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 ... 

Grange Court.....

I really like this building......

Grange Court

The building is in Leominster and it is called Grange Court...
It was built in 1633 and is the last surviving market house known to be built by John Abel a local master carpenter.

It was moved to it's present location in 1859.
It is now on the edge of a park area in the town but it's original location was closer to the market square area of the town but needed to be moved because it was starting to cause an obstruction with the ever busier roads...

The timber framed building is extravagantly decorated with carvings including mermaids, angels, animals, flowers and grotesques.
The entablature above the columns includes a number of carved texts praising god.

When built this market house was open at ground level with the upper structure supported on twelve oak columns.
If you look at the photo above you can see the columns and where the building has now been filled in. 

It was used for public meetings and also meetings of the town guilds and  the Quarter session courts were held there...

Nowadays it is a civic building and used for such events as exhibitions.. weddings etc....  

As I said at the start I really like this building...
I like the shape...The black and white structure and the condition and neatness of the whole building.... A bit of a historic gem really.

Another Move and a Visitor.....

Last Monday we moved on from the Malverns and are now about thirty miles further west just north of Hereford.....

We are at one of my favourite sites close to the village of Moreton on Lugg. This is a privately owned adult only site which at this time of year at the start of the school holidays is absolute bliss..

For a few hours today between people moving on and new arrivals there were only four units in our camping field. See the picture above to check out the almost empty site....
It has filled up again now but most people on site seem to be fifty years or older....

This is the third time that we have been here since 2015 and it is an ideal site for us as it ticks all of our boxes...

The day after we arrived we had a visitor.
My cycling and walking buddy Peter had cycled up from Poole in Dorset to spend four nights with us...

He had made the journey on his touring bike and we had a few days of chat and banter as well as a look at Hereford and it's cathedral on the Wednesday and also a walk and picnic on the Thursday.

Peter headed off back home on Saturday morning and expects to be back home before Tuesday.
It's always nice to see Peter and he has managed to visit us at over eight of our camp sites since 2015.....

He slept in his Hilleberg Akto tent that he has used for both cycle touring as well as backpacking trips...
I have an Akto myself and I always remember when we were walking the Pennine way together a few years ago joking about how our tents looked like a couple of coffins pitched side by side....
The slight fading of the grass where Peter had pitched his tent seems to bear that out...

S

Peter packing for his return trip....

An Open Door...... Double Take!

Since we have been staying here near the Malverns I have cycled a number of times to Tewkesbury and Anne and I have also driven there so we could have a proper look around the town.....

The stand out place in the town for us was the Abbey which we both thought was stunning.
It was a really interesting and historic  place that gave me lots of subject matter for my monochrome photography.

I am planning to ressurect my photography blog 'Aura of Past Shadows" a little later in the year and the abbey gave me some good b/w images.

One of the other things that grabbed my attention was a front door on a terraced house in the town.....
The owner had painted the image of an open door leading to a garden on the front door...it really did need a double take...
The image of that door is shown below ......
the other image is a shot of the wonderful Abbey...

Grow Your Own Dog.....

The jazz festival that I mentioned in my last post took place at Upton on Severn.
In lots of ways the town is almost a step back to the 1950s.
The high street has lots of small independent shops with no multi nationals that we could see.

There are a number of pubs in the town and during the jazz festival they all seemed to host various bands. We went back again earlier this week to have a better look around.

One of the things that really captured our attention was the large dog near the tourist information office...
It looks like a large Old English Sheepdog but it is in fact a plant of some kind.....

It could well catch on...

No need to go to the breeding kennels for your next dog just grow your own.......

Below is a photo of the local garage...usually this style of building would have been modernised but thankfully this one is original and has been maintained like that....

 Here is the high street...... This too hasn't changed much over the years.

 View of the Severn from the pub garden where we had lunch.....

 Finally a picture of the town museum....