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A new(ish) experience for us. We are on a Caravan and Camping Club site, not something we normally do as we feel that there are better things to spend our money on than a small patch of ground, electricity - which we can manage without - and showers and toilets, which we have. Anyway, we decided to have a change and taking advantage of a four days for the price of three offer are now in sunny Scarborough. At least it was sunny, until today. Now, our last day here, it's pouring down and the prospect for the rest of the day is the same. Oh well, yesterday in the sunshine we caught two buses and got to Whitby, not D's favourite town but we thought we'd give it another go. No change of opinion, I'm afraid. Ripped off over a pub sandwich lunch, unable to penetrate the gloom of the local art gallery and unwilling to fork out £4 each for the small museum. Not even a Wetherspoons in Whitby where, although the food seems to be going from plain but ok to pretentious and poor, the drinks are still good value.
It's been a chance, too, to catch up on the post that's accumulated during our fifteen weeks on the continent. One letter I could have done without was notification of an £80 fine for not renewing the SORN on the Honda. We only realised that the previous one had expired days before we were due to leave and had written to the DVLA acknowledging our error. Their previous notifications had been sent to St.Annes and not received by us. More pleasant were letters informing us that we have been identified as qualifying for compensation as former Equitable Life pension holders. We've filled in and posted the forms so perhaps we'll end up with enough to pay for our SORN failure and the £60 fine for overstaying by 10 minutes on a carpark in Chesterfield earlier this year.
We've bought a new cassette for the loo. No, it's not a musical loo - for non-caravanners (the automatic spell-checker wanted to insert 'caravan nerds') that's the part of the toilet that has to be (too frequently) emptied. On the continent emptying is not a problem. You can do it anywhere (come on, you know what I mean) and its normally free to do so. Over here it's altogether more difficult. One needs good friends who either have a suitably placed manhole or who trust you sufficiently to allow you the use of their indoor 'disposal point'. The alternative to this is to book onto a site whether or not one needs or wants to stay. The onboard water tank can of course be refilled on site. This water is used for everything but drinking and we have an 8 litre container for our coffees etc.. which lasts several days. Having two cassettes means that the full one can be carried in the 'shed' - our external storage - until a suitable emptying point is found (or we end up with two containers full!).
Having an extra cassette means dumping something - to retain the analogy - to create space for it and our tools, or the great majority of them have to go. Apart from Allen keys, screwdrivers, a few sockets and a selection of spanners the rest including electric drill complete with charger will be put in store. Having said that, I did buy a crimping tool yesterday. Well, it is the sort of thing that is bound to come in useful in a motorhome.....
There are some compensations to a cold wet June day. We normally have a salad lunch and very nice too with perhaps chorizo, Iberian ham, various cheeses, pâté, olives, sardines or smoked salmon for instance. Today I was asked if I'd like bacon and black pudding with homemade pancakes. I uhmd and arred (how does one write that?) for awhile ........
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