New Forest Experience

Posted on 01/04/2012 by Christine

We left Jane’s early in the morning, first stop ‘fuel’ , we filled ‘Hector’ to the top, plus the generator, total cost £110, hate to fill him up when he is empty!! Off to the Forest, having stopped for lunch, we quickly found a spot to park, it is lovely here, very quiet, all you can hear are the birds.  We set our chairs out, and opened our bottle of champagne that Mark and Paula had given us to christen the boat, so we used it on ‘Hector’ instead.  In the

Bella making friends

evening, we were surrounded by ponies, Bella and Sooty enjoyed them, later we found our batteries were low, very strange after such a long trip, the television worked well, and so did the fridge, we will see in the morning.

Enjoying weather in New Forest

Friday was beautiful, we started the generator, to top the batteries up, then went for a walk with the dogs in the forest, fantastic. In the afternoon, we went to Southampton to change some stuff we had bought, came home and started the generator again.Andrew and Natalia came over for dinner we sat outside until late, then played UNO, sadly the lights failed about 10pm, Andrew went home and we retired early.

New Forest

Saturday, the generator would not work, so no electrics, no electrics, means no water, no anything really, so we went to the Hotel to use email, and to complain to Southdown’s, we decided that there was no point in carrying on as we could not even flush the loo.  We went for a ride on ‘pinky and perky’ along the country roads it was good fun, brightened our day, until Geoff fell off.  Loaded bikes on trailer, I cooked dinner, and we played crib by torch light, before going to bed early.

Up quite early, and delivered ‘Hector’ to Southdowns then back to Bournemouth, we are now staying in Sandbanks with Andrew.

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Pascals Paddocks

Posted on 28/03/2012 by Christine

We have been here a week, the weather has been fantastic, and we have managed to

Jane taking advantage

complete our jobs, plus our trailer has been put into good use.  Jane and Geoff have been collecting haylagefor the horses in the yard, we have had a fantastic time, and achieved a lot in such a short time.

Thank you Dave and Jane, see you in a couple of weeks, the dogs are gradually getting back to normal, I think 3 mile run is just too much for them!!

 

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‘Hector’

Posted on 27/03/2012 by Christine

'Hector' parked in Jane's stables

The day has finally arrived 21/3, we were both very excited, the sales guy had phoned a couple of times to delay collection, but it didn’t dampen our spirits.  Even though we had bought ‘Hector’ fourteen weeks earlier, he was still not ready, so we completed all the necessary paper work before having a run down on how everything worked. The first thing we spotted was the outside shower was in the wrong place, they had fixed it right by the door, so if we wanted to use it, we would be having a shower in the outside lounge where the groundsheet would be, not a good start, Geoff was getting very cross, several other things we struggled with, but the final straw was the sat/nav/radio did not work, oh dear! I had left at this point, as Geoff was going to follow me, he telephoned me to say come back and pick him up. Apparently he had lost his cool with the salesman.  Couple of hours later, we received a phone call to say it needed a replacement, which they could fit by Friday.

Geoff sent a long email, stating all the things he was not happy with, and when we arrived on Friday, everything was sorted, and they had offered us a full refund on the shower unit, so we parted good friends, and they apologised and hoped we had a good trip.

Off to Tom and Kathleen’s to pick up everything we had stored there, and after a quick lunch we left for Essex, I towed ‘pinky and perky’ with the car, and Geoff drove ‘Hector’, we stopped for diesel, and gas (LPG) but failed to get any gas in, no one seemed to know how it worked, so we pulled into the next station where we managed to fill both tanks.

We put the bikes in the garage, and left ‘Hector’ at the stables, where we have spent the last few days emptying boxes, filling shelves,  making beds, with all the stuff we bought over from Spain, we are both shattered, and realise once again, we have too much, so we have packed some boxes with things we do not need, and will leave them in Spain when we get there in June.

Where is this lot going to go!!

Finally we are ready for our first trip, which will be to the New Forest, hope the weather is kind to us, give us a call, if you are

'Hector' looking smart and ready to roll

coming our way, all visitors will be welcome.

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Jersey

Posted on 21/03/2012 by Christine

View from Jane's Lounge

Whilst Geoff was in Belgium, I decided to visit my mate Jane, we were worried about the fog as flights had been cancelled all day, but fortunately I got away on time. John and Jane met me, and we headed home for a bottle of champagne, and dinner, how the rich live!!

Next morning up early, and a walk around the reservoir, not Jane’s favourite pastime, but it was lovely, missed the dogs though. We then went to lunch with Helen, at one of the posh Hotels where they were offering 50% discount, the food was lovely, although service could have been better! Next day it rained, and we had arranged to meet Carolyn for another meal, we had sea-bass and squid, it was lovely, cooked really lovely, thank you both for treating me.

Sunday we went for a lovely circular coastal walk,

Jane at Grosnez Castle

which was lovely, it was a beautiful sunny day, with fantastic views, we could see France, Guernsey, Sark, and many more Islands. We made our way back, as we were meeting

Nanny Jane with Mason

John, Chloe and Paige and the new baby Mason, he was so tiny, he was only two weeks old. Then Helen came over, and we enjoyed a roast duck dinner, with all the trimmings, plus another bottle of champagne, we then played canasta, a lovely day.

Sadly it was Monday morning, and I had a flight to catch, we were up early, no fog today, we left on time, and on arrival Geoff was waiting with a big smile on his face, to welcome me back.

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Belgium

Posted on 17/03/2012 by Geoff

After many years of waiting, my brother Herbert and I finally made the trip to visit the world one battlefields. This included Ypres where we watched the nightly memorial service at the Menem Gate and that’s where we found our great uncle’s (Lt. Col. Frank Page) inscription, killed in 1917; he was amongst the 1½ million British troops killed between 1914 & 1918.
We travelled with a specialised tour company (Ledgers) and spent three full days visiting the main British sectors, Ypres, Arras and the Somme. What really struck home was the amount of war cemeteries, they were everywhere and only several hundred yards apart in many places as many were actually on the actual battlefields themselves. These cemeteries demonstrated very visually how little the front lines moved forward yet at the same time confirming the terrible slaughter that took place over such a short piece of ground. We visited many war grave cemeteries with up to 11,000 bodies buried yet only scraped the surface of the total number of cemeteries; the ranges of the men that were buried went from 16 to 50 though apparently there is one war grave with an 84 year old soldier buried in.
We have all read and seen various films about WW1 and known it was dreadfully brutal, but these facts do not really register until you actually see the museums on the battlefields and all the war graves but more importantly, the names inscribed on the various memorials and cemetery walls of the soldiers that were never found. We must also remember there were over 2 million German troops killed and the war was also fought in the Middle East, goodness knows how many men lost their lives in total.
The other eye opener was the vast amount of ordnance fired across the battlefields by each army, this was so great that in the Ypres theatre of the war alone, the Belgium Bomb disposal units are currently destroying between 200 and 300 tons of un-exploded shells each year and have done so for many years!
Another aspect of the war was just how much was fought underground. We all are aware that miners were tunnelling below each front line but we visited a cave dug under Arras, it was so large that they had 24,000 troops living there for 8 days whilst preparing for another “failed” assault.
Fortunately the weather was kind to us so all the areas we walked were dry and reasonably hard and our Battlefield Guide was extraordinary, he must have lived and breathed WW1 facts, figures and dates, we were extremely lucky.
We both enjoyed the experience and learnt a lot more about WW1 that neither of us were aware of; thoroughly recommended.

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Opinionated students!

Posted on 10/03/2012 by martin

The post educational test

Well today has seen the further education of two silver surfers in the art of WordPress blogging.

C&G have learned the skill of posting with pictures added, together with Categories and image sizing.  There should be no holding them back now

 

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