December 17th. and an unexpected cost.
Those paying attention will have noticed that 1) the postings stopped suddenly in October, mid trip. 2)the blog disappeared completely in november/december and 3) the site has had a makeover. Those not paying attention i.e everybody will no doubt say 1)didn't notice, 2)hadn't noticed and 3)I thought something was different, and so I shall bring you all up to speed with the various reasons,trials and tribulations, as this is supposed to be my record of what's happening.
The cessation of activities in October eas down to England's abysmal performance at the World Cup. Yes, I'm sorry to bring it up when the scars were beginning to heal and the memories had been successfully buried but I was so disappointed (as we could have been in the south of France enjoying sun and wine) that i lost the will to live re blogging.
So I left us in St.Ives where we spent a cultural few days visiting art galleries like the Tate and then we headed to Bude for another few days and then a funny little site in Torrington which was on the Tarka Trail cycle track which we rode up and down very scenically. Excellent track. Then to Woolacombe and the strangely named Damage Barton, overlokking the sea but a fair hike down to the town. Tiring of the narrow roads (did I mention the damged wing mirror) we headed to a Cl at Bitton, between Bristol and Bath and on the Bristol-Bath cycle track so we visited both cities before having a problem with the fridge which seems temperamental and has decided to work only if it perfectly level in all directions. As this seemed impossible in the field we were in I gave up and we went home on the 3rd October. A result of the fridge problem was a visit to the NEC 2 weeks later to the Motorhome Show to buy a set of Milenco Quatro levelling ramps which offer a greater range of adjustment.....and a very expensive wifi booster aerial which may have been an indulgence as I subsequently discovered a mobile hot spot at Pc World which can be used all over europe for £9.99 a month giving 3gb data. and it worked out of the box.
Also had the pleasure of a lunchtime beer with Malc & Christine and a sight of the new "caravan" they've bought...
Early November saw a trip to Broadway to meet up with Jim & Kath who we met on the Russian cruise and were over for a business trip and a few days R&R in the Cotwsolds.....we took the van over for 4 nights and had an excellent time being driven round the strange fantasy world that has developed in that neck of the woods. It's so theme-park that I'm surprised they don't charge to enter it. But we had a very nice time as they are great company.
November 23-27 th. Teversal
An excellent week like last year, Ken&Jackie, Paul&Marianne,Malc&Chris and Derek&Margaret and a very jolly time was had by all. As last year, there was the day trip to Chatsworth House for the Xmas Fair which is quite spectacular ....certainly in prices.....but which I doubt we will do again. Find somewhere else for next year. But at least the fridge is behaving and the wing mirror repairable rather than replaceable as I feared, for a mere £16.
December was spent more or less at home. The van was given a clean bill of health at the annual habitation check but then the airbag warning light came on permanently. It has done this before but previously extinguished itself soon after. As there was a small issue with what I suspected was a faulty earth connection causing some warning lights to faintly glow, I booked the van in for diagnostics. The light cluster is apparently well known for an earth leakage on Euro 5 chassis and has to be changed. good news was that they had ordered one in anticipation....bad news was that out of warranty that's £900.
Further bad news was that this would not solve the airbag warning which meeds a new ECU for another £300.......and a Happy Xmas to you to.
So that brings things up to date. The blog disappeared because I bought a new computer and decided to tidy up my email accounts. Having deleted the 2 I deemed redundant, all my google bookmarks and contacts disappeared, along with the blog, .....utterly and completely. Black hole. Fortunately Google give you 5 days to recover deleted accounts before sending them to the great shredder in the sky so I got the important one back and copied all the bookmarks and contacts to another file and reloaded them into the one google account I retain. And then deleted the old account again and the blog disappeared again as it is near impossible to change the ownership of a blog. So I had to recover the old account, again, and then set about transferring ownership to new gooogle account. The Blooger web site is very helpful..up to a point. It took several forums to discover that in order to follow the detailed and complex instructions you had to use 2 computers, one signed in to each account, as it couldn't be done on one ( as i had discovered for several frustrating hours)
So now the blog is back, and I thought it needed brightening up so this is the new look. I know its America but we did go to Monument Valley in a motorhome and I do like this picture. the GF wanted another taken in Croatia of a crowd of us but Julian who helped nobly thought this looked better.
COMMENTS WILL BE READ.
So that wraps up 2015. Off to Spain 2ndJan, a trip Norway and Sweden via Nordkapp for 7 weeks to see the midnight sun with Derek & Margaret May_July
and a complete family party in a gite in france in august plus the Rugby7s in paris and Croatia in September all to look forward to in 2016.
HAPPY XMAS AND A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR TO ALL OUR READERS.
