Well 9 weeks actually. With the lock down increasing its vice like grip on the windpipe of the Nation and the worldwide pandemic in full throttle it felt that there was very little to write a blog about. Many of the blogs and vlogs that we follow of fellow travellers have had a similar outlook as their posts are few and far between perhaps because they too have little to share. We do however consider ourselves extremely fortunate and the last 9 weeks, although challenging on occasions has brought us some real highlights.
The site is looking stunning and our staff who were supposed to be working with us have been amazing in assisting us in improving the site despite not being paid and further more being told that they probably won’t have a contract this year AT ALL. Despite this the very next day they were all out hand weeding pitches that had years of neglect, cutting down overgrown hedges and building rustic fences so that most of the site can now enjoy the view of the lake, planting flowers that they have brought for the site and all with a smile. We really have an amazing team here this year and we are so desperate for them to get a contract and remain here as our team if possible. As we are all working on site with no interaction with the outside world except a once a week visit to Sainsbury’s for Angie and with a huge site to socially distance ourselves from each other it has been very easy to have the occasional sundowner by the lake, each bringing our own chairs drinks and glasses, able to sit in a large circle each 2M away from each other. The camaraderie is great and goes a little way to say thank you for their hard work they have put in. The stunning April and May weather has helped  to keep spirits high (as well as the Gin of course) We have voiced the idea of staying open all year to HQ when we finally do open and the club are now looking at this as possible way of increasing its profit here to make some of the shortfall up. With a team of seven happily upgrading the site day in day out it would be great for it to finally have some campers to appreciate it. The grass even has Stripes!

As for the opening – well after two months of sitting on the phone and cancelling or moving bookings, refunding Deposits and payments and looking at a negative daily income sheet it is lovely to be able to be able to start booking some new business and printing off a positive daily balance sheet for a change. With all of April, May and June bookings now dealt with and a hopeful opening date of 4th July subject to Bumbling Boris and his bunch of Buffoons giving it the green light and some direction on HOW to open we remain hopeful but also nervous of the present easement creating a second peak and slightly concerned on what measures will need to be adopted here to keep our staff and campers safe.
The site itself brings its own joys and sadnesses. Two Coots became four with two  black balls of fluff haphazardly following them around on top of the amazing Lilly plants, they have grown in size and confidence and now feed on the bank after weeks of being fed by Mum and Dad in the protection of the lilies.  A family of ducks presented itself to us in late April, nine ducklings following mum out onto the lake. Within the week all  of the fluffy yellow balls had been taken by Crows and Herron. Two Canada geese (George & Mildred) set up a nest on the small island and proudly displayed three gorgeous lime green Goslings ( Mary Mungo and Midge) only Mungo has made it through so far, a small wren made a nest in the workshop and four little tiny orange mouths would gape open begging for food each time we walked past. A few days later three were found on the floor below the nest, the strongest obviously reducing the competition for food. Nature is cruel but it is, nature and we are blessed to be able to see it in all its vicious glory. The site has so much to enjoy from the bats who fly over the lake at night catching insects, swallows who feed on the wing tapping the water, deer, fox, squirrels, red kite and so much more. It is amazing the huge variety of wildlife that is drawn to a lake. Our resident ducks are hilarious to watch always quacking for food and so tame, George feeds out of your hand and Mungo is also not far away from following his dad in doing so. Hubert the Herron struts and waits to pounce on the unsuspecting carp he looks more like a old gray wizened book keeper or politician when he stands motionless on the waters edge.

Our pitch enjoys all day sun and the tan is doing nicely thank you. We enjoy amazing sunsets sometimes with the company of others sometimes on our own with a G&T on the pitch, we have enjoyed walking in the stunning Rhododendron woods and have enough to do on the site to keep us busy for months so we feel blessed especially when we see the hardships, sorrow and misery that so many other people are going through.

We feel lucky to not have lost anyone to this illness and whilst our son is one of the self isolating jobless millions that are a bi-product of the lockdown at least he is safe.
As the lockdown eases and “The New Normal” becomes “More Normal” we hope to see friends and family, welcome guests to the site and hope beyond hope that the hard work that the staff have put in here is noted, appreciated and that they are able to receive some income in the not too distant future.

We hope you too are well and positive what ever this situation has thrown at you. Keep Safe.

Our 10 days in Devises allowed us to explore the area to a greater degree than our shortened stay previously seeing the White horses of Wiltshire, the stunning market town of Marlborough,and the adjacent and very Pretty Avebury village set amongst a stone circle, the historic Bradford on Avon with its river in full flood and of course being able to wander the streets of Devises plus spend many a visit to the canal side pubs just a few miles away by foot.

Since leaving Devises we have headed back to Horsley and weathered two storms, moving off of the pitch for the second as we are right under a large tree (far too scary when facing an amber ind warning from the met office) The site looks sad and dejected as do most sites in the winter and in fairness we have been continuing doing “Not a lot” over the last month. Hunkered down and very gradually getting the site the way we want it, we didn’t think that it was particularly “Blog Worthy” however a few comments from followers and then finally a Facebook message from a an old Caravanning friend from my childhood years Richard Crossman made me realise that even the mundane may be of interest to some of you. Indeed I regularly log on to my friend Trevors blog to see how he and Ann are occupying themselves in their micro van Eva the Eriba. So here is a quick update from us.
Since arriving we have been busy most days in a very lazy sort of way, waking late, trying to make sure we are out of bed by 10 eating breakfast before or during Ken Bruce’s POP Master at 10.30 and trying to get out of the van by 12. We then try to do something on the site normally finishing off in time to settle down to watch the chase just before 5pm. To date this has meant that we have been able to give up our garage after three years, giving away our leather suite and mahogany Dining room set to family and friends and then bringing all of our other chattels up to Horsley to store in one of the massive dry and secure storage areas. We have now fully set up a workshop now inclusive of my tools, tidied the large gardening shed,  cleaning storage room, outside storage area and the large recreation room. We have ordered a pool table, table football unit, replaced the two dart boards and revamped the recreation room to make it a bit more inviting. We have reprinted all of the notices around the site to make them a little more friendly and less dictatorial, re fitted the reception & shop adding new shelves and started ordering all the items to fill it up. Our pitch is now fully enclosed and Molly proof, the fences newly painted and our awning is up, raised floor laid and kitchen installed. We finally feel that we are nearly ready  to wake before 9 and raise before 10.
we joined the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) as Wesley is just around the corner and we hope to enjoy its huge grounds and greenhouses throughout the year with the yearly membership being paid for in just two visits.

On our first and very quick visit, the greenhouse was showing a display of rooms adorned by plants which was very cleaver. We will certainly be going back throughout the year to see it through the seasons.

As for the site? On a good day – when the sun is shining, a rarity so far, it feels lovely the large lake shines, the resident ducks, coots and geese play, dive, swim and are quick to arrive for the occasional feed. Owls hoot at night, foxes bark, rabbits squirrels, pheasants and a myriad of other birds are abound and two stunning Red Kites swoop and soar in the blue sky’s, three resident deer leisurely graze whilst Cormorants and Herron chase and endeavour to pluck out the abundance of lake fish who seem to be enjoying a few months grace from the never ending fishing of the summer. It is a special place – when it’s nice. It has however been grim. Wetter than wet with an ever overflowing lake and rain most of the time. We count our blessings that we have not been flooded out as so many poor people have been across the UK but can’t wait for the spring to just…..“Spring!”

The view from the pitch and awning is not too shabby though.

Our assistants arrive within the week, and with the managers course and conference now cancelled due to the threat of the corona virus we have just three weeks until the site opens.  We hope we are inundated with visitors. Until then we have a clean up weekend to organise and we keep fingers crossed that the UK will remain only lightly effected by the virus otherwise it could be a very long and very quiet summer.

For all those who thought we had given up the BLOG – sorry. Will try harder.

It has been over a month since our last update and we thought we had better update the blog before we forget where we have been and what we have done.

Firstly HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE.
Yes it’s a bit late we know but we have been busy doing nothing!

After leaving Winchcombe we headed back to Walton On Thames spending a couple of pre Christmas days on the site and having a nice evening with Helen and Julien the site sitters before swapping  the motorhome for the dub to head off for Christmas in a cottage.
The cottage was great, everything we could have asked for, just back from lovely promenade walks, very cosy and we made ourselves at home straight away setting it up for Christmas- the tree was already up but we added the extra touches with the items we normally have in the Motorhome. On Christmas Eve Morning Gideon’s Mum and Dad arrived to spend four days with us. Dad is now 91, still defying his years, still driving albeit not too far nowadays and also taking on the newish roll of looking after Mum full time. We hoped that Christmas would give him a well earned break from household chores as well as giving us some special time with them. Ryan our son arrived in the evening and the four of us had a very traditional Christmas with all the trimmings over the next four days. (oops No pictures sorry!)

On the 28th and after saying our fair wells to Mum and Dad we headed back to Walton with the aim to pick up all of our summer equipment that was being stored there and leave for the new site, doing exactly that on the 30th December.

Horsley has two shower and toilet blocks, one of which is directly behind the managers pitch, we were surprised to find that both were still up and running with heating and hot water (apparently that is what the last manager said they had been advised to do) but it made staying there for a few days whilst we unloaded our kit and got to know the site very comfortable and also ensured that our stuff would stay secure warm and damp free in one of the facility blocks until we return for the season. We walked to two of the local pubs while we were there but couldn’t stay for too long due to planning regs and the fact that there were already two site sitters on site, just long enough to see the full moon which was also supposed to have an eclipse. I waited for ages and saw nothing it did get some great shots of the full moon.

A further short tour was hastily put together.

Brighton Caravan and Motorhome Club was the first stop for a few days walking from the site to the iconic Brighton Pier on one day, visiting the pretty village of Alfriston in the rain on another and taking in the new block buster film 1917 at Brighton Marina cinema before deciding to head off to The New Forest Setthorns site for just under a week.

Camping in the Forest Setthorns is a massive site and we are quite sure it would be amazing when it’s dry but the horrendously wet Autumn made it very dirty and muddy to contend with despite the gravel roads and hardstandings when you have a little dog. We enjoyed a day out to Ringwood one day and a lovely circular 2 hour  walk direct from site on another, made friends with two ponies on site and loved seeing the wild deer, antlers and all, wandering round the site sometimes just outside our window. Molly and I ventured out on another walk on our last day where I ended up having to take off my walking boots and socks, roll up my jeans and wade through an ice encrusted river as there was no other way over. FREEEEZING is an understatement, but within a few minutes of replacing my socks and boots all was back to normal. This was one occasion that I was glad that Angie had decided to stay in the warmth of the motorhome instead of joining me on the walk. We finally grew tired of the muddy paws and headed off to Devizes.

Always guaranteed a warm welcome we had a few reasons to head back to Devizes that we had stayed at in March 2017 Devizes Surprises we needed two new tyres for the smart car and we had ordered them from black circles to be delivered to a garage near the campsite, Angie had ordered an outfit for the Managers conference in March and arranged for it to be delivered to their shop in Devizes and probably the most important one – it was open!
Nestled next to the Kennet & Avon canal it gives great walking to pubs along the tow path in both directions and it’s a great site.

We left Keswick as they were evacuating the site. The river was due to burst its banks that night and flood through the site down to the lake. We were due to leave that day anyway as we were fed up with the constant heavy rain and the need for the evacuation did not surprise us in the least. The journey South was hard work for the first two hours as we battled torrential rain and strong winds that did their best to blind our way forward and blow us into another lane. Finally the weather eased and we arrived at Delamere Forest Park in dry and calm conditions said hello to the Managers who were,as everyone else has been so far, lovely. The site is right in the middle of the forest and has miles and miles of walking direct from it. As a dog owner it is perfect for car free walking taking a new walk every day.

Wednesday

We headed to Chester, a city that I remembered from my sixth form Geography field trip as having a  particularly interesting centre but not really remembering much more than the Medieval shopping area with raised walkways running between street level shops and a further row above. Called “The Rows” It needed to be explored and we needed to a bit more Christmas shopping. It was due to be dry all day so seemed ideal.

Chester is a delight even for non shoppers and is probably our favourite small England city now taking its crown from York, it’s centre is a photographers dream with buildings dating back to the thirteenth century and row upon row of medieval buildings leading to its epicentre.

we walked down “The Rows” on the lower level climbed the steps and then retraced our steps on the upper level before doing the same again on the other three roads that led to their junction. A grand Victorian clock straddled one of the roads affording a great view up and down its length. The black and white facades, failing afternoon light, orange glow through the shop windows and the Christmas lights made it (Excepting the cars and double yellow lines) a very Dickensian street scene that could have been dropped out of one of his novels or a Christmas movie.

The Cathedral was having a Christmas Tree Festival which was free to enter and being without Molly for once we had the ability to view. It was very festive, dozens of illuminated trees lined the cloisters that enclosed a grass courtyard before going into the Main Building. Illuminated only by the twinkling tree lights and the fading  evening light from the stained glass windows it was a very pretty.

Outside a huge star adorned the Cathedral green and the enclosed and very expensive shopping malls added their own bit of ‘bling’ to the occasion.

We headed back to the site feeling throughly Christmassy. If you have never been to Chester – Go. If you can do it just before Christmas, even better.

The next day we headed to Liverpool. We had to see the city of The liver birds and The beetles. It is a city with a huge history and it’s residents are a very proud people despite of its dark times. As a teenager on a field trip I came and saw the waterfront starting it’s regeneration program. Liverpool had just won the bid to host the international garden festival and a frenzy of Building was going on. It seemed that this was to be the springboard to a brighter future. Albert dock was deserted back then but the city engineers had great plans for it. Work had just started on trying to transform it into a “go-to” area to eat and they hoped live in rather than the desolate abandoned warehouses of the former cotton and slave industry.
It was raining and the journey to Liverpool was a miserable drive with little of interest excepting the long drive under the Mersey via the Queensway Tunnel. A strict 30 mile an hour limit needed to observed – UNLESS of course you drove an Aston Martin Vanquish where you were required to “floor it” past our smart car just so that you could hear the noise that it threw out reverberating through the enclosed snake like tunnel, probably taking the hit on an automated speeding fine – well he could probably afford it!
I have to say that our personal opinion is that Liverpool is a city that you could probably see in its entirety in a weekend and one that The Beatles have inadvertently done more to increase its tourism than all the redevelopment plans of the city council. The re-development process is still underway with huge office and luxury apartments being built. Albert Dock is now a thriving party and dining area and a ginormous shopping centre called “One” provides every modern shop you could ask for and is probably one of the largest and best we have seen. An amazing looking Library, Museum and other attractions line the waterfront and apparently Outside London, Liverpool has more listed buildings and monuments than any other city in the U.K. Some of the Edwardian homes around the Cathedral areas were very smart and there is obviously a lot to see dotted around its enormous mass. To us however it felt that it was still a city trying to unshackle itself from a dark and miserable history and despite the gargantuan effort being made to lift it, the underbelly of a depressed city still showed itself on street corners and up deserted allies where abandoned homes and shop units awaited demolition in readiness for something better, graffiti reclaiming even some of the new redevelopment.

The rain finally gave in and we could wander the Albert Dock area and waterfront however excepting its waterfront area and some famous beaches (that may be great in the summer) we would not rush back.

The three buildings on Liverpool’s waterfront, The Liver Building, Cunard House and The Port Authority Building are still it’s most recognisable landmarks and worth a visit even if only to bring back memories of sit-coms long gone.

The next day we headed for the Winchcombe site on the edge of the Cotswolds and after yet another catch up gossip with the Managers, we pitched up fronting onto its pretty lake with hills in the background. A great place to tap away on the blog with a mug of tea whilst the ducks quack and swim and squirrels scramble around the trees.