United Kingdom

I had a recce on Sunday after a breakfast meet with my bike club, The Meldrews. The coast road would be perfect until you get to the turn off for Pett Village. Right at the end it says "unsuitable for caravans" and it did look very narrow. Even from the seat of a motorcycle it looked narrow!

On the way around onto the A259 the recommended route didn't look too much better, if am totally honest! Gulp as they say. W have fat club in the morning and then I have to drive Claire to Folkestone to the dentists. I might take Reggie with me and we can have a walk and a coffee whilst she is in their getting done.

Then it is back home and load up the Van. The campsite even sticking to the main roads is only about 30 miles tops. We aren't supposed to arrive before 3pm and so there's no hurry to set off for that short a journey.

At least we have LPG gas now to power the cooker and heating. Finally achieved last week. Luckily they still had some at Dover by the Western Docks. A guy on the pump next to us was off to France and wanted a little gas until he could get some over there. He said that no one along the coast as far as Brighton had any. We had problems as they were very low. I managed to fill or part fill both bottles with a total of 22 litres. One of the attendants said that they were very low and that it was taking a long time to dispense it.

So two days and we are off.

Sixteen days until we set off across to Devon in the Van. We still haven't given him/her/it a name as yet although we did toy with Suki in honour of Paul Merton's wife also called Suki. Still to be decided.

We have one one more shakedown trip next week for another night in the Van. Again locally to ensure that we don't use too much fuel and also are close enough to home to make it an adventure.

We have already got a huge packing list from the internet and there is no way that all of that will fit into the Van! Not unless we suddenly find a TARDIS like storage space somehere.

Any suggestions from experienced RV/Motorhomers are welcome. Comments below! Don't be shy? There must be some experts that want to share their wisdom? No?

With one shakedown over and done with, it has given us a few pointers on what to expect. What we need to pack and what we need to leave behind

The former is actually a longer list than the latter. What we did forget were chairs to sit outside. Maybe if the weather is a little better on the next one, I mean not hovering around freezing once the sun goes down (!), we could use them and also deploy the awning.

We need LPG. I have watched several YouTube videos on filling. It looks easy enough. You just have to find someone stocking LPG or Autogas. There are only 7 places in Kent! I have an app that shows locations. The one I have found locally is a taxi compnay and I need t phone them on Wednesday morning to see if they have any and we can go up there and fill the tanks.

Fairlight isn't that far away either. It's along the A259 west of Rye in East Sussex. It's a Camping and Motorhome Club site. We joined that when we bought the Van. They have loads of sites up and down the UK. It will be our first visit to a club site.

As we are only away one night we probably will only make tea and coffee and then eat our breakfast that we will take with us. Reggie will have his stuff too in the fridge for his dinner and breakfast. So what I intend it to test the gas heating and the cooker to make sure they are all working before we go away to Devon the week after.

I'll also book a table at the nearby dog friendly pub!

After the good day the night was a little different.

Before setting off on Saturday we had our some fresh water into the water tank. We had to use our neighbours drive as ours it not adjacent to the house. This is when you find out that a 7.5 metre long food safe hose is about two metres short. Luckily she said we could use her outside tap. At least that worked okay. It's difficult to gauge how much had gone in.

Anyway. After dinner in the Alma we retired to the comfort of the Van. It was still light and we watched the sunset go down over the trees and fields to the west.

Gradually the temperature began to drop. I took Reggie out for his last pee. Unlike us he seems to be able to last all night! Luckily we have the Thetford toilet in the washroom. We both had our last visits to the onsite facilities. Both the make and female washrooms have showers and toilets and are impeccably clean.

Once we had the two benches converted into the bed we settled in. I had turned off the Whale space heater. We had been running it on electric as we don't have any LPG.

Although I prefer a nice down (or eco non duck filled down) filled sleeping bag, Claire prefers a duvet. We trialled single duvets in a double bed in Norfolk last year. The problem is that they don't cocoon me enough and some part of me is in the freezing cold! And last night was no difference!

Things went smoothly until Reggie, so far relaxed and the perfect dog, heard a pheasant. Bark. Bark. It was about 4.20am! It took a while to quieten him down and we could go to sleep. By 7am he was awake again. Pee time and then breakfast.

By 9am.wr were up and having breakfast. My smartphone showed that I had managed 6h 40m sleep.

The site is very relaxed and departure time is up to noon. By the time we had used the dish washing facilities and then walked Reggie it was time to leave. Hook-up cable removed and bagged, then everything checked and we were off. A final chat with Simon and Karen, the really good and friendly hosts, we were off.

I had programmed Co-Pilot to take us home via a fuel station on the A299 Thanet Way where an app says they have LPG. After a couple of miles it jammed up again. Some of the roads were narrow and I manager to clatter the nearside mirror on hedges. The last time Claire could get it back from inside the Van. Whilst she fixed that in a lay-by I fixed Co-Pilot. It seemed to have got stuck offering an alternative route to the one we were on. It worked okay after that.

Once it took us into the fuel stop. We could see the LPG price of 99p a litre but could see where the pump is! By then we were too far in and had to abort. Rather than take the suggested route we turned 180° at Whitstable back to the A2 and back home via the A260 and Hawkinge. Why such a long way around? The direct route would have been to Ashford and there the M20 coastbound was closed due to the P&O fiasco.

We arrived home about 1.30pm. Then we had to empty the Van. Have lunch. Staycation Painters Forstal over.

Once Claire had finished her 10-12pm stint volunteering on the Guide Dogs
stand I picked her up with Reggie along for the ride.

First stop was Bitzer pet shop in Hythe to buy a licky-mat. Although he was
very good last weekend on the test run to Dungeness this would be a little
longer - a night away! Gulp.

Once home we packed Van with stuff for us and our new low-power kettle and
toaster! We left the Tassimo at home.

The drive up gave me the chance to test the Copilot app. As I might have
said before the search isn't as good as Google Maps. In the end I managed
to press on the screen to create a waypoint at the site.

Once on the M20 it stopped working. It lasted us about 6 miles.

Luckily we knew most of the way and followed sign posts. A rather hair
raising drive along a narrow road. Luckily nothing came the other way.

On arrival we were met by the hosts Simon and Karen. Very nice and
welcoming.

We parked up under a tree alongside the electric hook-up. First job to
connect to get the fridge operating on 230 volts and not the 12 volts of
the leisure battery.

Reggie had been perfect all the way. He seems fully relaxed. That is
something less to worry about.

I connected the power... Time for tea? The kettle was dead. The microwave
was dead...

Panic!!

I checked I had connected both ends. Yes.

Flick switches on the master board. Nothing. Suki (aka Claire) suggested
trying a different socket outside. There are two.

BOOM!

Power. On. The sockets work. The water heater works. The space heater
works...

Once Reggie had been for his walk and had his dinner, we ate the two non
Slimming World approved doughnuts from the Independent Baker in Hythe,
washed down with a tea and a coffee for me.

We settled down for a read and all too quickly it was time to head out to
the pub nearby. Of course it is a Shepherd Neame house. The brewery
is only six miles away. We had a table booked for 6.15pm. A beer for me
and a diet coke for Claire. Dinner was really nice and well cooked.

After dinner we went back to the Van. The heating was back on. The
projected temp overnight is -1 °C to 1 °C!!!!

So far we have had a great first day on our Staycation!

Links:

https://www.paintersfarm.co.uk

https://theindependentbaker.co.uk/https://theindependentbaker.co.uk/

https://www.pitchup.com/

P.S. The line lengths are a bit dodgy as this entry was emailed from a phone. I will sort it when I have my laptop.