Sightseeing

Well something had to go wrong!!!! Hmm yesterday after I had filled the water tanks and bled the system of air, (The usual run of the mill setting up lark for RV’s) I found that the flow to the kitchen sink was extremely poor.

Hmm thinks me! I have an air lock, as the water to the bath tap and bath sink was good and the pump was working fine. Ah well it was too late to do anything about it then so I decided to sort it out the following day.

OK this morning I completely drained the hot water tank, making sure the relief pressure valve and the kitchen hot water tap were fully open. Tank now drained I then refilled the tank as normal from the pump, OK let’s try the hot tap in the kitchen…..It was worse than before hardly a drop was coming out, then the cold same here… what the hell was going on. Water was still running fine in the shower and bathroom.

Time to get thinking cap on, OK! Where’s that phone number for Duncan at Star Spangled Spanner (he’s the Guru for all things RV in the UK).

A quick chat with Duncan and I’m back at the kitchen sink unscrewing the filter from the swan neck and as Duncan had warned me the filter was choked with lime scale.

The Red Lion’s water supply was very hard and we’d had a build-up of lime scale, even though I had cleared this particular filter not long ago it had soon built up again. Filter now clear and the water were running fine.

That’s another lesson learnt, this RV lark is an on-going education believe me.

Time for a spot of sightseeing…we’d been to Cheltenham two years ago for a book festival and decided to revisit the town and so we hopped onto the Park & Ride bus into town. I had always wanted to visit the birthplace of Gustaf Holst the composer of the Planets suite (a favourite of mine) and the regency house at No4 Clarence Road was now a museum to the composer.

No 4 Clarence Road

The Promenade

The visit was very rewarding for me, as many years ago (1970) I had the pleasure of being in the orchestra at Kneller Hall where we had been under the baton of his daughter Imogen Holst.

I won’t bore you with all the details of this visit to what was a lovely Victorian house but if you’re interested you can pop over to this web site www.holstmuseum.org.uk  and have a butchers.

Kay and I then went for lunch at the Tailors bar and later took a walk to the Montpellier gardens where there is a fine bronze statue of Gustaf Holst.

Holst's Statue

Statue in the town

After a bit of shopping in the town and taking some photos we headed back to the Briarfields Caravan Park. There are quite a few overnighters coming and going on the site from Belgium and the Netherlands.

A fine 40’ American RV has turned up and it looks as if the owners having some work done by the Motorhome Medic up the road. I did wave to him but the chap seemed to want his own space so I left him to his own devices.

Well that’s all for the moment let’s see what tomorrow brings.

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