Boy I’m Getting Old

Last night Kay and I decided to pay the Bell Inn a visit in the local village of Haughton, as it was advertised that they were having a 60’s night with live music…well that’s our era, so off we went hand in hand down the lane to the pub.

It was a balmy night with a bit of a cold wind and the pub was fairly heaving with customers, so it was a bit of a fight to get to the bar, I ordered a pint of Mild for myself and a pint of Bitter Shandy for Kay and we sat down to enjoy the music. 

The advertising was spot on, the band was, (you guessed it) all over sixty years of age. I have never seen so many white haired old guys thumping out the old songs. It was a pity that the vocalist had a pronounced stutter, so "Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Barbra Ann" took on a new twist as did "Do Wah Diddy Diddiy Dum Diddy Do". I couldn’t wait to hear their rendition of "I can’t get no s-s-s-s- satisfaction". 

Kay kept on giggling to herself remembering the sketch form “Only fools and horses” where the singer couldn’t pronounce his R’s so they came out as W’s and his rendition of Roy Orbison’s "Crying" was a real scream.

Watching the left handed drummer thump out the rhythm on a right handed drum kit made me realise why I'd decided to give up the drumming lark at fifty. Old drummers look so sad trying to emulate Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones (remember how sad an old fart he looked thumping the skins?) they should all have their drum sticks taken off them and have them publicly snapped in front of them to remind them to give it up (Trev Bathem if your reading this this applies to you as well..LOL)

Charlie Watts

To be fair to the old guys (Listen to me…. old guys!) the lead guitarist was a fairly accomplished player and they did put together some reasonably good harmonies, we did enjoy the music though for some reason I kept seeing the farm manager Elgin Sparrow-hawk from Green, Green, Grass on the mike (Ohhh Arrr Farmer Boyce).

Elgin Sparrow-hawk

The land lady (a very nice young woman) had risen to the occasion of the royal wedding and strolled around in a nice outfit supporting her NATO medal that she had been awarded for her time in Bosnia. But some of her female customers really do need to be aware that a gallon will not go into a pint pot the dresses were so tight that you were in danger of having your eye poked out just getting to the bar (which I visited a couple of times) so all in all we had a nice night out but Kay did wonder why I had a stupid grin on my face and kept rubbing my eye.

This morning although the sun shone brightly it was really windy with last night’s flags being fairly ripped off their poles. So we popped out to Hanley to do a bit of retail therapy and had a nice midday lunch a Trentham Gardens before returning back to the RV.

So now we have the two warning triangles that we need for use on the continent and a large map of Spain and four packs of factor thirty sun tan lotion (we live in hope).

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The royal WEE—K End

Last night the caravans arrived in their droves as the site filled up for the royal wedding weekend. A caravan club had arrived complete with marquee, flashing lights and bunting. Not to be out done, the owner added yet more union jacks to the site and trimmed all the grass. So to enter into the spirit of the royal occasion, down came our Help the Hero’s flag which was replaced with the cross of St George surmounted by the Welsh Dragon.

The owner’s son Graham is a really nice guy with a very dry sense of humour. After he’d replaced the flags I asked him what else they were doing to celebrate the day, he replied that they would be supplying Royal tea from the tea rooms. I asked what the difference was with normal tea and he replied none, but we charge 20p more pre cup.

The TV this morning is full of all the very minute details of the wedding to the point where I’m expecting a reporter to ask the road sweeper in the Mall if he was a personal friend of the couple!!!! 

We said goodbye to a young family we had got to know, they were one of the super bikes team (Team SGR Racing) as they left for a racing event nearby. Steve Kinghorn a nice Geordie boy with his wife and daughter Georgina who rescued an elderly chap from disaster last night as the driver tried in vain to reverse his caravan into its position. He jumped into the driving seat and in one swift movement had it straight into position.

Steve's drivers

Chrissy Rousse and Karl Corbett
with TT legend John McGuinness

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A quiet few days

Monday was a time to relax after the hectic weekend and we were pleased to see our friends Cedric and Dot arrive back in their huge Monaco Dynasty. There’s no comparison between the two RV’s Cedric’s is akin to a Rolls Royce where ours is more akin to a Ford Escort. Though size doesn’t matter does it girls?

Monaco Dynasty

We've been in touch with some of the members on the ARVE (American Recreational Vehicles Enthusiasts) forum as we needed to get some information on our intended drive to Southern Spain for the winter months and we've had some very helpful advice on where the best sites are for your Euro.
But getting sites in this country that are (A) easy to get to and (B) not ridiculously expensive for what they offer is much harder to find than we realised.

I don’t know what it is with the UK? (RIP OFF BRITAIN!) but the owners of some sites expect you to hand over a lot of cash and in turn offer you very little, and that includes the major camping clubs like Caravan Club and the Camping & Caravan Club.
The one we're on at the moment is a gem of a site, we've found the owners to be very accommodating and friendly, and this site is I’m glad to say an exception to the ones above.

Today Garry from Chase RV has called back to fit the eight external locker plunger switches (that he ran out of time to complete on Saturday due to the problems he encountered on the other jobs) so our security is back up to full scratch, as the old plastic switches were disintegrating and they kept giving us false alarms.
Another good job done by Garry we can't recommend him highly enough as he has done years of work on these machines so he really knows his stuff. Gradually all the things we planned to do are all coming together and once the MOT is done next month we will be safe and ready to motor on down the road.

We've waved Bye, Bye, to Cedric and Dott as they hit the road this morning as they are heading up to North Wales (make sure your passport’s up to date Cedric or the locals will lock you up with a flock of sheep and force feed you green Lava bread).

Two large Motorhome/ Vans have arrived on the site last night, (something to do with the Super Bikes as they are on their way to a meet locally) so the site is still quite busy even though the Easter break has finished.

Kay and I sat down and planned our coming stops and booked our next few sites, so far we're now booked up right through to the Western Motor home show in the Malvern's three counties show ground at the end of August.

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Busy Easter Saturday

Garry from Chase RV called over at 10.30 in the morning to remove the Maxview manual Satellite dish and fit the new Camos series 4 Auto seek Satellite dome and afterwards to redo the transformer to convert it to an automatic step up / step down change over system.

The sun beat down mercilessly on our heads as we both balanced precariously on the RV’s roof and alas the job turned out to be far more hard work and time consuming than either of us had planned. The existing Maxview unit was fixed into place with a square aluminium base sheet with no less than thirty two screws. These had to be removed as the new dome needed to be fairly flat with the roof. We would have liked to have removed the sheet altogether but this proved to be impractical, as the sheet was too well bonded with the roof and removing it would have caused a lot of damage.

The problem was that the bonding mastic was weathering, so most of the external mastic needed to be removed and the protruding four bolts cut flat then ground down to the roof level. After that new mastic was used to seal all the edges and any holes, including the centre 1” hole (that was also sealed with a plastic disk and plenty of mastic) as that hole went right through the roof for the internal controls.

Then the new dome was eventually fitted and new cabling put through for the Camos controller, all of which took most of the morning and well into the afternoon to complete. When we tried to locate the Astra 2 Satellite we had no signal as unfortunately a huge tree blocked the line of the satellite.

So we packed up the RV, moved the trailer and both the cars and then repositioned the RV. Success we now had a good signal and the TV burst into life, first job done.

Camos series 4

Fitted

The Old system

Now for job two, the Transformer !!!!!

Nothing ever goes as planned and after the mauling we had with the dome we should have expected it. Firstly the 2Kva Inverter had to be removed, that came out without too much hassle and boy did it weigh a ton!!! One benefit from the loss of that piece of equipment is that I now have enough spare weight to add my Cadac BBQ to the summer list that’s to be collected from storage.

Everything looked to be going fine with the Auto change over unit that was now fitted into the transformer's housing, I nipped inside and turned on the Onan 4Kva generator and the microwave inside worked a treat. So we now had 240 volt mains power automatically from the generator / transformer when not on mains hook-up without the need for me to go out a switch cables over etc.

Then we switched back to the mains hook-up and BOOM we blew the sites RCD’s and all the caravans on our side of the caravan site lost their electric (needless to say they were not happy with us).

Garry soon found out the problem who ever had done the original conversion had wired it in such a way as to confound even the most competent electrician, so he had to rewire part of the RV’s internal electric’s to get everything to work correctly!!!!  by now it was seven o’clock and we were gradually losing the daylight and the will to live….

Completed Transformer

We didn’t get round to replacing the locker plunger switches (all eight of them) but that we decided would be done later. Rhys kept asking every few minutes ‘whens the electric back on, whens the electric back on’ and sadly I got a bit short with him as I was getting quite tired, the girls who had been sitting outside in the sun wanted me to reposition the wind break as the wind direction had changed and they were getting cold (Ahh poor dabs, they never thought of doing it themselves of course.)

When Garry had departed and I struggled with aching back to get everything stored back into the RV’s lockers and singlehandedly drag a three hundred Kg trailer back for repositioning behind the RV, the girls  (with Rhys in tow) did disappear and return some time later with a bottle of much needed red wine and a KFC chicken meal that didn’t touch the sides going down.

On the plus side the chap next door gave me a tenner for the now redundant Inverter, which was now useless to me and just so much extra weight that I didn’t need, all I have to dispose of now is the old Maxview Satellite dish.

Sleep came easily last night and this morning the old back still hurts a bit, so with grey leaden skies we said our goodbyes to our daughter and grandson as they headed back to South Wales, and even though I was constantly pestered by the little monster, I do love him and will miss him a lot. But it’s great to not to have to trip over him every five minutes as he tries to (and successfully in most cases) wind me up, as there’s not a lot of room for one active seven year old and three adults in an RV of this size.

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A seven year old monster,

What fantastic weather! It would be nice to just put up our feet and sun bathe, but we have our seven year old grandson Rhys to entertain and sitting still is not one of his favourite pastimes unless of course he’s plugged into his DS Lite.

We had promised him a trip to the Bliss hill Victorian Museum in Iron Bridge, as he was doing this era as part of his school work so in a way it was an educational trip, Hmm you try telling that to a seven year old. ‘Can I play on this, can I play with that and I’m bored what’s next?’

He enjoyed the ride on the merry go round and the coconut shy but the Victorian School experience filled him with dread as he found it far to strict, ‘bring back the bad old days’ says I.

Victorian Museum

Ye Olde Merry go Round

Coconut Shy

The mine experience 

The Victorian School

drunken Recruiting Sergeant

After the museum we went to the Iron Bridge Gorge hoping it would entertain, well we enjoyed it anyway. To be fair it was a long day for him and he handled all the walking without any grumbling and that night, he was out for the count.

Iron Bridge

Nana & Pest on the bridge

Over the past two days another RV has arrived on site a huge Monaco Dynasty driven by Cedric and Dorothy. Cedric helped me with replacing the external Drive lights with LED’s as he had a large ladder that enabled me to get at the units easily and when one of the units had a faulty connector Cedric had the part and tools to hand. The one thing I’ve discovered about the RV community they are always ready to help if you get stuck.

So apart from the drive lights and rear cluster all the external lights are now LED’s my next job are the two internal 12” neon strip lights, after that all internal lighting will be LED. In the bathroom I’ve now replaced the old yellow plastic shower head and hose with a new water saving model in chrome.

Gradually our little home on wheels is taking shape and I’ve just had a call from Chase RV that our Satellite dome has arrived so tomorrow it will be installed.

Ah well back to the sun lounger

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Sore Feet

What a day that was! We got up early at 0600 hrs on Friday morning and off we drove to the Motorhome show at Peterborough. The drive was great being early as it meant we missed all the usual motorway road blocks and traffic jams that you usually get around Birmingham and arrived well and in good time at the Peterborough show ground, on what turned out to be a gorgeous hot and sunny day. We spent the day visiting all the shows stands and were lucky to get all the things we had on our shopping list and more, which entailed several trips back and fore to the car.

We met loads of interesting people like Pete & Shirl at the ARVE compound who we’d only ever met online at the forums and Duncan from Star Spangled Spanner, but sadly we missed finding Dave and Pauline Storr that we met last year at Gloucester and who must have been there, but that show is so huge that trying to find someone in that crowd is impossible. The only thing we collected that we didn’t want, was a pair of sore feet, so with a boot full of goodies and sunburnt to boot we headed back to our RV site Nr Stafford as we were expecting a visit from our eldest daughter and grandson for the weekend who were arriving that evening.

Yesterday and today were mostly spent entertaining a seven year old who wanted to see and do everything like playing football, which meant a trip to buy him a football and with the help of the farms favourite football playing pet dog Buster, is now a sad looking ball of teeth marks and bitten chunks.

We also treated him to a new bike so that he can ride around the farm without the fear of him getting run over, as you can see from the photo it was someone’s job to accompany him at all times, and he did nothing but moan, he must be the world’s youngest constant winger!!!

Oh Yes you can now ride!

No I'm Not

See you can do it!!!

Then he wanted to go fishing, so off we went armed with rod net and bread, alas he had to cross a field full of Jersey cows that meant he had to dodge loads of cow pats and of course they tend to be very inquisitive, as soon as we sat down to fish they approached in a big group and with the cries of ‘Bampi, Bampi, they’re getting closer’, fishing went out of the window and we made a quick scarper back to the RV.

If I don’t post on here for a few days, fear not, it’s just that I’m up to my neck catering to the whims of a seven year old pester monster called Rhys.

I will have loads of interesting info for RV’ers soon when I go through the process of putting all of the items we purchased at the show onto the RV or replacing things.

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Wet Wednesday

As predicted monsoons are on the way, well Easter Bank holiday is on its way when the kids are off school, so you could count on the weather turning cold and wet. We had spent a nice morning yesterday in Hanley shopping followed by a large meal at the China Garden (a Toby carvery) on the Festival Park site with my brother Ken and his wife Audrey. Hanley has become a minefield to navigate they just can’t stop messing about with the road system which meant we turned up a tad late.

Then on our return to the RV we said a sad farewell to one of the oldest Highland cows on the farm. The poor old thing had been looking ill for a while and for the past two days had just sat on a dusty patch in front of our RV without moving and even though the water trough was just in front of her she would not drink or eat. The other Highland cattle started to gather round her as though they knew she was dying so sadly the owner called in the Knackers man to put her to sleep.

The old Girl

A mischievous little tyke from the next caravan wanted to watch the gory proceedings “can’a watch mister are you gonn’a kill her”, but the farmer put a huge bale of hay in front of her to hide her from the caravan site and shooed the lad away. We noticed that all the Jersey's on their way out from the milking sheds lined up along the far edge of the field like an honour guard and as soon as the old girl was dispatched and removed, they all turned in unison to head out into the fields.

Who says animals can’t feel? We felt that all the animals on the farm were well aware of what was happening. The previous day the young pony ‘Bella’ had put her hoof over the old girl several times, she was tugging at her to move and licking her face without any response. I suppose us townies are too sentimental when it comes to animals.

The site is fairly empty now apart from a few caravans and a new arrival….another RV, a Damon Daybreak owned by a chap called Andy, Like us he’d just returned from having a new set of tyres supplied by Brian Evans in Oswestry and was also putting his machine in for its annual MOT with Signature motorhomes. I suppose this site is well placed for the RV community as there are a few good RV dealers and suppliers in the vicinity.

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Sunny Sunday

The heatwave continues and as usual we had just been fraternising with the locals, when out of the blue we had a visit from an old army mate.
Alan Fradly and his wife Ann dropped by to see us and we spent a couple of enjoyable hours talking all things motor homes. Its a pity I didn't bring the Cadac BBQ with us as the weather was perfect for one and Frad could have immersed himself in Frigadellen and Bratwursts mit Senf to remind him of the good old days in Germany.
The camp site has been packed with visitors coming and going to the tea rooms all day, I can just imagine what the site will be like next week if this weather keeps up, but knowing the vagaries of the British weather a monsoon will no doubt hit us next weekend.

Frad & Stu

Bella one of the ponies has really taken too me this morning, as I attempted to change the Pressure relief valve (without any success as the damn thing is rock solid and I don't want to tempt fate by forcing it) and as I worked she sided up behind me and gave me a nudge in the back, after which I could pat and stroke her and she was nuzzling my arm quite contentedly.
Strange creatures horses they ignore you one minute and then want fussing the next (sound familiar!!!!)

Typical when I recharged the water heater afterwards, the valve stopped leaking so let's see how it progresses after all 'if it ain't broke don't fix it'.

relief valve

A chap in a Four Winds Hurricane RV (who arrived with the caravan rally) popped over to see us and we spent some time discussing the differences in our machines. It appears he's also new to these RV's and I was able to pass on some things that I'd discovered and in turn we tried out extending his awning to see how they roll out, as mine would end up in the field with the horses and cattle we are so close to the fence.
I gave him the name of a good tyre supplier up at Oswestry (where we had our tyres replaced) as it looks as if he will soon be in need of replacing his, how the people who supply these units get away with supplying machines with dangerous out of date tyres I don't know.
Then it was off for a lunch at the tea rooms and a visit to see how our friends in a neighbouring caravan are as they have had some illness.

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Blind Panic

The heat wave has arrived this weekend and we have been out enjoying the sun as usual, but you can have too much of a good thing, so we looked at what little jobs where on the cards that needed completing in the RV.

We received a pack from rvspares last week that contained all the necessary bits to repair a broken string on a Day-Night Blind. Now on the pack it states ‘you will need two hours to complete this task’ yeh right! Three hours later after much swearing and panicking we completed the task.

Four string diagram

This is a two string version

Simple…. yes if you have three sets of arms, the kit comes complete with a CD that guides you through the process of fitting no end of different types of blinds, but isn’t it just typical that yours is only just mentioned and even then some parts on your blind don’t look quite the same as the ones on the CD.

The kit

Still it does prove one thing, that together we can now restring a four corded, three bar, Day-Night Blind, so if happens again when we are away that’s one task that we can say ‘yep we can do that’ and it also proves Kay and I can complete a tricky task without any divorce proceeds being taken. Mind you, I have yet to replace the Atwood pressure release valve yet.

Today I did my bit for some of the farms animals, I noticed the water trough next to our RV was dry, as the ball valve was broken and the poor horses and Cows just stood there looking sad, so I nipped out and ran the hose from our water tap to the trough and refilled it for them. Some were so glad, they didn’t wait for me to finish before their heads where down and they were slurping away.

Well I’m off back out to enjoy the sun.

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Sunshine, Sunshine

What a change in the weather, mist first thing this morning followed by a glorious sunny day.

After a shower and breakfast we took a short trip off to TravelWorld motorhomes at Telford, no not to buy a new motorhome but to change the toilet wand which had developed a fault and after only two uses, so it was back to the people we purchased it off. While there we also picked up a new pressure relief valve for the Atwood water heater which has been dripping water for the past few days so that’s a job for me to fit it soon and that should be interesting.

We arrived back at the RV with enough time to done our cycle helmets and take a short ride down through the village and onto the millennium way. Well it was to be a short ride, and hats off to Kay she managed to complete the, none stop round trip of eight miles. Poor Kay complained of cramps in her ankles and feet but was so determined to complete the ride. Shh… I was dead proud of her, I can’t mention where my aches and pains are but needless to say sitting is a sore point. So to compensate we both had a nice Beef salad lunch in the tea rooms.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sun watching the rally caravans’ arrive on the rally pitch including a nice four winds Hurricane RV while chatting and drinking tea with our two neighbours from across the way.

The sky over Stafford has been full of gliders wheeling and swooping all afternoon and as the sun started to set we had the nice sight of a dark coloured hot air balloon floating effortlessly on the evening air.

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Just another day

The wind howled all through the night with mournful groans and sudden gusts that rocked the RV on its stands, not that we really noticed being snug as bugs in a rug as we slumbered through the night. At daybreak the weather was warm but overcast and grey, so we decided it was a morning of doing the chores.

I started by emptying the black and grey wastes and then flushing out the black tank with a toilet wand, followed by re-topping up the fresh water tank. Then I thought that it was about time I moved the RV to rotate the tyres and turn the engine to preserve the tyre walls and help pump lubricant around the engine. By moving the RV I also lifted the jacks as it stops them seizing up and getting rusty. This was followed by the task of running the Onan Generator for ten minutes to keep that lubricated as well.

As I did these few chores Kay nipped off to do the washing and then cleaned out the RV before setting out our lunch of omelette and oatcakes (Hmm Yummy).

OK now watered and fed the urge to get out for a few hours so a quick walk to the village and back got us in the mood to venture out a bit further, had it been not so windy and grey, we would have used the cycles but opted for the car instead.

Kay wanted some photos of the houses and interesting things we’ve seen so it was off to Haughton & Gnosal to take some pictures.

See Below

Old Hall Haughton

Old Gaol Gnosal

St Lawrence Gnosal

St Lawrence Gnosal

13th century Norman  door

11th Century Door

Gnosal High Street

Gastronomy Shop

history of St Lawrence's church Gnosal

http://www.st-lawrence-gnosall.com/html/history.html

Village history with interactive video

http://www.gnosallparishcouncil.org.uk/archives/tour.htm

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Mothers Day

We awoke to a dullish day but soon the sun came out and the farm sprang to life, as the rabbits bounded from their burrows and the cows and horses came to call. Being Sunday the caravan crowed started to pack up, hook up and make their move early and by the end of the day the rally field was empty. The sites tea rooms have been doing a roaring trade all day with visiting groups of families, no doubt dads dragging mum out with the kids or grand kids to celebrate the day.

Talking of Mothers day, we had a nice surprise this morning announced by a loud knocking on the RV’s door (which shook us both awake) and there with her arms full of flowers, chocolates cards and a balloon announcing happy mother’s day was a young delivery lady.

Kay was soon in tears as she is missing her daughters and grandson and the arrival of these gifts tore at her heart strings. A few telephone conversations later and she was back to her normal self. As I’ve predicted our kids will always find us no matter where we are.

We’ve been planning our touring strategy today and have been phoning a few camping sites to cover the coming summer period, our aim is to head south to the Cheltenham area first, then further down towards Devizes and hooking back towards the Malvern’s by the end of August for the three counties Western Motor home show. After the show it will be south again, eventually heading for the channel ports ready for our departure into France and Spain for the winter months.

Hopefully by then any problems with the RV will have been ironed out and we will feel more confident of arriving safe and sound at our eventual destination, which as yet is still in the air. I think the only fly in the ointment is fuel costs i.e. what will we be paying for a litre of petrol and LPG come August?

I’m of the opinion that our governments (new and old) are conning us, LPG which our RV uses, has increased from 50p to 78p per Ltr in just one year. Now they can’t use the excuse that it’s the cost of fuel imports going up as we export 45% of our north sea LPG overseas, or that it’s the carbon footprint excuse as LPG is a green fuel so by rights they should be encouraging its use by lowering its cost (pigs might fly).

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Solar so good

Yesterday we had a visit from Chase RV Electricals to have our new Solar panel fitted. It would have been nice if the sun had made an appearance as predicted by the weather girl, but sadly it was overcast and very, very windy, which doesn’t help when you’re trying to install a large solar panel on an RV’s roof. The thing quite literally has a life of its own with a force eight gale blowing around your ears.

It took quite a while for the chap to fit the 125 watt Panel and the Sunsaver solar controller with the Fox D-1 display unit which now gives us a steady reading as to the state of the batteries charge. So with luck this will also help when we attend some rally’s later on in the year where there will be no electric hook up for a couple of nights. At least it should help power the 12 volt TV and the Led lights.

controller

Fox D-1

Kay had made a visit to the tea rooms earlier and had purchased a large walnut cake which due to our involvement with the fitting of the panel saved our stomachs (including the man from Chase RV) as lunch went past without being noticed. The chap fitting the panel had thirty years of RV electrical knowledge under his belt and soon spotted some areas that we needed to investigate further before setting off on our long trips abroad.

Having missed lunch we decided to head out to Gnosal for tea after the chap left, as we had spotted a good old Fish & Chip shop there on an earlier visit. On arrival the queue for food was huge, now I know its Friday evening, but this was ridiculous the place must be the only chippie for miles around. So we about turned the toad and headed off for Stafford only there was a problem with this plan, neither of us knew where the chip shop was in Stafford. Fortunately we were passing Tesco’s at the time, so the next thing we did was to get Britons favourite dish, Good old Curry in a bag.

We had just finished downing said curry (with a bottle of Red wine naturally) when we had a knock on the door, our friends Phil and Zita had popped over with you guessed it, with another bottle of Red in hand.

Today the weather started off miserable but soon changed to a glorious sunny day which was great as we had a visit from my brother and his wife, (secretly I think my brothers reliving the days of his youth with all these farm animals about).

We called over to the tea rooms with them and enjoyed a nice lunch followed by some of the farms excellent ice creams. I know its food again and I think I’m going to have to curtail all these visits to the tea rooms as the trousers are definitely getting a bit tighter around the midriff.

I never knew you could get so attached to animals on a farm; we get concerned when we see the gander wandering about squawking for its mate thinking has a fox attacked. The large Shire horse and the two smaller mares have become good friends often staring into the RV’s windows waiting for me to pop out with a carrot. The Guiney fowl running around comically like little old ladies with big bustles, as though desperate to not miss out on the gossip.

And a family of wild rabbits that have a warren right next to the RV who often pop out to play right under our noses.

So life on the Red Lion Farm is quite idyllic when the suns out, Kay sits in her chair in the conservatory (her term for the front passenger seat with all that glass about) knitting or reading.

And yours truly on the dinette either updating the blog or working on my three novels.

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