An informal page to let you all know something about what we're up to at motorcaravanning.co.uk or away in our motorhome. This could be anything from trips away in the UK or Europe or repairing a broken gearbox or introducing new products and updating prices. Hopefully you'll find much of it useful, maybe some of it will even inspire you to try new places and to extend your touring season. We'll try to make it interesting and informative always, and maybe even entertaining at times too. It could become quite a long page over a year or so but the newest items will always be at the top. Time permitting we might introduce some older items if we think the topics will still be of interest. I may express some personal opinions here too. To comment or ask about anything on this page please do . Please read on !  

August 09: France again.  Really looking forward to it ...

July 09: Snowdonia.  Away in a motorcaravan with two eight year olds, we must be mad!  Snowdonia is a great place to try out our new solar panel under low light conditions - and rain of course!  Joking aside the trip centres around a trip up the mountain on the mountain railway at great expense and we're hoping that the good long range forecast for our pre-booked day will turn out to be correct. This is Wales of course so it wasn't, we spent the day in rain, mist, and eventually cloud, but the trip scored another "awesome" from both children - so a success anyway. Just as feedback for others I think the Snowdon Mountain Railway Company have got it wrong, you can't book separate times up and down and the return trip gives only half an hour at the summit, that wasn't even time enough to get drinks and a bite and get it down the children. Given that we'd paid over £80 for this little venture I reckon that's very poor value indeed. Although more difficult to administer the way forward must be for visitors to use alternate trains to give that extra time at the top, sure it means a couple of empty trains going up at the end of the day but this cost is spread over the rest of the fares for the whole day so they would increase only slightly while the time at the top could be much longer. (A later trip up the even higher Puy de Dome in France offered a completely free choice of up/down times, they just send up 'empties' at the end of the day and were confident that they'd get you down OK). The other venues were great and much more customer focussed, the Sea Zoo Centre on Anglesey, Benllech Bay, PenRhyn Castle, even the waterside parking just below Carnarvon Castle (Caernarfon), all excellent. Anyway back to motorhomes - the new panel did its stuff charging well in any available sunlight and was still ticking over even under quite overcast skies so all seems to bode well for our trip to la belle France in a few weeks time. 

Business on the website is still relatively buoyant so we must be doing something right!  Margins are very tight but the volume is holding up well - so very many thanks to all of you for your continued support. Supplies are still difficult with yet more companies failing to cope with the difficult conditions and making unreliable delivery promises as a result. Cool boxes originally promised for April are now due into the UK sometime in August and even the mighty Dometic seem unable to give accurate estimates - they are now talking about October delivery of products we wanted and needed to sell in mid season. Ho hum!

June & July 09: Mend & Improve.  No big plans now for trips until the school holidays in late July so definitely time to get on with all those jobs!  Some are pretty mundane like painting the cab sills with stonechip paint or replacing the cracked bleed valve in the hot water system. This proved to be the cause of the 'air the water' problem that had been getting worse for some time. We didn't track it down until I noticed some regular drips under the rear of the camper when parked, they weren't really noticeable until we had some dry but not very hot weather so a little damp patch formed on the driveway. Once seen though it didn't take long to trace the leak to the valve under the false floor of a kitchen cupboard. Air in water systems is always trouble but double trouble when on the hot side where the heated air can 'explode' out of the taps, anyway we're glad to see the back of this irritating problemette.

Other bits of maintenance were more interesting. Adding the DRLs (Daylight Running Lamps) was more fun and dead easy too. I'd chosen the ones that were both chunky enough to look the part and came with an easy fitting kit complete with all the electronic controllers that seem to be needed with these ever more sophisticated high power LEDs. It's quite a clever arrangement really with a simple fused power supply from the battery and a 'trigger' wire that 'scotchloks' into a wire going to the side lights. Once in place along with an earth return the 'black box' detects when the engine is running by sensing the charging voltage and turns on the DRLs automatically, then when the vehicle's side lights come on it turns the DRLs off again even though the engine is still running - an important feature since they would really dazzle at night. All very clever and now attracting a bit of attention too. Most people are interested and curious too but just a few are telling me I've got my lights on - I guess they'll get used to them as more an more vehicles fit DRLs/DSLs in the run up to 'obligatory' in 2011.  To add some technology at the rear I've changed the brake lamps for 'tower red leds' and can see a real improvement there too.  I'm still talking to suppliers but expect these to be on site this winter.

Inside I've been replacing the G4 Halogen bulbs with LED replacements - similar light for about 1/10th the electricity! Like the low energy bulbs at home they're not quite as bright visually as the technical measurements seem to show but work just fine and we found we adapted readily to the slight differences. The picture shows how small they are, the sideways only fitting, and also the yellow filter to give the warmer light that many prefer. Hopefully this will make a big difference to battery consumption during the darker months yet to come. Already available on site and quite popular too.

To make our bike rack a bit more versatile for moderate load carrying I've added a cross tube high up using some bits and pieces from an aerial supplier. The other plan is to construct a shallow storage box to fit between the carrier frame and the camper, again no big load but another way to get some of the lighter junk out of our living space, we'll have see if and how that thought works out in practice though.  I replaced several exterior locker catches that had gone weak and added an extra one for the cassette door - it was mad not to have fitted one originally, sure it is a side hinged door but when you're sorting out the loo and it swings shut in the wind it really is irritating!  I sorted out a dim rear light, replaced the number plate lamps that were corroding away and fitted fitted a new radiator cooling fan. Also I finally got round to fixing the howling noise from the drivers door by making up a spacer to go under the lower hinge fixing, this forces the lower part of the door out when closed and the tilt forces the top to close more tightly - much less wind noise ... bliss.

The major addition of the month though has to be the first of two solar panels fitted onto the overcab roof. Given that we sell the VeeTech units it seemed only sensible to install a complete VeeTech system to check out the product personally. It was all a bit of a fiddle to get the mounts and cabling correctly in place and sealed to the roof but with the help of some Sikaflex and a decent cable entry box it is now bonded on with a good watertight cable entry concealed under the panel. I guess they're all a bit fiddly at this stage. A short run of white trunking inside carries the cabling to where it can run down the wall behind the curtains and sofa with a suitable breakout for the remote panel on the way down. The remote panel isn't strictly necessary but I like the information about charging rate and battery voltage and especially about the Amp-hours gained during the current session. I was planning to put in some extra heavy 8mm² cable to minimise any loss but in the end and with the advice of some experts I went for 6mm² on the basis that is heavier than actually needed and also the maximum size easily connected with standard terminals. It was a bright day when I finally got it into place and it was very gratifying to see a 4.3A charge the minute I connected it all up. Summer charging is obviously going to be good and we've already seen over 6 amps in British sunshine but we'll definitely need that second unit for the Autumn and Spring. Wish I'd done it long ago!

May 09: Northumberland.  Quiet did I say? Well that was before half term and a family trip to Northumberland! this may not be the place for a detailed account of family holidays but if I tell you that daughter and family were booked into a lovely B&B in Alnmouth while we camped around and about with and without grand-daughter you'll get the picture. Before meeting up we did the seniors thing by leaving earlier and stopping off in Whitby for fish & chips eaten on the pier - a very exotic choice of fish these days from the renowned and genuinely award winning www.misterchipswhitby.co.uk. Then it was of back up to the moors to wild camp, a bit windy up there but OK once off the main drag and a delight to be woken in the morning by curlew calling all around. While nearby we took a little time out and did a small detour to Wheeldale Roman Road, a mile-long stretch of enigmatic ancient road - probably Roman but possibly later, or more likely earlier with Roman additions, all situated amid wild and beautiful moorland, still with its hard core and drainage ditches in place. The best preserved in Europe apparently, you can wander along it too.

Alnmouth itself is a attractive little town and looks very inviting from the coast road with its houses gleaming in the sunshine across the estuary. The main beach has a long thin informal car park sandwiched between the golf course and the shore. It was once a well known wild camping spot but is now "more difficult"; for us though it was a great spot to stop for evening meals, cups of tea, etc when grand-daughter could happily make sand castles with her dad and transient friends while the domestic chores were dealt with in the camper just inches from the beach! Other motorhomes there were camping at Alnwick Rugby club or wild camping further up the coast. Since the Farne Islands were something of a focus for the trip and we hadn't been there for years we decided to take a run up the coast to check out Seahouses and the boat trip arrangements before the family arrived. Needless to say it was all very much the same as last time we saw it but having passed a CCC holiday site on the way decided to call in there to see what it was like - a first for us. I must say they (the 'NDA' folk) were very welcoming and helpful and found us the last pitch at about 8pm and for just a fiver. Like many temporary holiday sites it was just a field with standpipes and CDP + Rubbish by the gate, it was nicely sited though and quieter than the real site nearby - being further from the road. These informal sites often suffer from generator noise so it was interesting to see their very sensible generator rules, 'use only between 10-12am and 2-4pm', maybe not best for the microwave users but definitely good for everyone else! We tested their hospitality on leaving by driving over the fire bucket(!) not something we're used to having by the front bumper and so had completely forgotten by the time morning came round. We drove round to 'reception' to hand in the remains and all I can say now is that Northumbrians are very nice people!

Activities for the week included chilling out on Alnmouth beach, Howick Hall Gardens & Arboretum, Cragside NT, Morwick Farm Ice Cream Parlour, Craster Crab Sandwiches and a walk to Dunstanburgh Castle - complete with a (binocular) view of a pod of Dolphins cruising down the coast! A minor stomach upset earlier in the week caused us to move our boat booking from a rather wet Wednesday to fortuitously glorious Friday so the gods were definitely with us on this trip. It was quite windy out on the boat of course but the swell was minimal so the sea views of everything from Seals to Gannets and Puffins to Porpoises were great and the landings on both Inner Farne and Staple Island were easy too. The noise and the smell of the thousands of seabirds were just as I remembered them, granddaughter Esmé was "gobsmacked". Stars of the show were the usual culprits, Puffins in particular "oh they're beautiful but I didn't know they were so small", but many others too; calling Kittiwake, ledge hugging Guillemots & Razorbills, grunting Cormorant & Shag, and of course those infamous and slightly villainous Arctic Terns mobbing all the visitors at every opportunity ... at least until they got tired and perched instead!. Esmé said "awesome" so quite an impact made I think - highly recommended!

May 09: Looking forward.  Well it's a pretty quiet year for motorhoming for us, too many day-to-day tasks to deal with to be able to chill out much - other than the odd weekend away that is. Nevertheless we have those grandparent duties to focus on, and to look forward to, so I need to get this camper ship shape in time for the major school holiday! There seems little likelihood of me getting the a-class I lust after, at least not until the current economic woes and poor pound have sorted themselves out somewhat, so we've decided to get our current Hymer up to scratch and to make some improvements too, not least because we're off to France in it ourselves in August. And yes I know it can be a bad time to go but there it is.

Perversely just as we were discussing how much we could and should spend I had a puncture that has been declared 'unrepairable'. Just to make it worse, the tyre design has now been 'improved' I'm told, so I need a pair of them to balance the axle ... another couple of hundred pounds expenditure that we weren't budgeting for!  Plainly time for a little cost saving where possible so with some mechanical work needed I booked the camper in at a local independent 'commercial' garage where they charge a very modest £45/hour. I have to say the experience wasn't great and reminded me of how poor these things used to be just a few years ago, even down to failing to lock the vehicle. Nevertheless they did the job, and did it well as far as I can tell, so I now have a new sump, a repaired exhaust bracket, and hopefully an alternator that no longer squeals at break of day - or camp when it does all that work recharging the batteries.

On the more interesting side we'll add a DVD player to the 12v video player already installed, fit the solar panels we've been promising ourselves for so long, probably replace the leisure batteries one of which is showing its age, convert more of our internal lamps to LEDs to save on power usage and maybe add some LED running lights to save using dipped headlamps so much. Apart from the charge consumed I do go through a lot of H4 bulbs and they're getting expensive. 'Daytime Running Lights' or DRLs will be mandatory on all new vehicles from 2011 so you may see lots appearing as retro-fit over the next couple of years, I'm currently trying to source some suitable for Ducato etc. There's some more mundane stuff too, I've spent quite a few bob with Hymer UK at Preston recently on all manner of spares from door stays and locker hinges to table parts and a new bathroom sink. It will all give me something to do on those weekends that we're not getting away!

Some of that will have to wait until after half term when we're planning a week in Northumberland where we'll meet up with the family and introduce grand-daughter to the sights, sounds - and smells - of breeding bird islands in full swing! It's years since I've been to the Farne Islands but they're still just the same I'm told.

Supply chain difficulties still dominate the business, you'd think from TV images of acres of unsold cars that there would be product galore sitting on shelves but apparently not, many suppliers are on short time working but some are now quoting delivery of anything slightly unusual as September!  Product can suddenly become unavailable too, both Alden and Beauclaire now have different distributors and the sudden change disrupted supplies no end. Fortunately we are making progress on other fronts though; with all this personal focus on electrical power and independence we'll be introducing both wind generators and a small range of affordable portable generators - of the quiet variety. These will compliment our existing lpg generator, solar power range, and the fuel cells, enabling customers to chose which of the full range of power sources suit them best.

Easter 09: Lending your Motorhome to your Family:  No trip away for us this Easter, the Hymer is off to the Yorkshire Dales without us. We regularly, if infrequently, lend it to my Eldest daughter's family for a week or so. There's quite a bit of preparation removing a lot of our regular camper stuff to make room for theirs and of course putting it all back again afterwards. It's at times like these I wish we were shorts & sunglasses travellers and not those with outdoor interests and all the paraphernalia that goes with them!  There is usually some extra work on their return too - minor repairs of sorts. Families seem to be much harder on the (necessarily) light weight fixtures and fittings, especially when they are just 'occasional campers'; it must be a major cost for hire firms. We used to have any-driver insurance but that became very expensive so now we have an arrangement where we phone up and book a temporary change of driver for two weeks for a £25 fee. Youngest daughter borrows it occasionally too. Many of our camping friends think we're quite mad lending it out but we're very prepared to put up with the problems in return for the very real benefits.

Mar 09: Annual Service:  Despite only doing 6-8000 miles per year we take Fiat's advice and have our Ducato serviced annually. I gave up on our nearest Fiat Professional garage in Warwick when their prices just got silly and now take it to Watts Truck & Van in Worcester (www.wattstruckandvan.co.uk) who we've found to be very good and much cheaper. There are various deals around right now so it pays to shop around for servicing and to ask for discounts or for a deal, for example I see Essanjay are offering a full service for around £250 (www.essanjay.co.uk/services/)  - and still under their Fiat Professional banner.

Once there are a few miles on the clock you always seem to get that phone call saying "a bit of bad news I'm afraid - you need a new ... ..." and so it was this time. New brake linings as expected but also new front discs and a new sump!  It seems extraordinary to me that discs should wear out after 60,000 miles but there you go I suppose that's what you get with a budget chassis like the Ducato-Boxer range.

The sump was a real surprise but worth talking about here because of the implications - and the cost of course. The garage's advice to replace is based partly on a slight leak but mostly on excessive corrosion. It's likely that this is yet another knock-on from the well known Ducato-Boxer battery problem - this is where rainwater draining off the screen found its way onto the battery where it washed small amounts of dilute acid down onto the metalwork underneath. We first realised there was a problem when a galvanised cover on my driveway started to rust quite badly. Talking to others we learned that there was an early fix where a battery cover was added and also some owners had modified the water drainage to re-route it. We did all that years ago and assumed we'd fixed it but it now appears this wasn't quite true so 50,000 miles later we're paying the price. Earlier this year we had to replace a broken radiator when its mountings rotted away allowing it to break loose while we were on Mull and now we're going to have to replace the sump for the same reason - rust - and all because of that battery problem early on in the vehicle's life. My best advice to you is to treat the front end of yours with Waxoil before this happens to you too! 

The bottom line as ever turns out to be big money, we started off with a basic service budget of £260 but I now have to add about the same again for the rear brake shoes, and yet again for the front pads and discs, and then about £185 for the sump, this will be a grand before we know it!  Expensive toys!

Feb 09: Half Term:  We had a delightful time taking our grand-daughter to Norfolk to see Degas' Little Dancer statue and some other favourites at The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and to do some half-term activities including a bit of walking and bird-watching along the North Norfolk Coast.

We often wild camp in Norfolk where open spaces and a more relaxed attitude are quite commonplace. This makes departure and arrival times very flexible so in the event we arrived on the coast just in time to watch the sun go down over the marshes. Next day our first real stop was at RSPB Titchwell Marsh which is one of my grand-daughter's favourite reserves because it offers easy but interesting bird-watching along a simple walk with a shop at one end and a sandy beach at the other!  Special birds this time round were a red kite on the way and a marsh harrier at Titchwell but there were lots more too - most of the coastal birds are special when you live in the Midlands.

The SCVA as it is known, is on the University of East Anglia Campus on the outskirts of Norwich and housed in a vast modern Norman Foster building. Admission to most of the gallery is free with a modest charge made for special exhibitions (and reductions for over 60s). Parking is possible on campus for motorhomes and there is both a cafe and restaurant. Grand-daughter was very taken by the Henry Moore statues plus many far eastern and Native American 'objets', the well known 'bucket man', and a wonderful Egyptian miniature walking hippo - which is getting on for 4000 years old. Add to that a sprinkling of very famous but slightly odd stuff like a Picasso and a Giacometti and it becomes easy to understand why she told her mum she was "speechless" when asked about it all!  We'd also timed our visit to coincide with some Wednesday evening activities so added a little live sculpture and some live music to round off the day - I think we made quite an impression on a young mind.

On the way home we just managed to find time to detour to call in at Anglesey Abbey NT for a hours walk in the grounds to see the wonderful winter garden and especially the masses of emerging snowdrops - a sure sign winter will soon be behind us. It's good for us all to break the four hour journey with a walk and a brief lunch stop too. All in all a great short break, thank heavens for motorhomes - and offspring of course! 

Feb 09: 2009 Pricing Shocks:  February is traditionally the time when many leisure products suppliers introduce new ranges and revise prices. Normally these price rises are influenced mostly by the rate of inflation and the cost of any special materials used in their manufacture - so batteries went up quite a lot when the world price of lead rose sharply. It's always a busy time for us with several thousand products to be re-priced in quite a short time but many retailers including us normally take a fairly relaxed view of these changes because it takes a little while for the older cheaper stock to work its way out of the system and also it doesn't matter that much if we sell just a little of the new stock at slightly under its new price. But - not so this year!  The dramatic effect of the very weak pound on our many imports means that many incoming products are going up by 15-20% and some by nearly 30%!!  Plainly it is now only sensible to rush many of these increases into place before the season starts in earnest - I'm genuinely sorry about that but really have no other option. We will of course continue to discount and will once again be among the cheapest on-line once all the new prices are in place for everybody. Another shock is the number of lower volume items being discontinued by our suppliers, a rather unwelcome reduction in choice resulting from 'the crunch'.

Jan 09: New Product Line: Exterior Turn-down Screens:  We've long recognised that there was a gap in our silver screens range where we should be able to offer turn-down screens. Today I received a call from out of the blue offering us just that. These are German made exterior screens with a very versatile turn-down based on Velcro fixing. Better still this exterior design also covers the cab's external vents - the ones just under the windscreen - to keep out those chilling draughts and also to keep any snow away from this area. Both quality and price was right and crucially they could be supplied via our direct warehouse to customer system. - excellent!  Some routine checks on both the product's and the supplier's reputation also proved excellent so I'm pleased to say they'll be on sale here next month under their '4-Seasons' branding. We might soon also be able to add a made-to measure service for interiors too, we'll see. 

Dec 08: New Products Coming in 2009:  Possibles for the new year; engine remapping for power or economy, more/different solar panels, New aerials, TV mounts, new TV, enhanced flat-sats, new 30mbar regulator with 5 year guarantee even against oiling, almost everything from the entire Dometic - Cramer - Waeco range, cab carpets, alpine quality screens, new range of dog beds, 12v aircon, armrest kits, etc.

Dec 08: Site Electricity Charges:  That brief stay on a Caravan Club CL on our way to the Lincoln Christmas Market reopened old grievances about 'electricity included' being forced upon us. It all started when new laws were introduced to prevent unscrupulous landlords over-charging their tenants for their electricity. The CC told us "on legal advice" that meant they would no longer be able to charge an arbitrary amount for electricity on any of their campsites or CLs and (in-line with their long term policy of 'upgrading' CLs) they persuaded the site and CL owners to charge higher 'inclusive' pitch fees and to provide electricity for all pitches, which are then all charged out at the higher rate of course. Unsurprisingly not everyone agreed with their interpretation which meant that we'd all have to pay for electricity whether we wanted it, or used it, or not - surely this wasn't within the spirit of the new law?!  Since then others have realised that it is possible to charge for a 'serviced' pitch or a non-serviced pitch at different rates and that pitch types can be changed from one to the other at the flick of a switch. As a result CS sites run by the Camping and Caravanning Club (CCC) can frequently be found for £5 while those of the CC are frequently £7 and upwards. Now I've nothing against fully serviced pitches and occasionally want one myself but if I'm arriving for a simple overnight stop with a fairly well equipped and fully self-sufficient motorhome with its batteries fully charged by the journey I really don't want to pay for something I don't need, so guess which club's sites are top of my destination list ...??  Vive la CCC!  

Info: A CL is a 'Certificated Location', a small informal site licensed for just 5 units and administered outside of planning laws under Caravan Club supervision ; CS = Certificated Site, a similar scheme run by the CCC.

Dec 08: Lincoln Christmas Market:  I've been floating the idea of going to one of the great European Christmas markets for some time but we never seemed to get it together - always too much else going on about then. This year with the credit crunch upon us it seemed more sensible to be looking at short UK trips and a little research soon revealed that we have some really good Christmas markets here in Britain too. I'd thought they were only in big cities like Birmingham and Manchester and big cities are not really our thing but it seems they're in Bath, York, Winchester, and Lincoln too. Now there's a thought, Lincoln, could be combined with a little jaunt out into Norfolk where I want to go to a rather special art gallery. Back to Google then to discover "One of Britain's oldest ... more than 350 stall holders ... It can get very crowded but the crowds are in such good spirits that nobody minds ... German flavour ... a fairy tale quality ...  ... Not Just About Shopping ... The whole festive atmosphere is what makes this market so special. ... Victorian costumes ... roasted chestnuts, hot mulled wine and mince pies ... Hand bell ringers and local choirs perform by candlelight. ... street theatre and you can take a time out at services in Lincoln's spectacular Cathedral". Sounds good to me!

I won't bore you with extensive detail but I can say it was a most enjoyable afternoon and early evening with the roasted chestnuts and gluwein becoming particular favourites!  I wasn't much into the shopping but if you are looking for Christmas presents that are a bit out of the ordinary - do bring plenty of dosh (and so avoid the long cashpoint queues)!  It's a fair old haul to get round everything and there are one-way zones in places to make sure everyone can keep moving so do come in good walking shoes, well wrapped up and ready to join in. Some street entertainment and the stage in particular offer opportunities to enjoy the festivities and to take a well earned break. One thing is for sure wherever you pause you won't starve!  The Lincoln official city website gives Christmas market info but googling will find dozens of sites with information about the previous and next market click for Lincoln.gov website - market link. You can't really park in the city while the event is on but there is a huge temporary park and ride out at the showground on the A15 north of the city, they allocated a special high ground area for motorhomes when we were there. The ride bit was interesting, it was the first time I've been on a double decker for years especially out of town and the experience reminded me why I don't go on buses by choice!!  Places to stay get booked up well in advance so we stayed well outside the city on a CC CL and were charged £9 against an advertised £7, as ever with the CC we felt we'd been overcharged for what we needed, that's a lot of money just to park in a corner. 

After our market visit we made off into Norfolk to revisit some favourite haunts and wild camping spots but also to visit the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, this is an amazing collection of art and artefacts from around the world all housed in an amazing Norman Foster building on the University campus in Norwich. The special reason to visit was the see a very famous sculpture by Degas, 'The Little Dancer aged fourteen'. Apart from being a great work of art, it is also the subject of a lovely bedtime story I've read repeatedly to my grand-daughter so once I discovered that it was (amazingly) here in Britain we really wanted to see it. We weren't disappointed by the sculpture or indeed by the gallery as a whole - and what's more as old fogeys were were admitted to the special exhibition on at the time for just £1 each. If you're into eclectic 'objets d'art' this is definitely one to put on your list. www.scva.org.uk  Naturally enough a return visit with grand-daughter is now high on the agenda for 2009!

Dec 08: VAT:  Yes we're changing prices on many items to reflect the new rate of VAT. Unfortunately it isn't just a press of a button in our business so that potentially involves 5000+ changes. In practice we are going to revise all the higher priced items straightaway and then follow that up with most of the mid range ones too. In practice we probably won't ever get to the lower value items where the savings are just a few pence and where we already operate an averaging and rounding system to produce prices like £2.95.

Sept 08: Shepton Show, Exe Estuary & Somerset Levels:  Trip coming soon - gearbox story below ...

Gearbox Saga:  Left Shapwick Heath mid afternoon and headed off through the levels to take a drive up through Cheddar Gorge on the way home. Camper jumped out of fifth gear for the first time ever - I thought I was now so laid back that I'd got very lazy changing gear - but no I checked my next change very carefully and it jumped out again!  Decided to give it one more go at a slightly higher speed and to push & hold the stick in place just to have a decent diagnosis - but all I got was a bag of nails and a gear stick very rapidly and forcibly thrown back out again ... at this moment I'm sure I said something like "oh dear that's a bother!" and then drove home, rather gently at first, in 4th gear!

Despite fearing the worst this would seem to be a good time to ask around for others' experiences before jumping in at the deep end. In our relatively small motorcaravanning community the best place to do that is going to be on the internet, so I posted some questions on the relevant forums and groups to see what I could find out. At the same time I asked some trusted garages for their assessment. I need to cut a long story short here but the outcome was that this fifth gear failure is 'not unknown' in the Ducato-Boxer family and seems more prevalent on pre-2003 vehicles with larger engines and failures are often at the 50-60,000 mile mark. Yep that figures, ours is a 2.8L 2001 Ducato with over 60K on the clock. All that established it then seems there are two choices. First, I could replace the gearbox with a new or rebuilt-reconditioned one, this is the garage choice and is likely to result in a bill running into thousands of pounds ... another "oh dear" moment!  The second choice is definitely cheaper and involves removing a gearbox cover accessed from the nearside wheel arch, removing the fifth gear cog assembly and any debris that is accessible and then re-assembling with a new cog. I'm told its DIY-able but I'm doubtful, I'm also given some smaller-garage / gearbox-shop contacts based on others' experiences and a £400-ish bill seems likely if going down this route. There is a risk of course that remaining debris could do more damage - but it hasn't so far, other people seem to have got away with it, and the potential saving of upwards of £2,000 seems a pretty good incentive! 

The nearest gearbox place that came highly recommended and easily accessible for me was Geartech in Hartlebury, 01299 251261, so I gave them a call and talked to the boss, Tony Perkin. He plainly knows gearboxes and has done many of these in-situ repairs so I booked in. Geartech is a bit of an old fashioned 'engineering workshop' full of oily bits being tended by oily people but that also goes with some old fashioned values about doing a good job at a fair rate! Tony is a hands-on man himself with a passion for vintage motorbikes. If you want he'll make you a coffee, tell you tales of motorbikes, and of the many modern gearboxes apparently not up to modern engine power, but don't expect a fancy reception or waiting room, there isn't one. I got to watch the work and was shocked to see the damage when my man exclaimed "so, no drive at all then!". Have a look at the picture to see the old and new units side by side, it is the small side teeth that drive your 3½t camper along at 70mph, at least they do when there are any!  Considerable care was taken over the whole process and in particular over retrieving the missing gear teeth from the trap in the cover. Several oily hours later I'm the proud owner of a reborn 5-speed Ducato but £372.48 poorer. Recommended nevertheless! 

August 08: France - Loire Valley & Chateaux:  With a 'big' birthday coming up at the end of the month we decided to get a couple of weeks R&R in la belle France before the family celebrations. August is a relatively quiet time on the website and in any case I can work on the move leaving others in the UK to look after the nuts and bolts side of the business. We pre-booked on a mid-morning Sea France crossing on an internet 'deal' so drove down the night before to overnight near Dover and then board after a leisurely breakfast, much less stressful than negotiating the London ring roads with a tight ferry time!  Despite some decent weather the night before, with the French coast clearly visible from St Margarets, there were long queues at the port with all departures delayed. This is when the joys of travelling in a fully kitted motorhome complete with full tanks, food, milk, etc., become apparent because we can make our own coffee, even lunch if needed, and have a quiet read in comfort rather than fight and fret with others in the overstretched cafe!

My trusty old Garmin 2610 had not long died so we were travelling with another of similar age but without the latest maps loaded so we planned to make good use of locaions we already know and love albeit visiting some new 'attractions'. First overnight then is to be in Normandy, the free aire at Cambremer being favourite for a Saturday night since the town has a traditional open market every Sunday in July and August - it turned out that this was to be a special one complete with pig roast party and fireworks following on from the usual daytime market and 'animations'. There were quite few 'vans already installed by the time we arrived but we found a space away from the road under trees but quite near the picnic spot and settled down to some home-made curry and a glass of red. We slept well after all that travelling. It was drizzling first thing, but no matter, that's a good time for me to catch up with a few emails before wandering into town. By lunch time we've done our first market shopping and now have some French goodies ranging from pain and lapin to tergoule and dried flowers and what's more the Sun is shining so it feels like a holiday at last. French markets always make us feel hungry and since the aire is close by we wandered back to picnic there - to find the usual scenes of chaos that characterise French market days. All semblance of order and conformity had disappeared and cars were parked everywhere, in the entrance, all round the borne, in disabled spaces, across the front of the camping cars, anywhere they can be abandoned in fact!  There's no trouble though and it's all taken in good humour with a few good natured Gallic shrugs. There's no rush either, Sunday lunch is a leisurely affair in many places and this being festive France, lunch today is very likely to gently merge into the evening pig roast!  My schedule is a bit odd compared with theirs of course and includes a hour or two working on the internet on my laptop so by the time we wandered back into town the pig roast was already in full swing with everyone eating at long tables under awnings. it looked more like a wedding than any British pig roast. The town bar was closed but a stall was selling local cider by the bottle - French style with champagne cork so I bought one of those and we settled down on a bench to watch the proceedings. We were soon joined by a couple of locals and my offer of some cider resulted in us all sharing several bottles and many anecdotes in a strange mix of French, of sorts, and English, of sorts. You won't want to hear the trivia of our socialising but suffice it to say that the evening included dancing, fireworks, and even some whisky tasting back in the Hymer - all great fun. All good natured too, lots of alcohol was consumed in public by lots of people but there were no fights, no trouble, just laughter, now why can't we do that back home? www.cambremer.com/normandy/cambremer.htm

So Monday then - and back to work, well intermittently anyway, while we drive down to the Loire Valley. A gentle route via 'N' roads with stops for baguettes, coffee, lunch, etc., will be pretty easy on us and the frequent stops also give me time to check emails, deal with enquiries, and process orders. I have a destination in mind where there's an aire that sounds very pleasant and a museum with a very unusual exhibition. French museums are very varied and frequently have a much more modern and enthusiastic approach than here in the UK, the word has wider meaning too it includes modern collections, art galleries and what we'd call visitor centres as well as more traditional museums, they're also less city based than ours so we've enjoyed many over the years. This is new territory for us and the out of date sat-nav proves to be a pain but we found our way nevertheless. The aires at Montoire-sur-Loir turn out to be every bit as good as hoped, both are close to the town centre, the aire de repos is at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac close to the river, near some allotments and a small bouladrome, the other aire de service with the borne is in the middle of a busy square and parking zone, both are free - a bonus. There are a few 'yoofs' about early evening but no bother, Dilys is really getting getting into French style cooking now and our home cooked evening meal as the sun sets is truly delicious. Next day we walked into town mid morning to get our bearings and had galettes and bier blond for lunch in a pavement cafe. There are several tourist trails here including the infamous Hitler-Pétain one complete with the original carriage, Roman remains, Plantagenet connections, and the pays de Ronsard but the town is also famous for its annual world music festival and our target is the equally famous Musikenfête museum, an amazing collection of instruments from around the world with many of the exhibits donated by the visiting musicians. The really interesting thing though is the interactive mix of audio-visual plus the guided tour where instruments are played and you even get to play (or play with) some yourself, maybe even some giant instruments too. Now that's my kind of museum, particularly when you can book a tour in English too. Finds like this can turn an ordinary trip into something rather memorable - it's always worth trying something new!  We must try to get back during festival week at some point too.  www.musikenfete.fr

There are lots more stories on a trip like this but suffice to say here that we visited Blois for its world famous son et lumiere, a bit of a nostalgia trip since we spent time in Blois in the late 60s. and the new to us and rather curious musée d'objets, and then for the first time we went to the Chateau at Cheverney for the amazing interiors, architecture and history and for the curiosity of the Tintin connections too. That was enough 'culture' really so it was time to make off into the Brenne, a vast and semi-wild area full of large pools devoted to fish rearing and a real magnet for birds, to put in a few days of quieter more rural pursuits. All the time though we're 'going French' with odd meals out like lunchtime galettes followed by strawberry tartiflette and of course our own food in the many aire de picnic. Dilys' camper cooking has become quite inspired with dishes like Duck breasts sautéed in Cassis & fruit(!) so we didn't eat out much in the evening this time round. Our last trip to the Loire with some friends took in some of the great Chateaux like Chenonceau, Azay, & Amboise so they weren't on the agenda this time. Following our policy of not racing around we drifted slowly back north via the troglodyte dwellings at Trôo and on into Normandy to another couple of favourite spots, Beuvron-en-Auge and Honfleur, both well worth a visit in their own right and certainly deserving a separate write up of their own sometime. Beautiful Beuvron is the smaller and won't detain you so long. www.les-plus-beaux-villages-de-france.org

The aire de camping-car at Honfleur is necessarily different to the others we stayed at because of the sheer numbers of visitors they receive. It's said to have capacity for over 100 camping-cars but I've counted numbers nearer 200. There's lots of hard-standing, a couple of bornes, some electric points, and an attendant, the charge is (or was) 7€ per 24 hours from a coin operated ticket machine but this includes everything. Being France the limited number or electric points are shared informally, often via long extension reels with multi-sockets built in - so remember to bring assorted adapters and to practice your French to ask about sharing electricity!  It's also worth calling in at a bricolage and buying a French extension lead on a drum complete with 2 or 4 sockets - it will make joining in much easier. The first time we went to Honfleur we planned to stay just one or two nights but had to drag ourselves away after nearly a week. This time I've planned to be here as Dilys' birthday gets nearer because we can wander round the superb old town and port, shop in the organic Thursday market, browse stunning but expensive art galleries, eat moules in little buckets in a quayside restaurant and go to a local jazz concert on our last night, all very relaxing and designed to avoid that going-home anti-climax. www.ot-honfleur.fr  All too soon though we're heading for one of the overnights near Calais in preparation for the ferry home ... but then there's still the family birthday party to look forward to of course ...   

And in preparation ...

May 08: Scotland - Isle of Mull: 

April 08: Peterborough Show & Woodwalton Fen: 

March 08: 40th Birthday Party: 

Feb/March 08: To Belgium to buy a new Motorhome: