Return To Eardisland

We had planned to return to Eardisland but not so soon, our good friends, Norman and Jean were planning a weekend in the Wye Valley so, not missing a chance to meet up arranged to meet half way-ish at Tadpole Field, a Camping & Caravanning Club CS site in Eardisland.






Thursday 10th June 2021
We normally leave Wednesdays for our mid-week trips but agreed to meet up today as Norman & Jean were booked into Bracelands in the Wye Valley over the weekend and they could then tag the two stays together.
We followed our usual routine by loading the van with essentials, gin, tonic, food, drink, wine, did I say gin & tonic the night before we had a little water left in the tank so didn'y bother to fill up as we could do that when we arrived on site. We left home about 10.30 to make the fairly straight forward drive to Herefordshire in time for lunch.
It wasn't long before I had realised that I had forgotten to top up the windscreen washers and that there wasn't as much diesel in the tank as I had thought, no problems we would stop at Leominster and top up both. At the Morrisons supermarket on the outskirts on Leominster we topped up with fuel ok but there wasn't any water for the washers something to do with keeping the plastic watering cans sanitised for covid-19.
We soon got on the way again and were on site for just after mid-day, we put all out details on a card popped in the right money and posted in the letterbox as requested, we were the only people on the site, its going to be quite here.
After topping up the fresh water tank and filling the washer bottle we found a nice spot at the top of the site, we set up then prepared lunch, some really nice pate and cheese with cornichons, we were just about to eat when Norman and Jean arrived, we had not seen them for over a year due to lockdown restrictions, they too had lunch, we sat in the sunshine all afternoon chatting, catching up like good friends do.
By now another camper arrived with a caravan, it looked like he was a solo traveller he set up then started a generator for his power, now call me a moaning old git (You Moaning Old Git) but I really dislike the use of generators on sites especially ones that are so quiet, if there is no EHU they find other, cleaner, quieter means of power, I do think that both clubs some ban them from their and the certified sites on the grounds of nuisance and environmentally, noise pollution etc. OK moan over, for now.
The afternoon passed so quickly, we decided to have tea indoors as the it had heavily clouded over, it was very muggy and we all thought it may rain.
Tea was Chinese style pork done in the ridge monkey with stir fried vegetables, followed by cheese. we had arranged with Norman and Jean to come over for coffee after and we played Scrabble , well beaten by Norman & Jean, we laughed and laughed all night, the game finished about 10pm so they returned to their van and we retired for the night, it was still very humid, still thinking it was going to rain we kept the sky lights closed.
About 2.30am I had to get up and open the vent, it hadn't rain but was so hot in the van.

Friday 11th June 2021
We woke about 7.30, the new sleeping bags have worked well and should prove a great success in making it easier to make the beds at night and easy to put away again in the morning.



I took Izzy out for her morning walk, still warm but the wind had got up a little and grey skies all around, we returned to the van with Adele getting breakfast ready, our usual full English, bacon, egg, tomatoes, hash browns and half slice of fried bread.



After breakfast we all went into Eardisland, we walked through the village, still as pretty as we had remembered, Norman picked up on the old AA call box, reported to be the oldest in the country.


we then walked down the back roads following the River Arrow along one of the First World War memorial walks returning back in to the village just down the road from the White Swan pub, we popped into the beer garden for a swift refreshing pint, after we returned to the van for lunch and a snoozel before returning to the village to show Norman & Jean the Church.


Now whether or not it was drinking on an empty stomach or not Adele fell fast asleep and it was gone 4.00pm before she awoke, we donned our walking shoes again and followed the paths to the Church, out through the Church yard to the village hall, which we found out was the village school until 1979 when it was closed, the village was devastated loosing one of its main amenities so went about raising money to buy it for the village so as to return it community use.



The return from the village hall took use to the Cross Inn, so called in for another swift one or two, it was 6.30 by the time we returned to the vans, we both had salmon for tea, we had pan fried salmon with new potatoes and sugar snap peas followed by raspberry and lemon roulade and a spot of cheese.


After tidying we went over to Norman and Jeans van for another scrabble game, tonight we won, so one game all.
After another night of chatting, laughing and gossip we retired to our van about 11.00pm

Saturday 12th June 2021
After last nights antics opening vents at an unearthly time to keep cool, tonight Adele said she was cold with the bigger skylight open, guess this will take a bit of experimenting to get right. Again I took Izzy for her morning walk whilst Adele got breakfasts ready.
After breakfast Norman & Jean packed up to move onto Bracelands, we said our goodbyes and looked forward to our trip the Scottish Boarders next month.
We sat in the sunshine until about 12.00am, the started our way back.


We have travelled this road from Leominster towards Breacon dozens of times and pass the village of Monkland, where there is a sign for cheese-maker, so, as we had plenty of time we would call in today, making artisan cheeses, Monklands had a good choice of cheese, we bought a lovely fresh goats cheese and one of their specialties, Blue Monk. Unfortunately, due to current restrictions we were unable to look around the dairy to see how its all made, we will have to do that another time.
We stopped off for lunch, the fresh goats cheese, on the Bromyard Downs followed by a millefleur and the inevitable snoozel, after tiding the van we made the short trip back home, on the way we joined a convoy of very old Jaguar E-Type cars, we saw about a dozen or so, they were stunning with the sound and smell only classic cars can make.
We arrived home at 4.00pm

We had a great time with Norman & Jean, so good to catch up after all this time and look forward to our trip with them to the Scottish Boarders next month.

 
Trip Details:
Miles: 
Ave MPG: 
Fuel Cost: £
Car Parking: £0.00

Nights: 2
Camp Fees: £ 12.00
Camp Ave per night: £ 6.00

* * *


We put our holiday photos in to small slideshows and videos which are uploaded on to our YouTube Channel, benivanadventures, they are not professionally produced but give a feeling of the area and places we visit - Click on the link below:

PLEASE LIKE & SUBSCRIBE
Thank You for Watching
See You Again On Our benivanadventures

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Look Back At 2024

Image
2024 started well with lots of plans for the coming year, a mix of trips at home and in France, our first home trip was a pub stop at The Red Lion in Cradley, Herefordshire, a country pub but with a Turkish menu, we had a thoroughly good night followed by a lovely day in Malvern. January slipped into February and a trip to Charmouth in Dorset staying at a Camping and Caravanning Club site at Monkton Wyld, we had a lovely week but as the week went on Izzy was not her self, sleeping a lot and not really eating, returning home at the end of the week we thought she would improve at home, she didn't, by the end of that week we took her to the vets, she had some antibiotics and an injection to improve her appetite, which initially worked but after a few days this wore off so back to the vets, after having a ultrasound scan they found growths on her spline. On the 29th February she had stopped eating and drinking and on the advise of our vet we had to make th...
Read more

Go West or Go East

Image
Saturday 24th August Day -1 We don’t normally start our diary before our travels but this trip is a little different, we have originally thought that we would start our holiday last Thursday but we had the funeral of Adeles uncle to attend on Friday, by this morning we were still packing the van for a trip to Pembrokeshire, the weather forecast came on the news that the west of the country has had and will be getting rain and lots of it, we started to think if we were making the right choice, of course with a campervan or MoHo you can always change or modify your plans assuming you have not already booked. The weather on the south coast looked better but we visited Dorset earlier in the year, so we looked at the South East coast, we found a THS at Sea Palling. We texted the number on the Camping & Caravanning Club App and although late they texted back with availability. Decision made. We would take our late summer break in Norfolk. Sunday 25th August Day 1 We woke early...
Read more

A Triple THS Holiday

Image
We should start off, I suppose, for those who don't know, explaining what a THS is, Tempory Holiday Sites (THS) are run by The Camping and Caravanning Club District Associations (DAs) for other members of the Club to enjoy great value camping in some of the best holiday locations in the country. We have had this week booked off for some time, its the first week of the school holidays , Adele needs a break but the forecasts have been dismal, rain, wind, storms in fact everything you wouldn't have expected in July apart from snow and it probably did that somewhere in the country. We couldn't make up our minds where to head to, our original plan was to go to North Wales but that was going to be wet, we then checked the east coast around Wells-next-the-sea but that was wet and windy, our thoughts were then drawn towards Cornwall but that too was a very mixed bag. Back to plan A, North Wales it will be but not until Sunday as the weather seemed to improve from Sunday onwards. Su...
Read more