Tracey & Pete on the road

Rockhill Reflections

2011-10-14T06:27:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago we finally wrenched ourselves away from Rockhill Farm. The best thing, in fact the only good thing, about breaking my leg was that Carl and Gaynor encouraged us to stay, at least until I was discharged by the hospital. In the weeks that we were there we hung out with the family and became neighbours, but in a really good, matey way; not in the chilly, curt way that I remember from my urban, pre-Airstream life. And since we had arrived there in late August to prepare for Rockhill Rendezvous, we had become pretty attached to the place and the family. But as we prolonged our goodbyes we consoled ourselves with the realisation that, in no time at all we will be back round the kitchen table planning the next Rendezvous.

We're actually not so far away. We have moved back to the bolthole in Worcestershire that we hunkered down in last winter. So, what we haven't got around to until now is reflecting on the UKAirstreamers' September Gathering, or Rockhill Rendezvous. Unless a blog entry is prefaced with something like, "Today we did this amazing thing" you can probably assume that we are usually recalling something from some weeks back. And there are all sorts of reasons for it this time.

I broke my leg four days before the start of the gathering. That meant that, apart from finishing off the two hundred meters of bunting with Gaynor, I simply had to stay out of the way in the lead up, during the event itself, during the clean up and during the post-gathering-blues period. Post-gathering-blues is something that Pete and I have observed ourselves sinking into after each of the UKAirstreamers gatherings so far. It's the kind of slump you get following on from being really focused on one thing and hoping that thing goes well, plus a little bit of "What now?" Anyway, the whole time Pete was too busy having to do everything I would normally do, on top of his own responsibilities, to be able to think about sitting down to blog. So here are some photos taken by Pete, and some observations from someone who did a lot of the planning but didn't actually get to see how it all went (me).

We had decided to make it a long weekend event this year, from Thursday till Monday, and it was a popular idea. For some reason which has now slipped my mind, Keith and Jane who own a 1966 Overlander, had a surplus of cheese and wine that they offered to share with the Thursday crowd. So that got things off to a lovely, convivial start. My movements for the whole weekend were limited to manoeuvring myself on crutches between our trailer and the marquee, and that's where the cheese was, so I tucked in and received sympathy whilst getting used to having people bring me drinks. And as far as I can remember, that was it for Thursday; a gentle getting together with introductions and catching up. Pete, meanwhile, was up at the farm house watching the world's slowest printer meander it's way through the first twenty copies of the brochure.

Friday was when the majority arrived, and from our trailer window I could observe Pete, Carl and Gaynor and other willing helpers finishing off preparations. Meanwhile Andrew enthusiastically donned a UKAirstreamers high-viz waistcoat (donated by Paul and Jules at Makerelbus, who also printed our T-shirts and giveaway stickers, and were gutted they couldn't attend due to their replacement axle not turning up), welcomed arrivals and guided them to their pitches. Later, from my outpost in the farmhouse where I was finishing off printing the brochures, I caught a glimpse of a mini convoy arriving, which included Axel and Jack who had travelled all the way from the Netherlands specially.

On the Friday evening, with sponsorship from Airstream Europe, we laid on drinks and nibbles (including two rather fine local ales form the Ludlow Brewery). Tony and Elaine, Airstreamers and folk singers (and all round good sorts) provided us with lovely, gentle music whilst the rest of the crowd mingled, made introductions and got reacquainted.

Saturday was fairly busy, but with time for people to generally hang out and do their own thing. There were pampering sessions in Kerry's My Little Beauty salon-in-an-Airstream, and in the afternoon there was the Open House. We had tried this out at the Spring Gathering, and it seemed popular. Basically, it's a two hour period where your door is open to visitors to show off your Airstream. Unless you don't fancy it, in which case you just lock your door. Like everything else, it's optional. But I get the impression that the two hours can go by really quickly.

But it has to come to an end because in the late afternoon and into evening there's the Bring 'n' Barbie. You bring food to barbecue for yourself, and food to share. It's a lovely communal activity and it's always great to see people mucking in and sharing and helping each other to all the goodies on offer. Our live music sessions took place in the marquee, on the Airstream stage which was generously donated by Sam and Hazel at Vintage Airstreams. On Saturday night we were entertained with blues-roots-folk, by the very lively, and occasionally gravelly Babajack.

Sunday was an altogether chilled out sort of a day, apart from the energetic ones who played softball, or rounders, or a hybrid of the two. It was supposed to be Vintage and US versus new European, but I think the teams merged a little to make up numbers. But somehow it was decided that the Vintage team won, captained by Carl, who may have since had a special plinth made for the cup he was awarded.

The second ever Unhitch and Stitch took place in the afternoon. Blankets were crocheted, a homemade bow was repaired, young girls were taught the basics of crochet, knitting techniques were exchanged, and tea was drunk, naturally.

In the evening there was an impromptu get together to finish up all the food. And on the Monday the field gradually emptied. I know I've missed out a lot, but that's because I missed so much. We had a much bigger proportion of vintage Airstreams than before. We equalled our Spring record for the number of Airstream motor homes seen together in the UK (5). We beat our previous year's record for the total number of Airstreams and totted up 38 (plus the Airstream stage makes 39). But most importantly, lots of people came to tell us what a lovely time they'd had, and that's what it's all about.

Rockhill Rendezvous Marquee Magic

2011-09-16T13:15:00.000-07:00

Since you can never rely upon the British weather we took the bold move of purchasing a marquee for sheltering and entertaining in during Rockhill Rendezvous. Here are some photographs of the teamwork invloved in raising it over a period of three days.

Ready for the Airstreams!

Ready To Rock And Rendezvous

2011-09-05T04:53:00.000-07:00

How many times have we said, "It sucks to be us."? Heavy with irony, of course. It's almost become a catch phrase, and a bit over-used since we arrived at Rockhill Farm to get into gear for the next UKAirstreamers Gathering. Henceforth to be known as Rockhill Rendezvous, only a few days away, and tweaked and plumped up to be just like last year's lovely weekend, but just that bit more special.

In precisely three days that view will start to be obscured by a "field of silver dreams", as one of our Airstreamers recently described it. With or without the aluminium beasts, what a beautiful place, and what a privilege to spend some time here. Carl, Gaynor and their boys make us feel right at home, and we all team together and do our bit to get the place ready for our Airstream chums, old and new.

We have a "new", bigger marquee so that bad weather won't be an issue. And we've got live folk and blues performances on Friday and Saturday evening. There are daytime events where Airstreamers can swap tips and help each other out, plus some fun and games on the Sunday for those who enjoy a bit of friendly, vintage-versus-new rivalry.

Most importantly though, we hope to simply provide a weekend of the coolest and friendliest camping, with a big camp fire to gather around and chat and laugh into the small hours.

If you are a UKAirstreamer and you haven't booked your ticket, what are you thinking? Click on this link if you've just realised you're going to miss out on something a bit special.

Ghent stopover

2011-06-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

OK, ok, I know. "Surely'" you are no doubt thinking by now, "they can't still be pootling along in a convoy, can they?"

Indeed we are not. We have found ourselves, post Gathering, in deepest, darkest North Netherlands. It's been a busy week-and-a-bit. We've been putting the finishing touches to the September Airstream Gathering (details very soon!) and there were all sorts of shenanigans going on on the UKAirstreamers Forum after Pete Ritchie of Vatco did a runner with people's money, leaving work undone and trailers in pieces. There was a good deal too much undignified mud-slinging from a small group of Forum members and I felt the need to roll my sleeves up and wade in to do some heavy moderating. It was, pretty much, a full-time job for a few days.

So now we're boondocking again. This time we're in the back yard of a wonderfully generous Dutch family, Axel, Annieta, Sven & Lyn. And luckily, Axel has superfast WiFi, so I've been spending most of the time on t'interweb.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," I hear you interject. "But what about the convoy and Ghent and Venlo and all that Airstreamy stuff? That's why we read this rubbish!"

Be gentle, dear readers - it's been a hard week. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...

Where was I? Oh yes...

We spent three nights in Ghent, and I think we all needed it.

It's not that we'd driven far or for a long time, but the excitement and stress of the preceding few days left a lot of us feeling more than a little drained.

Luckily (for everyone else on the campsite), we had an area to ourselves. Which was nice.

Our first full day there brought good cycling weather, so a small, intrepid group of explorers set out to find the heart of the city. It's possibly worth pointing out that the campsite was a municipal affair, functional and clean but nothing award-winning. It's also worth pointing out that the site was on the edge of a huge recreational area, with sports facilities of every kind and even a lake with a man-made beach, all of which made it a pleasure to cycle through - once we had figured out which way we were going.

The trip into the city was mostly along a canal, making for easy cycling. It was our first introduction to the way the cyclist can be treated on the Continent, and it was royally. Cycle lanes are abundant and not just half-a-yard scrounged from the side of the road. They are usually wide and up on the pavement, but in addition to the pedestrian bit. Utterly joyful to ride on - once we had figured out which way we were going.

Ghent itself was an interesting city. Much of it has survived more wars than you can shake a musket at, and the typically Flemish buildings are everywhere.

Perhaps it's worth a quick lesson in how to pronounce the word "Ghent" like a local. You'll need a good helping of spit for this one - half a pint or so should be enough. Then, with the aforementioned bolus nicely positioned at the back of your throat, take a good run-up and try to say "Gent", "Kent," and "Hent" all at the same time and without choking. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Ghent is in the Flemish part of Belgium.

We spent an hour or so wandering around, before the biological cry for lunch went up, then we wandered around for another half an hour or so, trying to find a supermarket where we could rustle up a picnic. We finally found a lovely big deli, posh enough to be at home in Selfridges and expensive enough to have been airlifted from Harrods. But we managed to find something in foreign to nibble on by the canal. Which was nice.

After lunch, we had a wander around more of the city, coming across some History, in the form of Gravensteen Castle..

Apparently, the castle was abandoned by it's aristocratic occupants some time in the 14th Century, and over the next few hundred years, lots of houses were built against its walls and in its courtyard. At the end of the 19th Century, just as it was about to fall down, the castle was bought by the city and the first thing they did was, interestingly, tear down the houses and restore the dungeons. A progressive housing policy if ever there was one.

The city is built on a small canal system and you are never far from a pretty view of unmistakably Flemish houses.

Another high point, which sadly we didn't have time to explore, is St. Baaf's Cathedral.

The Cathedral hosts one of the world's great art treasures, in the form of (deep breath) the early Netherlandish polyptych panel painting, "The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" by the van Eyck brothers. Saint Baaf, by the way, is the patron saint of Ghent and, possibly, rough channel crossings.

Ghent has the largest pedestrianised area in Belgium. We saw little of that, since they've dug it up to build an underground car park. Still, there are plenty of open spaces, including the Vrijdagmarkt which hosts the rather splendid Bond Moyson, or Socialist House of the People, built at the end of the 19th Century in the Macaroni style. I really don't make this stuff up! Honest.

The guy on the plinth here is Jacob van Artevelde, the "Brewer of Ghent" (good title!). Back in the early 14th Century, he managed to mix politics and weaving to make Ghent one of the most prosperous cities of the time, by getting in with the English wool trade. Sadly, politics being what it is, his popularity took a nose-dive when he backed the wrong king and he was murdered by an angry mob in 1345 (the vote used to really count back then). He is pointing at England, the source of both the city's prosperity and the wrong king.

We spent three nights in Ghent. Having planned to visit Brugge on day two, it was inevitable that it would piss down, so instead we stayed in. I think the feeling was common across the camp, as by late afternoon, once the rains had subsided, many a snoozing Airstreamer could be seen in their chairs.

Friday morning came and everyone was up early to get ready to leave. The pitches were arranged like animal stalls, so hitching up was carried out with military precision.

Some of the group were, perhaps, more ready than others,

But we were all lined up and ready to hit the road on schedule.

Venlo, here we come!

To be continued...

P

Euro Trip day one... Kent to Ghent

2011-06-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

Up at 6am. I’m confident that I’ve seen 6am from the staying-up-all-night end many times more than I have from the getting-up-far-too-early end. I’m equally confident that I’d like to keep that ratio.

It was a rush to get ready. Luckily, we have volunteered ourselves as “caboose” in the convoy. Most people believe we have taken up the responsibility of shepherding the rest of the party, making sure nobody gets lost, picking up stragglers, fixing break-downs etc, etc. Actually, it just means we don’t have to be ready until after everyone else. Which is nice.

We all gathered in the adjacent field to have our pictures taken for Caravan Finder TV. Apparently, we’ll be appearing on a screen near you soon.

And then we were off.

First stop, a local motorway services to re-group after the journey through town.

And then back on the road to Dover.

Big ferry port, but not big enough to fit all of us into one lane.

We got well-and-truly split up getting on the ferry, but spirits were high as we waved bye bye to the White Cliffs.

And fed the wildlife.

Regrouping at the other end was tricksy. Luckily, we all managed to pick the correct exit lane and gathered together in a customs area before hitting the road.

This was my first time driving on the Continent, and since all I had to do was follow the Airstream in front of me, it wasn’t too much of a headache. And what a view I had!

We managed to pick up the tenth member at a pre-arranged Aire without any difficulty. The Aires we saw seemed to range from something like our motorway services, to little more than glorified lay-bys.

We took a couple of pit-stops (in the glorified lay-by type of Aire) along the way to give the dogs a pee-break. It also gave the humans a chance to stretch their legs and have a giggle.

And so, after only about 110 miles and a ferry crossing, we arrived in Ghent. That’s where it got tricky. Things like traffic lights and roundabouts seriously dented our ability to keep together and us tail-enders became right Charlies. Despite what people might say, we didn’t take a wrong turning, I just wanted to go back and have another crack at that roundabout. Honest. As an aside, another advantage of going at the back is that no-one can see if you make a pillock of yourself.

But we all arrived safely (eventually), and the evening was spent chilling and chatting into the night.

And so to bed.

Internet access is proving to be something of an issue, but I have plans, so hopefully I'll be able to keep you updated soon. Stay tuned...

We're off to see the Wizard...

2011-06-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

We're sitting in a field with eight other Airstreams.

It's ungodly o'clock, we're all up to make final preparations and to have our picture taken before setting off for the ferry port of Dover. In convoy! Depending on the point-of-view of other road users, we'll be the best thing on the road ever, or the largest waste of tarmac in Kent. Still, we'll all be having a good time!

I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say that we're quite excited.

A quick catch-up before we head off into the sunset...

2011-06-11T06:14:00.000-07:00

It's been a really busy couple of weeks. I'm sure many of you have lives that are constantly busy, but Having Loads To Do In A Very Short Time is a bit of an alien experience for us. The reason we're so busy? We're leaving the country.

Fear not, dear reader - it's not for good, just for a few weeks. We're heading over to Europe for a bit - more on that later.

In amongst all our preparations, we popped down the road to see Airstream Europe's launch of their new Service & Repair Centre near Cheltenham.

It also (more-or-less) coincided with the launch of their re-branding, so now you can call them "Airstream and Company." We wish them every success!

We've also been working on the UKAirstreamers September Gathering - details soon...

The long trip from our site in Worcestershire to the rendezvous in Kent was broken up by a couple of nights boondocking with our Airstreaming friends Glynis & Pete. And we couldn't have hoped for a friendlier welcome. They are two of the loveliest people I know, and while we were there we met up with another two of the loveliest people I know - Simon & Emma - former Airstreamers who have been part of our Airstreaming "family" from the start. It was a wonderful couple of days, though it is just possible I might have drunk too much.

Not a bad spot to park an Airstream!

And so we made our way to Kent, spending a deeply unpleasant hour or two on the M25 Orbital Car Park. Why Kent? because we're meeting up with eight other UKAirstreamers and all heading off on Tuesday, in convoy to a European Gathering in the Netherlands next week. At the last count, there were 49 Airstreams booked in for the weekend! You read that right, forty nine!

I wouldn't say we're excited, because that wouldn't cover it. Giddy might be better.

And I suspect there may be fairy lights.

P x

That went well!

2011-05-26T03:00:00.001-07:00

The Gathering, that is, not the plan to blog about it every day. We were too busy having fun to summon up the energy to tell the blogosphere about it daily. Sorry if we disappointed you.

So, how did it go? Very well, I think! Wednesday and Thursday were filled with preparations and shopping during the day and drinks and laughs in the evenings. There were only a small handful of early-birds, but great company.

This is Eric and Bill arriving on Thursday, after pushing their 300 motorhome all the way with a bubble!

Friday was the big day, with almost everyone else arriving.

There were some really nice outfits...

including this one, which belonged to the site owners, Eddy & jackie.

We had some lovely trailers and 'vans, including this combo of a 1961 and a 2009 Bambi...

And FIVE Airstream motorhomes!

There were some smashing old British, European and American caravans too, thanks to some new friends from the My Cool Caravan Facebook page.

The weather was, shall we say, challenging at times. I managed to get a bit of a tan, but it could just be windburn. Strong gusts and the occasional horizontal rain made us run for the barn at times, but I think spirits were generally high, even for the poor souls under canvas!

This was our fifth Gathering and a bit of a departure for us. For the first time, we joined up with other caravanners and I think the result was spectacular. Everyone seemed particularly excited about the "open house" on the Saturday afternoon and the chance to have a nose around all these fantastic machines was taken up by almost everyone. Altogether we got 25 Airstreams and 11 cool caravans and motorhomes together, and they all looked amazing!

I don't know what it is that makes Airstreamers click, but they share a trait or two with vintage caravan owners. Everyone who came was a pleasure to meet, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank them all for coming and sharing their pride and joys. And I'd especially like to thank Eddy & Jackie of Victoria Farm for being so helpful and accommodating.

I can't speak for everyone else, but we had a great time.

Countdowns and Launches

2011-05-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

It's only one day until the Fifth UKAirstreamers Gathering!

The fifth! I can't believe it's only just over two years since we put the word out on this blog, calling up any Airstreamers who were watching and getting them to join us. We had nine Airstreams that weekend. This time we have twenty five coming from all over the country to join us in Leicestershire.

It was from that first get-together that UKAirstreamers was born. We needed a way for UK owners to keep in touch, so I made a website, added a forum and, in the process, learned more about web programming language than is healthy. The UKAirstreamers Forum now has nearly 200 members while the website gets around three thousand page-loads a month! I must admit, I'm quite chuffed.

Here's what we achieved last September (photo courtesy of Skylens Aerial Photography and Airstream Europe)

So, we arrived onsite a couple of days ago and we'll be spending today shopping, prepping and otherwise arranging things so that (we hope) everyone has a good time. People often ask me why we do it. To be honest, it isn't hugely different from my old job, and who doesn't like putting on a party?

We'll try to blog throughout this one, just to see if we can. One day to go. Stay tuned...

Meanwhile, last week we popped up to Tebay to see the launch of Airstream Europe's new Series 2 684. And very nice it was too!

Wally Byam, the founder of Airstream, once said "We don't make changes, we just make improvements." Or something like that. And I can see that philosophy in the new Series 2. The layout is more-or-less the same with some changes in the furniture to allow a larger bathroom, more space in the bedroom, bigger lounge and (I think most importantly), improved systems (water and electrics).

There is another launch event over the first weekend in June. This'll give you Southeners a chance to see the new Series 2 and have a shufty at Airstream Europe's new Southern Service and Repair centre near Cheltenham. Details, as they say, can be found on their website.

If you can't make it to that, here are some pics of the new Series 2.

Spoiler alert!

The First Barbecue Of the Year

2011-04-03T03:32:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we received an invitation to a party.

Nothing too unusual you may think, and we do indeed regularly receive party invitations from friends. But the conversation usually goes something like this...

Friend - "We're having a party. Can you come?"
Us - "Love to. When is it?"
Friend - "Next Friday. Where will you be?"
Us - "On the Isle of Benbecula*."
Friend - "Wear the fox hat?"

(* Substitute any point in the British Isles that is as far from Civilisation as possible**. I often wonder if our friends are somehow tracking our movements and waiting until we can't possibly attend before actually inviting us to anything.)

(**Wherever it was, rest assured, a motorhome got there before us)

So, it was with no small delight that we received an invitation to a party that, rather than simply being on a local continent, was actually in the next county at a date and time we could actually achieve. Of greater note, however, was the purpose of the party. It was to the launch of Weber Barbecues Airstream Roadshow.

I've been to many launch parties in my time, but since I used to work as a theatre lighting and sound technician, this was the first one I didn't actually have to do any work at. Even more gratifying was that we were invited simply as representatives of the Airstream community in the UK. Well chuffed!

So, one Tuesday morning in March, we made our way to the Weber Grill Academy in Oxfordshire. And what a brilliant day we had. As the only vegetarians in the village, I expected to be treated to nothing more than the smells of barbecuing meat, but we were made to feel very welcome and offered some very delicious veggie food.

The main purpose of the day was to show off the newly refurbished Airstream that will be travelling around the country promoting Weber's range of BBQ equipment while also teaching the world some great barbecuing tips and recipes. We were treated to a couple of hours of hands-on training in the arts of smoking, baking, roasting and grilling - all on a barbecue. Never again will our veggie barbie be limited to blackened burgers and rubbery sausages! In fact, we made a pizza (on a barbecue) that was so good it went straight into my All-Time-Top-Ten-Pizzas-Of-The-World list!

As for the Airstream itself - it was a beaut. A 1975 International Sovereign, painstakingly restored and converted. The work was done by American Retro Caravans in Somerset, and a very fine job they did too! The outfit will be a one-man operation - the set-up and break-down taking about an hour each. Dan, the man from Weber, will be appearing at a place near you soon...

There are more details about the restoration/conversion here.

If you get a chance, check the Weber Experience website and go and have a look at the roadshow. Not only will you see a very nicely finished Airstream, but you might even learn something new about barbecuing. We did.

Say "Hello" to Dan from us!

Airstreaming Plans for 2011

2011-03-03T04:01:00.000-08:00

UK Airstreamers are gearing up for an eventful and adventurous summer. Having spent the winter months in one spot, by the time May comes around Pete and I will be ready to hit the road again and get a fresh outlook. We are looking forward to the fifth and sixth UKAirstreamers Gatherings, in May and September respectively, meeting some new Airstreaming friends and catching up with our old ones. It's hard to believe that it is only two years since Pete first put the word out on this blog that we would be heading to a campsite in Wiltshire and would love other Airstreamers to join us.

The UKAirstreamers community is talking and meeting and sharing experiences, and it is still growing. At our Spring Gathering this year we are also looking forward to meeting some cool and retro non-Airstreams since we are joining forces with the team at My Cool Caravan. Just three weeks later we are taking part in a convoy of ten to twelve Airstreams, boarding a ferry together (just imagine that) and chugging along, hopefully still in convoy, to meet up with a fleet of European Airstreamers in Holland. Organised from this end by fellow Airstreamer Andrew, and from the European end by Dutch Streamers Kai and Pieter, we will apparently be part of a 40-strong throng. What a great chance to connect with and become part of the extended Airstream community.

And from there a couple of us are planning to stay in Europe for the remaining summer months and explore the North. It's going to be an inspiring summer. I think it is timely for us too, since last year our movements were largely dictated and guided by visiting friends and family and didn't necessarily take us to new places. This year there should be plenty of new experiences to keep us on our toes. It feels good to have an adventure to plan and look forward to.
T

Winter's Here

2010-11-27T06:04:00.000-08:00

We are now in winter mode. As soon as it gets dark our homemade window insulation panels go up. They don't stop the condensation but it is reduced and we think that the temperature inside the Airstream is improved by a degree or two. Every little helps when we are experiencing the earliest widespread freeze for seventeen years. We also make sure that the internal water tank is full before we settle in for the evening. The external one often freezes overnight and you could end up witthout any water for your morning cup of tea. A bad start by anyone's standards.

Yesterday evening we braved the zero temperature and some mist and made the mile-long walk in the pitch dark to our very pleasant local pub where we enjoyed a few pints of Piddle In The Glass. I'm not trying to insult the brewer, or the pub, it's the name of one of the ales from the local brewery in the village of Wyre Piddle. Naturally, each of their brews is named with a pun on the word 'piddle'. Well you would wouldn't you? And, because when you stand at the bar ordering a drink whose name is almost a complete sentence you tend to abbreviate it to one word, Pete found himself ordering "A pint and a half of Piddle please." Nobody batted an eyelid, except for us two gigglers. The beer itself was lovely, quite fruity and golden, well balanced and entirely quaffable.

Today we awoke to a light dusting of the white stuff so perhaps another of their ales would be appropriate, Piddle In The Snow.

Hazy Day

2010-10-15T12:27:00.000-07:00

While the Land Rover was having its Make-Money-Disappear functions tweaked we soothed our souls on and around the shores of Coniston Water.

Smoke from a bonfire had merged with a morning mist and hung in a thick ribbon in the still morning air above the lake. Above the haze the sky was as clear and as blue as you'll ever find in the Lake District. The blue reflected in the glassy smooth water and the autumnal shades on the trees were psychedelically enhanced through my rose-tinted glasses. Usually when you remove your pink lenses the world can look a bit drab, but not on this day.

We found a log to sit on by the shore. A fighter jet, a helicopter and a tiny sea-plane were the mechanical reminders that we were grasping at a few minutes retreat from the twenty-first century. Ruskin would be pulling out his wiry old beard!

Autumn Pit Stop

2010-10-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

We are back in the Airstream after staying with Pete's parents while the trailer was being repaired and serviced. Followers of this blog may remember that a wheel fell off about a year ago. Well, we have returned to Cumbria for the first time since then and had the damaged side panel replaced. We felt a twinge of tension as we drove along the same road where the incident happened and remembered the exact spot as we passed it. Well, we had stood there for about an hour in the darkening, rainy dusk, waiting for the recovery vehicle. Click here for a reminder of the story.

I had to avert my eyes as John and Scott removed the old panel. It was a cross between a visit to the dentist and watching a documentary about face lifts. You know that some brutality is inevitable for a renewed outcome, you're curious to know what is involved in the process, but you have to watch through your fingers.

Here's the old panel...

...And the new one.

Now it's all smooth and new. The trailer has had it's annual check up, it has had a power wash. The rig looks renewed and proud and we are very happy to be back on board. Needless to say, we have been obsessive about torquing the wheels since last year's painful incident.

And by the way, since arriving in Cumbria a fault developed with the airbag system in the Land Rover, which has also had to be fixed. I'm sure that all of our previous vehicles added together were cheaper than the upkeep and repairs on the Land Rover. Plus, it has occurred to me that one of the reasons we hunkered down in one place for six months from last November to March was because we'd had the trailer wheel fall off, four new tyres and repairs to the suspension on the Land Rover, then someone without insurance drove into us on a dark and misty night. Her old banger came off worse than our big ol' tank but that wasn't any consolation to our bank account. Going anywhere would just have been tempting fate.

T

Gathering Memories

2010-09-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

I think we have just about caught up on our sleep. I've been waking up from deep, deep sleeps feeling pretty spaced out while Pete has had spasmodic sleeps disrupted by thoughts about last weekend and already planning for next year. And to think, this time last week a convoy of eight Airstreams appeared in this field, gradually followed by another twenty-one. As far as we have been able to ascertain, that is the largest gathering since the last caravan of American visitors of the Wally Byam club in the nineteen sixties. Certainly it's the largest collection of Brits with Airstreams, ever.

But as wonderful as that is, and as preoccupied I was about seeing Airstreams en masse, looking back on the weekend my memories are more clearly dominated by images of people getting to know each other, catching up with each other, hanging out together, and having a lot of fun and huge amounts of laughter. And that is very special indeed, most gratifying.

Of course we were too busy maintaining an illusion of effortless organisation to concentrate on getting great photos but here is a selection of what we've managed to cobble together between us.

The weekend included vintage and new trailers and motor homes, dating between a 1959 Tradewind and 2010 European Internationals; there was the arrival of a convoy of eight; drinks on Friday night under the shelter of the party tent as it chucked it down with rain outside; old friends and new, mingling and meeting; a bring-and-share barbecue; campfires; lanterns; late nights; Sunday breakfast in the sunshine; 'unhitch and stitch'; baseball; people becoming more and more relaxed as the weekend unfolded; children crying when it was time to leave. It rained some of the time but the sun shone for much of the weekend.

Unexpected hit of the gathering: the flush loo. We had expected something basic and chemical but Carl supplied us with a cute wooden hut, painted inside, with curtains made by Gaynor and photos of their 1959 Tradewind on the walls.

Carl and Gaynor, Connor, Jordan and Rory have all mucked in enthusiastically, and made so much happen just the way it should. From inviting us to their farm in the first place, to running in the water, putting up the party tent, supplying us with firewood, and so many extras that helped us to have the perfect weekend.

Many, many thanks to everyone who came and took part, and enjoyed themsleves and contributed to such a brilliant weekend. Shall we do it all again? It's already being planned.

There are more photographs on the UKAirstreamers Forum on the Meets Rallies And Gatherings thread. And there is more about the 'Unhitch and Stitch' on Notes From A Nomadic Knitter (Tracey's blog).

The fourth UKAirstreamers Gathering

2010-09-02T05:58:00.000-07:00

Back in March of last year, we posted here that we were going to be in a particular spot at a particular time and if you had an Airstream, come along and join us. I also posted on the US Airforums. It wasn't a particularly efficient way of getting in touch with Airstream owners in the UK, but we managed to get eleven together in a field in Wiltshire. Despite a hailstorm during the barbecue, a good time was had by all. You can read about it here.

Out of this was born UKAirstreamers.

What began as a means by which a handful of Airstreamers could keep in touch has grown into a resource-ridden, useful tool for dozens and dozens of UK Airstream owners to share knowledge, information and just chat.

A year and a half later, we're about to host our fourth UKAirstreamers Gathering. This one promises to be the largest ever collection of Airstreams in the UK! We have (at the last count) 28 Airstreams and their owners coming to spend the weekend of 10th - 12th September with us near Ludlow in Shropshire.

It isn't too late to join us! I'm sorry, but this isn't open to the public, but if you have an Airstream and would like to bring it along for the weekend, please email me at pete-at-UKAirstreamers.org (you know the drill, replace the "-at-" with @).

Don't worry if you can't make it - we'll be posting pics here and doing it again (twice!) next year.

P

We missed it!

2010-08-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

The Fourth of July was a date to celebrate in some old colony or other, but a few days earlier, the First of July was a much bigger event in the UKAirstreamers household. You might have missed it (like we did), but it was a bit of a milestone for us (if we'd remembered) - it was exactly two and a half years ago that we set off on our one year trip.

I’m going to mark the occasion by sharing some of our better photos (out of the 25,000 or so we've taken) and by offering our own Semiquinquennial Campsite Awards.

It’s possibly worth pointing out that these awards have no value, no physical mantelpiece-filling aspect and, most importantly, no alcohol-fuelled, star-studded ceremony. They are just the rambling thoughts of a lightly seasoned traveller. I don’t intend to please or offend – it’s an entirely subjective meander through the highs and lows of our travels. If you don’t agree with any of my comments, please drop me an email at pete@yeah.whatever.com. I won’t get back to you.

Firstly, I’ll start with “Best Campsite”. I was going to keep this one secret (we don’t want everyone to know!), but since it isn’t really a campsite and since you’re not allowed to wild-camp there any more anyway, here it is…

We spent four nights next to the airport on the isle of Barra in the Hebrides. You might think that being next to an airport isn’t the best place to spend your hols, but since the runway is a beautiful, white beach and the three planes a day can only land when the tide is out, it’s actually a wonderful place to be. Add the bonuses of (a) joining a fellow Airstreamer, (b) a friend flying in from London for a couple of nights, and (c) long, hot summer days and you have a perfect spot.

Sadly, coastal erosion has forced the local council to close the officially unofficial wild camping spot there. It will be missed by many.

There are a couple of places which “won” mutliple awards. Firstly, there’s a little CL or CS (I can’t seem to find it in either book now!) near Cromer in North Norfolk. It gets the “Cheapest Site” award for charging us a meagre £5.50 a night including hook-up! It also gets the “Slowest Tap” award. You could take the Aquaroll up to the tap and set it running, then go to the shops, have a couple of pints in the pub, read a short novel, catch up on your soaps and still be back to the tap before it began to even dream of overflowing. But with sunsets like this, who’s in a hurry?

On the other hand, “Fastest Tap” goes to a triple award winner! There’s a campsite up on Orkney where the water seems to be fed from several hundred feet above the highest point on the island. It was one of those modern plastic taps, which goes from off to torrential in a quarter turn - the 40 litre Aquaroll filled in just under 12 seconds, providing you didn’t mind wearing most of the last two-seconds worth as it rocketed out of the top. The same place wins the “Best Address” award. You can reach it at… Pickaquoy Campsite, Peerie Sea Loan (you couldn’t make it up), Kirkwall. This place must be special because it also wins the “Most Ridiculous Booking System” award. The campsite is attached to a sports-and-leisure centre and all bookings are made on the same computer system as the theatre seats. Which means that you are allocated a pitch when you book, rather than, for instance, when you arrive. The consequence of this is that you may have to move several times if you want to stay a while during busy weeks because someone has booked your pitch. Ludicrous. On the other hand, it’s very handy for Kirkwall, which is a smashing little town. Another added bonus came when we went out for the day and came back to find another airstream parked right next to us! What are the chances?

“Best Welcome” goes, without a doubt, to the Crofton Hall CL near Carlisle. We were the second people to stay there just after it first opened last Autumn and were greeted by the owner with a bottle of wine! The manager is one of the friendliest people I have ever met and his whole family were thrilled to see an Airstream. It’s worth mentioning that the grass pitches are huge and each has its own electricity and water supply. If you’re ever in the area, stay there.

“Worst Welcome” goes to the wardens on one of the Club sites (they’re probably not there any more, but I won’t name and shame). Having booked online, we arrived to a haughty “Well I don’t know where we’re going to put you?” We then endured ten minutes of huffing and puffing at reception and were “escorted” to the pitch, whereupon the warden asks Tracey “Can he reverse?” Some wardens are completely wonderful, some are complete arses. We won’t be going back there. Shit site anyway.

Having stayed in so many imaginatively equipped CL’s and CS’s, I find it impossible to pinpoint a “Worst Toilet Tank Emptying Point” winner; there are so many candidates. There is, however, one clear winner of the “Best Toilet Tank Emptying Point” award. Witches Craig Caravan Site near Stirling is a well laid out, pretty, beautifully equipped site. It could have been a contender for “Best Site,” were it not for an adjacent, busy road. I wish I could remember the toilet tank emptying point more clearly, but I was so blissed out at the facilities that I’m afraid it’s a bit of a blur. All I remember is that it was undercover but well ventilated; at a sensible height so that you didn’t have to break your back to either lift the tank or hold it steady; a light came on automatically when you entered and went off when you left; the “target” was a large, stainless steel funnel with a stainless steel surround and when you flushed, the whole lot (funnel and surround) rinsed itself down. And there was a hand-washing point too. I’m sure there was more, but my poor, addled mind can’t quite remember that far back. In short, a site owner actually thought about what a caravanner needs (rather than just what he can be arsed to provide) and managed to tick all the boxes.

“Best View” is a tricky one with many candidates. The big problem is that it’s so hard to find a spot where you don’t have to look at somebody else’s white plastic caravan. There have been a couple of times where movers might have been useful to get us into a prettier spot, but the winner is probably the view from our pitch at the Caravan Club Tintagel site. Straight out to sea. Smashing.

“Worst View” goes to a site in Pitlochry. From our pitch (I’m not sure that three inches of gravel floating on a layer of mud counts as a “hard standing”), we could see nothing of the beautiful surroundings, only a row of static caravans lined up like huts on a gulag. It did, however, have free, blisteringly fast WiFi and rather good (if dated – they even had a mangle!) laundry facilities.

Of course, no awards ceremony would be complete without a few "thank-you's." When we set off, we though we might only be on the road for a year. So I'd like to thank our families and friends for their support and for storing all our "stuff" while our year-long journey expands. We couldn't have done it without Airstream Europe - they have been encouraging and supportive since long before day one. We have met a lot of Airstream owners along the way, and even done our best to create an Airstream community in the UK - I'd like to thank all of them for allowing us to join in their journeys. And I'd like to thank you, dear reader, for your words of encouragement and for following us along the way. I hope you've enjoyed the ride a fraction as much as we have.

That’s about it for now. There have been other campsites. Many others. Some are good, some are utterly forgettable. Hopefully, the recent upsurge in caravanning holidays (and the corresponding increase in competition) will encourage site owners to up their game. The internet is playing a big part too - it's now very, very easy to find a campsite and even read reviews from other campers.

So, after two and a half years, what next? Well, we're planning to carry on for as long as we can. Come back in another two and a half years and see what we've found.. (actually, don't wait that long - we'll still be posting here regularly!)

In the meantime, here's a bunch of our best. Most of these (and a whole host of others!) are available to buy here if you fancy a postcard or even a poster. Your purchases help support our journey. These are all low-res versions (you can click on a pic for a better look), but the ones in the shop are all tip-top quality. Enjoy.

P

Keeping Harris With Me

2010-07-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

Harris, though joined to Lewis, felt completely different. The landscape is so rocky that at times it felt like we were driving through a mountain range, then we'd turn a bend and be level with the sea.

We stumbled across the stunningly spare and soothing space that is The Mission House Studio. A simple old chapel from the outside, it opens out into an open-plan space which is home to photography by Beka Globe and ceramics by Nickolai Globe. Both collections reflect the rough and weather-beaten landscape around them. Here I wished, for the only time in our travels, that I had walls and horizontal surfaces to cover with beautiful things. Never mind, just being in that space was inspiring, with Jan Garbarek playing in the background the atmosphere was close to spiritual.

On another day, a thrilling drive on the B887 to Huisinis. The road was narrow, often with a drop on one side, undulating and bendy. At the end of the road some small campervans had made it for a spot of wild camping with a view across the bay to Scarp. Unfortunately this is not a road for an Airstream. In fact, not many roads on Harris would suit a 684. Our movements from site to site were very carefully planned, even though there was no booking ahead, the journey would have been well reccied before hand.

And this spot may have felt like the middle of nowhere to us but for the scattered community around it was the right place for a tennis court.

We were sad to leave Harris. Heading back to Skye, lovely as it is, meant leaving the Outer Hebrides where the landscape and the mist and the colours had completely filled me with a feeling of calm contentment. I breathed in that scenery and I still breathe it a year later. If anyone or anything winds me up, I'm back there in moment.

The crossing back to Skye was as smooth as a landlubber like I could hope for. And as we approached our destination the island became enveloped in cloud.

T

Endless Blue Hues

2010-07-21T06:36:00.000-07:00

After a month on the islands, from my diary... 1st July 2009

"Had the beach at Horgabost to ourselves, 10pm, still light. Yellow sand, sand hoppers. Grey sand below the yellow, revealed in trickles towards the sea. Bits of shells, white, orange, purple, sparsely scattered near shore. Calm calm calm. Lapping water's edge. Endless blue hues. Yellow showing through shallowest clear sea, graduating into the palest greeny turquoise. To my left a grassy dune casts an emerald reflection. In front of me misty purple mountains, and the sea between me and them layer upon layer of bluey, lilacy, mauvey, hazy greys, blues, purples.
My breathing quiet, my eyes won't turn away. The stillness a priceless gem. Oneness. This is what we hope to attain in contemplation. A blissful state manifest."

T

Peat Fires and Standing Stones

2010-07-18T07:01:00.000-07:00

Ancient history is part of the landscape in the Hebrides. Standing stones, stone circles, dry-stone buildings, they're made from pieces of the landscape and they stand or fall back into it.

Dun Carloway was impressively intact. Often you need some artist's impression to help you to imagine what looks like a pile of stones now may once have been. But here is a large intact section of a massive dry-stone, double-walled structure, beautifully built with the outward facing surfaces almost as smooth as if they had been built from purpose-made bricks. The stones have been so skilfully chosen and placed to have stayed put for over two thousand years, and arranged like an enormous three dimensional jigsaw puzzle.

The black houses which can be seen in good condition at Gearrannan and Arnol were possibly built in the same way for centuries and the village at Gearrannan was inhabited until 1974. These houses were built to withstand the lashing and pelting of the wind and rain. Gales in recent years apparently damaged modern houses while the old black houses stood their ground.

At the village of Arnol there is a preserved black house as well as remains of many more. The preserved black house is now a museum and they keep the peat fire burning at all times. This is not just for an authentic atmosphere, the smoke, which gives the thatched roof the blackened appearance, and hence the name 'black house', helps to keep it dry.

The Callanish Stones on the west side of Lewis is the most awesome arrangement of megalithic standing stones I have seen so far. There are lines of stones leading to a circle and a burial cairn. As usual there are various interpretations (ceremonial, astrological), and it is easy to imagine that the corridors have a kind of processional feel to them.

This monument is more than 4,000 years old and in that time it has probably been appropriated for all sorts of uses. In fact carbon dating has shown that the cairn is a later addition.

These days you may spot a hippy smoking a joint and enjoying the vibes. You will also find it difficult to get a photograph without another photographer in shot. Especially at sunset.

Perhaps the lack of solid facts on something this old is what allows speculation. The imagination can play. The atmosphere and prehistoric other-worldliness can be enjoyed.

By the way, those of you who crave factual detail can find it on Wiki or elsewhere. This is just me saying, I was there. And this was the view from the 'bedroom'.

T

The Windiest Place In The UK

2010-07-14T03:48:00.000-07:00

Contininuing our journeys to the furthest points on the map and the ends of roads... we took ourselves to The Butt of Lewis lighthouse at the north end of the island. Apparently it has appeared in the Guiness Book of Records for being the windiest place in the UK. To the west there is nothing between it and north America, while the next stop in a northwards direction is the Arctic. So you would expect something wild and windy, with crashing waves. We had a freakishly warm day with clear blue skies and a calm, lapping sea, perfect conditons for this couple to perch on a cliff face and have a picnic.

If you need supplies, this might be the place.

T

On to Harris and Lewis

2010-07-12T04:58:00.000-07:00

The journey from Benbecula to the Isles of Lewis and Harris went like this: A drive to Berneray to catch the ferry to Leverburgh. The crew were careful, guiding us on. The issue being the angle between the land side ramp and the ramp on the boat. We had grounded before. We took it slowly. A smiley crewman told us, "That's you on the ferry". I could stop holding my breath.

A hairy journey along twisting single track roads with ditches either side, to a campsite on Harris, misnamed a 'touring park' made us rethink our plan. We headed north to Lewis. A few days in a site with all the facilities near to Stornoway were followed by a move to Siabost (Shawbost) on the west coast, where the site was basically the back garden of a lovely, friendly woman called Mary.

Siabost was a great base from which to explore some extraordinary ancient buildings and monuments on Lewis. You have to squat to get a good look at the wild orchids. These images are from our first visit to the stone circles at Callanish. Since it was grey and wet, we would return on a brighter day.

More Island Memories

2010-07-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are some more highlights and images from our three month trip around the Scottish Highlands and Islands last summer. Well, you don't want to hear about our recent preoccupation with an ant invasion, and how we gained an even more intimate knowledge of the innards of our Airstream, do you?

When we returned from Barra to the conjoined islands of the Uists and Benbecula we spent a couple of days driving around them, taking in the strange, loch-pitted landscape. We would do the end-of-the-road thing that we love to do. When you're following the coastline, or on an island, you may as well follow a road to its end. You might find nothing. You might find a great view.

We were so lucky to have sunny weather in which to enjoy the openness of the scenery. With a landscape this flat, surrounded by sea, I bet you can get a right old pelting when the wind picks up. Mind you, makes you feel alive doesn't it?

We took in the monument at Flora MacDonald's birthplace, the statue of Our Lady of the Isles and a whole bunch of drystone ruins. Those old buildings must take hundreds of years to topple, even if you do borrow a few stones to build your new house. Typically, it looks like you build your new house next to your old one, move in and let the old one fade away very, very slowly.

On our second day of exploring we pointed ourselves northwards to North Uist and Berneray. We found a stone circle which had eluded us a few days before. Pobull Fhinn got an enthusiastic write-up in one of our Aubrey Burl books and so we had another look. You can walk from the Barpa Langass chambered cairn, or via a footpath next to the Langass Lodge Hotel.

I know these old stones don't touch everyone but believe me, they are pretty much always in a beautiful spot. Pobull Fhinn overlooks Loch Langass, which glistened on the day we were there, with hills beyond. And anyway, you have to savour and respect something that's probably been there for about four thousand years. And respect to the people of a place who just leave things be for all that time.

Further north we strode across the stepping stones of the causeway to Dun an Sticir, a broch in a loch. Then on to the Balranald RSPB nature reserve where we saw Lapwings, Terns, Oyster Catchers,

and we endured an overpowering stench of rotting seaweed, reminiscent of soiled nappies. Sometimes the sea air palpably fills you with the invisible life force, sometimes it makes you gag.

Here's a view to uplift and to end on a more pleasant note.

T

Repair, Restore, Refit

2010-06-20T15:42:00.000-07:00

We went to visit Sam Harkness at Vintage Airstreams in Tewkesbury. He has a yard full of potential, a collection of really old Airstream trailers just waiting to be brought back to life. It will be fascinating to see how they will be resurrected and where they will end up spending the next chapter in their stories.

We have seen Airstreams in various stages of restoration and it is always intriguing to hear what the plans are, whether for a true-to-style restoration, or a completely new interior design and transformation.

Pete pointed out that it was clear for the first time just how much work is involved in taking on a vintage project. We hadn't seen any right at the beginning of the process before.

Some have a lot of the original fittings, some have grubby marks where the fittings used to be. Whether a grotty empty shell, or lined from floor to ceiling with brown swirly carpet, having sat in a farmyard or been abandoned by a lake, or been cherished by generations of one family, the back story is often a fascinating part of taking on or owning an old Airstream.

Frustratingly, I forgot my camera and got by with using my phone. Not bad eh, after a bit of tweaking on iPhoto?

T

The Inadequacy of Words

2010-06-11T04:24:00.000-07:00

After the last Airstream Gathering we moved on to a small site on a farm just outside Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, where we stayed for two weeks. We have started to notice a pattern now that we have held three of these gatherings, and it is that we experience a sort of post-rally slump, a deep feeling of 'what now?' And that wasn't helped much for those few days when we couldn't connect to the internet. We felt a bit cut off.

There are times when not being connected is appropriate, and even positively therapeutic. For example, last summer which we spent in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and the Hebrides. We rarely had a phone or internet signal. But being out of touch and unreachable went hand in hand with the feeling of remoteness and wildness of some of the places we found ourselves in. In a way, not being able to tell what it was like, as we were experiencing it, added to the sense of a special and personal journey. We were cut off for much of the time and we had no choice but to be where we were one hundred percent, without diluting the uniqueness of our experiences. Words couldn't have expressed how I felt at the time, and I was happy not to have to confine the spaciousness of where we were and what we felt with words.

One year on it seems a shame not to have shared. We have posted about the Outer Hebrides and received some appreciative comments, so we're going to at least post some photos from last summer, from time to time.

T

Gorgeous Cheddar Gathering

2010-06-02T05:17:00.000-07:00

The Spring Gathering of UKAirstreamers in Cheddar was a very happy event. We are only now getting the chance to write and post pics because we used up our monthly internet bandwidth in the lead up to it and have been out of touch since. Such is the nomad's lot, dependent on mobile broadband.

Firstly, thank you so much to those who made it to Cheddar. It was, as always, a joy to watch you all arrive and to see you all circled in glorious, silveryness. For reasons that are far too tedious to go into here, we had delays in confirming the arrangements and that meant that some old friends had previous commitments. You were missed, but we are looking forward to seeing you in September.

We arrived a day early so that we could be there to welcome everyone. It was our first journey since November. After six months in one place the process of packing up and travelling with the trailer felt almost new again, with the flutter of nervousness that goes with wondering if you've forgotten to batten, check and switch on, off or over. There were some fairly narrow roads through the Somerset villages on the way to Cheddar so the pace was steady. And when we arrived we set up and enjoyed having an enormous field all to ourselves. We got out the Moon Chairs, cracked open a couple of bottles of the local beer and watched the sun set in eager but chilled-out anticipation of the next day's arrivals.

On the Friday it was exciting to welcome the arrival of each trailer, watching them glint and trundle steadily across the field towards us. In the end we had eight Airstreams, with the agreeable mix of familiar and new faces that we like so much. All but one of the trailers were new European models. Glynis and Pete were flying the flag for vintage in their 1964 Bambi II. Come on you vintage Airstreamers! We are looking forward to seeing more of you in September. We love the new models, we bought one after all, but the oldies have such individual character and heaps of history.

We pitched ourselves in a circle, nose to tail and enjoyed being a little Airstream village for a few days. The sun shone every day and the weekend was very relaxed with lots of chatting, a bit of sunbathing and some sharing of shady awnings. We caught up with old friends and made new ones. The cameras were out, niggles, annoyances and modifications were compared. Some Airstreamers whose trailers were not ready for the trip came without for the day on Saturday, and we all mucked in with the barbecue in the evening.

Thanks again for turning up, for sharing stories, experience, tools, barbecues, fire pits, and most importantly, camaraderie and laughs.

T

Ready to Rally

2010-05-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

Lots of Airstreaming news this week...

There is less than a week to go before the Spring Rally in Cheddar. Click here for details if you haven't booked yet, or to confirm your booking and let us know when you are arriving.

Having been in our bolthole in Somerset for almost six months we are gradually gearing ourselves up to moving on to the rally site. This has been the longest we have stayed in one place since starting our travels just over two years ago. Until now, the longest we spent in one place was three weeks. Most of the time we would book in for five nights initially, and if we liked the place, or needed more time to explore the area, we would extend our stay for another few days.

I'm sure our old routines for hitching up and pitching up will soon come flooding back. It's like riding a bike, right? At least this week we will only be moving within the county of Somerset, gently easing ourselves back into the nomadic life.

When you're moving regularly you are vigilant about not accumulating excess baggage. Now we are finding that we need to have a bit of a clear out. The discipline or ruthlessness has to be re-awoken so that we can ditch clothes we don't wear, guidebooks for places we won't be returning to anytime soon, crockery that doesn't get used enough. We've got to make allowance for our new fire pit anyway, getting its first trial by fire at the rally.

Last week we made the short trip to Taunton to see American Retro Caravans. Tucked away at the end of an uninspiring road in an industrial estate sits the little ARC workshop. And it was staggering to see what was going on there. They had four vintage trailers in various stages of restoration and a team of skilled tradesmen and craftsmen beavering away on each of them. Plumbers and electricians, carpenters and metal workers, carpet layers and polishers were all industriously working, occasionally on the same trailer at the same time.

Darren and Kathy, the owners of ARC, very kindly tore themselves away from looming deadlines to show us around. They specialise in high quality restorations, as you can tell from their (very attractive) website. They oversee every aspect, from the custom-built furniture (Darren is a carpenter by trade) to the hand-crafted upholstery. Beautiful.

The same day, this very blog received it's 15,000th hit. Staggering! When we started it, shortly after deciding to buy the Airstream, we thought it might get looked at a couple of times a month by our mums. We had no idea what it would grow into, or that we'd still be writing about Airstreaming two and a half years later. Thank you to everyone who has looked in on our journey.

Finally, we saw Airstreams on the tellybox last night. Tracey sums it up (much better than I could) in her blog.

See you at the Gathering (even if it rains!).

T & P

Tea And Empathy

2010-05-02T05:52:00.001-07:00

It's been an Airstreamy few days. Andrew was on his way to a work thing in Dorset so made a detour to our bolthole here in Somerset. We have a lovely rural view here, which is probably one of the reasons we have stayed for a while, but an Airstream in the mix was OK too.

When we met up in the Hebrides last summer we managed a perfect afternoon tea one day. We persuaded a young lass to reopen her shop to sell us some scones. Then we found our way into a supermarket whose entrance was cunningly disguised as a bus shelter (probably to keep the wild wind out), and there, against our expectations we found clotted cream. We already had the best strawberry jam money can buy, Tiptree Little Scarlet. I don't know why it is so good exactly. It must be the Little Scarlet strawberries themselves. Or maybe it is also the rarity with which we find it on our travels.

Well these individual, intrepidly sought ingredients married succulently into a tea orchestrated with involuntary groans of appreciation.

Here in Somerset we are much closer to the more traditionally conceived source of the cream tea. I recently read that the Cornish put cream first on their scones, then the jam, Devonians the other way round. Now we know. I go Cornish, Pete favours the Devonian way. Anyway, the scones couldn't have been fresher. For the first time since my inadequate school cookery lessons I made scones. And pretty darned good they were too. Warm, light, big. What more can I say?

You know when you try to recreate an experience and it doesn't rise to your expectations? That didn't happen.

Simon, Emma and Tilly popped round to say Hello on their way to visit family. They recently had to let their Airstream go but are still honorary Airstreamers. We have high hopes for them rejoining the clan. So there has been a lot of Airstreamy chat; new versus vintage, standard European versus wide-bodied, layout etc, etc.

And of course there's the approaching rally. So it was like a warm-up.

T

Get Polishing For The Spring Rally

2010-04-27T04:02:00.000-07:00

The word has gone out about our next Airstream gathering. It feels a bit like throwing a party. We are excited and at the same time attempting to use the strength of our will to conjure good weather and plenty of people with Airstreams.

Our first gathering last Spring was a lovely, casual event where we attracted nine Airstreams of varying vintage and newness to a campsite close to Marlborough in Wiltshire. The campsite warden had been unable to reserve us an area to ourselves so we were a rather higgeldy bunch with a few conventional caravanners trapped in our midst. But you could already feel the connection between a load of rivet heads.

The second one was last September next to the Forest of Dean. This time we had a rally field within a campsite and we were able to make a circling wagons-style formation. We were thirteen Airstreams this time, so it looks like we might just grow gradually, getting to know each other and enjoying the way that your aluminium pride and joy can bring a group of individuals together.

This Spring, which so far has been glorious, we are meeting in a field in Cheddar from 21st to 23rd May, so get polishing. Details and how to book can be found through the UK Airstreamers website.

Spring Rally

2010-04-22T04:23:00.000-07:00

Following on from two successful gatherings of UK Airstreamers last year we have another two planned for this spring and summer.

We finally have a location and dates for the Spring Gathering. It will be from the 21st to 23rd of May, near Cheddar in Somerset. We will have a field to ourselves, where we can be ourselves and enjoy the silvery view and some good company.

As with the previous two rallies, we are hoping to attract a mix of new and vintage Airstreams, meet new friends and catch up with old ones. And if hanging out with enthusiasts of aluminium and rivets is not enough there's loads to see and do in the area.

More information can be found on the website and the forum plus details of how to book.

And, as if that's not enough, we will be meeting again at the end of the summer, 10th/12th September, near Ludlow in Shropshire. I'm sure everyone will have tales of their summer travels to share by then.

Got an Airstream? Bring it along. See you there!

Woosh!

2010-03-29T17:46:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, we took a trip over to Salisbury to visit the guys at Silver Rocketeer.

I found their website a couple of weeks ago and was more than keen to see their Spartan trailer. We exchanged a few emails and arranged the visit.

It was a miserably wet day (we could have made most of the journey by boat, or even submarine!) and the sat-nav took us on a delightful tour of the country lanes, but we eventually got there.

Silver Rocketeer are two guys who are well equipped for the vintage restoration trade. Their website will tell you all about them, but (in a nutshell) Jonathan is a sculptor and Christopher is an engineer. They have two projects on the go, the first of which is a beautifully shiny, late 40's Airstream Liner...

At the moment, it comes with an unusual "original feature" - two bullet holes in the roof!

They have done a lovely job restoring the trailer, replacing where necessary whilst trying to keep as much of the original as possible. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished item - if we win the lottery and start collecting vintage Airstreams this model is at the top of Tracey's wish list.

The second trailer is in the early stages of restoration, but it's going to be a beaut...

They are going to turn this Spartan Mansion into an Art Deco cocktail lounge. I can't wait. It's just an empty shell at the moment, but what a shell!

We were very kindly treated to lunch in their third trailer - a late 70's Airstream which doubles as their office. It was a real pleasure spending time with some people who, for want of a better word, "get" Airstreaming. We're hopeful that the Spartan Cocktail Lounge will be ready in time to make an appearance at the September Gathering...

It's looking increasingly likely that the UKAirstreamers Spring Gathering is going to become an Early Summer affair, but the Autumn dates are set. Make a note in your diaries for the weekend of 10th/12th of September, near Ludlow, Shropshire. There will be more details on the UKAirstreamers Website soon, or email me if you're interested.

Finally, a quick plug for a new book...

My Cool Caravan is a lovely little book, full of photos of all kinds of caravans and trailers, ancient and modern, including a handful of Airstreams. It's only a few quid - treat yourselves.

P

Bugs, Buds and Birds

2010-03-22T07:49:00.001-07:00

We have been in self-imposed quarantine for a few days. I picked up an annoying coughy, throaty bug-thing from my parents on Mother's Day and it has been evolving since then. We are both spluttering away, but only in the cocoon of our trailer.

I am now on my third day without a voice, which is both interesting and frustrating. I've basically given up on trying to communicate until further notice. I remember trying to phone in sick once when I had lost my voice. This was back when I had a job, lived alone and email and texts hadn't yet caught on. I had no alternative but to force out a sibilant apology to a highly amused colleague.

We woke up one morning to see the field in front of us dotted with daisies. Eagerly anticipated Spring is here. Although these daffs seem reluctant to agree.

More bird news: We were getting a regular early morning wake up call in the form of a 'dink dink' kind of sound. It took a few days to figure out that a chaffinch was attacking its own reflection in our trailer bumper. It is now beautifully adorned with bin-liners stuck together with masking tape and the 'dink dink' has stopped. Well, we need our sleep.
T

Shiny Shiny

2010-03-08T16:04:00.000-08:00

We have made good use of the sunny days by washing and polishing the Airstream. It looks gorgeous. It always looks beautiful but now it's as buffed and glossy as an Oscar nominee.

As for us, we are expecting to feel the after effects in our shoulders and backs for the next couple of days.

The wildlife around us asserts itself, emboldened by signs of the approaching spring. I have been observing some crows attempting to build nests. I picked out a pair at the tree's extremity so that they would be easy to identify.

For a few days I watched as they worked together. One would fetch, the other would manage to balance a few twigs in the crook of the branches. For about a week they made little progress. Each morning I would think that I could see the beginnings of a nest and the next day it would have disappeared, they would be starting over. I felt sorry for them. I worried and pitied their failure to do what I thought should come naturally. I guess they have to learn by trial and error.

By the weekend there seemed to be a twiggy structure holding itself together. It was clearly stable enough for a crow to sit in, for a day at least. For the last three days a neighbour has been frightening them off with some sort of loud banging device. I thought it was the sound of countryside pursuits involving shooting things. Apparently if he doesn't send them on their way now he will have about fifty nesting pairs pooping in his garden all spring. My incompetent pair will have to keep trying somewhere else.
T

You Need Friends

2010-02-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

We just had a very happy weekend. Friends came from London to visit us at our Somerset hideaway. These are special friends. They appreciate our Airstreaming ways. Wayne and Lotts lived on a boat for several years and they understand the charms of living in a compact and mobile space. They love the Airstream. It reminded them of their boat.

A while back we did think about living on a boat ourselves after we had been on a couple of trips along the Thames with Wayne and Lotte. Admittedly we were joining them on their holidays and the pace could not have been more easy-going. We would chug along the river, watching the world go by very, very slowly, being overtaken by cyclists on the towpath. We started to do some research on barges and narrow boats but didn't follow it through. I do think though that in considering it as a lifestyle we were probably on our way to where we are now.

In a perfect world we would be pitched in a field next to a river where our friends are moored.

It is like a tonic to spend time with people who understand your choices. Don't we all need a big ol' thumbs up now and then? I know I do.
T

Don't Delay

2010-02-09T12:00:00.000-08:00

I keep getting absorbed in indoor tasks and projects like setting up my new blog, for example. Consequently I sometimes end up doing the outdoor chores later in the day. Yesterday it was dark before I got around to doing the fetch, carry and disposal jobs. I ought to know better. I skipped the worst of these, the chore which dare not speak its name, because it was dark and windy and there's a big deep hole in which to empty the unmentionable. These are not ideal conditions.

Once, during our first week ever in the Airstream, I had to negotiate a septic tank buried in the ground, on a farm in Cumbria, in the pitch dark, with a torch clutched in my armpit. That was tricky. Never again.

Today I became sucked into laptop world again, into the realm of lost time. I was saved from fumbling with waste products in the dark because my attention was captured by the sun sinking beautifully behind the trees. It cast an irresistible golden light on our aluminium home, tempting me outside with the camera. Only the light was warm, fingers, frozen.

Does it sound like I do everything around here? Not usually. Pete went to visit friends in Wiltshire for a few days and he made sure I had a stocked up refrigerator, a full can of gas and a box of latex gloves before he went.

Did I mention that I have a new blog? It's for my increasingly non-Airstream ruminations. There's a link on the right.

T

I've Got Chills

2010-01-11T01:54:00.000-08:00

It is still trying to snow here in Somerset. Unlike other areas we have been very lucky to have just enough to transform the scenery but not cause us any problems. We have had to use quite a lot of gas during this 'Big Freeze', as the news channels are calling it. When the heating is switched to electric it just doesn't seem to have enough oomph. I was looking at small electric fan heaters the other day, thinking that a bit of warm air blowing around the trailer would be a good thing. I found myself looking at an exact replica of one that we have in storage somewhere, but where? And will the cold snap be over by the time we track it down?

The chammy is working very hard too, wiping up all the condensation. Other Airstreamers don't seem to get as much moisture as we do. The conclusion from chat and our forum seems to be that it depends on the number of bodies.

We saw these degus at a well-known chain of pet stores. That's the way to keep warm, but it would raise the body count a bit.

T

Let It Snow

2010-01-06T11:48:00.000-08:00

Our morning view has been coated in a thick frost recently. The skeletal trees have stood motionless, dark at their core and dusted in sparkly, white crystals.

We have had some lovely walks out on the moors, wrapped in wooly and fleecey layers, crunching on the frozen earth and sinking to our ankles in thawed mud.

Finally, and against expectation, we awoke today to a silent snowy scene. Sorry to anyone who had to try to function as usual. We just had to walk in it, chuck it at each other and be uplifted and exhilerated by it.

The Chrimbo decos came down today. Some of the lights stay up all year round. The twinkly, sparklies just add to the coziness and reflect beautifully in the Airstream's aluminium interior.

A belated Happy New Year everyone

T

I'm Dreaming Of A Silver Christmas

2009-12-24T10:33:00.000-08:00

The ice has started to melt around here today, except in those places where the low winter sun doesn't manage to get a look-in. A thick mist rolled towards us from the moor this afternoon. That was our cue to go for a walk and enjoy the sillouetted trees and the sky becoming deep pink. In a dusky, misty field across the river we watched two deer as they watched us before springing off.

The lights are on, the bunnies have new Santa hats, we are cozy, stocked up and ready for our second Airstream Christmas.

Happy Christmas

Notes From Here And There

2009-12-17T11:16:00.000-08:00

We have had an attack of the gremlins lately. There was the wheel falling off, someone drove into us, Pete's laptop went all dark and mysterious. Not letting any of it get us down though. We're keeping warm and dry and staying on top of the 'moisture management'. That's mopping up condensation for all you non-trailer dwellers.

The rain has abated and our view of the Somerset levels which so far looked like a lake has revealed itself to be fields. It is proper cold though, dead wintry.

I spent last weekend in London visiting my bestest friend. We talked for two whole days. Life makes a bit more sense now. Life also makes more sense because I was able to travel by bus from Ilchester to Hammersmith for £20.00 return with a local coach company. Maybe mankind isn't doomed after all.

We are still prolonging our memories of the Hebrides. The idea is that, since we're taking things slow over the winter we could tell about our summer travels when there's not much to report around here.

To that end....

Back in June we took a small ferry from Eriskay to Barra. The Airstream grounded on the way onto the ferry so the crew were ready with the chocks to get us off at the other side. We took it slowly but unfortunately one of the guys put a chock in upside down so that as we drove over it, it tipped up and got caught in the spare wheel carrier underneath. Oh dear, we thought, or more expletive words to that effect. Many heart palpitations and miniscule manoeuvrings later we were free and headed for the beach where Andrew had bagsied us a spot next to him.

Now I would really like to tell you absolutely nothing about Barra because it is beautiful and special and very small, so I don't really want to encourage anyone to go there and make it all busy and stuff, like everywhere else. Have I said it before? probably, that Britain is small and populated areas are close together and there aren't enough empty spaces. Well Barra in June was lovely and empty.

The sky was clear, the sun shone, the sea was the cleanest, crystal-like I have ever seen and there were empty white beaches.

We parked up next to Andrew on the beach. This is really what we had wanted to do since buying the Airstream. Wild camping with a trailer is not permitted in England. On Barra it's the only kind of camping. The airport is a few hundred yards from where you can camp and tiny planes land on the sand a couple of times a day when the tides permit. There is a fresh water tap outside the 'terminal' and a neighbour told us where there were boat docking facilities where we could take our waste.

So that covered all the necessities. We set up, sat and admired the best view ever and waited for our friend Helen to arrive by plane from London. She had a few days off from her busy metropolitan life and the prospect of landing on the beach was the enticement she succumbed to. About five minutes before her plane was due we started strolling along the beach to meet her.

The next few days were a perfect mix of paddling, sitting around Andrew's fire-pit, watching sunsets, a boat-trip to Mingulay to get up close to the puffins, sandcastle building, castle visiting.

The sun went down very late at that time of year. It was light until eleven, eleven-thirty, which is great for nocturnal types like us.

A note on the weather, which was brilliant for those few days even if breezy at times. It can get very wild and windy up there and I suspect those white beaches and turquoise seas might be a little less inviting.

Having said that, our neighbour, Christine, has been going back and staying for two months every year for over a decade. Her caravan was anchored down. She said that when it gets stormy she thinks to herself, never again. And yet there she was. We met quite a few people who go back regularly. We all had big smiles on our faces. You would too, but of course I'm begging you not to go.

T

Uig to Uist

2009-12-02T07:01:00.001-08:00

Wherever we have been lately it has rained persistently (Cumbria, Dorset, Somerset). Most of the UK is dripping at the moment so it seems like a good time to reminisce about our Hebridean journey and some blue skies. So the following took place back in June.

We had decided to go ahead with our Outer Hebrides trip. We turned up at Uig harbour, got measured to see if they could squeeze us onto a fully booked ferry and made the crossing to North Uist. From the harbour at Lochmaddy we drove south to Benbecula where fellow Airstreamer Andrew was staying and had reserved us a pitch.

Within a week we would be back this way to explore the landscape and bronze age ruins more thoroughly but this time we were basically passing through and just beginning to get a taste of this unique part of the British Isles.

I hope I can do justice to these islands. I suppose I can just start with my first impressions as we headed down to Benbecula. I didn't know what to expect, but I hadn't expected this. It was pretty flat. In my English mind Scotland is hilly. Surely the Western Isles would bear some resemblance?

Hills were usually visible at some point on the horizon but mostly there were wide open spaces. And these adjoining islands are generously dotted with various bodies of water. Or is it that the stretches of land are just giant stepping stones? Roads have somehow been built across peaty bogs, islands have been connected with causeways, watery areas of all sizes from pond to loch to actual sea surround you. There appears to be more water than land. The land has holes in it. It's like a massive peaty doily.

In a nutshell it is open, flat, boggy, lochy, causewayed and spread out. Oh, and no trees. But there is plenty of peat. More about peat later. Bet you can't wait. No wait, it's good stuff. Come back.

Buildings look like they are naturally spaced apart where the land allows. So instead of villages of close-together houses there are settlements where your nearest neighbour might be half a mile away, or more. Except on Benbecula where you come across an airbase and an attached community. Somewhere in there is a supermarket but you would have to be smarter than me or Andrew to find your way into it. We did eventually figure out that the entrance was disguised as a bus shelter, obviously. It probably gets pretty windy around there and you would need a buffer between the outside and inside. A bus shelter fits the bill.

It was worth the sleuthing though because among other lovely things within we found clotted cream to go with the scones we'd already hunted down. And so afternoon tea would be ceremonially enjoyed later that day.

On another day Pete and I returned to Lochmaddy to check out the arts centre. We had a look around an exhibition of photographs by Erskine Beveridge, a textile manufacturer who had been a frequent visitor to the islands in the late nineteenth century. He was interested in the islanders' way of life and captured it in pretty stark and atmospheric black and white images.

There was also an exhibition of sculptures by Claire McNiven. Figures caught in motion were built from tangles of string and rope which the sculptor had found on her walks on the beach. In a long-ago incarnation I was a dancer and seeing these figures really captured and reminded me of the split second moments of off-balance transition between one shape and the next. It was truly lovely and all from bits of reclaimed string.

We had a quiet Sunday on Benbecula which included a walk on the adjacent beach. The sand was white, the sky blue with voluptuous clouds hovering on the horizon. The sea was pure turquoise. There were tidemarks of small shells, crab shells, seaweed. There was even the jaw bone of a sheep. Since there is water everywhere, anything can eventually get washed out to sea.

The sunlight, the shades of blue and the reflectiveness of the white sand are incredibly uplifting. And there was plenty more of that to come.

T

Calling All UK Airstreamers!

2009-11-26T05:21:00.000-08:00

After organising two Airstream gatherings this year, we found that we needed a better way to spread news and keep in touch with other 'Streamers.

So we created a Forum.

It quickly outgrew its usefulness, so we made another. And attached it to a website.

Here is the fruit of our labours...

UKAirstreamers.org

It's been designed as a meeting place and information centre for all things Airstreaming in the UK. Please have a look. If you have an Airstream (or are just hankering after one!), join the Forum. If we've missed anything off the Links page, please let us know.

We hope you like it.

P

Check Your Nuts!!!!

2009-11-24T09:57:00.001-08:00

We interrupt this complete absence of posting with a warning to all you caravanners out there.

Check your wheel nuts!

A little over a week ago, while making a relatively short hop from Carlisle in North Cumbria to Barrow in South West Cumbria, the rear, nearside wheel fell off.

It wasn’t a happy experience, but we have come away from it much wiser and a little poorer.

I’ve always checked the torque on the wheels before a long journey, but I must confess that I wasn’t aware of just how quickly they can work loose after removing the wheel. We’d had a full service only a week (and 105 miles) before, and we were only six miles from our destination. There was no vibration, no instability, no warning of any sort, just a bump and then, less than a second later, a crunch, followed by the wheel, er, following us along the road.

The damage? A section of the wheel arch was bent inwards resulting in a couple of short tears in the side skin. Not pretty.

Another warning to you all… Check your vehicle recovery clauses. We have Green Flag cover which came free with our fancy-schmancy bank account. Caravan recovery is included, but the (very) small print restricts the caravan length to 7m. More expense. And the two guys managed to rip a rear-corner section of the skirt off while they were winching the trailer onto the flat-bed truck.

And then it started raining. A lot.

Those last six miles took three hours.

So what advice can we offer? Apart from the obvious (CHECK YOUR WHEELNUT TORQUE!!!), have a good look at your vehicle rescue cover. With hindsight (which is always 20/20 vision), we could have attempted to re-attach the wheel ourselves. All five wheel bolts were lost when the wheel fell off (it was dark on a busy road), so we now carry a full set of spare bolts. Even though the wheel was damaged during separation, the tyre was good and it could have got us the final six miles to our destination. Even though we carry a trolly jack, it would have been very difficult to get it under the trailer at the side of the road, but we could have driven the remaining wheel up onto one of those yellow plastic ramps (I knew there was a reason why we carry them) which would have got it high enough to put the wheel back on.

We live and learn. Wheel separation isn't uncommon. It is almost always the left-hand-side which drops off. I can't find any figures for the UK, but around 50 trailer and truck wheels fall off in the US every week. So, please, check the torque on your wheel bolts.

All-in-all, it was pretty heartbreaking but no-one was hurt (only our pride-and-joy and our wallets), and at least we still have our home. We were in Cockermouth only a week before the flood – it could have been much, much worse for us.

More About Skye

2009-10-29T05:42:00.000-07:00

Could we have known that in May we were about to enjoy the best weather of the year? This year I have become acutely aware of how short summer is. I like all of the seasons. They make sense to me, but summer is so eagerly anticipated, expectations are high. Spring is the teaser and then it's time to stock-take and update your outdoor seating and barbeque equipment. Whatever you do, don't save this stuff for the perfect balmy evening, get out there and burn something while you can. Also, just because the weather forecasters tell us it's going to be a long, hot summer, doesn't mean it will be. And, just because last summer was wet and we all felt like we were robbed doesn't mean some universal law of fairness will deliver a scorcher this time around.

We were lulled into premature hot summer excitement when we had a couple of really hot days at Glenbrittle. Our tent-dwelling neighbours were returning from conquering nature and geology looking decidedly drained and sweaty. I put their pathological unfriendliness down to a preoccupation with personal clamminess and an ability to focus only on achieving a summit whilst forgetting even the most basic of social niceties, such as a simple 'Morning' when you happen to be sharing the same tiny patch of this awesome planet.

We started to encounter midges in the evenings and worked on our strategies for keeping them off us and out of the trailer. But when we arrived at Loch Greshornish we were encouraged to hear that the blustery wind was keeping them away. Hurrah! Unfortunately that same blustery wind made it impossible to sit outside, let alone barbeque or enjoy our stylish new outdoor furniture.

No problem because it was at this time that I became firmly hooked on listening to Radcliffe and Maconie on Radio 2 in the evenings. They play a fine mixture of new releases with classic old stuff, including a generous helping of the cool stuff from the seventies and eighties. Mark and Stuart have a great, dry banter going on, even if Mark does sometimes sound a bit fed up or bored with his co-presenter. They know their music too. Then there is "The Chain", an ongoing, unbroken sequence of connected songs which members of the audience call in to suggest. The links can be as obvious or tenuous as you like as long as the chosen record is quality.

There's more but I don't think I can do justice to "This just in", or the live chat and music sessions. It's just exciting sometimes to hear something that you haven't heard for years, that doesn't get played on the programmes with their play lists handed to them by their producers. It's good for the soul to be reminded that you used to love this song or dance to that one, especially if you're looking out of the window, across a loch and watching the light change.

And while I'm plugging things I like I can recommend Cafe Arriba in Portree on the road that winds down towards the harbour. It is bright and jolly and the food is prepared freshly. There are loads of daily specials including plenty of imaginative veggie choices. For that reason this is a most superior cafe. We were about to embark on a journey where our lunch options would invariably end up being a cheese and onion toasted sandwich if we were lucky, or a bag of crisps if we weren't. I kid you not.

Our access to the internet was getting as scarce as a decent and nutritionally sound lunch. We had hoped that Cafe Arriba would have WiFi, it looked like the sort of place that would and we would have happily whiled away some time communing with the world at large and knocking back the coffees. However it didn't and, after peering into the windows of every cafe, pub and hotel without any luck we finally spotted a sign that led us to a kind of village hall with craft market and internet access. That's a rocking combination in my opinion. For a tiny donation we were given a choice of passwords to try and left to our own devices in the balcony-cum-mezzanine. And naturally I bought a hand-knitted scarf too.

Of course our phone signals were equally miss and miss and we would occasionally drive into a zone and start beeping as two day old messages made it through the ether. In time we would become more and more comfortable with feeling disconnected from everyone and everything, but not yet.

T

Reaching Skye

2009-10-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

Now that Autumn is firmly upon us, it’s good to look back on those gloriously long, hot days of the early Summer.

The first stop on Skye was at the Glenbrittle campsite, a charming little spot, tucked away at the end of an eight-mile cul-de-sac. It’s designed for tenters who fancy a crack at the very enticing Cuilin Ridge. The road to the site was a tricksy little thing, with a steep drop into the valley with two miles to go. We stopped to let the over-run brakes cool down (and to admire our Airstream in the wild).

The site itself was one of those “park-where-you-like” jobbies, with only a handful of hard standings with hook-ups. We found a spot on the grass with a view out to sea, and spent a few days running on solar power. And there was plenty of it.

It’s perhaps worth mentioning our batteries. Back at Easter, we spent five days on a site without hook-up. It was my own silly mistake, but when I booked us onto a Camping and Caravanning Club site, I completely failed to register that a Standard Pitch can mean nothing more than a patch of grass. For the Caravan Club on the other hand, a Standard Pitch might include a hard standing, electric hook-up, breakfast in bed and the grass cut four times a day. So we tried to live off the batteries. The days were bright and sunny, but being early April, they weren’t very long, so to spare the blushes of the solar panel on the roof, we used the site shower and toilet facilities. You’d think that by watching minimum TV, using only LED lights and not running any fans, we should be able to last quite a while. On the third evening, the voltage dropped so low that the inverter wouldn’t run, so we had to go to bed at nine o’clock! I haven’t done that since I was a tiddler! The next couple of days were taken up by waiting around in the mornings until we were allowed to run the generator for a couple of hours, leaving us about an hour to explore before everything shut. So, these two 90 Amp-hour batteries were lasting next to no time. On our next trip to Tebay, we had an exchange of views on the state of the batteries. It turns out that the batteries are not covered by the warranty which, to be honest, is fair enough, but I wasn’t best chuffed to have to fork out around three hundred quid on something that was less than 18 months old. Airstream did, however, replace the PSU in case there was a fault with the charging system. The old one was sent off for testing – I’m still waiting for the results…

So, with new batteries and glorious sunshine, we had no problems surviving on Skye. Being at the end of an inhospitable road, we didn’t venture too far from the site. The Cuilins were calling, but the call fell on deaf ears (I was a: pretty unfit and b: it would have meant getting up early), so we just had a couple of short walks from the site, though one afternoon we did venture as far as the local distillery.

Talisker is a bit rough for my taste, but the tour was interesting. To be honest, though, once you’ve had one distillery tour, you’ve seen them all.

Still not having any plans, we moved on to the Camping and Caravanning Club site at Loch Greshornish. This was a world away from the terrible time we’d had at Easter – the welcome was warm and we were feeling very bold with our new batteries, so we booked in for three nights on a “Standard” pitch. This one came with glorious views across the little sea loch.

In the nearby village of Dunvegan sits the tiny little “Giant Angus MacAskill Museum.”
This was, quite simply, the best entertainment I’ve had this century. It’s a couple of quid to get in. You might need to ring the bell – the curator was in the house next door peeling tatties for when his wife got home from work. This curator, Peter MacAskill, traced his family tree and found he was a distant cousin of the Giant, so he thought it would be a good idea to make a museum of the Giant’s life. Angus, it turns out, never set foot on Skye, and none of the exhibits are original, but the recreations are excellent, and the commentary from Peter (when he wasn’t running off to check the tatties) was eye-wateringly funny.

If you ever visit, you could see the exhibits (housed in the single room of the old smithy) in about ten minutes, but allow yourselves at least three quarters of an hour for the stories. And don’t leave without asking about the coffin… The picture shows a waxwork of Angus, one of General Tom Thumb (who was in the same Show Business as Angus) and the real Peter MacAskill - Curator and Comedian.

It was while we were sitting in the campsite one afternoon that we decided that we would just hang the expense and go to the Hebrides anyway. You may remember that we have mentioned CalMac Ferries arbitrary pricing structure. Caravans are only supposed to be up to 8 metres long – anything longer gets charged as a commercial vehicle. They take 10 metre motor homes, but not 8.25m caravans, like our 684. Back in Oban (which was about the last time we were to get mobile internet access for the next three months!), I got on my high horse and send some frank emails to various people. It seems that the Hebridean Tourist Development Agency were familiar with CalMac’s fun and games, and the Scottish Minister for Transport promised to bring it up at the next meeting with the CalMac board. Caledonian MacBrayne, by the way, is wholly owned and funded by the Scottish Government, so you know who to complain to…

So we turned up at the ferry port in Uig, got a ticket and found ourselves, at least for the time being, leaving Skye and on the way to the Outer Hebrides…

Ticking off Ardnamurchan

2009-10-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

Once we had decided not to allow the forbidding ferry costs to spoil our Scottish travels but instead take it as a stimulus to choose a different journey, we planned to continue heading north around the west coast and to go to the Isle of Skye via the bridge.

On the way we spent a couple of nights in Fort William. Some of the journey so far was familiar since we were retracing some of our steps travelled on our honeymoon thirteen years ago. The last time we had been in Fort William I popped into the hospital to get a tick removed from my leg. It had so far foiled all attempts at eviction by a squeamish me. The doctor I saw back then was new to the job, English and had not encountered a tick before. The digging out technique he used was not the preferred one but his grasp of the tweezers was a bit shaky. Apparently what you don't want is for the body to come off and leave the spiky mouthparts in situ. Other possible remedies include dowsing the little critter with alcohol or suffocating it with a blob of Vaseline. Both methods are supposed to result in the nasty little blighter simply dropping off. This time around I was ready for ticks (purpose-made tweezers, Vaseline and I'm sure there's alcohol around here somewhere), midges (jungle spray) and rain (brand new red Gortex jacket).

Fort William was much smaller than I remembered. The last time we were there it was a useful place. It was where we stopped off for essential supplies. This time my impression was of one street lined with discount outdoor clothing stores and shops selling tacky souvenirs of Scottish clichés. This is where the shortbread trail begins.

The site we stayed on was kind of pleasant and kind of odd. Well really it was just unlike the sites we normally use. It covered all of the self-catering holidaying options with 'chalets', apartments, tent areas and touring caravan areas. All of this was under the giant shadow of Ben Nevis and a couple of miles from the town centre.

At some point along the way our road atlas had changed its scale without us noticing. So when we fancied a bit of a drive out to Ardnamurchan, the furthest point west on the British mainland, it was twice the distance we'd anticipated. On our travels we have developed a need to see the ends of roads and the furthest points of the compass. It started quite accidentally. We just happened to be at the most south-westerly landmark at the beginning of our journey and, since we have this Man From Atlantis-like need to return to the sea, we always seem to be ticking off these extremes.

This drive was also to be our initiation into twisty, single track road driving. Most of the roads from now on would be narrow and perfectly constructed. It was fantastic. What an exercise in concentration. With trees alongside a lot of the route you just never knew what was around the next bend. When we weren't enclosed by foliage the scenery was hilly and green at times, then as we traced the higgledy-piggledy coastline the sea sparkled under clear, blue skies. It was prettier and a lot less rugged than we had expected.

Touristy landmarks along the way included the Glenfinnan Monument commemorating where Bonnie Prince Charlie's standard was raised in 1745, and the viaduct used in the filming of the Hogwarts train in the Harry Potter series.

Once we had finally arrived at the Point of Ardnamurchan we could enjoy looking across the sea we would not be crossing and enjoy views of the islands of Eigg, Rum and Muck. (No, I'm not making this up). These were not on our itinerary so not so torturous as you might think.

There was also the first of many lighthouses. They go with the territory of course and they look magnificent against a clear, blue sky. My favourite features are the huge red-painted fog horns.

Most of Scotland's lighthouses were designed by members of the Stephenson family. Think of the heyday of industrial engineering, bridge building, the steam engine, railways. Various members of the Stephenson family were responsible. Confusingly, a few of them are called Robert. The author Robert Louis Stephenson was also related. Great genes aplenty there then. This one was the work of Allan Stephenson.

And I always try to imagine what it must have been like for the lighthouse keepers to live in these places. Sometimes it must have been beautiful solitude and at others it must have been desolate and desperate. Surely you must love the wind, or go mad.

T

The Road Less Travelled

2009-09-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

Here goes, we are looking back over the summer we spent in our Airstream in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. I had anticipated some good scenery and some bracing sea air but I never guessed it was to be the high point of our travels so far.

We decided to make the first leg take us from Keswick to Oban. The ferries to Mull depart from there and that was to be the first destination of our island-hopping.

The first half of the drive north couldn't really have been any easier. Once on the M6 you're on one of those uplifting routes which gradually loses fellow motorists to the cities and towns along the way until you hit the open spaces and the roads less travelled.

We did have a mini hitch when we wanted to stop at services and make some lunch. On our first attempt we followed the signs towards caravan parking and found ourselves driving around a very busy CAR PARK! No big spaces for caravans or trailers. If there had been room to manoeuvre we might have tried to take up two spaces, but there wasn't. Instead we did a circuit and moved on. At the next stop the caravan area was basically a grass verge with room for three or four vans. We refuelled our tums and got back on the road.

Bypassing Glasgow is simple and the scenery just gets better and better as you drive up the west side of Loch Lomond. It feels like you're really starting out on a proper trip. For us it was starting to look like a proper wet trip. As we progressed northward alongside the loch it started to pour with rain. The further north we went the narrower the road became. Add to that road works, a temporary and bumpy road surface and what seemed like buckets-full of water being thrown up at the windscreen whenever another vehicle passed us. When we arrived at the campsite we were told we should have turned off and taken a detour to avoid all of that. Ah well.

The site in Oban was large and affiliated to one of the clubs and had the benefits of helpful staff, immaculate facilities, hook-up etc. Most of the vans were in rows facing the sea. Luckily for us we were pitched on the side, angled and staggered so that we could simply enjoy the sea view without having to look at the white box terraces. The only downside was that the loo disposal point was so far from our pitch that the 14 litre cartridge had to be transported in the car.

A bonus was that fellow Airstreamer, Andrew, arrived the following day. He was also on a Hebridean trip of his own and while we would be doing our own things, we would make a point of meeting up along the way. Like us, he knew where he wanted to visit but the final details were to be confirmed.

In between planning we had some walks on the beach and cheered on Andrew as he took to the sea with his kite board.

Pete and I took a look around Oban on a Sunday in what was probably low-ish season and I suspect we didn't see it at its best. I can comfortably add it to my list of 'functional towns'. This town's main function seemed to be as a starting point for island hoppers. Although I can recommend the view of the harbour and of Mull and surrounding islands from McCaig's Monument. The monument is like a massive folly in the shape of an ancient amphitheatre. Apparently it was going to be a museum and library but it was never finished. What stands now is the external circular structure with a park in the middle of it instead, and the great view.

We found an excellent guide book about hopping The Hebrides in the Oban branch of a well known high street book store, got some chips and mushy peas, ate them while walking the streets and protecting our dinner from the circling seagulls then popped in to the ferry terminal to make enquiries and book our tickets. Unfortunately this is where things started to hiccup.

There is only one ferry company operating between the mainland and the Hebrides. Just think about the disadvantages of any monopoly and apply them here. The most obvious one being, no choice. What they say goes. And what they said was that since our trailer is longer than 8 metres, by 25cm they would be charging us as a commercial vehicle. So instead of our Island Hopper ticket costing us around £350 it was going to be closer to £700. I could have cried. Our plans seemed quashed in a moment. It was too much, impossible to justify. Even if it weren't I wouldn't have wanted to let them get away with such an arbitrary hoick in fees, an extra £350 for an extra 25cm.

We returned, deflated, to the trailer to rethink our plans. Scotland is overly endowed with beautiful places which we had not yet seen. We would simply enjoy them instead. We would continue heading north and work our way around the coast.

T

The Rally Call

2009-09-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

Back in March, I put the word out (just to see what happened) and nine Airstream owners turned up with their trailers and motor homes for a mini-rally.

Last weekend, we did it again.

This time, thirteen units turned up, ranging from a '59 Tradewind to a hot-off-the-presses European. Almost all of the "old guard" returned (Chris - you missed a good one; Chuck - get well soon), along with a splendid collection of new faces.

The weather was fantastic (the best it's been since early June!) and the sun poured down all weekend on shiny aluminium.

We arrived a few days early and caught up with John & Carole (or Jack Lightning and the Milky Way Kid as they are now known) in their '06 Classic. I hope they won't be too embarrassed if I say that they are two of the finest human beings I have ever met, and that I find them truly inspirational. Actually, I'm sure they will be embarrassed, but I hope they'll get over it by the time we see them next.

It just remains for me to say "Thank you" to everyone who came (in, more-or-less, the order they arrived)... John, Carole, Bill, Christine, Ian, Arianne, Dave, Helen, David, Ali, Michael, Glynis, Pete, Paul, Hazel, Scarlet, Flo, Andrew, Simon, Emma, Carl, Gaynor, Connor, Rory, Paul, Carla, Sebastian and Casper. I didn't have nearly enough time to spend with each of you, but I hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as I did. Thanks, also, to the huge number of visitors we had. It seems that a Rivet of Airstreams (is that the proper collective noun?) cannot go unnoticed! And finally, thank you to the wardens Irene and Richard, who graciously put up with our late-night revelry, our stream of arrivals and visitors, and our night-time light pollution!

Will we be doing it again? Oh, yes. There will be another gathering of some sort in the Spring, and we're working on a special project or two for next year.... Stay tuned...

We'll be back very soon with another installment in our Scottish Odyssey.

P

Break for the Border

2009-09-03T03:23:00.000-07:00

So, looking back over the summer and our Scottish odyssey we have travelled in a big loop. Our loopy journey took us up the western coastline, hopping around some Western Isles, then around the north, over to Orkney and then more hastily in a southerly direction through eastern and some central areas.

Where did it all begin?

Well, the trailer had been back at Airstream HQ for a couple of days getting new batteries and having some other niggles addressed. Our one year old batteries had failed us back in the spring when we'd had just a couple of days without hook up. We were hoping for a bit of wild camping in the islands so we had to cough up for two new ones already, Ouch, and double Ouch! But more on that in another post.

Before crossing the border we made a last minute decision to spend a couple of days in Keswick in Cumbria. It felt like a convenient buffer between the repair and maintenance phase and heading off on a new leg of our journey to the Scottish Highlands and Islands. By coincidence, a couple who were collecting their new 684 while we were at Airstream was also staying at the same campsite as us. Pete was able to lend them a hand with a couple of new-Airstream quirks. We gave each other plenty of space over the next couple of days and then hung out together one evening at the Square Orange Cafe Bar. It's fun meeting other Streamers, especially by chance.

The best part of this detour to Keswick was meeting up with lots of lovely friends we had left behind. This was the place we were leaving when we took off on our Airstreaming road trip. We had strong reasons for leaving, the type that make you reluctant to return to a place. But the things that made us unhappy there are no longer relevant to us, so what we are left with is a great big bunch of lovely people who are lots of fun to hang out with and catch up with.

Much of the meeting up took place in the Square Orange. It is the most relaxed place to hang out in and is frequented by locals and visitors alike, young and not so young. I used to work there and I still love it. When we started travelling I used to hope that we would find places just like it all over the country. We haven't. Every town should have one of these, but sadly most of them don't.

It's the kind of place where you can start out meeting one group of friends and end up bumping into others by chance. You might pop in for a coffee in the afternoon and still be there drinking locally-brewed beer late into the evening. It's the hub. That's what happened to us and two evenings in there simply wasn't enough. One friend's been travelling, another has lost loads of weight, another has a new boyfriend, etc., etc. So much news. You start a conversation, someone new turns up, the conversation takes a new direction. We'll have to return sooner and stay longer next time and see if we can finish a thread.

Scotland beckoned. We were packing up on the Saturday morning and on course to leave by noon, which is the moving on time for all campsites bar about three that we've come across. This was one of those early chucking out ones but we hadn't seen any information to that effect.

I know I have probably raised my blogger's eyebrow before this and sucked in my blogger's cheeks over the caravanners who turn up to claim their pitch at two minutes past check-out time. This anal tendency was particularly irksome to me on this occasion because they knew it was an 11.00 check out and we didn't. My pal Simone, who I hadn't managed to meet up with yet, turned up to see us and check out the Airstream. And there they were, the punctual ones, sitting on the forecourt, drumming their fingers on the steering wheel. Mmnngrrrgh!

Our packing up on that day would make a formula one racing team proud, and in the weeks to come we would find ourselves in places without rules or checking out times. We were looking ahead to big landscapes and open minds.

T

Seasonal Shift

2009-08-30T14:20:00.000-07:00

I don't know how the seasons are running where you are but here in north-east Scotland it feels like the end of summer, some of the time it is even autumnal. It started with the morning and evening air blowing cooler, then cooler breezes followed us around throughout the days. The light is different. Is the sun sitting lower, illuminating the sides of buildings? There are already leaves on the road for goodness sake.

So the penny has dropped, we have spent the whole of the summer in Scotland and some of its neighbouring islands. We headed north in May and we are still here at the end of August. It just happened. Once again we chose a general direction with some definite must-see places and here we are three months later.

I was able to get hold of a copy of Yoga Journal in Perth the other day. I need to find this magazine from time to time to remind me that I have a yogi heart, if not always a yogi's discipline. In this copy there is a sequence of poses to be practised in the spirit of turning the senses inward. Learning to be present without getting distracted by external stimuli will lead to equilibrium in daily life and ultimately wisdom in one's actions. Sounds like a happy goal to me.

So, feeling physically tight and mentally tossing around ideas for the next phase on our journey, I knew a slow, gentle and focused practice was exactly what I needed. I set myself up with my lightweight mat (bought specially for my travels), some foam blocks and a blanket for support and propping up, and my magazine with its routine and guidance.

As I took my time steadily working through the sequence, concentrating on maintaining comfortable long breaths and surrendering to the postures, a deep feeling of quiet washed over and through me. I realised what a seasonally apt practise this is. The exuberance of summer has passed and it is time to accept the cooling of the breezes and the shortening of the days. Time to make plans to hunker down and keep warm and dry. Time to reflect on where we have been, where we might be heading and time to get on with the writing and the knitting.

T

This is your final call...

2009-08-29T05:14:00.001-07:00

The next of our biannual Airstream Gatherings is happening in a fortnight and it isn't too late to add your name to the list...

If you have an Airstream and a free weekend over the 11th to 13th of September, please come and join us at the Bracelands Caravan and Camping site in the glorious Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.

If you're interested, please drop me a line via the "about us" link up there on the right.

There will be a modest selection of Airstream trailers, ranging from a very lovely 1959 Tradewind through to brand new European models.

If you don't have an Airstream and would just like to come and see us, please drop me a line too, so that I can warn the site manager. (Please don't just turn up or I'll get into trouble!)

P

Landmarks and Milestones

2009-08-25T10:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry we've not been around much, but we've been busy in Scotland. We haven't had very much luck with getting online (the occasional internet cafe has been about it), but now we've found a campsite with free WiFi, so we'll be doing some more posting in the next few days.

In our absence, we've clocked up a few "milestones." Back in May we reached our 500th night under Aluminium. August 1st was the eighteenth monthiversary (is that a proper word?) of the start of our Big Adventure. That's also about how long it took us to travel the 20,000th mile. Finally, today, this very blog received its 10,000th visit.

I'm not sure how I should feel about all of that. Proud? Exhausted? Thirsty?

It has been the greatest adventure of my life. If anyone out there is thinking about doing what we've done, stop thinking and do it. We haven't, for one second, had a single regret about the trip. Some people have suggested that we've wasted our time by not traveling abroad. I can only reply that 18 months in the UK just isn't enough. We've barely scratched the surface of this remarkable part of the world.

But what next? Fear not - we will be carrying on. There's a lot of world out there, and we want to see it.

So thank you, dear readers, who have followed us along our journey. We promise to keep you updated of where we've been and where we're going. In the meantime...

P

What to do if it rains...

2009-08-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

May I introduce our new crew member? This is Busby. Don't look too long. He'll mess with your mind.

He is a Stupid Sock Creature. That's not me being disparaging about my own handiwork. He is made from a pair of socks following instructions in the funny and practical book, Stupid Sock Creatures by John Murphy. If you Google him you will see many far more bizarre creations. Plus, I haven't adhered to his ethos of creating something from discarded socks. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Our socks are not fit for recycling once we've had our use out of them. So I'm scouring the markets for cheap and suitable socks. One day you have a pair of slightly dodgy socks, the next thing you know, they have metamorphosed into a crazy creature, and you've only got yourself to blame (and Mr Murphy of course).

T

Airstream Gathering in September

2009-07-31T08:48:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder to anyone out there who hasn't got in touch yet, but who is still interested in joining us at a little Airstream Gathering in September...

We'll be at the Bracelands Caravan Park in Gloucestershire over the weekend of 11th to 13th of September. It's not far from Monmouth and really easy to get to from almost anywhere on the same continent.

If you are interested, please DON'T contact the site directly (they won't know what you are talking about). Drop me a line through the "about us" link up there on the right.

For those of you who have been in touch, I'll be sending out the final details in the next week or so.

More soon...

Pete

Abergavenny to Bury

2009-07-30T06:25:00.000-07:00

The next leg on the road to The Highlands and Islands included some places in Wales with names beginning with 'A'; Abergavenny, Aberystwyth and Anglesey. Not that we plan to work our way slowly through the alphabet. I suspect we were simply being drawn back to the coast and Abergavenny was a convenient stop off on the way. Anglesey attracted us because it is an island (lots of coastline) and it has plenty of ancient monuments to check out. It seemed like a good place to endure another Bank Holiday.

The journey from Oxfordshire was very straightforward. As we progressed through Gloucestershire, Monmouthshire, Ross on Wye the sun shone, and as we crossed the border into Wales the trees appeared more verdant. The countryside was very pretty. It rolled and twisted and turned and burst with greenery.

We stayed at a decent caravan site just outside Abergavenny. There were views of mountains and we were pitched next to a river with lambs bleating on the opposite bank. Occasionally the RAF would fly low and noisily overhead and briefly disrupt an al fresco G&T. We visited the town on market day, had some lunch in one of the many cafes and milled about the indoor and outdoor markets.

Moving on to Aberystwyth, our first impressions weren't too favourable. The promenade on the sea front provided a good spot for a walk but the town looked a bit run down. All that seagull poo doesn't help. After exploring further we found that the more interesting shops were down side streets, naturally, and we had lunch in an organic cafe, The Tree House.

Our next stop was Anglesey, North Wales. We were staying in a great spot called Lligwy Beach.

For a few days it was our ideal pitch: lots of space around us, a sea view and a short walk to the beach. The walks to the two nearest pubs were longer, but we coped. There was a vintage Airstream on a seasonal pitch in one of the other fields. Unfortunately the owner didn't turn up (maybe he knew that marauding bank holiday crowds were on the way!) but we went and had a good look. It was a 1976 International, looking rather handsome on the outside and like a work in progress on the inside. Glinting in the sunshine, you couldn't miss it.

We had arrived on a Tuesday and enjoyed some fair weather but the Friday brought what some might call 'foul weather'. I loved it . The wind was strong enough to rock the trailer and the rain was lashing. A perfect day for reading, writing, planning my next knitting and sewing projects and truly feeling the simple wonderfulness of this nomadic life. Later the rain stopped, the skies brightened and we flew our kites on the beach. Since we managed to do so whilst avoiding the dog turds it was an exhilarating bit of fun and rounded off my perfect day.

That evening the mob started to arrive for the holiday. Thankfully this particular site does not pack them in, and they have three fields to spread out in. It was still quite a contrast though. And the space in front of our trailer seemed to be just right for those games that involve throwing stuff. Small kids don't understand aim, do they? They sort of spin like miniature shot-putters and let go of whatever is in their hands at the point of maximum momentum. And how would they know that a giant Frisbee could make a nasty dink in the lovely big shiny Airstream? It's not their fault, it's their owners, I mean parents, merrily getting the most out of a whole extra day off. If I had a job I'm sure I would need to neck some beers and relinquish all responsibility now and then too.

We escaped and explored some stone circles and ruined villages, as we do. Well, it gets you out into the fresh air and bronze age man usually picked a scenic location for his sacred/ceremonial/burial thing.

Often they're on a hill, or overlooking the sea, or nestled between mountains, so there is usually an impressive view to go with them. One notable exception which our Neolithic ancestors couldn't have foreseen is Trefignath Burial Chamber on Holy Island which is now overshadowed by an aluminium processing plant.

Ah, the reverential atmosphere. It was absolutely and definitely absent.

What we did see plenty of was funky little dolmen style monuments (upright standing stones with a stone slab on the top, forming a roof). They're usually just sitting there in the middle of some farmer's field, sometimes with a fence around, other times with sheep wandering in and out of them.

By 11am on the Monday the site had emptied quicker than it had filled up and we and our Airstream could breathe again. We could also see the sea once more and enjoy some solitary beachcombing. This agreed with us so much we extended our stay by a couple of nights. Mmmm, empty roads.

Onwards then, and after having things our own way for a couple of days we moved on from Anglesey to Bury, just outside Manchester. It couldn't have been more different. We had to negotiate motorway, ring roads and roundabouts aplenty and finally a stretch of old cobbled road which jiggled us unpleasantly towards the caravan site. It was a return to the pitch-perfect type of site, all set up in rows, where the grass seems to get mowed every day. And why had we chosen this polar opposite environment? It was all part of the route to the company who were going to repair our delaminated floor.

In the meantime we felt an urban thrill on a trip in to Manchester and we invited our city-dwelling friends Lucy and Vanessa round for Sunday lunch. They had been among the first to hear of our travelling plans when still in the planning stage and this was their first chance to see the Airstream. They had been excited for us from the start and now that they've seen us on the road, they still are, maybe more so. We had a lovely afternoon catching up and having a good old giggle. Plus, Lucy gets extra brownie points for wearing her silver Birkenstocks to match the trailer.

T

Plan? What Plan?

2009-06-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

Our route to the Western Isles of Scotland was partly dictated by a family event and stop-offs for essential repairs. The pins in the map included my parents' golden wedding anniversary in Dorset and various ports of call, eg back to Airstream in Cumbria, where our 684 could be handed over to the experts in the reinforcing and replacing of trailer bits. Unfortunately we had to endure an unpleasant Bank Holiday in the Cotswolds on the way. I'll gloss over that for now because I'm still bitter and I don't need to go there right now. The story includes rude campsite wardens, hundreds of unfriendly campers and under-performing batteries. Let's leave it there for today.

On a very positive note, when we went into Chipping Norton we were firstly cheered up by that most rare of occurrences, a free car park! Perhaps there is hope for the future of civilisation and the sharing of warm fuzzy feelings throughout the land. If that doesn't do it I know a place that will. I mean the heavenly Jaffe and Neale bookshop and cafe. This place fulfils two of my two essentials for life, books and decent coffee. Oh, and cake. And warm, friendly human beings, and a peaceful atmosphere. OK there are several things essential to a happy life and Jaffe and Neale knows all about them and wants to share them with you. Get yourself in there and indulge and emerge a happier bunny, like I did, twice. I also bought from there, among other things, How To Be Free by Tom Hodgkinson, which has been making me chuckle out loud and reinforcing my conviction that it is possible to have a life separate from employers and institutions.

We left the nasty site with the rude wardens and spent a few days at a farm near to Bibury. It's always a relief after that packed-in feeling on the bigger sites to find ourselves in a field again, with views of trees and sky and a more distant horizon. Bibury is a very attractive village, the sort that people visit to mill about for an hour or so and eat ice cream. We did. You know how you do? You look at the swans in the river and at the well preserved, captured-in-time prettiness and at something of historical interest (in this case, Arlington Row, medieval cottages, still inhabited), and everyone you pass looks straight through you as if you weren't there. They probably wish you weren't there, getting in the way of their photographs and taking up space on the footpaths.

Anyway, there are plenty of pretty villages and towns like that in the Cotswolds and some good walking too, apparently. We checked out some ancient sites while we were in the area. Belas Knap, for example, is an enormous chambered long barrow about 55 metres long actually. It sits on the top of a steep hill, above Humblebee Woods, three miles south of Winchcombe. It has been well excavated and partly reconstructed and there are four chambers evident now. Apparently 38 skeletons were found inside. We were there at about six in the evening and skylarks chattered, bees buzzed about, electric pylons could be seen for miles. The Cotswolds are strewn with them. It doesn't detract, they're just there, ancient and modern side by side.

Earlier that day we had seen Chedworth Roman Villa. We all know how much the Romans did for us; roads, personal hygiene, etc. At Chedworth it is very clear how important bathing was to them and how skilfully heating and plumbing was incorporated into a villa. Naturally they had under floor heating too. Not a modern invention after all but a recycled clever idea.

On a sunny Sunday we took a drive to Oxfordshire to see the Uffington White Horse and Wayland's Smithy long barrow. We have seen a few white horses carved into the sides of hills on our travels. Some are Victorian impostors but this is the genuine article, a late bronze age carving, so about three thousand years old. We didn't really find a good vantage point from where to admire the whole horse. It sits almost on the top of the hill. You can literally walk all over it, but of course then you can't see what it is that you're walking on. People were enjoying the sunshine, sitting around and within it's outlines, chatting. A man flew a kite nearby.
This is its head, upside down.

About a twenty five minute walk along The Ridgeway took us to Wayland's Smithy. This was a beautifully atmospheric wooded place which had been a burial site since around 3700 BC. It was peaceful, shady and sun-dappled, a background of birdsong, old trees patiently displaying years of hand carved initials.

But we had a plan and we needed to keep moving. One of our Airstreaming friends, Andrew had put word out that he would be touring around the Outer Hebrides in May/June and we liked the sound of that. With a bit of organising we should be able to meet up along the way. En route we could also do a bit of Wales and get our repairs and maintenance seen to in the North West. People often ask us how far ahead we plan our movements on our Airstreaming road trip. This is a typical plan. There's usually a direction (north-west) with some possible fixed points along the way (Airstream headquarters) and the rest we decide day by day, pretty much.

Life's A Beach

2009-06-22T05:13:00.000-07:00

We are on the Isle of Lewis and we had driven along the B895 until it ran out and became what is known as The Bridge To Nowhere. One minute it's a road, then it's a bumpy track, then it's a bumpy track with grass growing on it and sheep grazing. We looked down on cliffs, tried to identify sea birds (there will be a test at some point), watched gulls and gannets diving into the deep turquoise sea. (I need to find some alternative words for turquoise because if am to write about the outer Hebrides it will get worn out). We wondered at the chunks of quartz embedded in the rocks and where does all the water come from to form a waterfall? I guess all this peat and moss is one giant sponge which gradually wrings out its moisture which then trickles to meet the other trickles until they gush and tumble over the rocks.

And that is when I thought, what a perfect way to occupy ourselves right now. Or any time really. We are free to wonder at the incredible beauty and dignity of this place. We are breathing the sweet-smelling air, walking on beaches and hillsides, dressing for rain AND sunshine and wowing childlike at the resulting rainbows.

These islands, I have discovered, are where rainbows are made. Often there is rain or mist with sunshine. You can see a whole rainbow from end to end, which is pretty amazing. You can be underneath a rainbow. You can see its ends disappearing into the grass. Until just a few years ago I had lived most of my life in London where rainbows just peeped above the rooftops, here I have been enveloped by them.

Then there is that turquoise sea. (I looked it up in the thesaurus, no joy, and blue-green simply doesn't cut it). I love being close to the coast anyway. On this trip we have followed a lot of coastline and, if we had needed to visit a more inland area we would soon get a yearning for the salty air and make a beeline back to the sea. What I usually find so invigorating is splashing, crashing waves, the air and the breezes and winds which blow into your face and mess up your hair. One campsite warden in Cornwall told me, "Every day is a bad hair day round here."

I like sand, pebbles, cliffs, seaweed, shells, lighthouses, deckchairs, piers, random detritus, joggers, dogs endlessly fetching a thrown ball.

Best of all, I like a deserted beach with crystal clear sea and talc-soft sand. Welcome to the Outer Hebrides. I've mentioned rainbows, well turquoise was created here too. The colour of the sea is psychedelic. It has this wonderful uplifting effect. Your eyes want to soak it up, your chest expands and your lungs want to breathe it in. No photograph can capture it, no words conjure it. It cannot be imagined.
I like it. I like it a lot.

T

The Parish Notices...

2009-06-19T12:52:00.001-07:00

OK, so I lied about there being more soon, but it's not our fault. Honest!

We're in the Outer Hebrides where our mobile internet provider hasn't even bothered to give us a phone signal for most of the time, let alone a 3G connection for internet access. But now we've found a campsite where they possess that supernatural being of the airwaves - WiFi. So rest assured that there will be a whole lot of updates going on in the next few days.

in the meantime, there are a couple of things I'd like to draw your attention to, if you'll indulge me....

Firstly, following on from the great time we had back in March, I'm organising another Airstream get-together. It will be at the Bracelands Caravan Park and Campsite near Christchurch in Gloucestershire over the weekend of 11th - 13th September. If anyone would like more details, please use the Contact details here. If anyone is even remotely interested, please let me know ASAP so that I have an idea of numbers and can work out costs, though I expect it to be no more than £30 or £40 for the weekend. Please don't contact the site directly since they probably don't know about it yet - I'm dealing with central office.

Secondly, we've done a bit of a face-lift on our website. It's mostly a collection of our better photos, but there's a bit more info about the four of us too. Have a look and please, if you have any feedback, drop me a line.

Thirdly, again following on from the meet in March, we've created a forum for UK Airstream owners. The US Airstream Knowledge Sharing Forum, Airforums, is a brilliant resource for all things Airstream, but isn't really a good tool for UK owners to keep in touch. If you have an Airstream and you need any help/advice/sanity from other owners, please have a look and join us at the UK Airstream Forum.

Finally, I hope no-one is offended by the inclusion of GoogleAds on the page. I'm guessing that many of you haven't even registered that they're there. GoogleAds programme policy prevents me from encouraging you to explore those ads, so I am in no way asking you to click there, but if I can ever find out how to make something other than plumbers and B&B's in Norfolk appear, there may be something of interest to you.

We will be back with more about the journey soon. Honest.

Pete

Normal Service Will Be Resumed As Soon As Possible...

2009-05-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time...

Nearly two months since the last entry here. So what's been going on?

Stuff.

That just about covers it, I think. After a week or two, I reach the point where the prospect of having to recap on everything that has happened becomes too much to think about. So I put it off. So the gap gets bigger and there's more to write about. So I put it off. So the gap gets bigger... You see where this is getting me? On top of all that, I really don't like writing about bad stuff, and we've had a couple of little niggly problems with the trailer. They're all sorted (or in the process of being sorted) now, but at the time it's all just a bit of a downer. Not worth writing about, especially when I'm not in the mood to write.

Anyroadup, here's a quick re-cap, because there are actually a couple of people out there who have emailed me asking for an update! I'm chuffed to bits to find that there are other humans who actually read what I put here, rather than just look at the pictures, or who arrive by accident while they're googling Airstream stuff.

We were in Norfolk last time I posted (if you can possibly ignore the Airstream meet in March). Having been before, and finding it all a bit flat and dull, I wasn't expecting much. It turned out to be a real revelation! There are parts of Norfolk that are staggeringly beautiful. The sky goes on forever - we saw some fantastic sunsets there. The people were thoroughly nice, though they have a fairly relaxed and open relationship with the English Language. The accent is something like West Country, but with a bit less Pirate, and town names can be pronounced however you fancy - for instance Hunstanton becomes Hunston, Hautbois becomes Hobbis, Cley is pronounced Cly (rhymes with eye) and (my personal favourite) Happisburgh has somehow morphed into Hazeborough.

Norwich, home of Colemans Mustard and Deliah Smith was a real surprise too! We've visited many, many towns on our travels and almost every one of them never needs to be visited again. Norwich seems to have got things just about right. There are plenty of narrow, cobbled streets with small, independent retailers. There is a splendid covered market in the centre of town

while the larger "malls" are kept at a respectable distance from the centre, or simply out of sight - they have built a new shopping centre right next to the castle, but have skillfully hidden most of it underground! Norwich Castle is a cracker.

The outside has been restored several times, but it remains a magnificent sight. In typically English fashion, it was used as a prison for 700 years before the Victorians turned it into a museum. And an excellent on it is too!

If you arrive an hour before closing, you can "pop in for a pound." I know of no other museum where you can be walking through a contemporary art gallery, nip down a short flight of stairs and be face-to-face with a stuffed armadillo, turn a corner and be in the Twinnings Nantional Tea Pot Collection, go through a door and be alone in a room with an Egyptian mummy or take a side corridor and (while we were there) see an exhibition of Moore and Hepworth sculptures. Brilliant stuff.

Norwich Cathedral sits in the part of town imaginatively called "Tombland" and its spire, despite being the second tallest in the country, narrowly misses out on being the highest point in Norfolk.

Go to Norwich. Go on.

We spent a few nights on a lovely little site on the Broads. We sat by the river in the grounds of a boat-yard.

Across the water was a patch of boggy field which a pair of barn owls used as a hunting ground. A heron spent most of the day just standing around, waiting. We just sat around, watching.

We seem to have been, inadvertently, carrying out a Grand Tour of British Piers. Most of them have ranged from "a bit rubbish" (in a kiss-me-quick-hat kind of way) to simply "hulking wrecks". Southwold is a notable exception.

The pier is privately owned, and the owners have pumped a couple of million quid into making it presentable. And a very nice job they have done too. There is a busy restaurant (where plenty of locals go for a coffee - always a good sign), a couple of little gift shops selling some local stuff, and the excellent (though closed the day we were there) Under The Pier Show - a slightly bonkers collection of hand-made amusement machines. Southwold also has some very fetching beach huts, a lighthouse and, of course, a brewery. 'Nuff said.

A couple of miles from the little fishing/tourist town of Aldeburgh lies the completely bonkers village of Thorpeness. At first glance it looks like any other well-preserved Tudor village, but the entire lot was built in the early 20th century as a private fantasy village by one Glencairn Stuart Ogilvie, Scottish Barrister and obvious nutter. The village needed a water supply, but he didn't like the look of the water tower, so he had it disguised as a house, albeit an odd one.

The House In The Clouds (as it is now known) was converted to accommodation once mains water arrived, and can be hired as a holiday home. The water tower needed water pumping into it, so our man Ogilvie had a wind pump built, didn't like it, so bought the local corn mill and had it moved the two miles to its current site to do the job instead. Daft as a brush, but his legacy is still quite remarkable, in a peculiar kind of way. Ogilvie died in 1972 (on his own golf course at Thorpeness), and much of the village had to be sold off to pay Death Duties. I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere.

Grimes Graves isn't the Dickensian cemetery that it sounds like. It is a neolithic quarry. Even by modern standards it is extraordinarily impressive. There are nearly a hundred acres of pock-marked land, looking like a grassy moonscape. (If you look carefully, you can see Tracey and a sheep, not talking to each other.)

Basically, a bunch of our neolithic predecessors (about 20) got together in the early Spring and dug a hole. A big hole. Some of the larger holes are about 40 feet deep and nearly as wide. 2000 tonnes of earth would be shifted in around five months, just to get at the best flint nuggets hidden down there. They would knock off in the Autumn, take the Winter off and come back the next Spring and dig another hole. They did this for over a thousand years (though probably not the same 20 guys - I'm sure that job satisfaction would be wearing a bit thin by then and most of them would have found a different job). One of the shafts has been excavated, and you can don a hard hat and descend a ladder into the gloom to have a look.

We spent a few days near Bury St. Edmonds, a town in transition. There are some lovely old bits rubbing shoulders with some really quite cool new developments. The problem seems to be that most of the larger retailers are leaving their premises in the "old town" and shifting their wares into the new bit. Add to this the spate of high-street closures and you get a town that doesn't quite work. Still, it has a brewery, so it isn't all bad. It also possesses the nations smallest pub. There is room for a small table, a window seat and about four people standing. Naturally, we had to try it.

As you might expect, there wasn't room to swing a cat, but to make up for it, there is a mummified one perching in the rafters. It was found when a section of false wall was removed. The shocking thing isn't that a cat was walled in alive (apparently a common thing in days of yore), but that somebody thought that walling off a bit of a room this size was a good idea!

This is a part of the ruins of the old abbey. It was near this spot, on the 20th of November, 1214, that a bunch of barons got together and decided to slap a restraining order on King John. And so, with the writing of the Magna Carta, was democracy born. Or something like that.

I spent a happy afternoon snapping away, and I hope you'll indulge me if I post a few of my favourites here...

If Sir John Betjeman had ever visited Lowestoft, he may have re-written his famous ode to Slough. "Come, friendly waves, and wash away Lowestoft" he might have begun, though it doesn't scan very well and he may have had trouble finding a rhyme. But the sentiment would be there. Lowestoft sits on the Eastern-most point on the British mainland, though I don't think it would be much of a disservice to the nation if the coast decided to move westward a little, leaving Lowestoft underwater.

Flippancy aside, the sea is a real and constant danger here. Sizewell nuclear power station dominates the horizon for much of the Suffolk coast. I'm not a fan of nuclear power - it strikes me as a bit dim to carry on producing waste that is so thoroughly toxic (and will remain so for another ten thousand years) when we have no idea what to do with the stuff we've already got. On the other hand, the Norfolk and Suffolk coastline is undergoing a constant and determined assault by the encroaching sea.

The Environment Agency is doing all it can where it can, often leaving the shore looking like something from the Normandy Landings, but if the sea level were to rise by anything more than a smidgen, it would be a losing battle. It wouldn't take much - a particularly bad storm combined with a particularly high tide when the wind is blowing from a particular direction. Thousands of acres of land would be lost. So there is a tangible feeling that the people of Suffolk look to Sizewell not just as the largest employer in the area, but also as a real and positive contribution to low-carbon electricity.

This is Dunwich. Or rather, it was. Dunwich was once one of the largest ports on the East coast. A few big storms and some tidal erosion, and the coastline in now a mile further inland from where it was. Dunwich was home to 3000 people, eight churches, three chapels and two hospitals. All gone. It didn't happen overnight, but you get the idea. The East Anglian Coast isn't the place to invest in property. Though, to look on the bright side, you may end up with some rather exclusive onshore fishing rights!

We had six weeks to explore Norfolk and Suffolk. Not nearly enough. If I were you, I'd go and have a look soon, before it disappears.

Last Chance To See...

There will be more very soon.......Stay tuned........

P

Airstream Heaven

2009-03-30T05:33:00.000-07:00

"....We interrupt this broadcast from Norfolk to bring you the following...."

It was a sort of "I wonder what'll happen if I press this button?" moment.

Back in January, I posted a comment here and on the Airforums website asking if any other Airstream owners fancied a little get-together. I knew that there were better ways of getting in touch with more of the European Airstream owners, but I secretly wanted to find out how many UK owners use the US site and whether it was an efficient way of us UK owners keeping in touch. There was a small, but incredibly enthusiastic response.

The weekend was wonderful (if a little cold and damp at times). The Friday (when most of the group arrived) was a lovely day, but Saturday turned nasty, though that didn't stop us "enjoying" (and I use that word loosely - perhaps "enduring" might be a better choice) a barbeque in a hail storm and a biting North Westerly. We even managed to get the separate veggie barbie going with a little help from healthy slug of whisky and a blow-torch. Still, we gave it our best and stoically soldiered on regardless and it was a most excellent party, despite having to scrape ice off the table!

A total of nine outfits turned out for the weekend, ranging from new European models to a 50 year old vintage one. Here are a few pics of the weekenders (in no particular order)...

Five (of the ten) on site

Chris and his 684

Wide-bodied 684 and Bill. (It's the trailer that's wide-bodied, not Bill)

John & Carole with their 25' Classic

Ian and Ariane with their '78 Tradewind and some rather neat lego-brick levelling blocks

Gaynor, Carl, Connor, Jordie and Rory with their very excellent '59 Tradewind

I managed to miss getting a photo of Simon, Emma, their new baby Tilly and their 534, so here's one from the Airstream meet last year at the Game Fair. (They were still waiting for Tilly at that point)

Andrew (who spent most of the weekend working), his 532 and new Nissan Navara, about which he is very excited.

I was absolutely delighted to see a couple of Airstream motorhomes in the flesh. I've secretly hankered after one for ages, though I've never been up-close-and-personal before. They're HUGE!

Here's Chuck and Mary with their 310

Nick, Helen, Lily, Ella and Toby with their 250

A random Overlander that just happened to be sitting on a seasonal pitch on the site when we got there. Never saw who it belonged to, but it was great to be with it.

And, of course, Us and Ours.

We had a handful of day visitors too. Julia, Dave and Ella came up without their '66 Overlander since it was still in Winter storage, and Marc Harris of Silver Twinkie popped by to say hello. It was great to see them (even though they left their Airstreams at home!). The site staff (particularly Graham) were really helpful, and took everything in their stride.

So, would we do it again? Oh, yes. We've learned a lot from this little gathering, and we can definitely make the next one bigger and better. We found that "Airforums" is a great place for information and such, but I don't think it works well as a communication tool for UK owners. If there are any Airstream owners out there who live in the UK and would like to meet some others (I sound like a dating agency!), please get in touch via the About Us links at the top right of the page. It occurs to me that this might be the first ever time that ten Airstreams have been in the same field in the UK. I'd be delighted to be told differently.

Now then, where was I? Ah yes, Norfolk...

"Very flat, Norfolk." Noel Coward - Private Lives, 1930.

2009-03-26T08:16:00.001-07:00

Cromer, perching on the North East corner of Norfolk, is a quiet little seaside town. At least it was when we were there - it is littered with B&B's and guest houses and is surrounded by caravan parks, so I'm guessing that it is mobbed in the Summer. We found a pleasant little site which is a contender for two awards on our "Survey Of Caravan Sites Of The World (part one - England)." First up, it scored highly in the "Cheapest Site" award. At £5.50 a night (including electric), it's the cheapest we've found for a long while. Secondly, it made a strong bid for the "Slowest Tap" trophy. If the weather had been warmer, the water coming out of the tap might have evaporated as fast as the tank was filling. Still, at that price, we couldn't complain.

It turns out that Mr. Coward was wrong. Cromer itself sits at the Eastern end of the glacial tide-mark known (rather prosaically) as the Cromer Ridge. The highest point on the ridge, Beacon Hill, lies a couple of miles to the West and reaches a lofty 330 feet above sea level. It doesn't sound like much, but it's the highest point in the whole of the four counties of East Anglia. The Ridge, slouching its way down to the coast, and being composed of sand, gravel and chalk, is doing it's best to stand against the sea, but it is fighting a losing battle. All along the Norfolk and Suffolk coast, we would see the efforts of the Environment Agency to protect these fragile shores.

The local architecture is dominated by flint. As common as muck in these chalky lands, every building bearing the general description of "old" is basically a pile of flint lumps stuck together with lime mortar. All the village churches of Norfolk are built this way and the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Cromer is no different, except it is the tallest church tower in the county. Cromer also boasts a proper British pier, complete with the Pavilion Theatre and a lifeboat station stuck on the end. The lifeboat deserves a particular mention.

In the lifeboat station, there is a bronze bust of the local hero, Henry Blogg, "the greatest of the lifeboatmen." He was, by day, a crab fisherman who also ran a beach hut/deck chair hire business. When needed, though, he was the Cox of the Cromer lifeboat from 1909 to 1947. When he retired (at the age of 71), he and his crew had launched 387 times and saved 873 lives. He won the RNLI Gold Medal three times and the Silver medal four times as well as being awarded the British Empire Medal and the George Cross. The man was a true hero. And he couldn't even swim. I have an unbounded admiration for the crews of the nation's lifeboats. They are all volunteers, and the service relies wholly on charitable donations. I can think of no finer example of human altruism. Have a look at the RNLI website and please donate if you can.

Back Eastward along the coast, lies the little village of Wells-next-the-Sea. This is something of a misnomer, since land reclamation and silting up of an estuary means that the sea is now about a mile away. We went there for the same reason we have visited many places - it registers on the "Have We Heard Of It?" scale. Wells is the sort of place which appears in loads of lifestyle magazines, and we had high hopes. The village itself did a very good job of dashing those hopes. It all became clear, however, when we took the long trip down to the beach. The attraction is instantly obvious. A long line of beach huts (about 300 of them) nestles at the foot of a pine tree-clad ridge, right at the edge of the beach. The high tide reaches almost to the foot of the hut steps, and on a sunny summer day, it would be glorious (and horribly, horribly busy)

A little further along the coast sits the village of Cley-next-the-Sea. Again, the sea has done a bunk, leaving a pretty little village, with a narrow main road with treacherous bends, and a rather attractive windmill. Norfolk is dotted with windmills in various states of use or repair. The one in Cley is actually a B&B, and you can stay in a round room in the tower if you like.

The beach at Cley is a pebbled affair, but is the root of a shingle spit stretching about ten miles to Blakeney Point, a large bird reserve and seal breeding ground. The spit is managed as a sea defence, but it wouldn't take much effort for the sea to breach it.

It did, however, provide us with one of those sunsets that the vast, open sky of Norfolk does so well.

P

Norfolk by Northwest

2009-03-17T17:01:00.001-07:00

I should spend a moment explaining the absence of posts recently. We've been in Norfolk and Suffolk.

There, that should do it.

Seriously, though, apart from a couple of large towns (like Norwich and, er, Norwich), there is beggar all wireless internet coverage. Take, for instance, pages 126 and 127 of our road atlas. They cover nearly 450 square miles of Suffolk, and not one inch of it was covered by our internet signal. I know - we drove around most of it.

Anyway, grump over. Back to the journey...

Driving from Cambridge to Sandringham, the road passes through an area which is charmingly called The Fens. This part of the world is flat. Very flat. The skies are huge and the soil is a rich, loamy jet black.

Much of the journey travels alongside the rivers and drainage ditches that are everywhere around here. The disconcerting thing, however, is that the water level in the rivers is about ten feet above road level - vast areas of the land are only a pumping station away from being lakes. The whole of the Fens (about a million acres spanning four counties) sits uncomfortably close to sea level. It wouldn't take much of a rise in sea level to lose the lot.

One of the reasons for staying at the Sandringham campsite on the Sandringham Estate, was to be close to Sandringham House (You see, sometimes we think about these thinks). I thought that my Mum would never forgive us if we came all this way and didn’t pop in to see where the Queen goes for her hols. Sadly, like much of the rest of the tourism universe, it was closed until April.

Sorry Mum.

Still, there were plenty of other things to see in the area. The nearest big town is King’s Lynn. We popped along one day, hoping to see something a bit special, since King’s Lynn is dripping with history. We were disappointed.

At first I was perplexed as to why a town would create a perfectly ugly new shopping centre (which is suffering during the recession – there are plenty of brand new shops lying empty) and call it the Vancouver Quarter. I was lucky enough to spend some time in British Columbia during a work trip some years ago, and the difference between Vancouver Island and a strikingly awkward new shopping centre are immeasurable. The town was a thorough let-down. But not to be put off, and certain that we’d missed something (anything would do!), we returned a couple of days later and parked at the other end of town. It was MUCH better from that end.

Away from the centre, we spent a happy hour dawdling our way around the old cobbled streets and along the waterfront. It was there that we stumbled across a statue of the local hero, Captain George Vancouver,

an 18th century explorer who mapped much of the North American Pacific coast (his maps were so accurate, they were still in use in the early 20th century!). Such was his legacy that a city, an island and a shopping centre bear his name. It’s probably worth pointing out that the current shopping centre replaced a much worse 1960’s one.

Nearby squats another monument to the Great and Good of local history. Sunk into the ground, it bears plaques naming heroes of yore, including Samuel Cresswell (the first naval officer to traverse the Northwest Passage), John Smith (the founder of Virginia and New England and who was saved from execution by Pocahontas), Friar Nicholas (who allegedly popped over to Iceland and then went on to discover the Americas) and Admiral Lord Nelson. The memorial also doubles up as a meeting place for the local youth who pay homage to their past by leaving sacrificial burger wrappers.

There are plenty of good points to the town (it wasn’t all bad).
There is the very fine two-towered St. Margaret’s Church (one tower bears a clock, the other a handy tide indicator) and the splendid Guildhall, along with plenty of cobbled lanes with leaning houses. We left the town at dusk, leaving the empty streets and an eerily deserted funfair. Somehow, that fitted.

A couple of miles North of King’s Lynn sits Castle Rising Castle, a very fine 12th century keep which, despite missing a roof and several floors, is actually remarkably intact, and a splendid place to while away an hour or two.

Further North sits the curious coastal resort of Hunstanton. Perhaps a cold, grey afternoon isn’t the best time to appreciate a sea-side town, but I’m not sure it would have been any better if we’d seen it in glorious sunshine. I’m certain we must have missed something, but the highlight seemed to be the self-proclaimed “Britain’s Largest Joke Shop.” I can only conclude that the good people of Hunstanton are experimenting with comedic principles because
a: it wasn’t very big, and
b: it wasn’t funny.
Hunstanton’s other claim-to-fame is that it is the only East coast seaside resort in England where the sun can be seen to set over the sea. The sad thing is that the sea here is only The Wash, and beyond that lies Lincolnshire which, let's be honest, is just a waste of a good sunset.

Meanwhile, our new bird feeder was doing excellent trade with the local wildlife. Not that the birds got much of a look-in.

It was either a whole gang of squirrels who worked in shifts, or just one particularly persistent little pest – one morning I went out every ten minutes for an hour to chase him off, but he (or the next shift) kept coming back. Pesky beasts.

We took a day-trip to Birmingham one day. Not the obvious place to visit from Norfolk, but it was the National Boat, Caravan and Outdoor Show. We wanted to have a look at a few gadgets and gizmos, but mostly we wanted to see the new European Airstream 422 Bambi. It’s soooooo cute! We’re going to have to get one for the bunnies. Is there a way to tow a trailer behind a trailer? I’ll have to look into that one… The show also hosted a very desirable aluminium canoe, a rather attractive aluminium sports car and even an aluminium narrow boat. Shiny!

When it was time to move on, we decided to take the scenic route to Cromer in North East Norfolk, rather than the much more sensible and direct road. This was a mistake. The road was narrow, winding and decidedly (for Norfolk) lumpy. At one point, in the village of Cley-Next-The-Sea, the road narrowed perilously, to the extent that only a cyclist could comfortably negotiate the road (if they tucked their elbows in!). Luckily, a 12 ton truck pulled out in front of us and with a pioneering spirit, barged all on-comers out of the way while we followed along in its wake.

And so we arrived in Cromer...

P

Snowflakes and Warm Cakes

2009-03-15T05:51:00.000-07:00

When the snow finally melted in Cherry Hinton we left Cambridge and headed for Norfolk. First stop Sandringham, on the estate of the Queen’s country retreat no less.

En route we stopped at one of the many mobile roadside 'caffs' for a fried egg buttie. I have never seen so many trailers procuring fried food on one ‘A’ road. Usually you miss one and you’ve blown it till the next county. We are often peckish on the journey and we always seem to be on the road at lunchtime. Those caravanners who turn up at the site at one minute past the permissible noon arrival time are as sensible as they are predictable. But they are missing out on a great British tradition; eating in your car in a lay-by.
Note to self though, next time I’m offered broken eggs, just say “No”. It’s like eating a semi dried-out bath sponge. They break them while they’re frying! Eggs are meant to be runny, and dripping yolk is surely one of the attractions of an egg sarnie.
Anyway, lesson learnt. We usually have a nice little chat with these spatula-wielding heroes of the road. They like the look of the Airstream and often identify with our enjoyment of the nomadic life. This one was no exception. Our chef was a young woman who had quit the rat race for a simpler life, being her own boss and providing food for the peckish traveller.

The site at Sandringham had just opened its gates that morning, after the winter break. There were a couple of other vans when we arrived, but since it can accommodate over two hundred we could choose our ideal pitch. The warden guided us to a little copse and we set ourselves up between the trees as snow began to fall.
Within minutes snowflakes the size of fifty pence coins were floating down and gently covering the ground and clinging to the trees. Ever looked straight up at the sky while snow is falling? It's a kind of slow motion tumbling effect and seems to come from infinity.

Once inside, all set up and watching the darkening sky cast a bluish light over the snow it became obvious that what was needed was some freshly baked madeleines and a pot of tea. You know how it is? The wintry weather had recently brought out the baker in Pete, which was then passed on to me. I hadn't baked since compulsory cookery classes at school. Now I've made chocolate chip cup cakes and madeleines in the space of a week. I think we should put these newfound compulsions on hold until our friend Helen visits again though. These confections are so heavenly while still warm. You try having just one, or two. We need help with the eating. Well we don't but we ought to.

That night was one of those disturbed sleeps peculiar to trailers and vans. It had nothing to do with eating too much cake, actually. It sounded like it was raining with added intermittent sounds of objects thudding on the roof. Reluctant to wake fully and make sense of it all I felt very disoriented. I expected to find dents in the trailer roof the next day. Obviously it was lumps of snow losing their grip and plopping on top of us from the branches above. It is so obvious when you are awake.

A couple of days later Pete entered a postcode into the sat nav and took me on a mystery journey. We arrived at Thetford Forest park and I started to guess what he had planned. For some time now he has been suggesting that I could put aside my fear of heights and thoroughly enjoy a session at Go Ape. He was absolutely right!
Go Ape is a series of obstacles constructed from wood and rope and arranged around trees about thirty feet above ground. You are instructed in the safe use of your harness so that from the moment you leave the ground until you complete the course you are always attached safely. You start on a low level platform, practise using a zip slide and before you know it you are shimmying across wires, ropes and wobbly swinging contraptions, or hurtling through the trees till you bash into a giant rope net.
Not only did I enjoy myself too much to be scared, but I was picked by our instructor to go first. A couple of hours of challenging fun felt more like thirty minutes and the whole thing finished with the longest zip slide ever, Weeeee!!!
Blooming marvellous. Naturally, we ached everywhere for the next two days.

T