Rasbro's Ramblings October 2014

---

This month was mostly about catching up with family and friends around England. But first we spent some time exploring the Scottish borders and Northumberland. A couple of standout locations were Lindisfarne on Holy Island with the house being an eclectic mix of old castle and arts & crafts style; and Cragside, an interesting old property which was the first in the world to have electric lighting and using hydro electricity. We also enjoyed some good weather for coastal walking in places such as St Abbs and Dunbar.

Next stop was my old home town of Bradford for a few nights with Uncle Bernard. During this visit we took a drive to Fountains Abbey to walk around the deer park and were lucky enough to see several herds of red and fallow deer with the stags strutting around and one even giving a few bellows just to let us know who was boss.

On our way across to the west coast we visited another NT property called Gawthorpe Hall, a Tudor house with many original features including a classic long gallery. After a night in the beautiful Forest of Bowland we had a walk up Dunsop Fell for lovely views across to the Dales.

We had a fun few days at St Annes on Sea with Auntie Jean and cousin Elaine who cooked a ripper of a roast chicken dinner for us (something we don’t get to enjoy in the motorhome). Another day we visited a vintage fair and crafts centre at Mawdesley where a range of artisans created lovely items with which to tempt us.

Mid month saw us at Heart of England motorhomes for Izzy to have the welds repaired on the upper bed. The bed has been dropping from its catches for some time and the HOE service centre have not been able to fix the problem which then caused the welds to fail. This has given us some trying moments in recent weeks as you never know when the bed will drop whilst on the road. Fortunately it comes down behind the front seats so does no harm to us but it is disconcerting and could cause further problems structurally if we cannot sort it. Anyway, after more adjustments by Brian it seems to be behaving itself again, fingers crossed.

Good roast dinners run in the Mclaughlin family as the following weekend we had a stupendous roast beef dinner cooked by Phil and a good catch-up with Hazel and Eleanor. We also managed to give Izzy a really good wash using their jetwasher. Unfortunately sods law kicked in and it rained the next day as we drove along some muddy back roads in Cambridgeshire!

The latter part of October was spent pootling around Norfolk and Suffolk with a brief stop at Gate Lodge to see the Fosseys and share a lovely day walking between West Acre and Castle Acre with a few geocaches and a pub lunch for good measure. The next few days we explored some lovely National Trust properties such as Felbrigg and Blickling Halls and enjoyed several walks in the still mild autumn weather of North Norfolk. We also dropped in on Lizzies Sandringham pile which has an impressive collection of vintage cars commissioned by various royals.

Amidst all of this my best friend Ann and her fiancé Paul decided to get married on 24 October in Adelaide. We didn’t quite get the Skype connection to join in the ceremony but did get to talk to them straight after. Sometimes this lifestyle gets in the way of big personal events but technology does help to ease the way.



By the end of the month it appeared the upper bed in Izzy was behaving itself so we headed back under the Channel to France on Saturday 1 November.

We are both keeping well and still enjoying life on the road.

---