It's been a while........

Yes it has been a while since I have posted anything on this blog.... But I have had reasons which I will try and update you with as concisely as possible...

My last post was made when we were still at the Verwood site....

From there we moved to the CandCC site at Moreton...... 

While we were at Moreton I attended my annual MRI scan with a follow up appointment with my cardiac consultant due a few days before we were due to head off back down to Devon....

About two weeks before we were due to leave Moreton we were informed that the arrangements we had made for winter had fallen through due to over running building work where we had planned to stay.... 

This left us with a bit of a problem as we now had nowhere booked for our winter season.....

Obviously there are sites open all year round but I didn't want to be moving on every few weeks over the winter as there is nothing worse than packing up and setting up when the weather is bad like it is as I write this post. Even worse is travelling in snow and ice which is always a possibility.....

This really had created a bit of a headache for us over our winter plans......the first time since we had started touring throughout the year.....

In the end we decided that we would book in at Tavistock for 28 days while we looked for an alternative winter pitch....

The next thing that happened was at my appointment with the cardiac consultant I was informed that I have been diagnosed with Hypertrophic Cardiocmyopathy (HCM).

This is a genetic condition that can be passed on in families and is often the cause of sudden death in younger sports people and others who have shown no previous heart conditions...

I was told that I needed to inform my 'bloodline' relatives of the condition and advise them to get tested to see if they also have the gene mutation themselves.....

This could have an impact on both my grandsons if it is eventually shown that they have the condition as they are both very keen on sport....

For my part I have been told that I must keep my heartrate within strict zones and must not allow my heartrate to exceed 85% of max HR at any time. 

I have also been told that I must not attempt another cycling ride like the 10in10 and no more riding over the Alps...... This is a great pity as I had planned a trip for 2020 to do just that... I will now have to come up with something much easier...

I have also had to update my cycling heartrate monitor to one that has flashing coloured lights and beeps and buzzes all the time in order that I am made aware exactly of my HR at all times....

This is going to have a huge impact on my passion of cycling as I will have to stop all forms of competitive riding from now on and that includes riding against my own times......

As if the above wasn't enough.... I was just a few miles down the road after we had left Moreton on route to Devon when I glanced in one of my rear mirrors only to see that the pop top had 'popped up' at the front...

I pulled over into a layby to investigate and found that both of the clips that hold the roof down had snapped causing the front of the roof to rise up and the whole roof was jammed solid in this position.

I couldn't pull the roof back down at the front as it was totally jammed solid....

Result was that most of the journey to Tavistock was made at 35 miles an hour as I didn't want to cause any damage to the roof structure itself..... 

The journey took a good hour and a half longer than normal as on top of my slow speed I had to keep pulling over to allow traffic that was behind me to pass. 

Luckily there was no wind that day as that could have also added to the speed of the air hitting the roof and causing damage even at the slow speed of 35 miles an hour.
It really was the worst towing journey that I have ever had and it didn't do much for my heart rate either..... 

I was so glad to finally arrive at the Tavistock site where eventually I was able to access the correct tools to undo the rear clips and release the roof.....

Automotive Leisure sent me replacement front clips which arrived the very next day but the price was £135...Ouch!!!!
Interestingly I had to cut the hook part of the new clips down by a few mm in order to get them to fit.....this had apparently been done with the old ones at the factory before delivery of the van. Wihout cutting them down they wouldn't be able to be hooked under the fittings on the van. You can see what I am talking about in the second image below...
They told me to hold on to the broken clips so it can be investigated as to why they both snapped as this is something that just shouldn't happen. They will be chcking this out when the van goes in for it's next service in April.....

After spending four weeks at the Tavistock site (which just isn't the same since the previous managers Craig and Caroline moved to Canterbury) we have now moved to our new winter pitch at a site at Crapstone which is only about 4 miles from Tavistock.
Actually that's what the past couple of months have been...Crapstone without the 'stone'.

Anyway.....hopefully things will get a bit more back on track now and  I should get back to posting on the blog more frequently....

One of the broken clips...

New clip on the left...one of the broken clips on the right. 

Where we are now.....says a bit about the last couple of months :-)