A Quiet Week

It was quiet in the sense that Kay disappeared to London for three days. She had gone sightseeing with her mother, our eldest daughter Samantha and grandson Rhys (the Munchkin). London is the one place I do my best to steer clear of as I find it noisy, dirty, full of ignorant Brits and pushy foreigner’s and it’s so damned expensive.

So I spent three glorious days with my feet up enjoying the peace and quiet in the RV while reading my book. I did miss Kay in the evening as my feet where really cold at night, she’s a great hot water bottle, plus I had to do all my own cooking, thank god for the chicken Ding (the Microwave).

On the Wednesday while Kay was away, I had booked the Toad (the Toyota IQ) in at the Toyota Dealership in Western Super Mare for a full service. Which paid off, as there was a recall I didn’t know about on the Toyota IQ’s to fix the master break cylinder. The dealership supplied me with a courtesy car for the day, so I popped down to Bridgwater to visit my old army mate Dinger and spent the morning with him. I returned to Burnham at midday to have lunch at Forte’s on the sea front with all the other oldies (well it saved me cooking) and then drove back to the RV before heading back over to Western at three o’clock as the Toad was now ready to be collected.

The only thing that annoyed me was that I had requested they change the Air & Pollen Filters, I‘m sure mechanics these days work like programmed automatons. Unless it’s marked down to be done on the scheduled mileage service sheet, it’s ignored even though me the owner had requested it and you guessed it, neither had been changed, luckily these are two things I can do myself.

Kay arrived back on Thursday afternoon at Highbridge station and I went to pick her up, she climbed from the train looking as though she really needed a rest, the Munchkin really must have worn her out poor thing, aren’t I glad I stayed with the RV.

I was informed that the Munchkin was not impressed with London after all, he found it noisy and the people ignorant, ‘they push you and barge into you and never say sorry he complained’ Ahh the boy’s learning not bad for an eight year old.

Today we took a trip down to Taunton for a day out, the M5 was jam-packed full of holiday traffic and twice we encountered the dreaded butterfly effect. You’re driving along fine one minute and then suddenly the traffic backs up to a standstill and then without any reason you’re moving again, no signs of any accident’s or breakdown’s.

We used the Park & Ride facility at Taunton’s Gateway and spent most of the morning walking around the town, we decided to have lunch at the Mambo Shack and had a meal of Tapas for two (well were trying to get into the Spanish mood).

The River Ton

Taunton

Buskers

Buskers

Taunton’s a nice town the biggest in Somerset with over 1000 years of religious and military history. There were plenty of small shops and shopping mall’s but it seemed to lack any historically old buildings apart from the remnants of its castle, it appears most of the old Tudor and medieval buildings were destroyed in past wars. On the way back Kay wanted to visit Nether Stowey where once upon a time one of her great grandparents had lived and we avoided the motorway as by now there were serious holdups due to accidents.

15 Castle Street Nether Stowey

Castle Street

At Bridgwater we stopped to have one of the tyres replaced as it was the only thing that came up on the service schedule as needing to be done. So once the filters are replaced the Toad is all OK for our trip to Spain.

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