Bill & Shirl's Adventure before Dementia Tour

Hi Clo

The site – Sheepcote Valley, East Brighton

Monday

Good drive to Brighton.  Arrived lunch time. Warm welcome from reception.  Toilet block warm and clean, and at this time of year not busy. Well separated and roomy pitches and we had the luxury of having booked a serviced pitch. Initially found TV reception poor, but purchased TV aerial extension kit which remedied problem. Good well protected site surrounded by trees and hills. Able to see golfers and horse riders  along top of hill together with many dog walkers. We familarised ourselves then a quick lunch followed by a 10 min walk  into local shopping area & visiting Lidl to purchase food for the next few days. There is also a Lloyds Pharmacy, PO and small gift/newsagent shop.  A quiet evening but unfortunately bad reception so no Corrie, only BBC1 and Channel 5!   Carole felt v sleepy and kept dropping off all evening.  She obviously had far too much fresh air.  Skyped Brysie. Discovered that this uses lots of KBs on the dongle.

Tuesday

Crisp and breezy morning, slow start and why not.   Mircrowave not working!  Once ready caught No. 7 bus opposite Lloyds Pharmacy. £3.60 All Day Saver into centre of town  (length of journey about 15 mins although only 1.5 miles on a very busy road) and alighted close to  the Royal Pavilion.  We walked around the corner from the front of the Pavilion into North Street where you will find an entrance leading to the rear of the building. Tour Fee £9.00 ( £7 for me) which includes descriptive and informative leaflet plus audio tour. This took us about 1 hour, but that could well be extended depending on your own interest and should you take advantage of their café and gift shop! What a building, very impressive, an extravaganza of opulence and eccentricity.  Bill and I had own personal audio tour.   I thoroughly enjoyed myself.   Then we strolled across to the Palace Pier and as it was so cold and windy, it proved to be a  quick walk. Although I can imagine in the summer there are lots to entertain both children and adults with amusements and cafes.    We returned to the warmth of Harry Ramsdens for a fish and chip lunch (OAPs Special £6.00 fish & chips, pot of tea and bread & butter pud with custard.  What a bargain!)    Returned via bus to Brighton Marina where Bill bought 2 pairs of trousers and more food shopping at Asda’s. Once back at motorhome admin work and we managed to get microwave working.

Evening Skyped Annie and learnt more about Richard’s accident.   Early night and unfortunately microwave was not repaired – rotating but no microwaves.

Wednesday

More blue skies.  Walked up to the top of hill by East Brighton Golf Course.   Walked along top of hill adjacent to site – v windy with good views looking towards the Pier and sweeping across up to the racecourse.  This was followed by a walk along the promenade where we were able to admire the grand white seafront Regency buildings.  Looking seaward there was evidence of the Volks Electric Train track whose train runs from Rock Station (near Brighton Marina) to the Palace Pier – 1.5m.   £1.80 one way/£1.80 return concessionary). Unfortunately this only runs from Easter to September. Stopped at coffee bar close to the beach and returned via a beach pathway into the Brighton Marina.

The

This Marina is a huge complex comprising cinema, shops, restaurants, fitness centre and Asda.  The upper level, where most of the cafés are, overlooks the marina with its many moored vessels including excursion boats and luxury yachts.   This complex is approx ½ mile from the site.

Thursday

Bit of gloomy day but dry.  We decided to explore eastwards of the Brighton Marina and walked 2.5 miles to Rottingdean passing Roedean School. It was a brisk walk along the coast road, but then we decided to take refuge from the wind and walked along sheltered beach pathway besides the chalk cliffs.  The beach is rocky and uninviting and there were signs warning of loose rocks and there was evidence of this.

Rottingdean has a small seafront with a small wall promenade leading to Brighton in one direction and to Saltdean in the other. Old Rottingdean runs inland with its main narrow street of old flint-built houses.  We enjoyed our stroll visiting Rudyard Kipling’s Garden, St Margaret’s Church and the large green beside a large village pond.   Just a short visit but we managed 2 stop offs, one for coffee and the other for a Cream Tea – wonderful!  A £1.00 bus journey got us back to the warmth of the wag in a matter of 15 mins.

Friday

The day started with any early rain shower, but the skies did brighten.   We set off for another explore of Brighton centre, this time we took the No. 52 bus which took a different route that includes  part of the promenade.  This time we ventured into the Lanes area with is full of small boutiques, designer clothes shops and cafes. We walked along North Street passed the Churchill Centre, which is the main retail shopping area. At this point we had more important things of our mind – lunch – and we had noticed an all-you-can-eat restaurant called Gekko in West Street.   What an amazing offer at £6.99 (£1.70 off for us oldens) + £2.00 for cold drinks with free fill-ups for an eclectic choice of food.  The only option open after this input of food was a short stroll to the promenade and just sitting in the sun taking in the view and admiring the Grand Hotel. Unfortunately we had to make a hasty retreat to catch the bus home after the skies opened with another downpour. Decided not to each much: just mussels and some chicken wings.

Saturday

Sun shining – did jobs around the motorhome, caught up with the hoovering.  Housework takes so long now – ha ha!   No 49 stairs – hurrah.  Bill watched sport and I went for bike ride into Brighton along the beach road and then carried onto Hove along the promenade.   Must have cycled about 8 miles. Decided not to eat much: just mussels and some chicken wings. In the evening we went to the Marina for a drink and pizza.

Sunday

Mothers Day.   Late start walked into Brighton to seek out Sunday Roastie but discovered the annual Brighton & Hove Food Festival. We also found the Sunbeam Motor Rally & hundreds of motorcycles on display.  Walked through The Laines area – bohemian and punkie area.   Stopped for a slice of carrot cake and cappuccino (thanks Clo) and continued to buy bit and pieces at the food market.

love

M & D xxx

Hi Clo,

Unfortunately the kitchen sink problem continues although Bill has solved the blockage, the waste water just doesn’t want to flow through the system.   Air locks and pressure have been mentioned but I now think it will get too technical for me, anyway this is not disaster just a bit of an inconvenience – we will overcome!

 Crystal Palace has proved to be a very comfortable and convenient site.   Although we are parked under a rather large mast we have not been irradiated and live to tell the tale. 

 Yesterday (Saturday) we were picked up by our old friends Sarah and Ron and taken for a pub lunch which gave us ample chance to catch up on news and families. The rest of the day was spent lazing in front of their fire reading the newspapers, and after supper we were returned home to our wag.   It was a bit chilly to say the least but thank goodness for heating and a good hot water bottle.  Sunday night was pretty cold as well -2. 

Bill has developed a cold which he has caught off sister-in-law Mary (her ears must be burning!)  Sunday another bright and cold day with further repair work followed with a nice afternoon stroll into the ‘village’ area for a cup of coffee and a read of the dailies. 

  This is the life!   Tomorrow we will be packing up and it’s onward to Brighton.  Weather should be good and hopefully we will be getting the bikes out for a bit of exercise. 

Uneventful trip from Crystal Palace. Really amazed at the quiet roads into Brighton. Prob time of year. Got a nice pitch here and have been into Lidls to stock up. I am doing the washing – every Monday I reckons. Bill might need to buy a pair of tracksuit bottoms for showering & working round the van as he keeps mucking up his jeans & they are not easy to dry. Quiet night in and out for a bus ride into Brighton tomorrow.  Only got £35 to last til Friday!!!!!!

 Bye for now – hope you had a nice weekend.

 M & D

xxx

Hi Clo,

Stand by this is my first blog!  Carrying on from Bill’s input we had a really good evening with Alan and Mary.   Claire, Jim and the kids came around in the evening and Mary cooked an excellent meal.   Too much booze as usual, and I even had to send my brother to bed – it was that bad!

Yesterday Alan took us for a tour around the local area.  The weather was great and we started by visiting Arundel. 

A really picturesque town overlooked by Arundel Castle.   Loads of quaint shoppes and narrow lanes to walk around.   There were so many Tea Rooms, all offering wonderful selection of cakes and goodies and I was tempted to stop at many, but alas there would have been a serious overloading problem in the wag if I had so!

 Then it was on to breezy Bognor Regis for fish & chips on the prom.   We know how to live!  Then finally to Littlehampton with spectacular views of the South Downs on our return to Pulborough.

The morning, after farewells, we left for the short drive to Crystal Palace. How Bill managed to drive through Croydon without hitting anything I do not know.  There was so much traffic – surprise surprise – but we arrived in good time.  We are now set up, been shopping, and Bill the plumber is now trying to repair a blocked kitchen sink.   No swearing as yet……  I think we shall have a quiet evening in catching up in e-mails and blogs and I am looking forward to meeting us with Sarah and Ron tomorrow.

Next blog will be Monday – watch this space.

x M & D

Hi Clo

Did the final prep yesterday morning & drove up to the wag after bidding the house goodbye for a month. Filled up with water & parked the car. Rob came to see us off & we set off to W Sussex at around 1030. Longish journey & arrived at around 1440 after one stop to pump up the tyres and 170 miles.  Spent the evening with Alan & Mary & family. Late night & spending today touring the area.  Speak soon

M & D

xxx

Hi Clo

Well, we are off on our travels at last. A whole year planning & now its time to go. Hopefully we have thought of most things and all of our practice runs will have been of use. We went out to the wag today & checked that the electrics & water systems were working. AOK. We will upload water tomorrow a.m. and set off to W Sussex at around 1100. Hopefully no-one will spoil our day. Weather looks set fair and we are looking forward to hitting the road. South coast for a month and then back for a fortnight to get the MOT & servicing done. Then its 11 months in Europe starting with Lake Garda.  Goodbye brains…

Good luck with the job hunting. Will post again from Crystal Palace on Friday

M & D

xxx

Having made the decision to get a motorhome , lots of planning was required. We spoke to friends with ‘vans & bought up every magazine we could. We looked on the net, joined the CC and Motorhome Fun. We got loads of good advice and so we set about looking at vans.

Luckily (?) we live near Brownhills in Newark so we drove over and walked thru dozens & dozens of ‘vans. We took our daughter for a neutral, dispassionate & moderating view. We also visited Lowdhams & several other small dealerships in the area. Finally, after several weeks of determined searching, we drew up a shortlist of must-haves.

A rear fixed bed & a large garage were vital. All of those shoes to be stored!!! 2/4 berth would be ample. Since we were going full time, good, strong leisure batteries were a must & a reasonable kitchen & shower room. We soon realised that a non-smokers van was necessary due to lingering smells. Also, was it necessary to buy new? Not so, we discovered as we realised that pre-used vehicles normally had all the problems ironed out & were about 50% cheaper.

Our budget was around £25-£30K so that was limiting to an extent. Then we found a wag we liked, quite by accident. A small dealership in Southwell had a lovely RIMOR. Merc engine & automatic – which was a must for me.

We arranged a test drive for the following Sunday and full of excitement with finance sorted we turned up to find we’d been gazumped. No explanation – no phonecall to give us an option – nothing. In hindsight probably a good job, as their aftersales would have probably been as disappointing.

Anyway, we kept looking & we saw a wag on eBay. It was in Hull & after some arranging we drove over one Saturday morning. The wag itself was not any good & overpriced & not as described. However, as luck would have it the dealer gave us a couple of mags which we hadn’t seen before, and on the drive back Mrs E spotted a company in Newark – SMC. They had a Dakota for sale at the right price. This was handy as we had been looking seriously at a similar model from a private sale in MMM.

So we drooped into SMC to find that they were at the Newark show. So we waited til the Sunday and with moderating daughter in trail set off.

We found SMC and what a refreshingly nice bunch of chaps they were. No pressure sales & after a short time looking over the ‘van, we struck a deal which suited us both.

The 02 plate Dakota had everything we wanted except it was a manual gearbox. We arranged for solar panels to be fitted, plus a TV, Microwave and a few other goodies. We paid a holding deposit & went for a test drive. Excellent vehicle with real power in the Merc 130 BHP 313CDi engine.

We finalised the deal and arranged pick-up for 14 April.

We arrived at SMC in Newark full of trepidation & excitement at picking up our new wag. We were not to be disappointed. SMC were excellent in every respect. All of the pre-delivery jobs had been carried out to a high standard. The ‘van was spick & span and many people have commented since what good condition it is in & cannot believe that it is 7 years old.

With 17000miles on the clock and a 313CDi Merc engine – it is hardly run-in & goes like sh*t off a shovel!!

We were shown round the van and every working part demonstrated & we took notes to remind us later. This took a full 2 hours. Nothing was too much trouble. ( I know they made their profit – but we were happy with the price as we had shopped around).

Next hob was driving it to our storage area. Luckily Mrs E has a friend with an area at the back of her house where she stores her ‘van – so she had agreed to let us keep ours there. Power & water available & secure.

So we drove the 20 odd miles without incident – (almost took out an overhanging traffic light) and parked up. We spent the rest of the day going over the wag & familiarising ourselves with the working parts. Great fun. Over the next few weeks we loaded up with food, kitchenware, toiletries etc etc & also made sure that the awning worked. That was a bit of a nightmare but we got there in the end – good old Fiamma

We then decided that it was time to take her out for a drive & then to book some weekends away to train ourselves up. We plan to go full time in Mar 09 so we needed to ensure that the wag was up to it – and also that we knew what we were doing.

We’ve been to Rutland Water, Skeggie, West Runton, Billing, Doncaster, Skipsea, Oxford & Wetherby. Met loads of nice people, been on a couple of rallies, stayed at CC sites, a CL, a CS & a big commercial site. Also tested out the solar panel for a weekend with no problems. We can now almost reckon we can call ourselves properly trained up.

We have put the wag to bed this week till we come back from Cyprus in January & we will give her a brief run out a couple of times before we set off on Mar 3rd.

We need to get her serviced & MOT’d in April, so we will get some extras fitted then ( Gaslow system, a front blind & a TV aerial). Then with any luck we’ll be ready to cross the channel on May 6th heading for the Garda meet with fellow funsters.

What about our house?. We have a good friend living in it & paying all the bills & so we dont have to store all our kit and have access at any time. So that takes care of that.

Well, we are back from our Christmas break to Cyprus having missed all the snow. We decided that a quick visit to the ‘wag was needed and were very pleased to see that it was in fine fettle.

Although completely covered in snow, it was dry as a bone inside and relatively warm. The good old Merc engine started first time, so we ran it for 30 mins as we couldn’t drive it anywhere due to the slope up to the storage point.

We are setting off on 3 March, so there are a hundred things to do. We have got our house sitter / tenant living-in now and he is learning how the house works. We needed to arrange a small repair on the boiler and to get the windows at the front painted in the Spring – so both of those have been arranged.

Also, we have contacted SMC in Newark and arranged for the annual service, habitation & MOT for early April. We will get it weighed as well. We are also converting to Gaslow based on advice from other fulltimers. A couple of minor repairs and all should be well for the channel crossing on 6 May heading for Garda via France, Luxembourg & Switzerland.

We popped over to the ‘wag again last Sunday, & now the snow has gone we gave it a quick run out. No problems. Although, we are lucky as the van stored next to ours had a flat tyre.

So, now we are slowly getting stuff sorted around the house. We sent over a few boxes of junk to my daughter for a boot fair she was doing. I’ve boxed up a load of knick-knaks, photo frames, old LPs & scrapbooks. Next week we need to re-stack our gear stored in boxes in the cellar. We are getting our doctor/dental loose ends tidied up & we will be disconnecting our landline with Virgin & reducing the TV package to the absolute minimum. We are also chopping down a tree in the garden so that it doesn’t fall down whilst we are away. I’ve also sent out Mrs Eaton to Currys to pick out a new washing machine so that if ours conks out, we can just order a new one with no faffing.

We have also sorted out Skype & a webcam, Windows Messenger & Facebook so that we can communicate with daughter & friends whilst on the road. We plan to do about 7-10 years, coming back every April 1 for servicing & R&R!

Other jobs to do are to sort out insurance – vehicle, medical & travel. Get about Euro1000 as a float & to pay fines & bribes if necessary. Mrs Eaton needs to sort out her wardrobe which will probably take a week. I’ve sent most of my stuff to charity shops. We have taken delivery of a years worth of Vitamins we must have every campsite book ever published. Must remember to cancel subs to mags as we will not be able to read them. Meeting up with friends for last lunches & dinners before we go. Also arranging for visits out to the wag whilst we are away. Must tell the bank & CC companies we are in Europe so they dont block our cards.

We are going to the MotorhomeFun meets at Scunnie & Newark so we hope to meet up with funsters their & get a few more tips. So much to learn – although we are slowly getting there.

Things are starting to come together, & touch wood, we’ll get away on schedule.

Well, the big day is almost upon us.

We’ve more or less handed over our house to the ’sitter’. Gas & electric meters read and full handover/takeover completed this morning.

We went out to the wag this lunchtime and started the big load-up. All done except clothing. Amazing how much space there is. The ‘garage’ under the bed is invaluable as it takes just about anything & everything & still space to spare.

Sorted the bikes out & affixed them to the rear rack & covered them up. Also used the Aldi alarm padlock. Great piece of kit.

No water on board yet – do that tomorrow. Brought the toilet cassette home & serviced the seals. All seems OK.

So just the last minute stuff to get done & we set off on Wednesday morning to see the outlaws in W Sussex and then on to Brighton via Crystal Palace.

We cross the channel on May 6.