Brecon Beacons, 28th - 30th January 2011

Bentlawnt - Brecon - Bristol (310 miles)

Two wet ones in Clun Forest



We were itching to get out again. We'd had a last-minute, completely unplanned overnight in Clun Forest a couple of weeks before (the casserole was cooked and K suggested we might as well eat in The Rosabella on top of a hill somewhere, so off we went). It had belted down with rain and we'd had a quick traipse along a path, got soaked and gone home for Sunday lunch. Not exactly a load  of effort but nice to be out nevertheless. 



However, we still felt bloated after Christmas and decided that we should head for the Beacons where the hills are fairly easy but spectacular once on the tops.

T had been fighting with the water system in The Rosabella, water coming up in the wardrobe from the heater dump valve. Amidst much muttering along the lines of 'we never had problems like this when all we had was a bucket and a bottle of water..........' (T would never admit to being a Luddite - maybe its his age - and these kids of today, well..........!) he thought he had nailed the problem.



He picked K up from work at about 6pm on a bitterly cold, clear night, and after a fish & chip stop just outside Hereford we set off for Brecon. T had had a look at a satellite image of the area around Storey Arms, just south of Libanus, and had spotted a likely-looking pull-in on a minor road next to a lake and, lo and behold, there it was, just waiting for an old motor home and its inhabitants. A glass of wine, a couple of aspirin for T's three-day old headache and we were bedded down for the night. He was awake at 4-ish, head pounding and freezing where various bits of him had been sticking out from beneath the double quilt. Heating on, a glass of water and kip for another couple of hours.



Saturday morning dawned bright, clear and very cold. T turned the tap with a triumphant flourish - NOTHING, apart from the sound of water happily tinkling away under the van! A quick examination was enough to tell T that his work on the water system wasn't quite complete, and it was back to bottled water for this trip.



Copious amounts of tea and biccies were followed by bacon and egg and after clearing up we headed the mile or so back up the road to the parking area at Storey Arms.

 

Boy was it cold! As we climbed toward the summit of Corn Du a nagging wind froze our fingers and toes and once on the top we hurried to find a sheltered spot for sandwiches and a drink. Out of the wind, although it was cold, the sun was beautiful and we lingered with a few other people, enjoying watching the clouds boiling below us.



Brocken Spectre on Corn Du

While K wandered around on the top the mist filled the valley floor, and we were lucky enough to see a Brocken Spectre. The "spectre" appears when the sun shines from behind a climber who is looking down from a ridge or peak into a corrie filled with mist or fog. The light projects the climber's shadow forward through the mist, apparently magnified to giant-like proportions. The head of the figure was surrounded by a glowing, rainbow-like halo (a 'glory').

This was K's first view of the phenomenon - only T's third in over 30 years of spending time in the mountains. It made our day.

   

 


Corn Du and Pen-y-Fan

 

A breather on the track up to Corn Du



 







We hurried on to the summit of Pen-y-Fan, now completely in the mist, and back down again in to the sunshine on the saddle between the two summits. A slow amble back down, warming up with every step, stopping to lend a stick to a young woman who was struggling with sore feet - she returned it to us when she arrived back in the carpark.

Hot chocolate with Bailey's and squirty cream helped with the rehabilitation back to warmth and a quick trip in to Brecon to buy more bottled water and a hinge to replace one that had broken on the folding worktop (there's always something to do with a Rosabella!) and then back out of the town on a different road to find our Saturday night lodgings, a beautiful spot alongside Tal-y-Bont reservoir. Quiet (one car all night, and some ducks quacking), no light pollution so about a billion stars shining, cosy, well-fed (K had brought a rice dish she'd made at home the previous day). This is why we have The Rosabella and love the life the three of us share.

 

Our lovely wild spot on Tal-y-Bont





Another beautiful dawn, the water turning pink, Venus rising over the hill, followed by a sliver of old moon, absolutely freezing outside but warm and snug under the duvet. Obligatory cups of tea, lovely brekkie and on the road again to visit K's parents in Bristol. Home on Sunday evening after a really lovely weekend. Can't wait for the next trip - North Wales in a fortnight. But we can do without the water problem, thank you very much!!



Sunrise over Tal-y-Bont reservoir






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Snowdonia, 29th - 30th December 2010

Bentlawnt - Capel Curig - Rhos (230 miles)

We’d been really looking forward to getting out in The Rosabella again. A planned trip to Scotland for a wedding had been thwarted by the ‘Great Snows of December’ – if we’d gone as planned we would have been stuck overnight in a blizzard on the M6 (T was ruing another missed entrepreneurial opportunity – selling bacon sandwiches at vastly inflated prices to fellow stranded travellers).

We reckoned that we could do with a bit of exercise after the excesses of food and dearth of activity over Christmas, so we decided to head for Snowdonia, climb a mountain, investigate the sales in the gear shops and visit old friends in North Wales whilst also taking the opportunity for another night in our new van. An early start on Wednesday would mean that we could spend day one in the hills and do our visiting and shopping on Thursday.

We spent Tuesday fettling The Rosabella - we hadn’t so much as stepped inside her throughout the bad weather. We had the dehumidifier working full blast for 24 hours and a little heater warmed the cockles of her heart. We had taken the precaution of taking the cushions and bedding into the house and of draining the boiler down.

As usual, the plan for an early start went out of the window and by the time we’d loaded up, been to the supermarket for supplies and generally pithered about it was 11.30 before we were under way. Having given up hope of a good tramp up a meaningful hill we had a lovely, relaxed drive up to Betwys-y-Coed, sun shining, music on, nattering - one of those real good-to-be-alive moments.

Betwys was, as usual, packed but we still managed to have a rummage through the gear shops with K, true-to-form, being unable to come away empty handed, and T losing his glasses!

It was late afternoon and getting dark by the time we headed up the road to Capel Curig. The carpark behind Joe Brown's shop was icy but we decided that it was ideal for soup and sammos so while K put the kettle on T went and surveyed the mountain road for overnight possibilities, managing to slip and fall into a puddle while he was at it.. No appropriate pull-ins were obvious so we decided, after our snackette, to head down the the Caernarfon road to see if we could find a spot somewhere before Pen-y-Grwyd. There was a big layby a couple of miles past the National Outdoor Pursuits Centre at Plas-y-Brenin, flat, shielded from the road by an embankment - perfect.

We had a cuppa, read the paper, played cards until we realised that time was getting on and if we wanted to have supper at The Bryn Tyrch (one of our favourite pubs and one of the few that we would recommend to anyone), we would have to move, so off we went to Capel, making a mental note of exactly which fence post we were parked next to in order to return to this very comfy pitch.

Great food and drink, as usual and we headed back at about 10.30 to our home for the night. Damn! There's a car parked there! We were already in the layby so would have to just drive straight through. However, as we pulled in the car's lights came on and it accelerated out on to the road, disappearing at speed. We offered a silent apology for disturbing somebody's evening and drove to the spot we'd used earlier. There, in the hedge right next to us was what looke like a brand new Yamaha V-twin of some variety, number plate ripped off, obviously abandoned.


Bike enthusiasts ourselves we could well imagine the distress of someone losing their pride and joy so we did the right and decent thing and called the police. The controller asked us to hang around until a couple of officers turned up - we were a bit dubious, bearing in mind that the 'baddies' may come back to recover the bike, so we moved a little way down the road and sat with the lights on until North Wales Constabulary's finest showed up. We told them where the bike was and they said that they'd come back if they needed any more information from us. T had been a bit concerned that we may be told we couldn't stay overnight but they just asked us if we were bedded down for the night and wished us a good night's sleep. We stayed awake for half an hour or so, just in case, and then turned in for a good night's sleep, as ordered!




Next day we decided to forego brekkie and go for a traipse up to Llyn Idwal. As we walked up the hill the phone bleeped with a voicemail. It was North Wales police with a message at 1.00am, saying that they could find neither the bike nor us (despite the fact that their buddies had tucked us in, and that we were in a big van parked next to the road), and to give them a ring if we received the message before 3 in the morning - fat chance!!



We continued with our walk to the frozen lake and then a race back to Ogwen Cottage and a quick drive to Colwyn Bay for a good, long lunch with friends before driving home via more friends at Nesscliffe.


Llyn Idwal



 A pleasant, if eventually busy, couple of days.

(Post script: T telephoned North Wales Police ten days later to find out what had happened to the bike. They had eventually found it, it had been stolen from Trefriw and was now reunited with its grateful owner, minus a few bits and pieces - a good result under the circumstances.)



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The Rosabella II's First Trip, November 2010

The Mid-Wales Loop, Nov 5th-7th 2010 (279 miles) 

Well, not exactly the first because we did have a run down to Bristol, just to get an idea of how she felt on the road - great, was the answer.

However, this was our first chance to spend the night and twiddle with all the buttons and switches for real. T had the day off on the Friday and, although reeling from an unexpected defeat on the golf course at the hands of No 1 son, was able to pack the van and get to Hereford in time to pick up K from work at 6 o'clock. A shopping and fuel stop, and we were on our way back to Abergwesyn Common, not the little lay-by we'd inhabited earlier in the year but a larger, flattish spot next to the river at the end of the valley. It was a little scary on the narrow mountain road, still not used to our new dimensions, but we managed to make it to our spot without to much squeaking and just a bit of scraping. Supper was duly cooked and we bedded down for our first night in The Rosabella II. Just as comfy as her predecessor, bed a little smaller maybe, we both slept well, although T was awake early as usual, head full of ideas and jobs to do.

First morning cuppa in The Rosabella II

Breakfast,  washing up, and no water coming through. We couldn't figure it out until we looked in the water tank and found it empty. T thought he had filled it before he left Cleeton - obviously he hadn't, and we'd used more than we thought. Our original plan had been to head for Abereiddy, near St Davids, but we decided that we would forego the pleasure of driving another 80-odd miles and head instead for New Quay, topping up with water there, if we could. We would also try to find some chemicals for the loo as well, just so that we could try that out as well! The Rosabella worked hard up the steep hills and round the hairpins leading out of the Abergwesyn valley but coped far better than her predecessor would have - something to do with an extra 500cc no doubt.  We had coffee and cakes in a cafe in New Quay (The Hungry Trout) and headed back up the coast to Aberystwyth, stopping at a garage on the way to top up the water.

A quick shop at Aberystwyth and off again, heading for Devil's Bridge with the intention of finding somewhere for an overnight on the mountain road to Rhayader. More steep, narrow roads and we pulled on to a Forestry Commission carpark at the entrance to the Hafod Estate. It was dark by now, but we decided to have a cuppa and then get on with a couple of jobs - K sorting cupboards, T messing with an incalcitrant light fitting. Apart from the water pump's tendency to trip the switch every three minutes it was going quite well. That was until T decided to plug the computer in to the 12v socket so that we could listen to some music.

"I'll use this two-way adaptor I think, so we can have that extra light on. Ha! do you remember how the old Rosie always used to blow a fuse when we used it?"

BANG!!

"Sod it, it's done it again!"

T fiddled with the trip switches to no avail. We plugged our auxiliary light in to the van's dashboard socket so we could see what we were doing. T puzzled over where the fuse could be before remembering that when he'd been setting up the old van's leisure battery charging system he'd read that a fuse should be used as close to the battery as possible. A quick scrabble under the driver's seat and there it was - and T knew he'd put spare fuses in one of the boxes he'd packed, in fact he'd told K as much when she'd suggested buying some in New Quay's pound shop. Which was why he was even more fed up to find that they weren't there! still, the cooker worked, the heater worked, the computer could run off it's battery so there were no big problems. T took a bottle to fill by dunking in the water tank - almost empty again! What's going on with the water for goodness sake, it was three-quarters full a couple of hours ago? More sitting down and thinking. The hot water tank takes ten litres, if the tank was slightly less than three-quarters full that would take quite a chunk out of what we were carrying, and there'd been the cleaning that K had started. Maybe it did make sense after all. Bedtime again, worn out with puzzling it all out, b ut we knew there were no serious problems and another great night's sleep ensued.

Forestry Car Park, Hafod

Sunday morning was beautiful. K investigated the porta-loo on the carpark and reported that it was spotless. We decided that we would have a walk before breakfast and set off on a truly beautiful route through the Hafod Estate. It was cold and there was a mist rising from the River Ystwyth, so gorgeous, past waterfalls, ravines, an old ribbon bridge, about two hours of working up an appetite for a huge Left-Over Pasta Fritata, cooked by T for brunch.
 
We headed off for home at about 2pm, over the mountain to Rhayader, a new fuse in Cross Gates, water in Hereford, and back to Cleeton by 6.30 (T managing to scrape the gate post on the way over the grid, damaging The Rosabella's trim in the process.

All in all, a satisfactory start to our relationship with our new van, and an appetite to get out again as soon as possible.
 










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Introducing The Rosabella II

We rearranged our holiday in France, Rosabella-less. While we were away we talked at length about our next van, what we needed, what we didn't, and T had started mapping out his ideas for the layout of the interior. We'd already decided that we were going to look for a minibus with a high-top and we thought we'd spend a few weeks looking for the right vehicle before a winter of working to prepare it for the kind of use we enjoyed.

We arrived home to T's from our holiday in France in the early hours of Saturday. After breakfast we headed off in separate cars to K's to feed the cat and visit the kids. At the traffic lights for the roadworks at the level crossing T ambled down the road to K's car.
"Did you see that van for sale in the front garden in Craven Arms? It looks like an old one."
"No, I didn't notice it. Do you want to go back and have a look?"
"Yeah, why not - we might get some ideas."

A U-turn and five miles back up the road and we were sitting in the back of a 1989 something or other, based on a Fiat Ducato. The interior looked 'lived-in', but the outside looked sound, the engine and underneath were clean and we were impressed.

A test drive later, a bit of haggling, and we were the owners of a 21-years old, left-hand drive, FFB 5-berth motorhome, with all the things we said we would never need - shower, hot & cold water, heating, and, horror of horrors, a loo! Our careful planning, our intentions to be careful with what we bought, our absolute conviction that we only wanted a little 'tent-on-wheels' - all out of the window!

So now starts the next phase in our lives as motorhomers - tidying up the interior, having enough room to stand, sit, eat and sleep without falling over each other and, above all, finding 'our' kind of wild camping spots with a much bigger vehicle.

Stay tuned!!

August 2010 - The Rosabella's Demise

Anybody who reads this blog will, we hope, have picked up on the fact that there has been an emotional attachment to our old van which is over and above the fondness that many of us have for an old family vehicle which has given us lots of enjoyment. T's parents built The Rosabella and it was as a result of his dad's illness that we took her over. She'd been a familiar sight in paddocks at racing circuits all over the UK and had provided bacon sandwiches and coffee for many young riders who went on to great things. She'd then provided us with an inestimable amount of fun, exploring at home and in Europe.

When MOT time came round again we knew that there would have to be a significant amount of work done to keep The Rosabella on the road. We'd had £500 of welding carried out to get her through the previous year's test - we expected that there would be more to be done, and the steering and brakes needed attention as well. The garage called to say that in their opinion, if we wanted to keep her going, we should contact a specialist restoration company but that it was going to cost a lot of money. When we went to pick her up the 'fail' list was four pages long! We decided to ask Harold who runs the garage at the end of the road to have a look - if it could be sorted out, he's definitely the man and he knew how important The Rosabella was to us. We were on our way to Bristol when he rang. "I think it's time to say goodbye" he said, as if he was telling us that an old faithful pet needed to be put down. We asked a few questions but it was obvious that it was the end of the road for The Rosabella.

So, after a couple of years in our hands, many with T's parents, tens of thousands of happy, trouble-free miles, it was time to look for a replacement. There will be a Rosabella 2 at some point and we know we'll have just as much fun and go to just as many places, some familiar, many new. It won't be the same...........

The Rosabella

Cambrian Mountains, 29th - 31st May 2010

Saturday 29th June, Bentlawnt - Abergwesyn Common (60 miles)

Bank Holiday, and we decided we would visit Hay Literary Festival but make a weekend of it by finding a wild camping spot somewhere in the Cambrian Mountains and having a stroll up a hill at some point.

We'd driven the mountain road that passed through Cwm Irfon and Abergwesyn Common the previous year on the way to Pembrokeshire, and had been promising ourselves a return and an explore at some point. A bit of to-ing and fro-ing and we found ourselves a nice little spot, off the road and beneath a fairly steep, grassy hill. Chocks out to level us up and all set for a pleasant, quiet, if not particularly warm night, sleep aided by a nice bottle of red (ignition key dutifully locked in the glove compartment of course!)

Sunday 30th June

A beautiful day, and after breakfast we headed for the top of the hill. It was a fairly easy climb, although we were both a little out of puff by the time we reached the summit. The views were fantastic and we loitered around on the top, both excited at the thought of, not only this little expedition, but also the summer to come - exploring in The Rosabella, climbing hills, coastal kayaking, and of course the big trip we have planned for the autumn - Perpignan, the ferry from Barcelona to Genoa, the French Riviera and back via the Alps. We drank water on the top and then set off back to the toy camper van that was far below us.

 

We took slightly different descent routes with K taking a little more time, and care. She spotted T at the bottom of the hill, charging straight past The Rosabella and across the road. He was nowhere to be seen when she did reach the van so she followed the direction she'd seen him heading, across the road, clambering down some steep boulders until she found him, naked as the day he was born, swimming in a little pool formed where the walls of the gorge containing the river narrowed to a grotto. She took advantage of the great photo opportunity with a view to revenge for the 'Life On The Road' picture referred to elsewhere in this blog, before stripping off to join him. Boy, was it cold!! We both got out with that feeling of our skin being on fire, but so refreshed after our exertions on the hill.

The rest of the day was spent lolling about in and around The Rosabella, nattering, reading, writing and sketching, and a brief trip up the road to the mountain bike centre for coffee and cakes - just how a Bank Holiday Sunday should be!

Monday 31st May - Hay Literary Festival

A great night's sleep, a lazy breakfast and off for home via the Hay Festival where we enjoyed the ambience, met friends and heard some good music. The day went so quickly that we decided we would go back to our overnight spot for one more night. K had no work for the week but T needed to be in Shrewsbury for work at 8.45 on Tuesday so it was going to be an early start.

Tuesday 1st June, Abergwesyn - Shrewsbury (75m)

T woke up on Tuesday feeling like death - one of his headaches had hit him with a vengeance. Nevertheless, we headed for home to drop K off. On the way T called his office to see whether there was anything happening but for all sorts of reasons decided to carry on to work - a decision which was to have far reaching consequences for the next six months, but not something for this blog. It was a flat ending to what had otherwise been a happy weekend.


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France, April 30th - May 3rd 2010 (May Bank Holiday)

A quick look at the weather forecast - "You know we were talking about going to Wales for the Bank Holiday? Well, it's going to pour down, let's go to France instead. The weather will be the same but the coffee's better!"

Friday 30th May, Bentlawnt - Dover, (404m)

We were both working on Friday but K arranged to come to T's ofice in Shrewsbury for 4ish so that we had a good chance of catching our ferry at 21.30. T had had to buy three new tyres for The Rosabella but was raring to go, despite a last minute work crisis that needed sorting out. The trip to Dover could have been smoother....... After the panic to get away on time, the rushing to get supplies from K's car into The Rosabella, the work crisis, the traffic around Birmingham, the worry about whether we'd get to Dover on time, the whole enterprise ground to a halt when we realised at Coreley services that the passports were still in K's car - in Shrewsbury! Back we went, a phone call to P&O to change the booking (for an extra £15 - good service we thought) and by 2am we were bedded down in a cosy little layby, just off the A2, for some much needed sleep before our rescheduled crossing at 5.55am.

Saturday 1st May, Calais-Arras (80m)

It was an early start and a great brekkie on the boat before we arrived in a very sunny Calais. We headed for St Omer, which feels like the first really French town after Calais and parked next to the river for a rest (T fettled!) before we headed in to town. The shops were closed for the Labour Day holiday but there was a busy and extensive street market which we duly mooched. Lots of people were carrying posies of flowers, bought on street corners or from children outside their houses. K spotted a cool, retro-style maxi dress which she tried on in the back of the stallholder's rusty van while T stood guard. It fitted perfectly and K reckoned it was a bargain and would be rude not to buy it at €20! Back to the bar in the main square for Leffe. The sun was warm, the beer was smooth and all that was needed to complete perfection was une assiette de frites.There were more stalls that needed viewing before we headed off back to the waterfront and The Rosabella.


We decide to stick to small roads and set off through sunny, flat countryside for the French National War Memorial at Notre Dame de Lorette, and maybe a pitch for the night. It all looked so,.... well, ....... French.

Standing on a ridge, high above the fields, just off the D937 is a huge, white monument in the shape of a lighthouse, marking the area that we know as Flanders, where much of the war of attrition happened between 1915 and 1917. The battle for the hill itself lasted a year, between October 1914 and October 1915. The French gathered together most of their dead from the area and now there are 20,000 identified graves and the remains of a further 25,000 unknown soldiers in mass graves, vast lines of crosses and headstones marking the burial places of mostly French soldiers, but also Moroccans, Russians, Belgians. Most are crosses but some are plain stones in respect to non-Christians, there is an area where headstones bear Arabic script for the Moslem soldiers who lost their lives, and also an area for Jewish soldiers, as was explained later to T by an homme en beret, one of the band of men who have pledged to attend the cemetry at least one day every year and who are there to help and advise visitors.

Whilst we were looking around we were hailed by a couple of gendarmes who told us that they were closing the site for the evening. T asked if we could stay over and there was an animated discussion between the two of them which resulted in an 'OK' as we only had a little 'camping car'.

As we settled down for the evening we noticed a cuckoo sitting alone on a cross, jumping to the ground from time-to-time and then returning to the cross - a great view of this shy bird.

We were so tired we slept for nearly twelve hours and awoke feeling hungover, or jet lagged or something anyway.

Sunday 2nd May, Arras-Amiens (68m)

Back on the road to Arras and what a surprise when we arrived! A huge square with Flemish architecture, rooves edged with curled gables and a walk to what we thought must be the cathedral, only to find out it was the grandest town hall we had ever seen. Behind this huge, gilded Gothic edifice was a glum-looking, grey stone building - the cathedral. Again, what a surprise! We entered this huge, light space. Warm and bright with atmospheric music piped tastefully, K thought it was the most beautiful cathedral she'd ever been in. A stroll back through narrow streets to The Rosabella and on the road again for Amiens.

All day we'd been passing war cemetries, large and small, British, Canadian, Australian, Polish, Czech, Newfoundland, and German. They were all different, but all the same - young men (and some women) who had died at war. We talked about how it must have been for teenagers, travelling from the New World to an adventure, with no idea what they were letting themselves in for, dying aged 16, 17 or 18 for countries they would only have heard about. What a leveller, and they all thought they were doing the right thing. It really brought it home when we visited the German cemetry - the baddies - the same young men, not knowing who or what they were there for but all with 'good' on their side.

"When two men meet on the field of war,

They both ask 'what are we fighting for?'

And haven't we heard it all before..........?"

At Amiens we stopped by the side of the Somme, our first town centre aire. We did a quick recce, which involved, of course, a glass of Leffe in a cocktail  bar on the water's edge, before changing (K in her new dress!) and dining in Le Porc Saint Leu for an excellent meal of pork tenderloin. The waiter told T that his (T's) French was excellent and he was relieved because he'd been serving English people all day and it was 'doing his head in' (T's rough translation!)

Monday May 3rd, Amiens-Bentlawnt (408m)

Another peaceful night and we set off to search for 'facilities' on a cold and blustery morning. We found a lovely, warm coffee shop where we were given croissants and pain au chocolat fresh from the oven. Then into France's largest cathedral where the wood carvings around the facade are said to tell every story from the bible. It was very grand, very 'balanced' and there was even the head of John the Baptist on show, in case we needed a motivation for pilgrimage. T set off around the maze on the floor of the cathedral, which, it is said, can be completed in lieu of a trip to Jerusalem or Santiago de Compostela, but was thwarted by a group of elderly lady tourists - thats another year without salvation then!

Back to the van, a stop for brunch outside Amiens and pushing on for the coast and our 20.25 ferry home. The route we'd originally chosen was to take us to Le Touquet and then to Calais via the coast road. Another quick squint at the guidebook and we decided to give Le Touquet a miss and head straight to Wimereaux, a nice place with eclectic, quirky architecture, very breezy, waves crashing against the breakers and a nice salon de thé on the promenade where we OD'd on chocolate with crepes and chocolat Liegoise.

On to Calais, the coast road more attractive than we'd expected. We were very frustrated trying to find somewhere to fill up with diesel (much cheaper in France than the UK) and wine. We eventually found Carrefour at Cité d'Europe but couldn't get The Rosabella in to the height-restricted car park. We eventually dumped hera nd raced in to the centre to buy wine, K really flagging now. We decided to eat, omelettes from the coffe shop opposite the hypermarket, served by a charming, helpful woman, and then raced to the port,worrying we would miss another ferry. The boat left late on a rough crossing and we had a marathon drive home, taking it in turns to sleep, arriving back in Bentlawnt at 3.45am. We were worn out but it was an excellent weekend - great idea T!!


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