Wednesday 9th May - We had a wonderful time at Ipswich with Loche's grandfathers cousin William and his wife Maureen. We left at around 9:30am en-route to Hamble near Southampton, where we again met up with Jason & Sonya Lowe and their daughter Abby who is 3 and a half and Sonya's mum Julia. We arrived mid afternoon and decided to have a few drinks at the Marina next door. Loche was in his element as the barman was a landrover man and so Loche was given a dozen quail eggs - yes it was all a bit random!!

We had a week together in Southampton and planned to see as much as possible within that time. Thursday 10May we decided to go to Adventure Wonderland. The day was very miserable and rainy, but the girls got to pat bunnies and guinea pigs, went on some rides and played in the indoor play area for the rest of the afternoon.

Friday we had a big day with a lot of driving. When were telling the owners of the caravan park where we had driven, they were a bit shell-shocked. We drove from the caravan park near Southampton, up to Stonehenge (about an hour) then over to Bath, (another hour) then on to Burford in the Cotswolds (an hour and a half) had dinner at Burford then back to Southampton (another hour and a half).

Well Stonehenge is, well, Stonehenge, in short not much to see and as our audio guide was in German not too much made any sense, and yes we tried several times to change it to English. When we walked through the gates the people handing out the audio guides thought we were part of the bus load of German tourists coming through behind us.

Our next stop was Bath and Bath is indescribable. When we drove into Bath we were up quite high and all along the side of the hills we could see the houses set out all in the very same beautiful architecture…it's just gorgeous! The Roman Bath house was a great tour with our own personal tour guide who made the visit very worthwhile. We wandered through the main streets and had some delicious cornish pasties for lunch.

From Bath we drove to Burford and as it was quite late by the time we got there, not much was open. We had a bit of a look around and then went to a local pub for dinner that served some yummy food.

Saturday 12th May found us at Paultons Park where there is a massive Peppa Pig World which we thought the girls would just love! Our original plan was to see Legoland but after a chat with the locals we were convinced to go to Paultons instead as it's more set up for the younger kids and half the price.

Pepper Pig world is the latest addition, with many rides for young kids. Cara and Abby had an absolute ball on the tractor rides, hot-air balloon ride and the windy tower. Cara had a couple of goes on the ladybird ride, surprise surprise. The dads had a great time taking the girls on all the rides especially the massive water slippery slide - Cara wasn't overly impressed but Abby was in her element. The dragon roller coaster was another favorite of Abby's again getting daddy on it several times. As the day went on the girls were getting tired, so off we went home.

Brighton was the order of the day for Sunday and what a beautiful day it was. And because the sun was finally shining Brighton was at it's best! We had fish and chips by the beach (well…what the English call a beach ;-) and then off to the Brighton Pier to have a go on some of the rides. The girls had a ball on a mini roller coaster and Cara fell in love with the miniature boat rides…even though she kept getting in a bit of a spin! Before we got to the pier I spotted the worst ride I could possibly imagine! A giant 30 metre tower situated at the very end of the pier. The tower had seats at either end and spun around extremely fast to give the impression you were flying off the end of the pier. So when we got up close to 'The Booster' Loche was adamant he wanted to go on it. I tried to get it on video but it's not the best footage. Check it out on the videos section. When he got off I was expecting him to be sick but all he wanted to do was get back on it and have another go. Unfortunately we had to get going back home.

Monday 14th - An early start today for Sonya and I as we were catching the EuroStar over to Paris, spending the night there and coming back the following day. We were up at 4.30am to catch the train from Southampton into London to get the Eurostar across to Paris. We arrived in Paris around lunch time and had the rest of the afternoon to wander the streets. We found the cooking shop Sonya wanted to visit and then had a late lunch in a nearby restaurant. The food was delicious and the wine even more so!

While we were living it up in Paris Loche and Jason were looking after Cara and Abby. Loche had to get a few things for our trip across the channel in a few days and found a camping / towing store nearby.

Tuesday 15th - Paris - Sonya and I had breakfast at a café up the road from our hotel and from there we decided to go into Paris, we had no luck getting a cab and ended up catching the Metro. The Metro in Paris is as easy to use as the Underground in London. We stopped at a patisserie and got some yummy treats to take back for everyone. Our train left Paris at 13:30 and we were back in Southampton by 17:00.

Today Loche and Jason took the girls to Manor Park where there were the largest roosters they'd ever seen...close to 2 feet tall. Then it was off for a beer to a small local pub in Hamble where Bundy Rum was available and Indian for dinner afterwards.

Wednesday 16th - Jason and Sonya headed off back to London in the morning and Loche and I managed to change our ferry ticket to France for the following day to give ourselves time to pack the caravan up properly and we had to try and get an MOT for the car. The MOT is England's version of a safety certificate and our MOT was due to run out in the middle of June, while we were in Europe. Loche took the car down to a local mechanic but our trusty 1996 V8 Landrover Discovery managed to fail pretty much every test it was put through...there was no way we were getting a new MOT for it. All we could do was catch the ferry over to France and we had a few weeks to work out what to do about the car. We couldn't continue without an MOT because it would mean our insurance wasn't valid.

Some interesting facts:

• The Roman Bath houses were an older version of our Day Spas where you could go to get treatments. People would go there and get olive oil smothered all over their skin and then the servants would scrape the olive oil off the skin, bottle the scrapings and people would buy this 'special lotion' for their own use! Eewww!
• The Baths were used until the 1970's.
• The temperature of the baths is a balmy 34 degrees C
• There's a little bridge somewhere between Burford and Southampton where you have to pay a toll of 5 pence to get across. And yes, there is a man there collecting the money!!