Who would have thought? 2020

When we were sitting in the Hallamshire Hospital in August 2019, , trying to get through the long days of Pete being unwell and us not being at home, we planned. We never stopped planning. We talked about how good it would be to be in Greece for Easter, the different stops would we make, the different routes we would go.....

 Once , I  had a  weird feeling and told Pete we shouldn't make lots of plans. I remembered  a Greek friend saying 'Men plan, the Gods laugh' .   Pete reminded me that I am a pessimist. I told him that I'm practical....we often have these conversations. We work well together....mostly.

The ferries got booked. We had almost everything ready in a spare room to put in the van for our Greek trip. So who would have thought that after all the waiting,  Coronavirus would delay  our plans?  This awful virus will change everything for almost everyone. We heard from Pete's son Tom in South Korea about what was likely to happen as  they had the virus there earlier than us and were testing people . There was no lock down but testing stations were everywhere. Phone tracking alerted Tom to local cases and temperature testing was common. We were concerned about what was to come. 

Around Pete's birthday time in February, we went to Honley, a village near us, as we'd seen an advert for Peter Roberts Caravans and that they were  now selling Adria motorhomes. Pete is always looking at vans in magazines and online. We do love the sturdy build of ours and it's comforts. When we got to the dealer's,  I pointed to a silver van..................

Well, that was that. Once we were sat in it with a cup of coffee, chatting to Andrew, we were close to being the owners of another van. I would be getting another new kitchen. All the people at Peter Roberts were so good and put up with us popping back to check measurements, asking millions of questions, fetching friends to look ( and buy a van too ) , keeping us supplied with coffee and knowledgeable company. We felt we'd made a new set of friends.

We were ready to pick it up but DVLA hadn't sent a registration document but nevertheless, we took our van over and swapped stuff from one  van to the other. The service manager, Nigel, and his team were great, fitting things exactly where we wanted them and being really helpful but we had to leave it there until we got the paperwork.

Then along came a text for Pete from the government classing him as very vulnerable and to stay home so we thought that was everything on hold again and we would have to keep waiting for the van. Not so! Our lovely new van was delivered to us ! How good was that? 

We have had good service from Brownhills over the years but this really does feel as if  Roberts aren't just dealers, they're friends. When we were feeling really down, they cheered us up. Thanks!

2020 New Year...new plans

January. Hawes

What a good start to the year. We had a walk with the Vickers  families to the Green Dragon followed by dinner in Phil and Karen's van. Karen's Yorkshire pudding is great!
The next day I continued my early morning coffee and bird watching. What a lovely way to start the day....though I think this pheasant is getting cheeky.

February: Skipton, Silverdale and Coniston

A night in a car park...why not? Skipton council allow you to overnight and there are a lot of good things to look at in Skipton and a lot of good pubs which we didn't manage to visit. Another time...

After a stop in the car park of the Ship Inn at Sandside, which also allows overnight parking, we headed for Gibraltar Farm at Silverdale. It's a working farm with quite a steep drive down to the site but it's lovely. It's an easy short walk into Silverdale with great sea views. However, the wind was howling from the sea. Rain and wind lashed the van in the night and it felt like we were on a rough ferry crossing!

view from The Ship pub car park

 We had a walk to Jenny brown's Point....not far.

 I had to hold on to the van to stop it blowing away. ......

Coniston

We had rain, hail, snow and a little bit of sunshine in Coniston. Everywhere around was flooded. There was so much rain, We got fed up of hearing it on the roof at night. But there were signs that spring is coming.

Catching up.....2019..not the best year.

2018  December trip York and Hawes.

A few days at each site was a lovely way to spend early December.


Van Stolen.
We came back home, plugged the baby monitor into the van and then messed about trying to find  a remedy as the heating in the house had broken down. We had mum with us so put her in the lounge with the fire on and tv on. The phones were charging  in the kitchen and we put the listening end of the monitor upstairs as it was about ten pm and we knew we wouldn't be long going to bed. I went out to the van at 9.30 to get some hot chocolate and all was well but just after 10pm, I heard noise from the baby monitor, shouted to Pete as I ran outside and the van was gone. Talking to the police on one phone and Phantom tracker staff on the other, we established that the van was heading for the M1 . We set off to meet the police at where it was found on an industrial estate near the motorway junction. The police had got there first but there was no sign of the thieves. Thank goodness for the tracker! They hadn't broken any locks but had driven off not realising that it was plugged in to our outside cable so that was broken.
We were so lucky to get it back but unlucky that a combination of circumstances meant that the thieves weren't caught in the act as we hadn't heard them because the listening end was upstairs and the text from the tracker wasnt heard.
We have put on additional security



2019  A difficult year

Here's the brief version of what happened :
January saw us at Castleton after a good New Year break there with friends,

February- we went to Prague to see friends but we flew there.
We also went to Athens and Patras and took part in the Patras annual Carnival - the third biggest in the world. We'd been before and loved it and this time was even better.
Costumes made by Dimitris Raptis

                                                                  

We had a visit from Austrian friends who we'd met years ago in Camping Thines in Finikounda in the Peloponnese, Greece. They enjoyed York and Holmfirth and around here.

Pete was diagnosed with Myeloma three years ago and had been monitored but in March, the consultant said that treatment had to start as it was active. We initially thought that the consultant meant the treatment would start in a few months so were shocked to hear that it would start in two days time.............Plans for a Springtime trip to Spain and a Greek summer were put on hold as we got to grips with the new hospital visit regime and the tiredness that Pete felt. Family and friends everywhere were so supportive and kind.

May  We decided to try to go away in the van between treatments so we went to The Navigation Inn  in Buxworth for a night or two.

We parked up then went for a walk around Bugsworth Basin and along the canal before friends Phil and Karen joined us for a meal in the pub. It was free to stay overnight and the food was good. Unfortunately we ran out of battery during the night. We realised that the van had been in storage since January and we hadn't checked the battery level. In our defence, we'd had other things to think about.
We moved the next day to Grin Low Caravan and Motorhome club site outside of Buxton so we could charge batteries. It was so much nicer than I expected. The warden was lovely and we walked to Solomon's Temple and down into Buxton.. We had a drink in the Old Station pub then walked back up the hill. We took the blue steep route up the hill and through the woods and maybe missed a marker as we ended up walking a lot further than we needed to. We stopped off at Hayfield for a walk.
The next night was spent on Phil and Karen's drive so Phil could fix the electric connector which had arrived from Adria.

June  Stayed at the Arkwright Arms, Duckmanton near Chesterfield as I needed to go to Chesterfield Hospital.

Wysdom Touring Park Burford. A nice small site £18 a night. We had a small hedged pitch . We walked down the hill  into Burford after Pete had an hour's sleep. The shops were closing so we bought cake and came back,....quite slowly, up the hill. We stayed here another night.

Cirencester. The fully hedged pitch at Wysdom park was a bit gloomy so we moved to Cirencester  onto the very floral site. We had planned to go to Centenary site in the New Forest with friends Andy and Carol but Andy's mum was very ill so they couldn't go. We changed the booking to go to Black Knowle because we knew we could get to villages on bikes  from there.
We stayed a night at friends' Ian and Karen's house in Swindon to break the journey down and to catch up with them. We went to Purton working men's club for a skittles evening which was fun and we laughed a  lot.


Black Knowle, Brockenhurst. New Forest
.

The site was very busy but we got a quiet corner. pitch 40. We watched a fawn in the next field.
Mel arrived the next day and we went out for a cycle. We sat out in the sunshine then cycled to Brockenhrst for a meal in the Foresters Arms.
Andy and Carol arrived the next day having had good news on his mum's rapid recovery. We went out in Andy and Carol's car to the Huntsman  for a meal.
Heavy rain the next day but we went to Mudeford in the car. It's a beautiful place and lunch in the Noisy Lobster was fantastic!  We also managed a pizza in Enzee in Brockenhurst.
Over the next three days we went to Lymington, saw the Rufus Stone, went to Burley and moved pitch onto a hard standing as the rain made the ground quite soggy.

St. David's Caravan and Motorhome site

We got up early and set off on the big drive to St David's in the rain. You could hardly see the bridge as we crossed into Wales. We stopped for shopping and fuel in Haverfordwest . Met friends Richard and Jayne on the site in sunshine. They'd been there for a week and not seen any! We walked down to Whitesands Bay as the sun was setting and it was beautiful. Jayne made a super risotto.
Rooks! We had an early morning rook wake up. We got the Celtic Coaster little bus into St David's for £1,50. We went to the visitor centre which was very interesting. We went to the Farmer's Arms for dinner. The garden centre there is small but lovely . we had a look around the amazing cathedral and walked back to the site.
Jayne made scones in her Remoska- brilliant. We walked the lanes into St Davids and ate hot pasties.
We walked back in weak sunshine and Richard barbecued. It was a lovely evening watching the sunset.
We stayed another couple of days and enjoyed it.

 June Poolsbrook Caravan and Motorhome club site

More hospital stuff at Chesterfield so stayed here for a few days to save travelling back and forwards. It's a nice site but not really of much interest to us. We prefer to stay at the Arkwright Arms

.July Castleton

Some gorgeous days not too far from home as we were missing being in the van.We were lucky with th weather- it was perfect.

From July onwards Pete's treatment took priority . He had to spend some time in Sheffield Hallamshire hospital where he had a stem cell transplant but even then, we managed to get out for a few hours to walk and the hospital had good views. we planned our next trip to Greece in the van. It certainly helped to keep us optimistic.  Messages from Greek friends, plus being able to look at the web cam at Camping Thines   brought us sunshine when we had some darker days.

We didn't do much else until November when we went away with our lovely friends for a celebration of 50 years of friendship for the men, who met at school. We had a wonderful time in Falmouth staying in a beautiful house.

 November Castleton again. Not far to drive so Pete didn't get too tired.
We met up with friends from Swindon and Richard and Jayne came in their camper too.

Late November.  Moreton in Marsh , Winchester and Cirencester

Winchester

WInchester 

Cirencester 

We had a foggy drive down to Moreton where there was a Christmas market.  We stayed two nights before going to Three Trees site at Winchester, meeting friends for the Christmas market there. It's a convenient site to get the bus into Winchester but the facilities are poor though they are building a toilet block . Using loos in a container on stilts wasn't great in cold weather.
We stayed a couple of days in Cirencester and saw their Christmas market too.

After Christmas at home, we went to Hawes for our usual New Year with more friends and we had a lovely time. From our pitch, we saw so many birds visiting out temporary bird table. Every morning I fed nuthatches, pheasants, blue tits , coal tits, chaffinches......saw a woodpecker and a tree creeper and a heron.

I won the raffle at the Caravan club site! I never win anything....maybe this signals the end of a trying year and the beginning of a new brighter one.
Pete's cancer certainly made us rethink our lives. We are living life in a slightly different way but are thankful for all the support and love we have had from friends, family ,acquaintances and the amazing staff of the NHS.