Holiday!

After a hasty last minute bit of booking and some essential upgrades (water and gas are now working) we headed down south to catch some sun (or not).

We left Sheffield at a very early seeming 0630 and braced ourselves for a long journey. in the end it wasn't as bad as we feared; we made it to Birmingham for breakfast and got down to our first stop (just past Plymouth) in a manageable time.

We stayed the night with George and Kev (Vanessa's sister and her husband) then headed for the first camp site - Bude. We had hastily joined the camping and caravanning club to use their club site. It was a really nice site with a large open field where Toby could play on his bike. George and Kev came with us for the first couple of nights and it was just what we were hoping for some much needed family time.

The first few nights proved a little logistically challenging as we only had the gazebo to put our kit into when we were out and about or trying to set up the beds. We made do with wrapping everything in a poncho until Kev and George left when we pinched their tent to use as an awning. this made everything much easier.

We made the most of the nice weather and had lots of fun on the beaches. Toby particularly loved the rock pools. We also got ourselves an English heritage membership and started to see how many castles we could visit. (we were also persuaded into buying swords for the children which now stay safely hidden in the van only to be brought out for castle trips). We then headed further round the coast to Devon and a holiday park camp site. There wasn't as much space but the kids loved the 50's throw back entertainment Including flopper the rabbit, a kids beauty contest and a pillow fighting tournament (in which I somehow managed to reach the final undefeated against some much larger, and very overly tanned opposition).

All in all a very successful first proper outing in the van. although we did discover that holidays with children are very hard work!