'Home Sweet Home'

'Home Sweet Home'

Thursday 13th - Thursday 20th July 2017.

Well it's hard to believe we've been 'home' for more than a week already - and where is home - it's a field!  A lovely spot that's affiliated to The Camping and Caravan Club and lies between Ripley and Swanwick - no facilities, but plenty of space and the owners are happy for us to have visitors and for our grandchildren to come and play to their hearts content!  Additionally it also comes with lots of other benefits - it's local to most of our close family, it's cheap while most other sites are charging a bomb through the summer months, and for getting around it's right on a bus route if we don't want to move T4rdis2.

So how have we been filling our time - we really feel as if our feet haven't touched the floor since we got back!  I suppose I ought to restart this tale where I left off the last time.




On the 12th we caught the ferry from Rosslare and enjoyed a very calm 4 hour crossing over to the Port of Goodwick which is just outside Fishguard in South Wales.  By the time we landed it was 9pm so too late to start our journey back up to the Midlands, so instead we parked for free in The Sea View Hotel's car park and our only obligation for doing that was to have breakfast in the hotel.

On Thursday morning (13th) after a lovely full Monty English breakfast (in Wales) we set off on our 308 mile journey 'home' but that included a little detour via the inner narrow streets of Bristol!  Why would we go there you may ask? Well it was for a special treat for T4rdis 2!  To supplement our ships power supply we've treated it to a nearly new 130 amp hour Lithium Ion battery - this should almost double the available electric power in our living quarters, so when we don't have electric hook up (as we wont for the next few weeks) we should still have more than enough juice for all our gadgets and to charge our e-bike batteries!  All that remains now is to get it fitted!

We arrived back at Swanwick about 6pm having refuelled with both LPG (gas) and diesel, and even though we were both quite knackered, it really did feel like we'd arrived 'home' after our long haul 'holiday'.

On Friday we started our very happy reunions with some of our close family, but then on Saturday we did something we haven't done in a very long time - John and I spent the day apart!



Our daughter Sarah had organised a Fun Day at the nursery she manages - Shining Stars.  John stayed at home pottering about and re-tightening all the things on T4rdis2 that had shaken loose on Ireland's appallingly bumpy roads and I went to help out and have lots of fun with the both the big and little children at the nursery.  We had a lovely and very successful day where lots of money was raised for The Special Care Baby Unit at Derby Hospital.

Mr Fix It washing the roof (long overdue) and tightening the screws!

Since Sunday we've also had the privilege of seeing lots of John's Mum because Val (John's sister) and her husband who is also a John have gone away for a few days in their motorhome so we've been keeping her company and sharing a few meals with her, thus giving us lots of time to catch up with family news.  And inbetween those visits we've also squeezed in some very precious time with all our children and grandchildren.



Oh and did I mention shopping - we're now on the countdown to a very exciting family wedding - we'll be gaining a new daughter when our youngest son Ben gets married in 3 weeks time on the 10th of August!  John's fine - he's got his outfit - but me, well that's a work in progress - I went in one shop and they dressed me up like a dogs dinner in an outfit that made John wince!  So fingers are firmly crossed that I'll be more successful on my next shopping expedition and find something that suits me better!

Anyway that's all for now - it's Eastenders time!

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