the way to Canterbury

Let's explore

Van-Man worked hard at de-winterising the van first thing in the morning while I loaded clothes, pillows and duvet. The trickiest bit was manoeuvring the beds down the stairs without our Lurcher grabbing them helpfully. Yes that was the down side of Van-Man removing the mattresses and soft furnishings over winter.

I was filling the fridge when I realised Van-Man was perplexed.

“The water pump’s not working,” he muttered and phoned the caravan service people who had just given our motor home its first service.

Suddenly he announced “They’re going to look at it now,” and dashed off. They found the problem after checking everything and Van-Man returned home for lunch. We finally set off at 13.45 three hours later than normal.

I took over driving at Clacket Lane services and was fine even with the narrow lanes through the road works. However I fumbled the gears when changing down at the end of my drive. Van-Man was not amused. “You’ll ruin the gearbox,” he said.

Gorse

I got my revenge by not spotting he had taken the wrong turn in Canterbury. Well I was reading the map at the time. After turning round we found the right road to Sandwich and came to a stop. Road works beyond the junction had caused a long tailback. It took over twenty minutes to creep to the men digging a huge hole.

on the track

Van-Man liked the camp site but was surprised that 80% of the caravan and motor home pitches were taken. By contrast there was one lonely tent in the corner. Our pitch was level so we didn’t need our ramps. Before Van-Man could drink his cup of coffee Lottie demanded a toilet trip. Leaving his cup untouched he took her to the dog walk and fed her as soon as he got back.

As soon as he had settled down with his book Lottie demanded a proper walk so we set off to explore the nearby heath land following directions to a pub in the next village.

After crossing the road we were soon walking across a wide expanse of land with gorse in full bloom. The weather was mild and there was no wind. We didn’t find the pub so it was just as well that we had dinner back at the van.

At last we could relax as our hound fell asleep.