Extra protection for the Winter

The New Seal has Arrived

I went to have a look at the new 2018 Motorhomes at a local dealer. All very good but nothing to replace our Iona that would fit on the drive. What is apparent is that there have been a lot on minor improvements.

One that caught my attention was a new rubber seal on the top of garage doors. Obviously a good move to stop water collecting in the frames of the garage doors. However , Auto-Trail only put the seal along the top of the door and about 15cm down each side instead of around the whole door.

The new seal is on the left

New seal in position

Further research and a phone call to Auto-Trail I got the part number and price. After measuring the door an order was placed for 4mtrs of the seal to fit the whole door. The only problem is the hinges but on the new vans Auto-Trail don’t cover them.

Once I received the seal I set about trimming it so the seal protected the hinges as well, unfortunately on a practice run it became apparent that the door would not shut so my idea was abandoned and I reverted to the Auto-Trail method but I went around the entire door. The door shuts and the seal certainly covers the gap around the door.

I did a Hose test and horror of horrors the door leaks by the hinges at the top and because of the great seal the water could not escape and flooded the garage.

I have now removed the seal from along the bottom of the door and water can now leave the frame without flooding the garage so I am almost back to where I started and this is all down to Auto-Trail mounting a door upside down and not fixing the hinges which stop the seal along the top. I have added some foam seals by the hinges to limit the water ingress into the frame surround. If water does get past the seals it will run down the frames and exit under the door.

Withdrawal Symptoms in November

We have not been away since October and our visit to Drayton Manor. The past few weeks have been spent decorating our home which we had put off for sometime, some would say years.  We are nearly finished and now Christmas is very close, so our attention is now geared to the family.

However we do need to plan next year so I have made a list of all the temporary holiday sites within 150 miles of us and we are now in a position to discuss the final camping plans for next year.

To get in the mood we have decided to do the planning in the motorhome one evening  even though it is parked on the drive. 

The van is cold so I wanted to see how long it takes to warm up, after a trial run I think it looks like about 3/4 hour from 4c to 21c. As part of this pre planning I have read the heating control manual and I have found that it is possible to set the heating on a timer to pre warm the motorhome. 

Tomorrow, Saturday, I will turn on the gas and set the controls for the heating to come on at about 16.00 to warm the van up for our planning meeting at about 19.00. Obviously it will take some time so refreshments will be provided in the fridge and at room temperature. 

Hopefully we will emerge at sometime , Happy and with the camping calendar complete. If not we may have to repeat the exercise on Sunday. 

Getting ready for Winter

We were asked by some friends if we had a slow cooker. No we said but we do slow cook in the oven at home. We listened to them gush about a slow cooker in the motorhome. 

In the autumn,winter and spring we camp with electric hookup so it seemed to make sense. We did some research and it was clear we only needed a small one for the two of us. I started looking for a 1.5 litre slow cooker,  that is apparently a good size for two to three people.

It is a bit of a minefield but I found one from Andrew James, a name we are used to from other products. I was impressed that it was only 120w , great for the motorhome, and it had a ceramic inner bowl and glass lid. The best bit was it was only £15.99. I bought one.

Remembering that this is for the motorhome, but we had to test it. This particular week we are decorating the house so it was a good time to test it. In seven days we have had five slow cooked meals. We are both smitten and the cooker has not seen the outside of the motorhome yet, let alone the inside.

Somehow I have got to get the slow cooker into the motorhome before we wear it out in the house.

Iona goes to a Theme Park

Drayton Manor C&CC, Fazeley.
Trip 21, 24th - 27th October 2017
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This trip was planned because it was on a Camping & Caravan Club Site, The Temporary Holiday Site was run by the Fenland District Association and it was only £11pn including Electric Hook Up. The Sat Nav took us there without any problem although there were a couple of large complicated roundabouts.

When I checked in there seemed to have been some confusion. I booked 4 nights but the planning dept thought I wanted four days and not four nights. They are fully booked because of a grand firework display on Fri/Sat/Sun nights, so we were reduced to three nights.

The site is big with a large number of hard standings, two rally fields and some Ready Camping surrounded by woodland. The site it right next to Drayton Manor theme park so it gets very busy in the summer and with it being half term the coming weekend is very busy. We went for a walk around the outskirts of the campsite and the park that also has a hotel and a separate conference site.

This is a walkway where you are tethered to the beige girders but you can walk anywhere in safety.

Ready Camping

The toilet and shower block is amazing, plenty of toilets and the biggest shower cubicles we have seen. There is also a laundry room which has a washer and dryer and sinks etc all very clean.

We finished the day with a Chinese style curry and rice.

Day2:

After a slow start we left the campsite and headed to the main road. We crossed the road and found a swing bridge across the canal, there was also a footbridge with towers and spiral staircases. We crossed the canal and followed the towpath into Fazeley.

Towers and spiral staircase with the agricultural swing bridge just behind

One of the old Mill warehouses

The canal went under the main road and we came to a marina with another bridge over the canal entrance we continued on towards Fazeley. We passed some old industrial building, a huge disused Mill building right next to the canal with the original wharf still in place. Opposite is a disused Presbyterian Church.

Presbyterian Church.

Then under another bridge to a junction in the canal. This was where the Birmingham and Fazeley canal meets the Coventry Canal.

Birmingham and Fazeley Canal junction with the Coventry Canal.

Here we crossed the canal and walked the towpath towards Birmingham for a short way to see a new development built around the Peels Wharf.

Peels Wharf

We returned to Fazeley junction and walked south along the Coventry canal to where it went under the main road, here we left the towpath and joined the road back into Fazeley and back to Drayton Manor.

Campsite Reception

We had been out for two hours and walked nearly five miles. Lunch and a couple of beers in the Sun was next on the agenda.

Day 3:

The weather is dull and quite cool so we decided to stay inside and read. There was plenty of movement as people left during the morning. After lunch there seemed to be a new motorhome or caravan arriving every half hour. Tomorrow and over the weekend there are three firework displays which why it is getting busy.

Sue tried a new recipe for tea. One pot Fish Stew with some crusty bread. It was really good and it goes onto the menu list for the future.

Trip 21: 144 miles, 26.5 mpg,  36 mph, 4hrs

Iona goes to Great Steeping

The Limes Campsite, Great Steeping
Trip 20, 10th - 13th October 2017

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 We set off for Spilsby and Great Steeping. We got caught up with roadworks and then the maize was being harvested for the local bio-digester. We arrived after just over an hour, via a rather narrow lane taking us past the Heavy Horse Centre. Luckily we did not meet any other vehicles.

We met James the owner who explained everything and allowed us to park on any vacant pitch. At this time of year we were only the second campers so we chose a pitch next to the pond. 

After lunch we went for a circular walk that took us onto an old perimeter track of RAF Spilsby. We came across a memorial for the airfield that has long since been returned to agriculture, the runways ripped up and hardcore was used in the building of the Humber Bridge. The memorial is sited on the original airfield firestation and consists of three columns and a rectangle block of stone. Each of the pillars is dedicated to the brave men who flew from RAF Spilsby but never returned. The blocks also represent morse code, dot dot dot dash, for the letter ‘V’ for victory. 

We left the memorial and continued our circular walk into Great Steeping and back to the campsite. The weather was quite mild and we sat outside on a picnic bench with a cuppa and our books. The wind soon picked up and we went back inside the van. For tea Sue prepared mussels and fries.

Day 2:

It was very windy this morning but fairly mild. The wi-fi was not working this morning so we had to read or watch TV. The kindles won and we read until the owner arrived.

There was a need for a walk after lunch, so with walking boots on off we went, only to find after we turned left at the T junction that we should have turned right. We retraced our steps and headed for the historic All Saints Church that is situated down a lane in the middle of nowhere. The church was built in 1748 and restored in 1908. It is not used for worship these days but the graveyard is still in use. We saw graves dated 1847 - 2009, some ornate for the wealthy of the time and some very basic.

We left the churchyard via a gate to the south and found a public footpath along Lady Wath’s Beck to the river Steeping where a bridge took us to another church, St Andrews in Little Steeping. An old church but in use today with the latest grave dated July 2017. We retraced our steps back along  Lady Wath’s beck and crossed to the other side via a bridge and followed the path back to Great Steeping and then to the campsite.

Day 3:

Still windy but brighter. We went for a walk this morning to see what the other campsite was like. It looks as if it has been taken over because it has new signs and  there was a notice on the entrance saying ‘sorry no tourers’, it is now static homes in the form of log cabins. Once back at the campsite another caravan had arrived and parked very near to where another motorhome had parked, except they had gone out. When they came back they were not very happy and they moved to another pitch.

Trip 20: 80 miles, 26.5 mpg,  29 mph, 2hrs 41m

Refillable gas system fitted

With bottled gas costing between £22-£28 per refill, it was getting quite expensive,  even in the summer we use a bottle every 8 days. The price of autogas is much cheaper at  0.62p per litre compared to £1.90 per litre for the calor gas refills.

We invested in a Gas-it system that came in kit form. It comprised of two refillable 6kg bottles and all the pipes and a couple of adapters so that we can use the existing regulator and pigtail. Each bottle has a gauge to show the gas level. 

I intend to use it with one bottle turned on at a time, that way as soon as one bottle is empty I can switch to the other full bottle and then get to a garage to refill the whole system without relying on the accuracy of the gauges.

The only other decision was where to put the filler. The skirts around the gas locker are very flimsy to put the filler and I did not want to drill a hole in the door because if I sell the van I will take the system out and return it to the standard layout. The decision was made to put the filler in the locker, this is perfectly legal and inline with the current guidelines for the UK.

The big day came to fill the system. We set off for a local garage after 6pm in the hope that the the petrol station was quiet in case there was any problem getting to the autogas pump. When we arrived cars we’re queuing so we joined in and eventually pulled up next to the pump. I undid the locker door and noticed my hands were shaking, I was nervous about using the autogas pump for the first time. I put the leak spray on the joints of the filling pipes, connected the nozzle.

There were some strange noises before I started filling, but this was the compressed air that they test the bottles with escaping. The pump went to zero and I pressed the big black button and gas started to flow into the van. There were no leaks showing and the pump soon stopped automatically when the bottles were full. It took 24.1 Litres which was spot on for the size of bottles. The best bit was paying, £14.94 instead of the normal £43 for two bottles. 

Unbeknown to me Sue had been watching from inside the van, she thought it all looked easy, but she was not shaking as I was. I don’t think I stopped smiling all the way home. I am no longer an Auto-Gas Virgin and we now have cheap gas onboard.

Back to Woodhall Spa

Jubilee Park, Woodhall Spa.

Trip 19, 26th - 30th September, 2017

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You can always tell when it is getting towards the end of the season when we go back to Woodhall Spa. We are a week earlier than last year but we have  another couple of sites to fit in before November.

There is a bonus this year in that the swimming pool is open until the 1st of October. It is kept at 29c so warmer than outside and campers get in for half price. After lunch Sue decided that because the sun was out she would give it a try, I decided to watch the croquet instead. I will give it a go tomorrow. The pool only had half a dozen swimmers but by the time Sue had got out it was beginning to fill as the schools finished.

I had a wander around the grounds which were more colourful this year because we are a week or so earlier in the season. The rose garden was still in bloom.

The sun stayed out until after 5pm and then we retired to the van for a Chinese style chicken curry to end the day. 

Day 2:

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We walked to the Kinema in the woods to check on times but it was closed so we carried on our walk into town via the museum and then down the high street to check out the fish and chip shop. We continued on and found the Viking Way which took us to green lane that runs at the back of the campsite.

We walked past the campsite and out towards Woodhall Country Park but we turned right into the woods that ran by the golf course and eventually took us back to the Kinema, and from there back home. A total of 5 miles.

For tea tonight we had Beef Wellington, carrots, beans, potato and mushrooms.

Day 3:

Today was chill out day,so we got up late and walked to the cafe for a cuppa, Sue had a bacon and egg roll while I went for a cheese burger that was not good. The burger appeared to have been precooked and then reheated. The outside was quite chewy but hunger got the better of me. Outside the cafe was this decoration in the patio, but there was no explanation of what it was all about.

This afternoon Sue went for a swim while I stayed by the van with a beer and my kindle. Tea tonight was van made macaroni cheese.

Day 4:

Went for a walk around The Pinewood and then headed for the Petwood Hotel to see what changes had been made. The outside is being painted and there is a new terrace with plenty of tables and chairs. It was not warm enough to sit out today.

We found a relic from the war. The only remaining prototype of the Barnes Wallace bouncing Bomb.

Trip 19: 56 miles, 25.4 mpg, 29 mph av, 1 hr 52m  travel.