Then, on the Friday we headed off to Cheddar to see Iain’s
son Connor. The campsite at Cheddar
Bridge was full (yes, it was the weekend) but we managed to find a new campsite
in Shipham called Lillypool Farm. This
was a real bonus. It was a new campsite
and we’d often gone past the farm shop, wondering if they would mind us staying
in their car park overnight and hey, they now have a campsite. It’s very new and little more than a tent
field at the moment but they were happy for us to stay on the car park and not
go up into the field which wasn’t very level.
Now this is actually the nearest we can actually PARK to where Connor
lives, let alone stay overnight, so it’s a real find for us and we will go back
there again. At the moment it’s a bit
cheap and cheerful but next time we will ask if we can us the EHU that we spied
set up on a building the other side of the car park.
Lillypool campsite car park - Only got to walk just over that hill!! |
Sunset at Lillypool Campsite |
So on Saturday morning we were able to walk up to Daneswood
Care Home in Shipham, where Connor lives.
This is a wonderful care home where about 18 young adults live and are
looked after by a great team of people.
In the early days, Iain used to visit Connor, making the 240 mile round
trip every other week by car, but as Connor got older and the driving got a bit too much in one day, that stretched out to about every 4 to 6 weeks. Visiting Connor was one of our most common
motorhoming trips and we used to make a weekend of it. Connor will be 24 in
August and has mental disabilities caused by a very severe form of epilepsy and
autism, he moved to Daneswood about 5 years ago when he officially became an
adult. With our old van we used to stay in the Daneswood car park but this
place is in the mendips and the drive itself is like a trip up the Alps.
Here's some old photos I took when we used to stay there. No way would we get the behemoth up there.
The building at Daneswood used to be a hotel and has
magnificent views across to the sea at Weston-Super-Mare about 8 miles away. The first time we visited to assess the place before Connor went there we
didn’t know what we were letting ourselves in for and we drove Vanessa (our
much smaller van) up to the top of the drive – never again. We did used to stay about half-way up the
drive but we stopped that when we had a satellite dome put on because of the
overhanging trees which had previously almost pulled off one of our roof bars. There’s no way we would get Jan the Van
anywhere near the top so we have always struggled to find somewhere near enough
to park let alone stay the night.
Our visit with Connor was the first since we last saw him in
December before we left for Spain, nearly 6 months. Having tragically lost his
mum, both grandmothers and then his sister Emma (his only sibling) in just over the last two years he had not had any visitors since we last went back in December. Perhaps it’s a small blessing that we don’t know
if he knows his visitors anyway, so hopefully won’t have missed anyone. The weather was good and we were able to sit
outside on the patio. Connor was awake for some of our visit and we were told
that he hadn’t had any major seizures for a few days, so that was good news. He seemed happy, well looked after and had
put on a little weight.
I don’t want to go on about the sadness of the last
paragraph but this has had a great bearing on what we are doing now. I wasn’t lucky enough to have any children,
Iain had two, but we will never have the expense of putting them through
university, helping them to set up their first home, nor will we have the
blessing of having any grandchildren. This means that we don’t have the emotional
wrench that a lot of snowbirds have to get back to see the family and
grandchildren and when Iain said that he didn’t want to work any longer that we
just did the sums and decided to do it anyway.
Life’s too bloody short to sweat the small stuff!!!!!!!
Even though we
can do what we want, we do still envy those grannies and granddads just a bit
though.
So after seeing Connor we were on our way to
Cheltenham. Namely to Briarfields, which
is a campsite we love. There’s a small
shop, Asda, Harvester restaurant and an Indian restaurant in walking distance
(we don’t do KFC but there is one nearby).
The campsite owners are very friendly and the campsite is kept to very
high standards. It’s the only one we've seen with a hand sanitiser provided alongside the chemical waste disposal.
So here we are, what we needed to come here for – the
dreaded MOT. That’s the only reason that
we HAVE to come back to the UK. We can’t
get the van MOT’d abroad, not even in Gibraltar. So once a year we have to make
the trip back over the channel to have it sorted. But at least this gives us a reason to come
back and of course we then use the time to also to visit friends and
family.
Just up the road is Motorhome Medics who deal mainly in
American RV’s. Funnily enough we found
the campsite before we found Motorhome Medics and they were recommended to us
by a couple we met in Saumur in France last year. But they have proven to be a god-send. As
long as you don’t mind them taking the p**s now and again, but hey, it’s only
banter and you can give as good as you get, which can be quite enjoyable.
While the van was in for MOT we jumped on the bus to
Cheltenham. Yes as last we could take the
dog on the bus – well we could hardly leave the Tasmanian devil in the van
while it had the MOT.
Cheltenham town centre was very pretty, a typical spa
town. We actually needed some shopping
(yes more). Iain needed a new pair of
sandals and we went from shop to shop –he’s only been looking for 6 months, but
he knows what he wants when he sees it – he’s just a bit fussy. Well of course we had the dog with us so it’s
take it in turns to go into a shop.
So
off he goes and while he’s in the shop and I’m waiting outside, an old lady
with a walking frame came out of the shop and fell over in the shop
doorway. It was pretty horrible really,
and I’m absolutely hopeless at these situations. Well actually I’d do my best if I was on my
own, but if there’s someone around who seems to know more than me then I’ll let
them get on with it. Well it was obvious
that she was quite badly hurt and a lovely man stopped to help her. She said that she didn’t need an ambulance
but I saw the blood and said I think one should be called. I don’t want to go into detail, but she was
lying in the shop doorway and wasn’t going anywhere until the paramedics got
there. They must have wondered why I was
hanging about , but I was waiting for Iain to come out and of course he was
stuck inside. It must have been a half an hour before the paramedics got her
into the shop and out of the gaze of the public. I must admit that at one point I asked the
man’s lady friend to stand near to me so that people could not “gawp” at
her. I was really cross at the nosey
people walking past and the lady who stepped over her to get out of the
shop. Of course my husband was too much
of a gentleman to do such a thing and just waited patiently inside until she
had been moved. But at least he had
bought some sandals.
Now my big beef!!!!! We thought we’d have lunch in Cheltenham and then get the bus back to
pick up the van. We went to one pub that
looked nice and had a beer garden, but unfortunately they didn’t do food. So we went off to another pub called the
Sceptre (owned by Stonegate Pub Company), now I’m naming them because I want to
shame them. The pub looked lovely, a bit
like Weatherspoons, it was a nice day and they had their tri-fold doors open so
that the whole front of the pub was opened up to the good weather. There were about 3 tables on the pavement of
the shopping precinct and as we had the dog with us we took the outside table
nearest the edge. Iain went inside to
order the food and the girl brought the condiments. By now it was getting on for 2pm so we were
quite hungry. When the waitress brought
the food, as she approached the table she said that she hadn’t realised that we
had a dog with us – incidentally because she was sitting very quietly under the
table, but that they had a no dogs policy and she would not be able to serve
us. She was polite and offered us a
refund, buy hey the food was on the table in front of us.
Now I know that no everyone is a dog lover, but we always
make sure that our dog doesn’t bother other people and there were only three
tables, no one else was eating and this was actually on the public
pavement. But no, she took the food
away. The manager then came up with the refund and again politely offered his
apologies but said it was a company policy. I did say that this was a public
pavement that they did not even own and suggest that it would be a good idea to
put some signs up to say that dogs and their owners were not welcome. So I had
to stand outside their banners, only 2 feet away from the table while Iain finished
his drink and joined me
.
Now to me that is PC gone crazy – well at least the dog was
allowed on the buses in Gloucestershire so a thumbs up for the bus company.
So we’ve now got the necessary paperwork to allow us to go
off for another year, so tomorrow we leave Cheltenham for Stratford-on-Avon to
the motorhome show – partly because it’s 3 nights cheap camping. Then we’re off to visit some friends, then
back up to the house, to check it out and to stay in our local pub for a couple
of weeks. Then it’s off for the big
adventure part 2.
Be back soon…………………………………………………………………….