Gone...!

This morning the last of the 'bank holiday' campers left the site.....
They left as they arrived... noisily and quickly.....
Tents came down...caravans and trailers packed... a last twenty laps around the site 'velodrome' and then the kids were stuffed into the cars and they all headed off and moved out....
Peace descended on the site again... 

More campers have arrived but they all seem quieter than the manic bank holiday crowd. Even the new bunch of kids seem better behaved.... 

I can only assume that the bank holiday crowd were trying to cram as much as possible into their long weekend and were determined to squeeze every minute of enjoyment out of the time away from work that they had....
The enjoyment and needs of other campers obviously didn't figure in their plan....
They had four days off work and were going to enjoy it and make as much noise and mess as they liked while they were here.....

It took me back to when I was working and managed to get a long weekend off from work... 
I would try to pack as much into it as possible no matter how manic the whole thing was....
The reality was that after all the rushing around I needed another break just to get over the whole thing....

Anyway the site is now like a different place.....like it was before the weekend....
Peace and tranquility now reign again... Toilets and showers are prisitine again.... It's a pleasure to be on the site again.....

Over the weekend while the site was in meltdown Anne and I went out to visit some places of interest in the locality....
One of the places we visited was this.....

Is it the Doors of Durin....?

I't certainly looks like a Tolkien Gateway.... 
Is it the 'Door of Durin' also known as the West Gate of Moria?   

It certainly looks like it as fans of the 'Lord of the Rings etc' would agree.
These doors can be seen at the church of St Edward in Stow-on-the-Wold....
Some say that these doors gave J.R.R.Tolkien his idea for the Doors of Durin although there is no firm evidence that is the case.... 

But if you are a tour guide who needs evidence.... There are a number of tours around the Cotswolds that link various places in the Cotswolds very loosely to the tales of J.R.R.Tolkien...
These tours are very popular with Japanese Tourists...indeed while we were sat in the churchyard having a picnic a coach disgorged it's load of tourists from Japan..... 

The guide led them up to the doors and spoke to them about Tolkien and the doors whereupon they started taking pictures of the doors...the trees...and then everything else within the churchyard including Anne and I and our picnic....

Oh well.... famous at last........

Gearing Up....

Today the campsite has been gearing up for the bank holiday weekend....
All the 'sensible' campers packed up and went home this morning....
Unfortunately Anne and I can't do that...we have to stay on a site and we have chosen this one for the bank holiday because although it is not an adult only site there are limited facilities for kids and our pitch is as far away from the small play area as possible.

For a few hours the site was almost empty.... From about 12.30hrs the site started to fill up again.... Cars were arriving with little monsters looking out and it wasn't long before the nice clean toilet facilities which have been pristine all week started to descend into the usual 'kids holiday' chaos....
The camps circular internal road suddenly took on the appearance of an open air velodrome park with the little darlings flying around on their bikes far in excess of the 5mph that the rest of us are expected to stick to.....

Talking about whizzing around on a bike.....this morning I slowly left the site on my bike (sticking to 5mph) and set off on the mini 'time trial' route that I found the other day....
I had another great morning of cycling and the route did turn out to be almost traffic free as I had thought that it might be....

On my way back to the campsite I stopped in a small village to chew on an energy bar and take a few gulps from my water bottle.... While I was sitting on the bench in the village green a gentleman came out of the village hall...got into his car and drove over to me and winding down his window he informed me "there is a cup of coffee for you over at the village hall if you want it..." he then turned his car around and drove off in the other direction. Yes..he had actually taken the time to drive over to me to let me know..... The villagers were friendly and the coffee was good too..!

My Traffic Free Route in the Cotswolds

All Windows on Eva Wide Open.......

Well we have now been here at Chipping Norton for three nights and three full days and the weather has been stunning from the moment that we arrived...
The weather has been so hot that Eva's windows have been opened all round and all the roof vents have been unzipped in an attempt to keep the caravan interior as cool as possible.....

I was out on the bike yesterday for a 40 mile spin around the countryside passing through some very interesting villages...
What I will say is that most of the roads locally are in a terrible state.... Potholes seem to be all over the place many of them 4 to 6 inches deep. Not the sort of thing that you want to hit at any sort of speed.
After the effort of cycling up a hill going down the hill was spoiled by having to use the brakes more than I would have liked in an attempt to avoid hitting one of the potholes..... Having already been injured in the past by hitting one hard I was not prepared to throw caution to the wind and careful descent was the order of the day....

On my return route I did come across a nice B road of about 10 miles in length that will make a good 'time trial' road... My plan tomorrow is to go out on the bike again and go back to that section of road and do a few runs in each direction... It's a good surface...undulating and no heavy traffic....
I will let you know how I get on........

Eva the Eriba with all windows open......

A Day of Morris.....

We leave Sells Green on Monday and are heading up to a site in the Cotswolds....
Today we went over to Bradford on Avon for a Festival of Morris Dance... It was a great day out and the perfect way to finish off our stay in this area...

Bradford on Avon is a very attractive place and is often called 'The Jewel of Wiltshire'. The packhorse bridge in the town was initially built in the 13th century . There is a small building on the bridge that was used as the town lock up. On top this building is a weather vane in the shape of a small fish and if you were locked up locals would say that you were 'under the fish and over the water'

The town is an architectural treasure chest and made the perfect setting for the festival....
I have always been a great fan of Morris dancing but don't exactly know why....
A lot of people think that the Morris dance was a Victorian invention but in actual fact it's earliest mention is from 1458.....

There are many forms of Morris dance.... Border Morris....Traditional Cotswold Morris.....Modern Cotswold Morris....Molly.....NW Clog/step...Rapper Sword dances etc..

My favourite types have always been Border Morris and Molly....
Border hails from Herefordshire,Worcestershire and Shropshire while Molly comes from East Anglia/East Midlands.

Border Morris dates back to the 17th century. Dancers would blacken their faces with soot to provide anonymity from both employers and the church. They would generally wear black with masses of highly colourful rag ribbons and elaborate headresses, often featuring tall pheasant feathers....
It's a vigorous form of Morris with plenty of crashing of sticks and wild dances and I really enjoy it...
As I said it was a great way for Anne and I to end our stay in the area....

Tomorrow is our packing up day ready for our travel day on Monday...

I was hoping to have posted an assortment of picures that I took during our visit to the festival...
Unfortunately for some reason I seem unable to access any of today's pictures in my photoalbum from blogger even though all previous images are visible....

If I manage to sort the problem I will post them at a later date.....
In the meantime I have posted a couple of images to show that since we have been here I have managed to get out on the bike a few times....

Towpath..The other direction....

This past weekend Peter Calcutt one of my walking buddies who I met through our joint association with the Backpackers Club came and camped for a couple of nights with us.....

It's always a pleasure to see Peter and so far this year he has managed to visit us on four occasions. Once when we were down on Dartmoor... twice at Verwood and now here at Sells Green...

As usual we spent a lot of time talking about some of the many backpacking trips that we have done together over the years as well as spending many an hour in conversation trying to put the world to rights.....

We did manage to fit a short walk into the weekend as well though....
We decided to go for a walk along the towpath but in the opposite direction to the Barge Inn that I mentioned in my last post....

Our plan was to walk to the top of the Caen Hill Locks and stop for a break at the cafe which is situated at the top of the flight before returning to the campsite via the same route...

For those of you who don't know... the Caen Hill Locks are a flight of locks on the Kennet & Avon Canal between Rowde & Devizes.
There are 29 locks in total and they have a rise of 237 feet in two miles or to put it another way a 1 in 44 gradient. 

The locks come in three main groups...
The lower seven from Foxhangers Wharf Lock to Foxhangers Bridge Lock cover three quarters of a mile.
The next sixteen locks form a steep flight in a straight line which goes up the hillside. These are designated as a scheduled monument apparently....
A final six locks continue into Devizes....

Our walk would take us past the first 23 locks. The cafe is situated at the top of the main flight of sixteen locks and you can sit outside with a coffee and watch the narrow boats slowly navigate their way to the top of the hill...
It takes 5 - 6 hrs to traverse the locks in a boat so our walk was far quicker.....
Below are some images that I took during our walk...

The entrance to Foxhangers Marina

One of the locks on the lower section

Lock gates

Narrow boats traversing one of the locks

Another boat in a lock..

Always lots going on along the towpath

The 16 locks of the main flight...

Tow Path to the Pub....

In my last post I mentioned that we were heading to the Barge Inn for a spot of lunch and a pint.......
Well that is exactly what we did.......plus a few times more since......

It makes a great walk along the tow path because there is always lots to see.... wildlife...boats on the move.....locks etc.....

A few years ago I walked the Grand Union Canal from Central London to Gas Street Basin in Birmingham. 
Before I left on the trip a lot of people suggested that it might be a pretty boring trip following a tow path for over a hundred miles but that was not what I found.....

The activity along the canal tow path kept me interested in the walk for it's entire length and that is exactly what we have found here along the Kennet & Avon Canal....

Below are a few images that I took along along the path to the pub......

One of the many locks on the canal..

The Barge Inn

A view from our table at the Barge Inn...

Bluebell Woods...

We have now left Dorset and are currently pitched at the C&CC site near Sells Green between Melksham and Devizes in Wiltshire....

This is our third visit to this site as we like the position of the site right next to the Kennet & Avon Canal which makes it ideal for a stroll along the towpath to the 'Barge Inn' for a pint and something to eat which is what we did today....

It's also good from the cycling point of view as I have a great 35 mile loop which I like to ride.... It goes through some lovely scenery and for the most part tends to be pretty much traffic free....

While we were at our last site we managed to get out for a number of walks but one of our favourites was through the Bluebell Woods on the Edmondsham Estate.....

These are proper English Bluebell Woods with proper English Bluebells none of those imported varieties here..... 

I have posted some images below that I took in the woods but in no way do these pictures actually do the scenes that we saw any justice and neither can they bring you the wonderful scent of the bluebells that just hung in the air......

Living The Dream......

At the end of last week Eva the Eriba was booked in for her annual service and water ingress test....
This meant that we needed to pack the awning away and all of our kit (so much easier with the inflatable awning) which we did the day before....

An early start was called for but not as early as last year......Last year we left so early that we arrived at Automotive Leisure (the Main Dealers) about 15mins before they opened...
This time we arrived right on time..... Not bad considering we are pitched about 13 miles from  AL and it is always a bit difficult to judge the morning rush traffic....

After dropping Eva off... Anne and I treated ourselves to a nice cooked breakfast to get over the early start. Early starts are not something that we have to do much these days although since we have been here this was our second early start as just over a week ago I had an 0800hrs appt at the hospital for a routine scan... (All OK)

After the full english breakfast we spent the day in Poole and while we were there we visited the Quay and looked across at the SunSeeker Boat building units.....
One of the boats that appeared to have just been finished and fitted out was this.........

Sunseeker boat called 'Living The Dream'

 This fantastic boat was much larger than it appears in this picture but the thing that I spotted was the name on the side which read 'Living The Dream'......

This got me thinking..... Great and very expensive as it obviously is it has never been my Dream...... However most people have a dream that they would love to live....
For some it is to sail around the Med in a multi million pound yacht such as this.....
For others it's to travel hotel to hotel around the world and for other people it could be living on a remote island somewhere.....Etc..Etc...

As I touched on in my two previous posts.... for Anne and I the dream was doing what we are currently doing and we are glad that we were able to start this great way of life.....
What is the dream that you would like to live?

General View of SunSeekers...

The Custom House in Poole

The above image is of 'The Custom House' which is situated in the oldest part of Poole quay....
This is a very handsome Grade 11 listed Georgian building.
During the nineteenth century the Custom House was used for collecting extra taxes for boats entering Poole Harbour....
HM Treasury closed the Custom House in 1883 and in recent years it has been used as a restaurant...
This too has now closed and the future use of the building is currently uncertain.....