Mud fights and fetes

Weather forecast was torrential rain and thunderstorms all weekend, so seemed ideal weather for another camp, set off Thursday for the 100 mile trip to Moccas, near Preston on Wye. Staying at Byecross Farm Campsite. Journey was good apart from a few hills which we crawled up at 20mph much to the disgust of the boy racers and 4x4 brigade behind us.

Finding the actual campsite was a task in itself. Drove past it twice, phoned them up and eventually found it. Got a text of intents who found it highly amusing I couldnt actually find it....revenge is sweet, she was arriving 24 hours later....

Found a place to pitch by the river and spent an extra half hour tying the guy ropes onto the new toerag

Also tried out the new 'sails' I got from Mark at canvas and cast as a porch. Worked brilliantly as I could leave the windows open on the tent despite the downfalls the following day.

Weather was gorgeous and site nice and peaceful, so was soon pitched, fire going and a sloe gin in my hand

Had the obligatory stunning sunset and was reminded just what was so nice about getting away

Up early the next morning (11am) I took a drive to Bredwardine. Must have blinked and missed it, so carried on to Hay on Wye

Sadly quite a few of the book shops have gone now, but they seemed to have embraced the new kindles...

Got a few shopping bits, some fake felt flowers, rawhide dog chews, 6 olives and a dirt trapper mat. In the DIY shop a man came in looking for his wife. The assistant said to her colleague 'It may have been the woman earlier with the gas?'...I found this quite amusing and asked the bloke if in fact his wife did have a problem with wind?

All had a bit of a giggle at the expense of the poor mans wife then I cleared off

Later I arrived at Hay Castle and walked into the entrance...

only to go straight into poor woman with the wind problem....the man started to explain to her about it, so I ran the opposite way

Some nice little shops around, and I quite liked these bottles but couldnt really think of a use for them (doesnt normally stop me). If ever I need something to store my toad and dragon blood in I will go back and get them (although intents probably has plenty of similar bottles back at her coven)

Went back to the campsite, set up the tarp and waited for the others to arrive

Watched Intents drive past the campsite and waited for the phonecall....'Hmm lost you say, well just down the lane...'. Intents drove past again...waited for the next phonecall...'Yes, yes, straight past again....'. 3 days later Intents finally found us

She had brought her son, daughter and daughters mate. Being 13 it was a good idea to have company so they could talk about boys, make up, clothes etc. With a watchful eye on Joel, who usually manages to get into some mess/trouble..it was in fact the girls who broke the stereotypical teenage girl mode....and had a huge mud fight on the bank of the wye

It started off trying to retrieve the welly stuck in the mud...and just sort of went on from there

Gumball gallantly lent his pristine sparkling polished shovel which ended up covered in mud

Joel watched innocently at the sidelines, although to be fair he had a good coating of mud by this time as well

Homer decided to try out the canoe on the bank for some strange reason

Decided to go out for the day so set off for the Weir Garden . Have no idea why it is called this as there are no weirs. Unless they had been buried by the surge of the river wye breaking its banks

Took a couple of pics of Tillie in the carpark. Did the strange angle cos there is a bag of dog poo on the floor at the front

Heres a pic with the bag of poo

No dogs allowed in garden so cleared off without them

Hmmm... No weirs and it seems no footpaths either...should have had a reduced entrance rate

Have no idea what this is but i took a picture. Perhaps was a small amphitheatre for water voles and local rats

Walked over to the walled garden and took thousands of pics of flowers. So here is lots of pics of flowers and a door

In the greenhouse was a large bench full of carnivirous plants. They didnt work that well as there were flies and wasps bloody everywhere. Come Armageddeon I am not backing the plants chances much

Went back to the van and got my ear chewed by Homer and Barley so decided to take them for a local walk at Lower Breinton, which the woman in the NT hut had recommended

Parked in the NT carpark and set off with it looking quite promising

However, the path seemed to decline slightly after a few hundred yards. Barley made some effort to avoid the mud and walked round the edges. Homer ploughed straight through

'You sure this is the right way mum?? It seems a bit 'damp'?'..

'I dont care Homer how shallow it is, I'm not getting in. Bloody stupid human has no idea ...'

It was only after a mile of this a man walked past with his dog...on the other side of the fence...on the nice DRY side of the fence...

So we crawled under the barbed wire and dodged the cow pats instead

Passed this house, I want to live here, is a perfect camping garden

Passed through the orchard and past the church

Homer tried to get in the church to repent his sins but they werent letting him in

Back to the carpark where our limo awaited. Barley decided on the top bunk

We were all meeting up at the local fete in Preston on Wye, so made our way there. It advertised a 'classic car' show but most of them were newer than Tillie anyway

Apologies for this one...Intents looking 'seductive'..(she was clearly the oldest banger on display)

Classic? Really?!

Making the most of the entertainment (not much really!), intents on the skittles

The goats eating the tablecloth

Bought a bottle of magners, a burger and some cake, so more than supported the local community. Refused to buy a hat off the arsey woman on the hat stall after she shouted at us for trying them on. No wonder she never sold any

Intrigued by the 50p a go one armed bandit....

Looking at the technical workings of the machine....

As no one was around we briefed the kids quick on what must be a sure bet....

but...

despite joel cheating and picking all the fruits, we still lost

Joel deep in concentration trying to raise a bubble from the free micro wishy washy bubble prize

No sign of Gumball and Gulliver, so can only conclude Gumball had stayed at home all day cleaning and polishing his shovel

While walking round the fete Intents commented on the lack of hot water at the campsite washing up sinks. Bit confused by this as it was always very hot. Asked her which tap she had used? 'The LEFT. Hot water is always the left in Wales'..and did you try the right tap...'NO'....It didnt take Sherlock Holmes to work out that maybe the other tap was hot, rather than reach the conclusion that they must both be cold taps. They dont like change these welsh....

Back at the campsite we met the others (evidently they had been and left the fete in the space of 5 minutes. How they could have covered the classic car jamboree, 2 goats, a skittle alley and a hat stand in that short amount of time is beyond me)

We all went for a walk round the campsite to have a look at the other orchard fields

2 groups had taken residence - a party of girls in the yurt - dressed with floral headresses - quite pretty except one of them was the size of Kew Gardens so didnt have quite the same effect

The other party further up the orchard were in full swing with blow up doll and strap on inflatable squirting penis. Thankfully this group seemed to die a death by about 7pm. Although Joel made some new friends amongst them

And so our last night round the campfire...few beers, no rain and wonderful friendly company (thats the dogs, not intents gumball and gulliver..)

Finally Joel (5) drew us some pictures..was very pleased with mine. Homer didnt have horns or foamed at the mouth or anything. Tillie was in pride of place, but best of all I was slim, wearing a dress and smiling! (not so sure about the triangular feet)

Even better Intents picture had a belly and a spare boob coming out the side. I didnt like to mention it to her before..but out of the mouths of babes etc etc...

Next stop Hayles in 2 weeks!

Brussels Sprouts & Bakewell Tarts

Brussels

This week saw me off on a jolly with work to Brussels, after the company merged with a dutch one.

Arriving by Eurostar on Thursday we arrived at the hotel already a bit worse for wear after drinking the buffet cars stella allowance for the week. We met our (extremely sober) dutch colleages and were 'treated' to a tour of the shite hole area of Brussels...

Along the way we stopped at 3 different restaurants and had seperate courses in each

The tour started off with the local council estate, evidently the people here had all filled in survey forms stating they were fastidious and willing to maintain their properties to the highest standard

The woman in the top floor lied, it was a crap hole

After starters the next stop was the local hospital, evidently built for the local influx of leprosy. Throughout the night you could hear ambulances around the town, so can only suppose there were limbs falling off all over the place

We managed to approach a more civilised part of the town by dessert, then proceeded to hit the Irish pub (nothing irish about it except there was a guiness sign) to sample some of the famous Belgian beers. We carried on sampling till 4am then spent another hour trying to find the hotel as the tour guides had now ditched us

Despite the amount of ale we drank I think the UK side of the company managed to retain their stiff upper lip and I don't think out dutch counterparts noticed the effects of alcohol on us

Here is our MD who lasted until 1am

The next morning was a geo game which involved us being split into groups of 5, given a GPS and a pda, then thrown out to the city to find the local landmarks. Nice idea, although after 8km of walking my nice floral Doc Martins had rubbed off a layer of my feet, and I was ready for the leprosy hospital

So a few scenic pics taken during the game

We then stopped for lunch, and afterwards me and my colleague, Chris, didn't take it quite so seriously (mainly due to the tins of bacardi and coke we had drank at every newsagent along the way) and left the Dutch CEO in our team to go off and find the rest of the landmarks while we dawdled behind like school kids at the end of the day.

The game finished at 4pm, and in a scene very similar to 'back to the future' we raced round the corner having completed the game, just at the clock struck 4pm (the clock wasn't wrong i just forgot to take the picture earlier)

We waited for the rest of the groups to return, and then with baited breath got the results of who had won. We did, which resulted in us all getting a wind up torch (similar to a poundland bargain). The dutch CEO was particularly impressed and I'm sure was mortified when he got home and realised he had left it on the table at the bar...

After buying an extra drink and promising the others we would be on time for the return train home, we had to run across brussels and just managed to get the train with 2 mins to spare

Got home late Friday night with the knowledge I had to be up early, as I was camping in Bakewell on Saturday morning.....

Bakewell

Set off to meet the rest of the gang on Saturday morning, arriving at Bakewell at 10am in Tillie. Temporary break in the rain so got pitched up pretty quick and me and my trusty mutts were in Bakewell for 12pm

As it was only 1 night camping, and the lovely summer forecast was torrential rain and strong winds, I threw in 'Alice', the 3m bell

First off I needed to exhaust the mutts so decided on a walk on the Tissington Trail. Brilliant idea in retrospect, where better to take Homer who HATES cyclists on a cycle route, perfect!

Parked up Tillie and walked back 3 times with pooh bags before we finally set off

Rain was a mixture...of showers and torrential..

Took pics of fields and cows as there is nothing else but fields and cows (except cyclists)

and some weeds

Homer did enjoy trying to bite the ankles of everyone who rode by though. At least he will never need a brace on his teeth, he can adapt the bicycle clips he ate to fit

Was going to do a circular route, but after talking to a couple and being told it was boggy, soaking and uphill, we decided to turn round and go back for tea and cake instead

Drove into bakewell to stock up on biscuits and rubbish

After spending half hour in the co-op car park shouting abuse at everyone and trying to get Tillie to fit in a parking space which I would be able to get out of again (harder than it sounds when steering a sherman tank), I went for a look round Bakewell.

Reason for all the traffic was a dance festival, so everywhere were groups of dancers, ranging from high pitched japanese wailing, to grannies in irish dancing outfits.

As I walked along there was a group that made me look again, with black greasepaint on their faces and the brighest most lurid outfits ever (i loved them) and little bells hanging off everything...

They introduced themselves as the Captain Pugwash Morris Dancers and were dancing in honour of the black pig. The main man announced Master Bates, Seaman Stains and the rest of the crew, then they did their jiggy stuff



Wooohooo, I want the outfit (the purple tights and flashy tail coat jacket woman had a brill outfit) and be able to bash people with sticks tooo! So I just need to lose about 4 stone and learn how to hit people with sticks and I have found my new vocation

Bakewell is pretty little place, especially because there are loads of cake shops

Back to the campsite then a few beers round the firepit. I think Andcow may have been partaking in alcohol before she ever pitched the tent, as she explained she had angled the centre pole to go with the lay of the land....

I'm not sure if it was alcohol, a trip to specsavers needed, or she was in fact pitched on the North face of the Eiger, but that tent pole is never right....

The usual conversations round the campfire ranged from exotic recipes (in Fiona's case this was cheese accompanied by bread, unheard of in Northern parts evidently), european old woman in toilets, smokys kettle, dogs and grapes and tax returns.

Homer was thoroughly bored by now and still trying to solve the mystery of 'where did the bag of caramel nibbles go?'

Doogle the dog, even more bored than Homer tried a few self portrait shots on the camera..i think he was aiming for a more abstract photo...

Next morning went for a walk with smoky and Ella to somewhere (forgot name of place, it was somewhere near Youlgreave). After pulling up on the hill to speak to smoky I realised Tillie's handbrake was a bit rubbish on the incline. Sat for about 10 minutes telepathically calling smoky to get out of her car and come and speak to me before I rolled backwards and took out her front bonnet. Eventually she got out and we agreed to park up

Was very nice anyway and we followed the stream along with the rest of the population of Bakewell

Doggy paradise

Homer playing his 'trip the human up' game

Someone spilt cornflakes all over the floor here, so it was a particularly interesting part of the walk for Homer

Nice spot for swimming (at your own risk, disclaimers everywhere)

We carried on as far as the cows, then turned round in case they ate us

Walked back the same way, then drove Tillie back avoiding every motorway possible

Will be risking another trip in her this weekend, am off to Hay on Wye...

PS: Tillies new name badge came in the post today..is very nice!