Motorhome Madness with the Walters

 We woke up to heavy rain on Dame Shirls roof, so a lazy morning then. Ian made some nice boiled eggs for breakfast and we were just having a cuppa when David phoned. Andrew and his triathlon group were at that moment having a cuppa in the Swiss Farm Cafe. We put our raincoats on and popped down to say hello. After a little chat Andrew asked what we were doing for the day. A walk by the river was our reply. ‘You can walk down this side you know. There is a footpath to Hambleton Lock. Then cross over and back down the other side.’ Sounded perfect, but we had looked at the map and didn’t think there was a path down this side all the way. ‘Oh yes’ said Andrew, ‘you can walk through the grounds of the college.’  OK then.  Boiled Eggs We both showered, nice showers, not press button ones, then set off up our side of the river. It was raining as we left but it soon stopped and the sun came out. It was a really nice walk with no one else about. Leaving in The rain Across the mea...

 We had a lovely lie in at Kingsbury, it had been very quiet overnight, and after Ian had done all his pfaffing we had the customary Crossword Off. Bizarrely, and for the first time ever, we got exactly the same time, 7mins 32secs. I made porridge for breakfast and we sat outside, feeling it would maybe be the last time this year. The guy in the camper van next door came out to feed his dog, a lovely bouncy black lab, but he had the smallest food bowls. Our dogs would expire from hunger! Outdoor breakfast Look at those tiny dog bowls! There was also exciting news from yesterday’s blog. Chris and Alex had both identified the mushroom! Seems I could have had it on toast if I didn’t hate mushrooms so much. My edible mushroom Because we had only stayed one night there was very little to prepare for departure, although it was still around 11.30 before we waved goodbye to KWP, we do like to linger. The route to Henley was supposed to be only an hour and a half but we hit traffic straight...

One week after I returned from Orlando we were due to have a weekend in Devizes for Ian to run the 10k with Vicky. Sadly his weak hamstring had still not mended so he could not run. We still wanted to go down south to visit Heather and David so changed the booking. The first night would be at a dear old friend. Kingsbury water park Camping and Caravnning club site. We stayed here in 2022 for the Commonwealth Games when Vicky and I were volunteering.  Ian did half a days work while I walked the dogs then we had a trouble free journey down to Birmingham. Good old HS2 seemed to be in exactly the same state of readiness as it was in 2012. What a white elephant that is. I had booked a grass pitch, no electric, as the website said that was the only type left, but on arrival the site was half empty. The nice warden lead us over to our grass pitch, where a jamboree seemed to be going on with music, laughter, and even a basketball hoop. Not wanting to interfere with the young ones ‘pleasure...

 The big arm continued to throb all night, and some kind of bird woke me up at 3am making a right racket. I didn’t break the world record though, waking up before 8am. First job was to pick my fantasy football team for this season, I thought it would be a good idea to call it Notebook 11 (family joke). However, despite that name being a TM of mine Vicky had already used it. Hmph. I had to go with Hoofball11 in honour of RUFC.  Ian decided to have a go at charging his car from Dame Shirley, allowed at all CMC sites, and it worked pretty well. We had to sit around the other side for breakfast, facing the woods. That was lovely too. Charging the car We left around noon, just before throwing out time and stopped once again at Bolton, where we once again ran into Piers and Halin! Fancy. We arrived home at teatime after having had another fab outing in Dame Shirley