Caravan Travels

11am – The strong winds came back last evening with a vengeance! Gale force winds of around 50mph buffeted the van all through the night (and still are as I write this). It was quite disconcerting, even though we knew the van couldn’t possibly blow away! Potential damage to roof window vents etc was more of a worry, however, but we were relieved to see that everything was intact this morning.

We stayed-up quite late because we knew we’d have difficulty getting to sleep in the howling gale and constant vibration of the caravan. Eventually, however, we did both get to sleep, only to be disturbed in the night by extraordinarily strong gusts of wind and regulare beeping from the electrics in the van as the power returned after one of a number of brief power-cuts in the night. What fun!

So, apart from visiting the on-site laundrette today, we’re not planning on doing very much. Our TV and internet reception are excellent and we’re both in the middle of very good books. The caravan is very comfortable and cosy so we’ve no worries about how to spend our day sheltering from the dreadful weather outside.

The good news is that the winds are due to drop away to around 20mph by this evening and the rain is also due to finally abate. The forecast for the next few days is much more hopeful.

11.52am – If anything the wind is even stronger now! The BBC weather app reckons it’s around 51mph at the moment. We’ve just learned that a couple in a tent spent the entire night holding it down at the corners to keep it from blowing away, and that the tent is in the rubbish skip this morning! We’d seen the tent last evening as the wind-speed was building-up and wondered when it was going to be taken-down; it was in a completely exposed location. It must have been a dreadful and terrifying night for the occupant(s).