Happy Birthday to Meeeee!!!

Yesterday we had new neighbours for the night; a huge 34’ dark grey Winnebago Journey pulled up alongside it was a very impressive machine. Later Kay and I went over to introduce ourselves and spent an enjoyable evening in the company of Jackie, Brian and their daughter Amy who originated from the Isle of Man. They had just returned from the meet at Drayton Manor, where they had stayed for the weekend with other RV’ers attending the NEC Caravan and Boat show.

Winne Similar to this

It transpired that the couple (Harry & Doris) who were here a few days ago on the next pitch. Were also their neighbours at the meet (it’s a small world). Brian gave me plenty of advice on RV’ing, this being their second machine, from water pumps and chargers to straps to secure the awning handles. We were sorry to see them go this morning and hope to repay their hospitality sometime in the future.

Ohh Hooray!!!!!Hmph!

It’s now my 63^rd birthday, only two more years to go to get my state pension, that’s if the government doesn’t go bankrupt in the meantime (Victor Meldrew).
 My birthday started off with the usual RV day chores, empty the waste tanks and refill with fresh water (Oh Bliss). Then to open my cards, one from my eldest daughter a card hinting that I’m the world’s greatest farter and one from my grandson with the comment Happy birthday stupid Bampi!!! (Hmmmm I’ll have to have a word with that lad.)

The Soup Kitchen

At lunchtime we had a visit from my sister Win and her husband Mike who took us out to the Soup Kitchen in Stafford for lunch. We would have had the meal at the Bell Inn in Haughton, but like Solomon Grundy they were not open on a Monday.  So it’s back to the RV, we would have liked to walk the village but the weather is looking a tad overcast and for some reason the willingness to venture out again has gone.

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Last Week at Red Lion.......

This is the start of our last week at Red Lion Farm before we move on next Sunday to Oswestry's Camping and Caravan Club for the next two weeks.
We've booked our RV in at Signature during the week for the Slide out's to be inspected and re-set so if anyone is paying us a visit please give us a call first just in case we're off site for the day.
The Caravan holiday crowd are starting to hook up in the showery rain to depart back to their 9 till 5 existence's and now the wind has picked up in strength so we don't envy the box luggers their journeys back while we sit here in the warm and dry with feet up watching the TV.
Brian the guy who is ordering in our new tyres from the States has emailed me to let me know that he hopes they will arrive during our stay at the C&CC site which was one of the main reasons for heading out that way.

There are so many things I have to learn about this machine and I wounder each day what will be the next. Simple things like the dash radio, being an American machine I found it was set to the USA mode which has different ratio settings to Europe, this has now been re-set to European mode, now who'd have though that you would need to check for that?
Gradually the RV is starting to feel like home as some of our nick-knacks are finding permanent residence around the walls and shelves.  We are still having some issues with the condensation but we have found that it's part and parcel of RV'ing as the big front glass driving window will always cause that problem.

We are looking forward to seeing new horizons next week though though I think we will re-visit the Red Lion Farm again in the future as it is very convenient for visiting family and friends and of course Signature for any repairs and MOT's.

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NEC….The Caravan and Boat show

This morning we got up with the lark and set off for the NEC in Birmingham, it was a reasonable trip down the motorway deciding to use the M6 toll road wishing to avoid any delays which proved to be a wise choice.

The NEC is a massive venue with five halls full of caravans, boats, motor homes and accessory stands. 

show

Boats galore

We spent all day browsing through most of the accessory stands trying to complete a shopping list of items we had made the day before. Unfortunately most of the items we wanted were not there, so we will have to wait for the next show, preferably one that deals specifically with RV’s. With the thousands of people there we did latterly bump into two old friends from the Lancer Caravan Club, Mick & Christine Wood.

Yesterday we discovered a problem with the bedroom slide out, I noticed that the slide out didn’t go fully out when extended; it left a one inch gap all the way round. I found the problem fairy quickly, the previous owners children had left two tennis balls rolling around under the beds frame and these had become jammed between the RV’s side wall and the slide out.

I managed to retrieve the balls, but now the slide out will not fully extend to close flush with the wall. I think there is a clutch mechanism that has been disrupted by the presence of the balls, so it looks as if we will have to pay Signature another visit to get it re-set.

Well we can kill two birds with one stone, as we were due to have a bike rack fitted by Signature and as they are not too far away we can pop down to them and have those jobs done and re-top up with LPG at the same time.

I have now managed to get nearly all the lights inside the RV changed to LED’s, this will help when we go off electric hook up (EHU) or wild camping as some call it in the future, as these lights use only one tenth of the power filament bulbs use and so extend the length of time we can survive off battery power. I now have only eight more bulbs to change to go completely over to Led’s.

Led

 Tonight as we sit in the RV the rain is pounding the roof we will keep our fingers crossed that it dries out as we could do with more mild dry weather like yesterday as there are a few little jobs I want to get done around the RV.

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Dohh…..Homer Simpson and calories

Well we are still novices at this RV thing but thankfully there are people out there who can help.

This morning just before they were about to leave in their RV for the NEC, Harry who goes under the handle of Gofer on the forums gave my RV the once over. Straight away he spotted something wrong (we were complaining that one of the internal trays in the fridge seemed to soak the food from a hole in the tray) he discovered that we not only had a tray the wrong way round but that the drain hole, which we didn’t even realize was a drain hole, was not lined up with the small drain chute at the rear (which we also hadn’t spotted).

He then showed me that in the outside vent compartment of the fridge was a small hose that he advised was best left to run through one of the vents to drain the water away from the RV and not to be left tied up inside where it could cause possible rust damage (so one problem solved.)

Problem two, in the bedroom is a roof extractor with a vent that automatically closes when rain comes down. Now I knew it worked but for the life of me I couldn’t remember how. And as I showed this to Harry I turned a knob thinking it was something to do with heat or temperature control and the whole thing suddenly burst into life. Dohh…. Homer Simpson time, it was part of the rain sensor and it was set too high.

No doubt there will be other things wrong that can be remedied by simply getting some friendly help like how do you drop the huge awning and rewind it? 

After the weekly food shop at Tesco’s and to refill the toad after yesterdays jaunt, we popped back to store the vitals away and decided that a quick visit to the tea rooms was needed.

This farm makes some gorgeous ice cream so today after a small lunch of baked potato and tea, Kay decided that the Christmas pudding flavoured ice cream was too much to resist. So armed with a large tub of the stuff we headed back to the RV where Kay warmed up some of the farms homemade Brambly Apple Pie and topped it off with Christmas pudding flavoured Ice cream.

Note to Kay’s Sliming World friends her diet is failing miserably……… and my trouser waist band is shrinking.

Things to do……visit Stafford Castle, we’ve passed this monument many times on the M6 but have never visited it and the walk will help burn up some calories. The National Arboretum to pay our respects to the lads and to visit some old friends, so plenty to do yet before we depart.

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A Day of Interesting Places and new people

Part of our journey plan was to see more of our green and pleasant land, well today we did just that, and without having to travel too far from home base.

We are situated near the village of Haughton which is just a few miles outside of the town of Stafford.

So we decided to take the Toyota IQ (our toad) out for a spin around the country lanes which was a bad idea as you really need a 4X4 on these country lanes. As well as being narrow these lanes tend to be the realm of agricultural tractors which leave loads of muck and debris all over the place.

Our silver coloured IQ soon took on a new shade of mucky brown, with tons of unmentionables plastered all over the wheels.

But the journey was well worth it, as we passed through the small hamlets of High Onn, Church Eaton, Great Chatwell, Weston Heath, Wheaton Aston, Brineton and Stretton to name a few.

The area is full of big farm estates, small holdings and quaint cottages with some very interesting and stunning looking buildings like the Old Rectory just outside of Church Eaton a grade II listed structure, which is a gem.

We eventually ended up on the A5 (Wattling Street) an old roman road that runs as straight as an arrow (those Romans really knew how to build roads).

Soon it was time for lunch and we had a short respite at the Dobbies Garden Centre just off the Gailey roundabout where the A5 meets the A449.

We popped into a couple of CL sites to check them out, one being the Dunston Heath Farm just off the A449 at Dunston. Sadly it was far too small and there were no hard standings for an RV. The other site we found by accident as we passed it on the A5. This was Homestead Farm at Stretton, now this could be one for the future, small but with one pitch that was big enough for an RV and it had a hard standing.

Then it was back to our home base where both the IQ and the RV had a good clean down.

We’ve had a new arrival on site today, another big American RV a 34’ Damon Daybreak which is here for the night before going on to join the rally at the Caravan and Boat show at the NEC.

The owners are a nice couple from Cumbria who popped in for a cup of tea and a chat, which gave me the chance to pick their brains on the workings of RV’s.

I must mention also that alongside us in a very nice Bailey Unicorn Caravan are another nice couple with whom we've spent an enjoyable evening the other night gossiping over a few glasses of wine and hopefully we will do again, well that’s the idea of this lifestyle, to see new places and to meet new and interesting people.

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Getting to know the RV.......

It's been a very busy few days since our last post. We've had my brother Ken and his wife, my youngest sister Win and her husband both visit us on Wednesday and Thursday. Then on Friday night Samantha our eldest daughter came up from Wales to stay two nights with the grandson.
So it has been an interesting time explaining how things work and all wanted to know how we were surviving in our new abode.

Rhys in the driving seat

On Friday night we started to panic as our eldest and grandson were very late turning up. Eventually after wandering all over Birmingham, they discovered that Sat Nav's should be listened too with an open mind and that a backup with a road map is essential.

Rhys & Bamps

Ohh Chocolate

We all visited Cadbury's world in Birmingham on Saturday, getting there was not too stressful but finding our way out again well let's say that this time I fell foul of the dreaded Sat Nav's idiosyncratic behavior. The Grandson loved the day out saying that all his dreams had come true (at first) and then afterwards saying he never wanted to see chocolate ever again... it lasted eight hours!!!!

This week electric has been a bit of a hit and miss on the site for some reason, our first week everything worked fine then the main plug board (where we are connected to the site) kept tripping, no matter what we switched off.
Was it the kettle ? was it the Microwave? was it the electric blow air heater? We switched each one off then back on to test, we finally came to the solution that either we're on  10amp socket rather than a 16amp or that with all the extra weekend campers now on site that the whole system here is under stress as we've found out that others campers are suffering from this problem as well.

The new showers are progressing so lets hope they are finished soon as one shower which also contains the only toilet is totally inadequate for the site.

We are getting plenty of experience in moving the RV to the Dump point (Waste dump) to connect the mascerator and dump the waste then back up to connect the fresh water and fill up the 56 Gallon tank.

One interesting point to mention for all those who use macerators is that it's imperative that you and your other half get signals organised beforehand.
It was a bit of a shock when sticking the open end down the sewer, Kay decided to turn on the switch and Poo shot out of the damn thing at a rate of knots. So standing there with unmentionable bits of chewed up Poo and toilet paper doesn't look or smell good on corduroy trousers.

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We're still alive..........just

Day 6
The weather hasn't been that good, but we realize that you have to take the bad with the good and soldier on. We did have one catastrophe yesterday... while working on the laptop a cup of tea (My Fault) tipped and you guessed it, it flooded the laptops keyboard.

Panic..... I quickly upended the Laptop hoping to drain out the tea and liberally sprayed WD40 into the keys and then got the air dryer working to try and dry out the unit.

I then stripped the back off it to make sure no tea had got into the electrics. Luckily it looked dry. Still the keyboard was a mess and nothing would work so I left it for the night.
This morning I've got it to work (in a fashion) as I'm typing on it now via a Usb connected Keyboard though now and then the number 7 keeps popping up for some strange reason?

Caravans and motor homes are coming and going on the site though its never more than half full so today we had a hotpot and tea with cake at the Tea rooms and then went site hunting.

We popped up the A41 towards Market Drayton to visit the Wharf Caravan Park Nr Goldstone but found that once off the A41 the roads became very narrow with a very nasty hump back bridge over the canal just before the site that we could possibly ground on. The sites pitches although hard standing where mostly too short for the RV and the showers & toilets were across the road behind the Pub.

Then we backtracked down the A41 to a CL site called Canal side Park Nr Shebdon but this was far too small with only four hard standings, none of which would hold our RV and their was no electric hookups or showers the toilet being a tin box.
So it was back to the RV for while, still we are seeing a bit of the locality.

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Wet Wet Wet.......and visitors.

What a day! pouring with rain from dawn to dusk without a break......we should have had a boat.

rain rain and rain

We're hoping that a gent with a Senator double axle caravan would be vacating his pitch today but sadly there's no sign of him shifting.


Why is this important? well the site owner has created a pitch just for motor homes in particular big enough for an American RV and he has installed the Elson point for waste and the water tap so that they are within easy reach of the RV's waste and water hoses.
The owner has advised us that as soon as he moves... make a dash for the pitch. we hope that he goes soon as our waste tanks are filling fast must be all these pub meals.

Spud and Jeanette (an old army colleague and his wife) paid us a very welcome visit and helped us to pass time reminiscing about or army days.
It is nice to see some of the Lancer Caravan Club as our initial meet was last year at the Lucksall Caravan site in much sunnier weather.

Later we had a visit from my nephew Niel and his new partner Jutta who had some fun trying to find the site using their Sat Nav which needless to say it sent them all over the place, still he knows where we are now so hopefully we will have more visits.

Kay made a dash through the rain to put some washing into the communal washing machine and was pleasantly surprised at the low cost, this site may not have all the whistle and bells of a Caravan Club site but the value for money is far better.

Heres hoping the weather brightens up and that the caravan opposite move's or he's going to have a large RV blocking his exit with a long yellow hose pumping gallons of Poo into the Elson point right next to him.

Pheew

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Day Three.......

Things are gradually falling into place, several black bin bags of unwanted items have now been dumped and storage is finally getting more organised.
Condensation though is still a problem... we may have to invest in a small dehumidifier our body heat is no doubt the problem.
We visited the farm shop this morning and filled a bag of goodies for later, then it was back to the RV to finish off some more organizing.
Deciding we needed some exercise we stretched our legs for a short walk down into the village. Its a friendly little place with some historic looking houses with an old church and of course the village pub called Bell Inn. Kay took one look at the menu on offer and in we went for lunch.

St Giles

The Bell Inn

Pub Food

Inside the Inn

So much for the diet.... the food was first class and I would readily recommend this place to anyone for the quality of the food on offer.
Later I decided to give the front of the RV a quick wax job thinking that if I took Mr Kesuke Miyagi's advice from the Karate Kid movie "wax on wax off grasshopper wax on wax off" it would help burn up some of the thousand of calories I'd just put on at lunch.

wax on wax off grasshopper

Well its time to settle down in front of the TV feet up and watch the match.


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Day Two.........

We were woken by the dawn chorus of cockerels crowing, cows mooing and other sounds of our rural surroundings that we've yet to discover, Like "Oy yooze ger orf ma laaand" and  "eer ye..are daisy" and that wonderful smell of silage as it catches the breeze, well it is a farm after all.

The sun rise was fantastic and the day turned out to be warm and dry. We were visited by horse's, Long horned long haired cattle and flocks of Guinea fowl that marched through the site from the pastures that surround the camp site.

The shower and wc is pretty basic but the owner is presently building a brand new shower and toilet block and knowing our luck it will be finished just as we leave. There's a log cabin that serves as a farm shop and tea rooms, so after a busy morning sorting out where things have to be stored and filling the tanks with water, we decided to have lunch at the tea rooms before we nipped off into Stafford's Tesco's for our weekly food shop.


We were pleasantly surprised by the shop and tea rooms they are spotlessly clean and tastefully decorated.  The food was excellent and there is a good selection of home cooked goods on offer.

Tea rooms

Inside the Tea Rooms

After collecting our shopping the rest of the day was spent cleaning down the RV and trying our best to get everything organised.
We have also met some of our neighbors as there are eight caravans with us on the site, so for our first full day of our new mobile life it looks to be going as we expected.

One downside..... we found the windows were covered in condensation this morning but that could be down to the RV having been left unheated for a long time is now slowly drying out.

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Eventful or What........?

Our maiden voyage was certainly a voyage of discovery, Including a few hiccups along the way.
We left Port Talbot unfortunately thirty minutes late, as some clown had parked his car across the exit way out of the compound. Thankfully a kindly gent went over and knocked the door to ask him to move his obstructing vehicle.
So eventually we did hit the road and everything seemed to be going great guns as we headed off down the M4 towards Cardiff then onwards to Newport and up the A449 towards Monmouth. I had noticed that the reversing camera screen was blank (no picture of the road behind and our following toad) but decided to look at it later.
Then the Snooper battery gave out so now I had no Sat Nav. What the hell was going on? Then the snooper fell off the dash board  no doubt in disgust at the lack of power.
We pulled into a truck stop just before Symonds Yat and as Kay went to get some refreshments I decided to investigate and it dawned on me that near the entrance door is a small switch which reads (Store--Use) it was set to store, so a quick flick of the switch to Use and you guessed it, hey presto the reversing camera screen lit up and so did the Snooper. You live and learn!!!!
Just for good measure I decided to check the trailer and noticed that the jockey wheel was running on the ground, either it had not been secured when we left or it had worked loose, so a quick wind up to secured the jockey wheel into place.
OK nothing was going to deter us so off we went merrily on our way, then just before the M5 the Gas Change-over switch started beeping like mad. The switch which we knew was stuck in a locked position and was broken had decided that it didn't want to use LPG.
Panic!!!!! I only had half a tank of Petrol, so we pulled into Strensham services to check the state of the LPG and filled up with 95 Ltr's to make sure we hadn't run out of gas we now discovered we had 240Ltr's of LPG in the tanks. The problem we later discovered was definitely with the switch, so we eked out the petrol hoping to top up before reaching the M54, but every stop big enough for us only offered diesel . We eventually made Signature our stop for the modifications just off Jkt 1 of the M54 with just a quarter of a tank of petrol left, phew that was close these machines slurp petrol at amazing rates you can literally watch the needle fall.
So now it was unload the toad and drive off to Trentham for our three night stop over leaving the RV and its problems and its modifications to be sorted out with a great guy by the name of Ross.
We had a marvelous time visiting family and old friends while staying at Trentham's Premier Inn, we met with my sisters and brother and an old school friend and his wife who I have known since my junior school days and a lot of time was spent reminiscing. Sadly we were unable to visit everyone that we wanted too as time was very limited but we intend to make up for that later.
So now for to day... we left Trentham and drove down to Signature to help finalize any problems with the RV, fair do to Signature these guys are great and will go the extra mile to make sure you are taken care off unfortunately some of the items we had ordered didn't arrive, so they are on order for our next visit.
At four o'clock we made our way to our first long stay location driving up the M54 to junction 3, then up the A41 and over to Houghton for our three week stay at the Red Lion Farm arriving just before dark. It was a rush to get set up for the night so here I am after sorting out the  water and electric with a glass of red wine in hand starting our first night of what we hope will be a long adventure with Kay looking over my shoulder spotting my mistakes.

Animal and Blod are on the Road at last.

A Frosty Trentham Gardens

Remains of old hall

Shopping village

Festival Park

Kay & Stu

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Get Ready..............

This is our last night at Kristina & Gav's (We hope as you never know what's around the corner and I don't want to tempt fate) we have been keeping an eye on the weather reports from the Met Office.

Monday:

Outbreaks of locally heavy rain clearing slowly southeast through the morning. Drier, brighter but slightly colder conditions following on behind. Winds easing across the region. Maximum temperature 11 °C. 

So we are keeping our fingers crossed that it stays dry tomorrow morning at least while I get the car onto the trailer. It looks as if the strong winds will be dying down thank god so the journey north will not be too stressful. With luck we should be in Signature by the early afternoon and getting ready to drive up to Trentham gardens by the late afternoon where we will stay for three nights while the RV has the modifications done.

It will be having a habitation service to flush out the tanks and to check all the gas and electrics are working safely plus any recalls. A habitation seals and damp check to check that we will stay dry and warm. Air-Ride fitted to the rear suspension to stiffen the rear end a bit. Bike racks fitted and an extra 110 amp 12volt leisure battery fitted to extend the time we can stay off mains. And for my sanity a 12volt connector next to the waste outlet so I can connect the Macerator pump so (with luck) no poo smelling hands. 

Our two new 12 volt TV's need to be fitted and a new head fitted to the Winguard antenna (so Kay can watch her Corry and Emmerdale) plus some other bits and pieces.

So look out for Animal and Blod's adventures they're about to start....Annnimaaaal.

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