In a previous visit in Panda to Farnham, we’d parked round the back of Philip and Ellie’s taking up most of their parking space not realising that Coxbridge Farm had an excellent camping site. So a packed stop taking in a meal with Philip and Ellie, James and Hayley at the Scillian restaurant near the 8 Bells, a walk with Hazel, a meal with Colin and Ingrid, a day’s baby sitting with Rory, and Ann getting pummelled at the physio!

Another great stop, this time to visit Fern in Netley and pick up a couple of deliveries for Jacana, specifically a folding teak cockpit table and a dimmer switch for the led lights on the gantry. An excellent Indian takeaway on Thursday evening and bbq on Fern’s new patio on Friday. Also Ann decided to take a dip in the Southampton (brown) water from Western Shore, so far no ill effects!

We decided to camp here for its closeness to Poundbury where we had dental appointments on Tuesday. However, we discovered on Saturday that there was a music festival at Came House, just a couple of miles away, featuring Helen’s (our neighbour) son in law and other local artists. Tickets were a snip at £40 each including alcohol! Armed with folding chairs we headed there on Sunday. The music was good, and unfortunately the free real ale and wine, even better, and also by chance we also bumped into Bob and Gillie. We thus had an excellent time (we think), and…

We felt like film stars arriving at Bristol Airport and being greeted by our taxi driver who got us to the van in good time, so cover off, bikes on, pick up the mail from Steve and Carol’s, and we’re off. Well not quite because we detoured firstly to Neil and Leah’s at MKM for nibbles and a glass of wine in exchange for looking round their excellent new kitchen and bathroom displays, Aldi and then what we’d been craving for months, fish and chips from Daniels. Unfortunately we took them to the camp site to eat and by the…

Well this is our last night on board and the end of our mini tour around England, and chosen so that we could empty and clean the toilet cassette and generally clean out the motorhome before dropping our bikes off at home and leaving it with friends (thank you very much) for the remaining months of summer. Also picking up a hire car, collecting our wedding clothes and Greek luggage from other friends (again thank you very much) and heading off to Kent for the wedding and finally (and hopefully) flying to Preveza next week to get back on Jacana….

This was a stop on Jeff and Christine’s drive, and the chance to catch up with the family including Nana, Jenny, Ted and Suzy, who’d travelled over from The Netherlands.

With temperatures in the high 20’s, this small and lovely site had lots of shade from the midday sun and yet offered sun whilst relaxing with a cool glass of wine. With 3 full days and only a 3 mile flat ride on our bikes into Chester we saw most of the historic town including a walk on the walls, a visit to the cathedral and the two tier shops. Oh and we both had hair cuts, ready for James and Hayley’s wedding on Sunday.

This is an out of the way small site tucked away just inside the Lake District National Park between Lamplugh and Ennerdale Bridge, just a few miles south of Cockermouth. And with 6 nights, the opportunity to relax a bit. So the first day saw us cycling to Ennerdale water, and although we left in glorious sunshine, by the time we got to Ennerdale water, the heavens opened and we had to seek shelter under the trees lining the banks. The hill back, up from Croasdale was even too steep for those of us with electric power! Other days we…

With only one full day here, and reasonably good weather forecast we decided on a high level walk, taking in a few Wainwright fells. Specifically Hartsop above How (570m), Hart Crag (822m), Dove Crag (792m), Little Hart Crag (637m) and High Hartsop Dodd (519m) over a tiring (for us) 8 mile walk. Going on at the same time, although we only saw some of the course markers was a 100km endurance fell race – sheer madness! Typically the weather for the day was mixed, sun, mist, cloud and as we descended off the end of High Hartsop Dodd, torrential rain,…