’. Needless to say it all looked and smelt fantastic – well worth a visit if you are in the area on a Tuesday.

Lacking in local knowledge (this really is making me sound a bit dim….), I also hadn’t appreciated that Stilton originates from here (although before you say it, something in the name of ‘Red Leicester’ gave it away) …. both of which provided interesting (and rather tasty) combinations on top of a pork pie.

With so much choice on the pork pie front, we gave in and decided to try two different types, one pure and simple packed with meat, and as we had bought quite a lot of stilton, we opted for the ‘Ploughmans’ which was with Red Leicester and Chutney on top …. a kilo between them…

Not something that I was brought up with, and having tried the odd ‘poor relative’ to the pork pie I was a little apprehensive, but I admit to having been very pleasantly surprised and would go back for seconds. Needless to say, the ‘purist’ pork pie definitely had the edge over the ‘Ploughmans’ ….. keep it simple and it will always end in happiness 🙂

Despite the rain falling most of the night we woke to beautiful sunshine, so after a rather hilly run, we set off on a walk through some of the Leicestershire countryside guided by the very large yellow topped signposts….. it really would have been quite difficult to get lost.

Melton Mowbrey’d out – although there would definitely have been space for some more scones – we meandered our way the 25 miles over to Thornton to our next CL which was at Thornton Nurseries (£15 per night). Thornton Nurseries pretty much sits on Thornton Reservoir, on the edge of Thornton which for its tiny population still manages to support three pubs and is a bit of a hub for walking and cycling.

This part of Leicestershire used to be full of coal mines dating back to 1274.  Unfortunately, all bar one are now closed apparently, with the last three closing in the 1990’s, however they have invested in the area by creating the National Forest (planting a lot of trees), creating cycle routes, bridleways and walking routes to bring people to the area. We did a couple of circular walks near to Thornton which were really nice as they had very varied scenary, and then headed out on the bikes for a couple of hours doing a 25 mile round trip taking in a bit more of the ex-mining countryside.

With the sunshine on our side, the friends we stayed with near Lutterworth (James, Gail, Jack and Amy) came over and took us out to Bradgate Park on Saturday to see one of Leicestershires’ treasures.

We parked up near to the highest point (Old John Folly) and walked over to the village to get a late morning coffee and snack (the cakes were incredible). We then headed to the river to do some paddling (Jack and Amy at least) stopping to admire some of the beautiful deer which were taking in a few a rays,

before a walk to Lady Jane Greys’ (the nine day queen) birthplace and residence before heading back to the car, pub and home…. what a great place and a lovely day.

The last stop before home was just outside Buckingham (Rectory Farm £12 per night) The forecast was set for rain and it started as we arrived although ended up being more gentle on us than we had expected.  The farm was set on a hill in a very peaceful location, however as we were planning on heading back to Lane End on Tuesday and it was forecasted to rain all day Monday, we decided to cut our losses and only stay one night instead of two.  We did however manage to have a lovely pub dinner with Keith’s mum, Aunt Pat, Keith and cousin Christine who live close by before moving on 🙂

We left the house in Bagnoles de l’Orne, France on the 16th August 2014 which means I am due an update on distances we have travelled and it slipped my mind yesterday….. apologies.

The totals up to (and including) the 15th August are as follows:

Driving 11,810 miles

Walking and cycling 5285 km

Running…. not sure we were counting this, but I thought I would add it in anyway 1290km

The guesses that we had were

So, I am afraid to say that the closest guess was actually me with 5200km….and I can assure you that I wouldn’t have planned an early trip home

My prize however, is apparently another year in the motorhome with Keith …… don’t worry, I feel a bit short changed too, perhaps we can try again for next year!

You probably already know this but as I always like to get a little bit of ‘knowledge’ into my blog …..the ‘Fens’ – or ‘Fenland’ – is a term for marshland (or former marshland), which is a little harsh when it takes in most of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and a bit of Suffolk – but it is pretty flat (and low.. which I think is more to the point) up here in comparison to some of the areas of the UK,  it is however still very pretty.

Having spent quite a bit of time with friends and family over the last few weeks, we planned in a bit of exploring on our own and have headed to Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to see a bit more of our beautiful countryside.

First stop was Bury St Edmunds, where oddly my dad has held his Bank Account for longer than I can remember, so we did come here occasionally when I was younger, but apart from it being a market town, I remember very little about it. The CL (Lark Valley £14 per night) is just over 5 miles outside Bury St Edmunds in a little village called Flempton which has a church, a pub, several farms and is very tranquil.

After a good nights sleep we set off on foot into Bury for a look around the market, the Abbey (ruins), the Cathedral and the Abbey gardens….all rather pleasant, although as several people pointed out we do appear to have missed britains’ smallest pub which is a little careless of us 😦

Thursday was forecast to be a bit grim, so rather than venturing out on the bikes (I still don’t have any mudguards and a wet bum is not very pleasant), we set off on foot again and headed towards the Saxon village and nature park whilst also trying to find somewhere with wifi as the coverage is appalling round here…. who would have thought that we would struggle more in the UK to get decent coverage than we did abroad?

With ducks in tow (or maybe that should be toe…. as they seemed to quite fancy one of mine for breakfast on Friday) we moved on to Cambridge, stopping at Birds Farm (£10 per night) which is about 4 miles out of Cambridge on a cycle path.

Keith hadn’t ever been to Cambridge and my last visit was when I was 17, so we were looking forward to exploring and managed to arrange for my parents and brother and family to come and join us which worked out really well.

Despite the weather forecast we actually only had drizzle on Friday with the rest of the weekend being dry and mostly sunny enabling us to enjoy the college gardens and parks

as well as managing to get some shopping done, taking in several coffee shops and a couple of good restaurants…. all in all a lovely weekend.

Thanks to Farah, we even managed to get into Kings College to have a look round the chapel and gardens which were pretty incredible……

I am sure that we will be back to explore a bit further a field on the bikes at some point.

After a run along the Bristol Bath cycle track (me) and a bit of Tabata exercise (Keith) we quickly demolished our breakfast, packed up and set off cross country to the M5 on a surprisingly good journey down to Helston, Cornwall.

The sun was shining (it has been very on/off this week) and thankfully the cars were moving as the journey took just under 5 hours with a quick lunch stop. The only slow part was the last 10 miles where we drove past the air base and they were kindly putting on an Airshow to celebrate our arrival (ahem… ok perhaps not).

The CL site (Skewes Farm, £12.50 per night) is about 5 miles outside Helston and apart from the planes (and the odd Cow moo-ing – it is a cattle farm) it was pretty quiet and suited the purpose for a couple of nights. Unfortunately it had a very large apple tree leaning over the driveway and I have now scarred Mika for life…. and am not being allowed to forget it 😦

On Friday morning, as the sun was shining we decided to go for a walk which took us onto the south west coastal path and whatever anyone says you really can’t beat the Cornish coast for beauty….

We have travelled 10,000 miles through France, Spain, Portugal and Italy and I still don’t think we have come across better views …. although we were lucky with the weather and found a rather lovely spot to eat lunch looking out over Mullion Cove….

Tranquility over, Saturday was ‘moving day’ as the Anderson / Parker family were descending on Cornwall to get settled ahead of the forthcoming wedding. So, after a quick run, a necessary stop at Sainsbury’s we wiggled our way down a very narrow road (so glad we didn’t meet anyone coming the other way) to get to Polpidnick Farm where Angie and David had very kindly offered to let us park up the motorhome as Paul & Carly (the couple to be….) and some of the wedding party were staying in the cottages there.

With the normal changeover traffic, Cornwall enforced some slightly horrific travel times on a few, but the early birds (those who really did leave at ridiculous hours) made record time arriving just before 9:30am, and others (who also left at ridiculous hours of the morning – albeit coming slightly further from Hull) took 12+ hours not getting to us until late afternoon….. thankfully a bit of good food and a few glasses of something strong soon lowered stress levels 🙂

In between the eating, drinking and catching up with family, Keith and I managed to get a couple of walks in, one over to Helford Passage (stopping off briefly at the pub which was pretty nice) and another over to meet some friends (Sarah, Rich Wesley and kids) who just so happened to be staying in Coverack (also to the pub oddly…. it was raining – a lot)

The wedding was on Tuesday and someone up above managed to influence the weather as it was beautiful. Despite the forecast predicting gale force winds and torrential rain, it actually managed to clear and provide us with some blue skies and sunshine so the ceremony could be held outside….

The hotel sat just above St Ives and had the most beautiful grounds… so I think the photos the photographer took will be beautiful, but here are a few of mine to set the scene 🙂

After the hangover and tiredness subsided it was time for us to move on and head out of Cornwall in an attempt to beat the rush and get back towards London to catch up with the Becker family and a few friends in London.

After arriving back at my parents on Thursday we then spent the weekend catching up with some really good old friends – Friday in North London with Jonah, Karen and the kids, Saturday lunch with Gary and Aimee and kids (Chloe’s 2nd birthday …. what a great swing), Saturday late afternoon and evening with Keith’s school friends in Windsor and then back over to Richmond on Sunday to see Richard (Gonzo).

Needless to say, having weighed ourselves and confirmed how we feel is reflected in reality we are now ready for a bit of a detox after the last seven weeks in the UK….. perhaps we can get a few days in before we meet up with parents and brother on Friday 🙂

With only a quick hop from Chipping Sodbury to Bath we navigated our way through the windy back roads and parked up in our next CL (Penn Hill CL £13 per night) which is a small holding roughly 2 miles outside Bath city center, perfectly located for us and incredibly tranquil.

We had previously bought sacks of potatoes from here when we used to live in Bath as in addition to having the small campsite, they also sell seasonal fruit, vegetables and eggs….what more (apart from possibly some nice bacon and a few sausages) could we ask for?

With a busy week ahead we set off to get the important ‘chores’ out the way….. shopping and washing …..before setting off across Bath and up the other side to start off a week of catching up with friends for dinner, lunch, coffee …. oh and a few glasses of wine and pints of beer 🙂

Against our natural way, but out of necessity, we even went into Bath to get some much required clothes shopping in on Saturday …….. can’t beat a British outdoors shop for waterproofs and fleeces – although we did bow our heads out of respect whilst walking past Itchy Feet …… Bath is not quite the same without it!

But here we are six days, a lot of walking, a huge amount of tasty food (including a couple of fish and chips and three curries – not complaining at all), several pints of bitter and a number of glasses of wine later and we are due to move on again tomorrow….. where did the time go?

We managed to pop in and see our old house briefly tonight and are pleased that we decided not to sell …. it is as lovely as ever and the gooseberries, apples and rhubarb are still growing …. I can see my future – albeit a little way off still – in fruit crumbles and pie 🙂

So just under five weeks after arriving back in the UK we are back on the road again. After a bit of too-ing and fro-ing, my dad started Radiotherapy last Wednesday, finishing yesterday, now we will just have to sit and wait for 6-8 weeks until we get another scan to see if the radiotherapy has worked its wonders, or if a second blast is required. He is however in good form and as fit and healthy as he could be to tackle this head on…. and mum is sprinting up (and down) the stairs and able to drive again now, so my duties as Chauffeur are no longer required!

Leaving Lane End in Buckinghamshire, we headed North to a little village in Leicestershire just outside Lutterworth where we where we parked up on James, Gail, Amy and Jack’s driveway…. I think their sub-conscience (and love for motorhomes) must have been working overtime when they had the renovation work carried out on the house as the motorhome fitted perfectly…. and it was fairly flat 🙂

What a lovely area for walking and cycling … not to mention the beautifully extended house, we definitely have a bit of garden envy – chickens, beautifully cultivated ‘wild’ flowers and a great veggie patch 🙂

It only feels like yesterday when we last saw them, just a shame that we had to move on so quickly due to our busy schedule!!!! So, dragging our feet (we were waiting for the chickens to lay some eggs really), we got back on the M1 and headed to Hull where we just made it to our first Caravan Club Certified Location (CL) site (Tony Cook Garden Center/ Willow Lodge, £12 per night) before it closed.

A couple of months ago we took the decision to join the Caravan Club so we could get access to the smaller sites (maximum 5 motorhomes or caravans) around the UK while we are back over the summer … and if the first site is anything to go by, we will save a fortune and be parked in some very tranquil locations rather than large campsites heaving at the seams with people on their summer holidays.

Why Hull? I hear you ask…. good question, I can’t help but feel that I have spent more than my fair share of time here with the various jobs I have had over the years, but I do still have an odd ‘attraction’ to it, although we were actually up here to celebrate Keith’s mum’s 70th Birthday 🙂

Co-ordinated and booked a long time ago with the Anderson family as a surprise, somehow Paul and Carly (Keith’s brother and Fiancee) managed to lure her up here from Windsor to help pack up the final pieces before they move back down south. It all went smoothly and she was suitably surprised, plied with cocktails and rather a lot of cake……

The CL was fairly new, nicely maintained, next to a pub and had the added bonus of being situated on the Trans-pennine cycle path providing excellent running terrain and also enabling us to walk into Hull to Keith’s brothers on Sunday – a great way to get back into walking with a 27km round trip 🙂

As phone and internet coverage has been so bad (who would have thought it being back in civilisation ….. this is worse than Italy 🙂 ) the blog has taken slightly longer than planned to publish, so after leaving Hull we headed to the Peak District stopping 5 miles from Buxton on another Caravan Club CL (Newhaven Lodge Farm, Hartington £13 per night). This site is slightly different to the site in Hull as this one could really only be described as a field, but it also has access to a cycle path and beautiful views over the rolling hills (although you can definitely hear the A515 in the background).

Despite being a bit grey and wet, we managed to take advantage of the dry patches and walk one direction on the High Peak Trail on Monday, and cycled over to Ashbourne on the Tissington Trail on Tuesday … passing close to Parwich Village for those who have fond memories of weekends away there courtesy of the Carter family 🙂

So, with a slight change of plan I flew back to the UK last Saturday leaving Keith to enjoy Lake Garda (although he didn’t actually get a chance to see it) for a night before driving the motorhome home through Italy, France, Luxemburg and Belgium before briefly popping back into France to reach Dunkirk.

As some of you will know my father was treated for Lung Cancer last year and despite an amazing recovery and the ‘all clear’ from the consultant two weeks ago, he was admitted back into hospital last Friday night. Several scans later we have been told that he has four lesions on the brain that are cancerous, thankfully it sounds like the lesions are small and they believe that they can treat them with radiotherapy but we are waiting for confirmation of the next steps.

So, I am afraid that the blog is going to have a little down time over the next few weeks whilst Keith and I play chauffeur (My mum has just had a hip operation and can’t drive either), dog walker and general ‘daughter’ and ‘Son-in-law’….

We arrived at the Aire in Perugia just as the market alongside it was finishing so it looked a little like a war had just taken place but thankfully, it soon quietened down and got cleared up! The Aire ‘Il Bove’ (18 euros/24 hours inc elec.) was clean and tidy with all the facilities (including a shower and toilets) but it was next to a fairly busy main road – quite a change from the last few nights of tranquility. As Richard (Gonzo) wasn’t arriving until Sunday we took the chance to catch up with the laundry and shopping ahead of heading in to meeting him on Sunday lunch time and spent the next few days exploring the city both from a historic and gastronomic perspective 🙂

Perugia is known for its chocolate, but as it was far too warm to eat chocolate in its standard form we opted for the ‘gelato’ …. mixing a bit of Chocolate (white, milk and even dark on occasions) with pistachio and on the last day Keith even found a Liquorice flavour….. they were all delicious. We have managed to turn someone who doesn’t have a sweet tooth into a fully fledged Ice-cream eater, on the last day Keith and Richard managed to polish off 24 spatula’s worth between them…. must be some kind of record – oh and I should probably add that the majority of those were after they ate 1.5kg of florentine steak between them 🙂

Moving on from Perugia – well we didn’t want to eat them out of house and home – we made a quick pit stop at a motorhome place as the taps in the bathroom stopped working before working our way through the mountains to San Marino.

‘E7 Caravans’ was roughly 10km south of Perugia and despite it being close to lunch, they pulled the necessary pieces apart, realised that it wasn’t what we originally thought (which was lucky as the parts they had didn’t fit anyway), did a bit of soldering and we were on the road again within the hour…… amazingly helpful, dropping everything to fit us in.

Fully fixed we hit the road and the journey across the mountains to San Marino was stunning, at some points looking down onto lakes, others at stunning rock formations or forest rolling away down into the valley, although a long windy road, well worth the trip.

We arrived at P13 – yes that was its name – where we parked up a couple of hundred meters below San Marino town itself and settled in for the evening looking out over the valley and mountains beyond.

We woke to bird song and beautiful (although a little hazy) views, and after breakfast headed up to have a look round the town of San Marino. San Marino is an interesting place, not part of the EU, but allowed to use the Euro as its currency, it is the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitution republic in the world, has a population of approximately 32,000 and although you wouldn’t think it whilst there, is one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of GDP. The capital (also called San Marino) sits at 760m and the historic center, which is beautiful contains a castle and three three separate towers

in addition to perfume shops, jewellery and arms shops ….. yep, machine guns, pistols, knives, swords, tasers – you name it, they have them – obviously this is where you come should you want to buy any kind of weapon you want as the licensing laws are non existent, and as there are no borders to get back into the rest of the EU …. what more can I say???  It was a lovely place anyway and well worth the visit.

After another very peaceful night we travelled all of 16km back down to the coast to Rimini (Area Settebello 10 euros / 24hrs) where we walked along the coast and around the old town in the hot and humid 30 degrees it had to offer us.  Rimini has miles and miles of beach, where every 30m or so a different cafe/bar/restaurant/lido promotes its private beach,  the only difference appearing to be the colour of the sun loungers and parasols – not our cup of tea, but the town itself was attractive ….. ok and yes, it had a good gelato shop 🙂