Cambridge Cherry Hinton 8-10 Mar 24

 Oh look - back here again for a weekend. We've just had nice new tyres fitted on the van and we needed to give them a test run (in all, rather a poor excuse for a couple of nights away in the Van).

We drove onto the site at 1300hrs sharp (of course, being the Cackyvan Club they wont open their doors until EXACTLY 1300hrs) and negotiated our way across the mud onto a hard standing in the circle. The Cackyvan club spends a fortune on glamping pods, serviced pitches and useless IT systems, but will not spend anything on the one thing that campers need - decent pitches. Crazy and short-sighted, but that's the Cackyvan club for you. Roll on the opening of the Camping Club Site on 25 Mar. We caught the bus into Cambridge, had a good bimble around and had fish and chips in the Cambridge Brew House in Kings Street. It was OK-ish.

Saturday it was up early for an excellent breakfast in the Robin Hood, then a dash to the Fitzwilliam Museum for a look around as we hadn't visited for a while. Unfortunately, a number of the galleries were closed and we couldn't see what we wanted to see, so we opted for a quick wander around Cambridge. It was a glorious sunny spring day and we enjoyed being tourists before heading to Grantchester Road for the Cambridge v Bedford match, which we lost. From there we retired to the Red Bull in Newnham to watch England beat Ireland. It was a great evening.

The Robin Hood

Just one Canaletto

Fitzbilly

The better Fitzbillies

Kings College from the Backs

"Knees up Mother Brown"

Corpus Christi at night

On Sunday morning it was peeing it down. The ground was churning up nicely and, although impressed with our new, 4 season, go anywhere, grip anything tyres, we didn't want to sink, so we left the site and arrived home in time for lunch and a replay of the England game.

Cheltenham, Gloucester and the Cotswolds 13- 21 Feb 24

Tuesday 13 February and off to the Cotswolds via Cheltenham for a short break. We drove to Cheltenham in torrential rain, stopping at Corley services for lunch, eventually arriving at Briarfields Touring Park in the early afternoon. Briarfields is located next door to GCHQ between Cheltenham and Gloucester and very close to the M5/A40 interchange, thus making it a very handy site. We pitched up then lazed around for the rest of the day, celebrating St Pancake's Day in traditional style in the evening.

Briarfields

Valentines Day and we had a romantic hike into Cheltenham. It rained. We had a couple of romantic pints in the wonderful Sandford Park Alehouse, then visited  Mowgli's for a romantic mega-lunch. The romantic rain was chucking it down even harder when we got out of the restaurant, so we caught a romantic bus back to the site. 

Sunbathing? In February?

Cheltenham Pump Rooms and Pittville Park

Mowgli's Street Food - Yum!

Cute Robin in Briarfields

The Minotaur(looking quite proud of himself)) and the Hare being romantic on the Promenade in Cheltenham. 

Thursday 15 February and we caught the lovely No 94 bus into Gloucester. Bus and Train stations are never the nicest places in big cities and Gloucester is no exception, so we quickly escaped the area and headed for the House of the Tailor of Gloucester in College Court. This is a delightful Beatrix Potter shop and museum, housed in the same building that Beatrix based her story upon and, indeed, features in the book illustrations. From there we walked to the docks. It wasn't bad weather so we sat outside a café for a very average coffee and cake, then wandered around the Gloucester Quays outlet and didn't buy anything. From there it was back to the wonderful cathedral for a mooch about, paying our respects to King Edward II, then caught the bus back into Cheltenham for a pint in the amazing Old Courthouse followed by dinner in Beefy Boys.

Rainbow Square, Gloucester

Waistcoat - The Tailor of Gloucester

Gloucester Docks

Gloucester Cathedral

Tomb of King Edward II

Ye Olde Chippy

Friday 16th February - Travelled to Cotswold farm Park via Stow on the Wold, where we stopped for a Sausage baguette in Huffington's and purchased some lardy cakes to take away. It was a short run to the farm, where we pitched on a very sloping site which the levelling ramps were unable to compete with. We ate our lardy cakes then wandered into the farm near closing time to watch some lambs being born. Retiring back to the van we enjoyed the absolute silence of this beautiful location.

Stow on the Wold

Stow on the Wold

On Saturday we wandered around a bit more, did more relaxing, then went into the bar for pizza, beers and listened to the excellent live music.

Sunday 18th - We had booked Sunday lunch at the Halfway Inn in Kineton, a place we visited last year and liked the look of. It had rained torrentially all night and we were worried in that the walk to the pub involved crossing the River Windrush, which could be flooded. Luckily we had waterproof boots on and we could wade through the shallow bit of the flood to get to the footbridge to cross the river. Lunch was fantastic! We waddled back up the hill and collapsed in the van.

River Windrush

Kineton

The Halfway Inn, Kineton

Monday was a lot quieter as the weekend visitors had gone home and many of the kids were back at school. We watched Adam Henson theatrically deliver a couple of lambs, then went for a 2 mile walk around the farm, which included being chased by 3 dogs and a horse. We returned, muddy and tired, had a beer and relaxed. There was a lot of relaxing on this trip!

Cotswold Farm Park

Tuesday 20th and we did more mooching about and, by now, we were becoming experts at relaxing, so we practised it a bit more.

Adam with his arm up a sheep's wotsit

Highland Coos

Wed 21st and it was atrocious weather. It was blowing a gale and raining cats and dogs. We had no choice but to get soaked packing up and then heading for home, stopping for LPG at Morrisons in Coventry en-route.

Cotswold Farm Park is a wonderful place provided that you get a good deal on the price. Briarfields  is ideally located, a lovely site, but bloody noisy!

 

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Cambridge Cherry Hinton 26-28 Jan 24

The journey from Brighton to Cambridge was fine until we crossed the Thames and found out that, once again, the M11 was blocked and there was a 50 minute delay. Why is it that whenever we try to travel South of where we live we hit traffic problems! We detoured along the A10 and eventually arrived at the Cherry Hinton CAMC site. This is another CAMC site that they appear reluctant to invest in and we much prefer the Cambridge Camping Club site, but that is closed during the winter. The site was full, albeit there were a number of pitches unavailable as you had to cross mud to get to the hardstanding (why?) and the ground had churned up.

We decided to wander across the road to the Robin Hood Pub for lunch. It was nice, but there were some bloody awful screaming brats in there, which made it uncomfortable on the ears. After swallowing a bottle of bubbles we decided that rest and relaxation was on order for the rest of the day, which was ruined by watching a dire Harlequins performance on the TV.

On Saturday it was up, breakfast and then off to catch the number 3 bus into Cambridge to get her eternity ring checked at the jewellers, then on to Cambridge Rugby Club for a great afternoon watching Cambridge beat Caldy 33-14. After a few pints at the ground we finished the day with a nice meal in the Anchor before heading back to the site.

Pretty bookshop in Cambridge

Victorious team!

Silver Street Bridge and the Anchor

Sunday it was a leisurely morning then home via Morrisons to fill up with LPG.