You don't get this at one of the club sites .....

Well the weather has improved a lot ..another burst of summer just in time for the bank holiday....
 I have managed now to get out on the bike and enjoy some of the Forest of Dean from the saddle of my Felt Z1....

 As mentioned before.. this year we have spent more time than we usually do staying at small private sites rather than club sites.   
The personal touch can make a big difference to a camping site ... 

Here is something that you don't get when staying at any of the sites run by either of the two main UK camping clubs....... 
Since we have been staying here the site's owner John who is 82 years of age has popped around  a number of times to give us fresh fruit and vegetables from his own garden.... 

Take into consideration that a pitch only costs £14 a night including electric and it really shows what a gem of a site this is...
A club site at this time of year would be charging us over twice that amount......

By cutting the number of 'Club pitch nights' we have had this summer in half we have reduced our site fees for the season by a considerable amount. 

Private sites can be more hit and miss in terms of quality of pitches and facilities but the savings can make it worthwhile plus you might get some lovely fresh produce to enjoy as well..  

Campsite produce from John's garden

Not the Best......

Since my last post the weather remains very unlike summer...wet and windy. 'Not the best' is putting it very mildly..... 

Last weekend Anne's eighteen month old grandson was brought up by his parents  to visit us. 
The weather was bad throughout the weekend but we were not going to let that dampen our spirits as we were determined to find various things to do..... 

They had all booked into a hotel in Monmouth which is only about six miles from our campsite.... 
On the Saturday we arranged to meet them at  Norchard which is the centre for the Dean Forest Railway. 

Anne's grandson like a lot of youngsters has a real thing about trains so we figured that a couple of hours getting on and off of different trains would be a good way to use up part of the day...

As it was we were able to fill up the Saturday and on the Sunday we were able to manage a walk in the woods as well as yet another train ride at a different location. 

The area here has quite a lot to occupy youngsters so even though we might be asking if this is summer or autumn weather wise we were still able to enjoy ourselves and keep him occupied.

 Just a few images below around the Dean Forest Railway.....

(Talking of images I will be starting to post monochrome photographs again at my Aura of Past Shadows blog from late October onwards.... 
I've posted one of my new monochrome images recently as an introduction... Pop over to the blog and check it out. There is a link in the side bar...) 

A New Pitch for August....

We have now left Hereford and have settled into a new Pitch at a adult only site in the Forest of Dean for the rest of August ...
 We arrived here last Monday and we will be here until the 2nd of September.

 The sharp eyed amongst you would have noticed that we had our awning up during our stay at Hereford....

 We had tried to put the new air tube into the awning when we were at the Blackmore site. 
We struggled to get it fitted and in the end gave up and put it down to Cameron at Automotive Leisure sending us what I thought was the wrong air pole.

 We put the canopy and windbreak up instead but all the time we were at Blackmore I thought about how we had tried to fit it and the more I thought about it the more I became convinced that it was the right airpole after all.

 We arrived at Hereford and I put my theory to the test and after a lot more struggling with it we finally managed to fit it.... 
So that was great and we thought that we would then have the use of the awning for the rest of the summer. 

......BUT....when we arrived here in the Forest of Dean because of the steep slope in two directions of our pitch it became obvious that we wouldn't be able to use the awning because the slope would cause the rear airpole to cut across the edge of the caravan door.

 One of the drawbacks of an air awning is that you can't adjust the height of the legs as you can with a normal poled model. 

  So the end result is that we are back to our canopy set up again for this pitch.
 In normal summer weather the canopy and windbreak can be nicer than the awning but since we have been here the weather has been horrendous with strong winds and heavy rain. 

I have not managed to even get out on my bike since we have been here and I don't want to lose too much of my fitness as when I do finally manage a ride the routes in this area can be a bit challenging. 

Below are some general shots around our site area including a defibrillator which since I had my heart diagnosis we always lookout for now. ....

Hopefully we will have some better and more interesting shots for you when this weather improves ...