I’m feeling tolls deserve a blog on their own.  In many countries you have to pay tolls when on the motorways, bridges or tunnels. There are three main ways of paying tolls. Online payment with number plate recognition UK, Ireland and Italy do it all automatically on number plate recognition.  You either have to know […]

Driving – getting around is interesting.  Cars don’t always bother with the roads and drive down the sand paths at the edge.  I never did work out how crossroads worked, unless controlled by a police blasting his whistle, it seemed to be just push and give, lots of giving actually and driving around cars one […]

Usual warning on silly observations, these are things I noticed and they may not be accurate. This is a poor country, people live on the edge. No health care, no compulsory education,  growing food to feed the family, working six months, if they can get it, in the hotels, returning to the land in the […]

Once again our travel to Europe has been limited. We did the 3 months we were allowed in spring with the intention of going back in autumn but that just didn’t happen. We did fit a trip to Israel (not in Bertie) and we had a go at being an archaeologist in Northumberland. Trip length […]

Covid still impacted us. Unlike some we didn’t head of to Europe as soon as the borders opened. We decided to play safe and stay in the UK where we could get home quickly if that was needed. We did take on the challenge of walking the Pennine Way, a painful and fun experience that […]

Vindolanda is the site of some Roman forts just south of Hardian’s wall.  It’s excavated using volunteers, supervised by a small team of archaeologists and run by the Vindolanda Trust.  We decided to pay our money and join the volunteers. You sign up for two weeks digging and the places go faster than Glastonbury tickets.  […]

The Pennine Way is 270 miles long. It starts in the Peak district at Edale, goes past my home area following the spine of England up to the border with Scotland, finishing just after the border is crossed. It is the longest and most demanding of the UK’s long distance paths. It’s a very boggy […]

Well at least we got away somewhere! If you add the week skiing in Italy (not included here) we didn’t do bad. A very expensive year pound for travel as most of the costs on Bertie have still been incurred even though we didn’t go far and camping in the UK is very expensive. We […]

Yesterday I joined the other holiday makers and donned on my elbow spurs to cut my path through the crowds to get to my randomly chosen but essential destination on the beach.   Once the lockdown was lifted and the government started urging people to return to doing anything that involves spending we decided to travel […]

We have spent weeks discussing what to do about our travels this year.  Let’s face it of all the issues to have at the moment it is not a bad one.  I am aware of just how lucky I have been during lockdown.  I’ve attended the on-line funeral of Bill, an early victim of Covid […]

We’ve been back in the UK now for three months and I’ve been using that time to make some improvements to the performance of the website. I don’t know if anybody actually clicks on the links that we put on Facebook but if you did you probably found it to be a bit on the […]

Here are some from the second trip year 2019.  These exclude UK trips over the winter. Trip length – 7 months (less 3 days)5th March  2019 – 2nd October 2019 Countries visited UK (total =  1 day) 5th march – 6th March (1 day) France (total = 1 month 8 days) 6th March to 11th […]

Not many observations for Belgium as we haven’t spent that long in the country. As always these may not be accurate, just what I noticed. It was welcome to Belgium with a bumpity bump, almost like being back in Italy. We drove over that border line and you knew where the border is because the […]

I confess, I have no idea why, but I have taken a liking to The Netherlands.  The first part we did I could have been at home, maybe that is why but I don’t think so.  I like mountains, the Netherlands doesn’t have any. I keep saying I’ll move away from Cambridge to get hills […]

Clean, bins are emptied, no street rubbish etc. Recycling – Germans have an image for being good at recycling but I go to the bins with my recycling rubbish and find there isn’t a bin for most of it, so it gets thrown in the landfill bin. There only seem to take basic stuff. It’s […]

Here are my silly observations on Germany, these are road based. Chevrons on steep corners are red and white. I suspect John may be a little red/green colour blind! Lots of steep corners have bushes behind the signs. Road signs on non-motorway roads are yellow – with my British background it feels like I’m permanently […]

We didn’t spend long in Luxembourg so I don’t have many silly little observations. Firstly it can’t decide what nation it is, so much of the things around are French. Walk along a street and eateries will be a mixture of creperies and currywurst outlets.  In a supermarket half the food will be typically French […]

Having given up work I am determined to try and get some fitness back and some weight off, helped of course by the doctor telling me to lose some weight, do more exercise and drink less. The exercise part We are getting on a bit so aches and pains are the order of the day. […]

I’m doing this blog in case any budding motorhomers are reading it. There is always a discussion when we arrive at a site on where to park and which direction to face. Here are some of the things we consider. In winter you want the windscreen facing the morning sun – the sooner you get […]

I fell in love with with Switzerland, so much so that we returned after getting the holes in Bertie fixed. Remember these are observations and may be totally wrong it’s what I think I see. I’m not sure of the politics, I know it is split into 26 cantons and each canton provides 2 people […]

I find borders interesting. If you look on a map they are normally a solid thin black line, they often go through the middle of natural features, a river being common. I’m only really talking about Europe borders as they are the ones I keep crossing. I am going to ignore that for every thin […]

Birds – as well as the normal birds I have spotted hooded crows (everywhere), great egrets, bee eaters and hoopoe. One observation is that when you get to water there are not many mallards compared to Earith. The other observation is that sea gulls do not beg for food. Wild life – I can add […]

Private beaches, I knew, were normal in Italy but the extent is amazing. Much of the coast line, or at least the coast we saw is lined with private beaches. The beach roads are edged with these places making the coast road a long string of never ending establishments. I was surprised to be told […]

Cooking is something you do a lot when we’re travelling as we limit our eating out to a maximum of once a week, often less. As a tent camper I’m used to feeding a family on 2 ring camping gas, so cooking in the van can seem like a luxury. However compared to our fixed […]

Italy is rustic, the paint and facings are peeling off of many, if not most of the buildings.  The grass is never cut. It is very green, I didn’t expect that.  Of course to get green you have to have water, and in spring you get lots, normally in the form of a thunderstorm at […]

As many of you will know last year I fitted in the travelling while working. I used to start work about 7am and finish at 5pm, go out somewhere and then tidy up the bits I had to finish off at work. At the weekends I used to try and do as few hours work […]

When I told people we were going to Italy next I got a lot of sucking of teeth and warnings about Italian drivers. Whenever we move to a new country I get nervous, about all sorts of things but the roads being a big one, so with all these warnings ringing in my ears it […]

We left France a couple of weeks ago and I have had in mind for a couple of weeks to write this blog. Bread is a big thing for the French. There is a saying, “a meal is not a meal if it doesn’t include bread”. I believe that machinery made a big difference to […]

I thought is was time I wrote about LPG gas. The gas is used for cooking, heating, water heater and when off electric, the fridge. We have a system (gaslow) where we have 2 bottles in an outer locker. The bottles are permanently mounted with a filling system attached. So when you need more gas […]

These figures are to help anyone who may be planning a similar trip (as well as those who are just interested). If you are planning a similar trip I am happy to share more figures and some of the details of the planning we did. Trip length – 7 months and 3 weeks 11th Febuary […]

7.5 months of living in a motorhome and we’ve had an absolutely marvellous time. My only regret is that it’s only been 7 months. We’ve covered 3 countries, 4 if you include Gibraltar, Working 40+ hours a week has slowed us down but that has been fine. I found living and working in a motorhome […]

Now we have left Portugal I’m doing my usual thing of little observation that I have noted. Of the 3 countries we have visited (ignoring Gibralter) I have liked this the least. That does not mean I do not like it. It has some nice places, some nice country side and certainly some nice towns. […]

A few of you will know that I looked at buying a campsite a few years ago, I have been camping a minimum of twice a year for the past 32 years. There are not many UK style campsites I have not stopped on. In the UK I still prefer sites that have small licences […]

I’ve had a few comments  that I must look forward to a proper bed, so I decided to write a little about motorhome beds. It was a deciding factor in buying the van. I knew that to work and travel I had to have a decent night’s sleep. You get all sorts of formats for […]

These are few things I have noted about Spain. I have to say I thought Spain was all high rise and crowded beaches (except the bit around my brothers which is nice rolling countryside). I was so wrong. I’m sure it has “sun cities” (high rise jungle with cheek to cheek sun beds) , in […]

We have been to a couple of Fiesta’s recently. Firstly a Moors and Christians, then the Fogueres of San Juan. Although different, to some degree they are the same. Local clubs spend the year preparing for the fiesta and then bring out their wares and parade them. It involves very bright costumes, lots of music […]

We have spent just over 2 months in France and now we head into Spain.  At this rate we will not get to see much of Europe but with working during the week and then a few delays for one reason or another France for 2 months it has been. I have really liked France, […]

When we were looking at touring we debated (for about 2 years) caravan or motorhome and part of that debate was the size of the motorhome if we got one. There are lots of things to consider, but one is the convenience of a motorhome (or lack of it). It’s hard to take a motorhome […]

A common questions is “Do you feel to lack room? Are you always getting under each others feet?  Actually I don’t find it too bad. You do have to co-operate. “You’re down that end will you put these away for me” type thing.  John and I can pass in the van which helps. After work […]

My dream was that I would have lots of time once we were away from the home.  I have no band, no kayaking, no diy, no gardening and very little cleaning. But let’s face it life is not like that.  The paints I brought sit in the cupboard unused. The oboe and keyboard haven’t seen […]

As many of you are aware this is not just a relaxing, early retirement trip around Europe.  I am continuing my day job, for which I’m contracted to complete 40 hours a week. Of course I always end up doing more hours than I’m contracted to so this takes up a huge part of any […]

Keeping clean One of the things about camping is keeping clean and it seems to be a topic that fascinates people. When we brought Bertie lots of people said things like you can’t use the shower, in fact get one that doesn’t have a shower it’s a waste of space, or you can only use […]

Bertie (our motorhome) is an Adria i707SL, A-class based on a Renault Master chassis but as we found out when we tried to buy new wing mirror covers the front isn’t Renault master! The total weight of the van with all contents (incl people ) is 3950kg. It is 7.2 m long, 2.3 m wide […]

We have now completed just over a month in our 6 foot square tin box, so I thought I’d write a bit about what it is like living and working in a camping car.  To be precise it is 7.2metres long, 2.3 wide and 3.4 tall. I doubt if it is made of tin either. […]

I saw a sinks with levers to work taps with knee Pizza vending machines – really Lots of baguette vending machines Cycle tracks cross back and forth across roads but are everywhere Interdit is everywhere on everything. Houses spread all the way around coast with no breaks at all Motorhomes wave as they pass each […]

Here are a few things that I have noted. English credit cards aren’t accepted in all places, stood at an automatic barrier trying to pay for an aire was when we discovered this. Very nice man( owner I think) put it on his card. Concerned now this may be a wider issue. Don’t  try and […]

Dates 7th – 10 Feb We still haven’t got the v5 that says we own the vehicle. Which means we can’t go out of the country with Bertie. Therefore we have packed the van and gone to Hunstanton, well Dersingham to be precise.  The van is working well. We have had snow, wind and biting […]

Does this count?  We have ticked off our first campsite in our first country. Wyre Piddle near Evesham.  Bertie seems to be all functional apart from we do not have a hose to fill up the water tank, so hand filling from a camping bottle is the order of the day.  This is a nice […]

We were sat having our Sunday morning drink of  tea and I said we had to name him.  So we bounced names around, Bertie the Bus seemed a good alliteration and covered the size of the monster we will call home for a while.  But the name had slightly more importance, it’s rhymes with Gertie. […]

We now have Bertie.  7.5 metres long and a fully laden weight of 3850kg, put another way, a big bugger!  Too big for the boys to drive without an additional driving test, but John and I are old and we have an old fashioned licence. It’s left hand drive with a fixed bed, in which […]

We made the  decision, Europe in a motor home for 2 year.  We had a few decisions to make. 1- how will we live day to day – this is now the only  stumbling block. To pay for everything I  need to work, but will my boss let me work from a motorhome somewhere in […]