Last day (for us) & Handover of Brunnehilda to Thom & Rach - 9th Dec ‘19

A strange day today - were going home without Brunnehilda!

A lovely winter’s day again today ... rather cold but lots of busts of blue sky and sun with no horrible rain around to dampen spirits.

Kim tidied the van up and I emptied and filled stuff ready for the baton to be handed over ...
Thom and Rach arrived at about 12.15.  We gave them a quick tour round of Brunnehilda and set off to show them the walk over the Great Park to town.

It was a lovely afternoon and the dogs thoroughly enjoyed their run in the mud!

A brief lentil and rice lunch on the Market - courtesy of the same folks that came to the campsite on Friday - Cotswold Made. We left T&R at Waitrose as we hit the Fosse Way at about 1.45 - leaving us 1 3/4 hrs to get to West Haddon and pick up the Twinnies.

It was a good run, making it with 2 mins to spare. With no Brunnehilda in tow we could afford for the right foot to go down!

It feels odd leaving Brunnehilda in someone else’s hands - no matter how capable!
We go back down the Fosse on Thursday morning to help pack her up and get her back to Whilton.

Cirencester Park Caravan Club Site
Pros:
1) Superb position - gorgeous 30 minute walk thru Park to town
2) Due to lack of winter foliage, we did get ourselves a nice view across the Park
3) Friendly enough staff
4) Spotless toilets and showers
5) Smashing visiting takeaway food van on Friday night
6) Good 4G
Cons:
1) Extended and inconvenient toilet shut times - 10.30 to 12
2) Wet and muddy
3) Friendly determination to have you park “their way”
4) Chemical toilet disposal a real trek away
5) Felt cramped when full but a bit desolate when empty

From Padstow to Cirencester - 6th Dec ‘19

A very wet moving day!

And a story of a record quick pack up and a record slow set up!

We were up and at it after a quick breakfast and had Brunnehilda all ready to go I’m about 45 mins!
We rolled off the pitch at 10.45, leaving the site promising ourselves this was definitely a site to return to - see pros and cons below.

It was about a 4 hour journey to Ciro that we split up with an hours stop at a rather grotty McDonalds Services at Cullompton. We avoided the McDs and Costa and went for a bakery - probably should have stuck with one of the big boys?!

At the grotty services - but at least we got a space!

Moments before Kim gave up and admitted she hated this vegetarian pasty!

We arrived at the site at a perfect time - with about 30 mins of daylight left to break the back of the set up! Well that didn’t work! This is one of these sites that has very definite ideas of how you park your van - just like Hitler had very definite ideas about the master race!

We found a spot, motor moved Brunnehilda in front ways to avoid any bad feelings about nasty foreigners taking up all our best places. I got her all levelled and set up in good time and Kim went to tell them on reception which pitch we had picked. She came back with the extremely helpful info that if we were in that particular pitch we had to have the van right up against one side - funnily enough, not where I had put her! So, now in the dark I had to move her and attempt to get her level again - not possible this time as we are now on quite a steep left to right drop.

The end result was twice as long taken to pitch, we’re on a definite slope and a reinforcement of my hatred of bloody rules and petty regulations!

The evening got significantly better when we bought dinner from a stall that had set up on site - Cotswold Made - a Persian style fusion (or so they said!). The food was spot on and the folks were smashing. They only took cash and we only had a tenner, so like kids in a sweet shop they gave us a tenners worth - and to their huge credit, a bit more!

We finished the day with an unusual thing for us - live TV! Via the BBC I-player App. We also watched a couple of episodes of an Amazon series called Sneaky Pete which was rather good.

Bella goes up tomorrow - assuming there are no more rules to follow on that?! If there is I might just explode!

Padstow Touring Park:
Pros:
1) The best ever toilets / showers - like a 5 star hotel!
2) Perfect 30 minute walk into town - we just weren’t fit enough to do it!
3) Super friendly reception staff - even asking me to park front ways in was done nicely!
4) Good 4 G reception
5) Fantastic shop
6) Reg number recognition security gates so no need for codes / cards - see cons
7) Perfectly kept - given the wet weather everywhere looked pristine
8) Toilets didn’t shut for cleaning - the only UK one not to!
Cons:
1) One time the reg number recognition security gate didn’t work!
2) A bit of road noise but not too bad
3) No great view from our particular pitch - there were better ones but we didn’t get to choose!

I think this is a hard one to beat for best UK site to date - especially if we’d managed to pick our own pitch with a view!