Following the Sun Diary : Wed 6 - Tues 12 Oct

Wednesday 6 October 2010

We are off to follow the sun. The packing of the ‘van got finished mid-morning and only trying to help Hugh next door held us up. He had a problem with his door lock and couldn’t get in to his house, he for some reason thought I might be of help. The lock didn’t appear to be opening fully and if it had been mine I would have given it a good thump,but…!  Just before we left he came and told us that he got a retired policeman to help. He gave it a thump and it open; his safety chain was jamming in the lock.

The weather wasn’t very good, some very heavy showers as we headed south. The forecast for the next few days while we are in Wales is good; the temperatures are going to be summery. On the outskirts of Glasgow we called into an Asda supermarket filling station for LPG. It was a bit of a struggle to fit the nozzle to our system but at last I managed and got the bottle filled.

We stopped for lunch at the service area just off the M74 at Abingdon. When I turned on the gas from the new system there was a tremendous hiss of gas escaping and an alarm sounded. I turned it off again and found a loose connection. I hand tightened the nut and that stooped the leak. I thought the guy that fitted the Gasflow bottle had tested it. I will tighten the connection some more with a spanner later.

It was decided that we wouldn’t make it to Cardiff tonight so while stopped for lunch Moira phoned a couple of Camping and Caravan Club farm sites to stop for the night. The first one said that his field was wet and muddy and we would get stuck. The second one was supposedly alright, £5 for the night, just off the M6 near Knutsford.

Moira drove the rest of the way today. She hadn’t driven this ‘van much and wanted to get some practice before we reached the Continent. The traffic wasn’t heavy but she had to contend with some very heavy rain and visibility wasn’t good. We came off the M6 and through Knutsford to the site near Ollerton about 4 miles on. It was just a field and I nearly got stuck in a patch of mud, I reversed and found a firm area to drive round where a couple of caravans were parked. There was an honesty box for the fee and the only facility was a fresh water tap.

We had dinner soon after arriving and got to bed after the washing up was finished. We watched TV and the reception was very good. It was a bit cold during the night and we have picked the right time for heading for the sun.

Thursday 7 October 2010

The sun that we are following took a while to appear this morning. We had to drive with our headlights on through quite thick fog. When it did clear south of Birmingham the sky was blue and cloudless. We arrived at our daughter Margaret's house in Cardiff, easily, helped by TomTom, our sat nav.

We are here until Monday, mainly for Moira and Margaret to go to a wedding exhibition in Birmingham tomorrow. Margaret hopes to get her wedding dress there, in plenty of time for getting married next May. 

Monday 11 October 2010 

We had spent an enjoyable week-end in Cardiff and on Saturday visited the venue for Margaret’s wedding. It was a hotel in the village of Usk and we had a lovely lunch at a pub on the square. Justin’s parents met us there and it was good to see them again. On the way back I had to buy two new leisure batteries for the ‘van, the originals weren’t holding a charge and I fitted them when we got back.

On Sunday we had a quiet day but I did manage to have a jog with Margaret when she ran over to a friend’s house to feed their cat while they were on holiday. We were in bed by 9:30, to be rested for an early start in the morning.

The weather had been sunny and dry over the week-end but we didn’t get temperatures of 23C that the BBC had predicted. That changed when the sun came fully up on Monday as we drove along the M4 to London and Dover, it was a glorious day and very hot, hopefully like this all the way to Spain.



In line for the ferry at Dover



The White Cliffs of Dover

  We were early arriving at Dover and they put us on the first ferry, an hour before the one we had booked. This got us to Calais at a reasonable time to find the aire, our stop for the night. The aire was on the other side of the harbour from the ferry terminal, but it was a long route round and through the town to get to it. Thank goodness for satnavs.

The aire was quite full, with new arrivals in France, and others spending the night there before boarding the ferries in the morning. There was a strong wind blowing off the Channel and picking up sand from the beach, it was the same the last time we stopped here. We had another early night ready for our journey south.

Tuesday 12 October 2010 

We didn’t rush to get away this morning, our watches were set to French time but our bodies were still in Scotland. It was 6:30 on BBC Breakfast TV when I turned it on, the earliest we’ve watched it in a while. Before we got going, I drove round to the service point and filled up with fresh water. We chatted to a Brit who was heading back home today; he had been in Spain for seven weeks. He said that the weather there had been wet but friends still down south had told him that it was improving.

The weather here was beautiful through still a little cold early on. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and by afternoon it did become a lot warmer. It was motorway from Calais but we came off just before Boulonge where it became a toll road. From there it was a mixture of single and dual carriageway roads through Abbeville to Rouen. It was fairly flat farming country and we made good time. The `van was running well and was cruising comfortably at 60 mph. I had to get some diesel but couldn’t find a convenient supermarket for cheap fuel. I got some at a motorway service station, it cost E1.27/litre. That was about the same price as the UK.

In Rouen the satnav directed us towards an underpass to miss a busy junction. Luckily there was a hanging height indicator before the tunnel and it hit the top of the ‘van and I was fortunate to be able to take the escape route. After Rouen we were on motorway again and had a late lunch at a service area. It was about another 100 km to go to our destination for the night, a little village called Le Sap, 5 km off the main road.

The aire in Le Sap was small and next to the fire station, luckily they didn’t have any call-outs for fires. It was also close to a picnic area and lovely little pond. There was space for only five vehicles but there was only one other there, also a Brit. After we had a cup of tea it was into the village for a stroll but there wasn’t much of interest. Once back I took a few photos of the pond and aire.

It was a nice quiet spot and we both enjoyed a good night’s sleep, after driving 350 km it had been a long day.