Caravan Travels

1.05pm – It’s lovely and warm here at Looe today and we’re having quite a lazy time of it. I say that, but poor Helen has spent the morning going over numerous options for the next few days, and the outcome is that we’ve altered our plans yet again! The forecast temperature for Looe over the next three days is quite a bit less than at Tewkesbury, where we’re due to relocate to today. As things currently stand we’re staying here two more nights now and then having our final two nights at Tewkesbury by which time the worst of the heat should have past.

I have to admire Helen’s tenacity and doggedness to amend our plans for our best advantage. The problem is that other caravanners around the country are almost certainly doing the same as us and adjusting their plans accordingly to cope with the current heatwave; the caravan club’s online central booking system is constantly changing its pitch-availibility as pitches are either booked-up or cancelled and then become available again.

One of the complications is that not all caravan site pitches are the same. Ideally, we always prefer to book a fully-serviced pitch with both electricity and mains water hook-up. Some pitches only have electricity hook-up, and some have no services at all. As long as we have electricity though, the rest we can cope with.

1.30pm – We took our awning down yesterday because we were originally due to leave here this morning. Now, of course we’re going to be here two more days and it’s very sunny. Consequently, Garry and Jacquie very kindly suggested we borrow their roll-out sun canopy, which took less than five minutes to install and deploy on our caravan. I’m sitting under it as I write this post, enjoying the shade and just perusing similar systems online. I rather think I’ll be ordering one; the convenience and simplicity is marvellous.

We only tend to put up one of our two air awnings if we’re going to be staying somewhere for at least three nights (5 in the case of the big awning). It takes quite a bit of work to erect an air awning, drilling the pegs into the ground once it’s blown-up is quite the hardest job (as I’ve mentioned before in a previous post!). From start to finish it takes about an hour for the little one and rather longer for the large one, depending on any extensions we also put up (we have a sleeping extension, a side wing and a front extension).

Garry and Jacquie’s stand-alone, roll-out sun canopy, however, can be deployed at the drop of a hat and would be perfectly convenient to use for even one-night stays. Every time we’ve previously said that our caravan kit is finally complete, we find something else we need to buy!

2.10pm – Helen and Jacquie have decided to brave the weather and have gone into Looe to do some shopping. Once they come back we’re all going up to the on-site swimming pool at around 3pm. I’m sure it’ll be very busy today, however, but all I want to do is get in the cool water!